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<p>But among the many different pop-culture references spotted at the massive women’s marches held across the country and the world on Saturday, perhaps none were as prevalent — or powerful — as the images of Princess Leia.</p>
<p>Carrie Fisher’s character from “Star Wars” was there at the Women’s March on Washington, her youthful face casting a steely gaze over the words “history has its eyes on you.”</p>
<p>She was in Los Angeles, where the character’s mature version, General Organa, stared boldly below the phrase “A Woman’s Place Is in the Resistance.”</p>
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<p>She was in New York City, and in cities and town across the country — and even overseas, carried by self-proclaimed “nasty women” marching in Frankfurt, Germany.</p>
<p>The character was a striking icon for a proudly feminist demonstration. As a young princess in the early movies, Leia was a resilient survivor determined to fight for her cause. As a middle-aged woman in 2015’s “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” she had endured political strife and personal tragedy but remained the formidable leader of the righteous rebellion.</p>
<p>“Leia keeps fighting when things seem impossible,” tweeted feminist writer Anne Thériault last month. This was just after Fisher’s sudden death at age 60, when her defining role was once again on everyone’s mind. Thériault argued that it was the older iteration of Leia who was the most empowering feminist character of all.</p>
<p>“She’s in it for the long haul,” Thériault wrote. “Without Leia, the rebellion would have (been) quashed long ago.”</p>
<p>Saturday’s protest was social media-driven — it was created online, organized online and shared online — and in a climate where clever signs quickly go viral, it’s not surprising to see so many pop-culture references, said Leah Murray, a professor of political science at Weber State University in Utah.</p>
<p>Social media “is so primed for the use of entertainment-informed material in memes,” she said.</p>
<p>Referencing a character like Leia “enables protesters to draw on the image of strength or power or resistance those characters demonstrated in their respective stories of struggle and empowerment,” added Mary Triece, a professor and director of women’s studies at the University of Akron in Ohio.</p>
<p>Fisher’s own off-screen story of struggle and empowerment helped bolster her feminist credentials for many fans. She had openly shared her personal history with bipolar disorder and substance abuse, and assailed stigmas associated with mental illness. She championed feminist causes — and she lobbed plenty of criticisms at Donald Trump, before and after he won the presidency.</p>
<p>Based on recent history, it’s likely Fisher would have wanted to be among the many celebrities who joined the marches across the nation — a point noted by her “Star Wars” co-star, Mark Hamill, who saluted the fans who carried Princess Leia into the crowded streets:</p>
<p>“I know where she stood. You know where she stood. Such an honor to see her standing with you today. Bigly. #Resistance #WorldWideWomensMarch pic.twitter.com/cwsgoYVSU7”</p> | How Princess Leia became an unofficial symbol for the Women’s March | false | https://abqjournal.com/933976/how-princess-leia-became-an-unofficial-symbol-for-the-womens-march.html | 2 |
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<p>Microsoft said on Thursday that it's prepared to share information about Skype users with the Russian authorities if required by law.</p>
<p>The tech company "confirmed its commitment to work in full compliance with the Russian law," <a href="http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_01_16/Skype-ready-to-share-users-data-with-Russian-police-9493/" type="external">according to Voice of Russia</a>.</p>
<p>Russian lawmakers <a href="http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/skype-agrees-to-share-information-with-russian-authorities/492864.html" type="external">introduced amendments to a package of counterterrorism bills</a> that would require online communication service providers like Microsoft to store "information about the reception, transferring, delivery and processing of voice information, written texts, images, sounds and any activities made by the users" for up to six months.</p>
<p>Exactly what data would be recorded and shared <a href="http://inserbia.info/news/2014/01/skype-ready-to-share-users-data-with-russian-police-microsoft/" type="external">would be determined</a> at a later time.</p>
<p>In a written statement, Microsoft said it would comply with "any" such law that Russia adopts.</p>
<p>Russia's leading search engine, <a href="http://www.yandex.com/" type="external">Yandex</a>, has expressed some reservations, <a href="http://www.winbeta.org/news/microsoft-agrees-share-skype-user-data-russian-government" type="external">saying</a> such regulations would come with a hefty price tag.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/russia/140114/sochi-2014-olympics-russia-putin" type="external">Sochi Olympics: Triumph or nightmare?</a></p>
<p>The amendments are part of Russia's attempts to crank up counterterrorism activities in the run-up to the Winter Olympics in Sochi next month.</p>
<p>Lawmakers <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304419104579322462104906376?mg=reno64-wsj&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304419104579322462104906376.html" type="external">introduced another bill</a> Wednesday that would expand police powers, allowing the authorities to&#160;search people and cars without a warrant.</p>
<p>Irina Yarovaya, the head of the State Duma's security committee who was involved with both the amendments and the security forces bill, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304419104579322462104906376?mg=reno64-wsj&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304419104579322462104906376.html" type="external">said</a>, "We need strong measures to punish and defend against those who would commit terrorist acts."</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/russia/140110/will-anyone-attack-the-sochi-winter-olympics-5-questions-" type="external">Sochi may be the safest place in Russia during the Winter Olympics (Q&amp;A)</a></p> | Microsoft is prepared to hand over Skype users' data to Russia | false | https://pri.org/stories/2014-01-16/microsoft-prepared-hand-over-skype-users-data-russia | 2014-01-16 | 3 |
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<p>One bad hombre – Cuban leader Fidel Castro Dies at 90. A time to celebrate for many, a sad day for a few. Political Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2016.</p>
<p>To see more Legal Insurrection Branco cartoons, <a href="http://legalinsurrection.com/tag/a-f-branco/" type="external">click here</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://patriotdepot.com/2017-comically-incorrect-calendar/" type="external">A.F.Branco 2017 Calendar&#160;</a>&lt;—- Order Here!</p>
<p><a href="http://paypal.me/AntonioBranco" type="external">Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated</a>&#160;– &#160;$1.00 – $5.00 – $10 – $100 – &#160;it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. –&#160;THANK YOU!</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | Mourning in O’merica | true | http://comicallyincorrect.com/2016/11/28/mourning-in-omerica/ | 2016-11-28 | 0 |
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<p>My friend and I were getting ready to leave The Blue Heron, having enjoyed a light dinner on the deck overlooking the pond. A flash of movement in the huge old cottonwood tree near the walkway caught my eye. A large, healthy looking critter, maybe 50 pounds, scurried up the bark. I didn’t see the characteristic black mask, but the striped tail provided a good clue. I asked the waiter. A whole family of raccoons — mom, dad and babies — lived in the cottonwood, he said. The adults sometimes approached him when he went to clear off the dishes, attempting to claim the leftovers.</p>
<p>I’ve seen the unusual and eaten the unexpected in my years as a restaurant reviewer, but this was a first. (I’m glad they don’t have raccoon on The Blue Heron menu.) Outdoor dining can mean sharing the space with critters, but up to now I’d encountered insects, birds, dogs, cats and the delightful barnyard menagerie they keep at San Marcos Cafe. I once watched a seagull steal a sandwich off a plate at a wharf-side restaurant in northern California’s Tiburon.</p>
<p>Its lush environment and the presence of so much water in our high desert climate make The Blue Heron special. The restaurant, part of Sunrise Springs Resort just south of Santa Fe in La Cienega, is blessed with one of the loveliest locations I can imagine. It uses the space to great advantage in summer when the large deck becomes an outdoor dining room. The wildlife, flitting birds, turtles and an occasional chirping frog, provide an extra touch of ambiance. Sunday brunch includes mellow live jazz from a trio that sets up on the deck by the pond.</p>
<p>It’s strange to realize that after more than 20 years, The Blue Heron remains a hidden gem.</p>
<p>Perhaps it’s the lack of marketing or the out-of-the-way location (the restaurant is about a 30-minute drive south from the Santa Fe Plaza). Also, the restaurant was closed for awhile and has had a parade of chefs. Whatever the reasons, the quiet makes a meal here all the sweeter. The place only had three additional occupied tables the night my friend and I visited; Sunday brunch was busier, but far from crowded.</p>
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<p>Although we came for the ambiance, my friends and I liked the food. In the evening, two of us shared a plate of nachos topped with delicious juicy pulled pork. We also split a standard blue cheese wedge salad that had a nice creamy dressing. Like our choices, most of the menu reflects the tried and true: burgers, enchiladas, noodles with tofu or chicken and vegetables, crab cakes, fish and chips, a steak, pizza and salads. Nothing whispers “innovation” or begs “try me,” but nothing will scare anyone away. Food prices top out at $24.95 for a sirloin with most choices less than $11.</p>
<p>At brunch, in addition to the regular menu, customers can select from the specials — most under $10. When my friends and I ate here, the menu included an omelet (with spinach and feta cheese), salmon, pancakes, breakfast burrito, bread pudding and lemon sorbet with berries. The blackened salmon ($14.50) was good, not a bit overcooked and just spicy enough. The cucumber salsa added a nice bit of cool and the skin-on pan-fried potatoes were good. I especially liked the fresh-tasting corn kernels in the calabacitas, a traditional New Mexican blend of zucchini, onions and corn.</p>
<p>The light blueberry pancakes ($8.95) had plenty of berries inside and on top and came with crisp (as requested) bacon. The breakfast burrito ($8.95), stuffed with eggs, potatoes and choice of bacon or sausage, did the job. Next time, we’ll ask for more chile sauce on the side. The pretty slice of watermelon was a nice addition.</p>
<p>Evening service was fine. On Sunday, when the restaurant was busier, the establishment seemed understaffed. We ultimately refilled our own coffee cups from the hot plate on the deck. My friends and I didn’t mind the leisurely dining on that beautiful music-rich afternoon, but it isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.</p>
<p>My main regret about the Blue Heron is its slightly untended, unloved subtext. No one returned my call for reservations or my second call for information on handicapped accessibility. The outdoor space could use a good cleaning and a coat of paint or sealer. Even a few hours with a broom to remove the fallen leaves and cotton from the trees would make the place more inviting.</p> | A Hidden Blue Gem | false | https://abqjournal.com/119357/a-hidden-blue-gem.html | 2012-07-20 | 2 |
<p>Even before the <a href="" type="internal">Jian Ghomeshi</a> story broke, many of us in media had heard about the bullying and harassing culture at CBC but having the evidence to actually run with a story always proved difficult.&#160;</p>
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<p>Now post-Ghomeshi, more are speaking up and new stories are emerging about the <a href="" type="internal">disturbing culture</a> at the CBC, this time from the flagship radio program, As it Happens&#160;along with complaints about the HR department itself and the very person they brought in to fix the problems.</p>
<p>Watch my report for the full story and if you agree that CBC needs to be <a href="" type="internal">held to account</a>, remember to sign our petition to <a href="" type="internal">SellTheCBC</a>.</p> | Fresh accounts of harassment at state broadcaster emerge: Who will hold CBC accountable? | true | http://therebel.media/fresh_accounts_of_harassment_at_state_broadcaster_emerge_who_will_hold_cbc_accountable | 2016-05-26 | 0 |
<p>The Balboa Park museum area is known to other regions of the country as “the Smithsonian of the west.”&#160; This is largely due to its cultural relevance, as well as countless museums, amphitheaters, and parks that sustain the area.&#160; One museum that stands out to most, however is the San Diego Museum of Art.&#160; Open every day of the week (with varying hours), the <a href="http://www.sdmart.org/about" type="external">San Diego Museum of Art</a> is constantly exhibiting works from artist around the world, as well as some renowned local artists.&#160; The following rundown includes one ongoing, as well as two future exhibitions:</p>
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<p>The Human Beast – Now through November 11</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sdmart.org/art/exhibit/human-beast" type="external">The Human Beast</a> highlights the recent bequest of forty-eight German expressionist paintings, drawings, and prints from the estate of Vance E. Kondon and Elisabeth Giesberger.&#160; This exhibit is aimed at the modernist movement that had developed in Germany and Austria in the early twentieth century.&#160; German Expressionist artists were united by common themes: primitivism, raw emotion, the solace of nature, the terror of the First World War and the subsequent social chaos of Weimar, Germany.</p>
<p>New acquisitions from the Kondon-Giesberger bequest include works by Otto Dix, Egon Schiele, and Max Pechstein. These join a strong group of Expressionist paintings and drawings that have long been at the Museum of Art, among which are works by Alexej von Jawlensky, Gabriele Münter, Beckmann, and George Grosz.</p>
<p>Throughout the duration of The Human Beast, three extremely elemental Expressionist films are to be shown: M(1931), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari(1920), and Nosferatu(1922). &#160;M will be shown on Mondays and Fridays, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari will be shown on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and Nosferatu will be showing on Thursdays and Sundays.</p>
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<p>Behold, America! – November 10, 2012 to February 10, 2013</p>
<p>This exhibit includes works from the colonization of the United States, presenting this dynamic history of art. With the Museum of Contemporary Art of San Diego, the San Diego Museum of Art, and the Timken Museum of Art, the exhibit will be shown as three distinct, yet related shows at each of the three institutions.</p>
<p>The works at the Timken Museum of Art will focus&#160;on the concept of Forms and include traditional still-lifes by Raphaelle Peale and more contemporary works by Sam Gilliam. The San Diego Museum of Art will host the Figures component of the exhibition featuring portraits by John Singleton Copley, Cindy Sherman, and John Currin. At the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego works related to the notion of Frontierswill showcase art created by Robert Irwin, Ann Hamilton, Albert Bierstadt, Asher B. Durand, and Eastman Johnson.</p>
<p>Charles Reiffel – November 10, 2012 to February 10, 2013</p>
<p>This exhibition showcases Reiffel’s legacy as “a preeminent practitioner” of American Post-Impressionism.&#160; Often referred to as “the American Van Gogh,” Reiffel’s work was exhibited and celebrated across the country.</p>
<p>The exhibition will include over 80 works, primarily paintings, but also works on paper, including the crayon sketches in which Reiffel pioneered his own personal technique. This show will span the entirety of Reiffel’s career, from his early travel studies to his latest San Diego subjects, and will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the artist’s birth.</p>
<p>The San Diego Museum of Art is located at 1450 El Prado in Balboa Park 619.232.7931.</p>
<p>For operation hours and upcoming events, visit their website <a href="http://www.sdmart.org/" type="external">here.</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | San Diego Museum of Art: German Expressionism to American History | false | https://ivn.us/2012/10/21/san-diego-museum-of-art-to-host-several-exhibits/ | 2012-10-21 | 2 |
<p>In the run-up to yesterday’s release of the 2014 budget, the Obama administration worked hard to create the perception in the media that the president is making a sincere move toward the political center. We are told his budget has as its starting point the final offer the president made to House Speaker John Boehner during fiscal cliff talks in December 2012.</p>
<p>But if this is what the president was offering, the Speaker was absolutely right to reject it then, and he would be right to reject it now too.</p>
<p>To sum it up, the president’s 2014 budget would result in massive tax and debt increases over the next decade, with no serious entitlement reform. The ten-year tax hike is $1 trillion, on top of the $0.6 trillion enacted in January and $1 trillion in Obamacare. But even with massive new taxes, the debt would still rise to $19 trillion in 2023, up from $5.8 trillion at the end of 2008. That’s not the basis for striking any kind of deal with the GOP.</p>
<p>On entitlements, the president has embraced the so-called “chained CPI” measure of inflation. If adopted, it would modestly slow down Social Security spending growth and raise income taxes too, because the thresholds for the tax brackets would rise more slowly in coming years. This may be a relatively innocuous way to slightly narrow future budget deficits, but significant reform it is not. At best, it is a modest adjustment to the entitlement status quo.</p>
<p>On health care, the president is wedded to a vision of cost control that is flawed and should be thoroughly rejected. With the exception of another modest proposal to raise premiums on upper-income seniors, the president’s Medicare suggestions are a series of refinements to the program’s flawed regulated pricing schemes.</p>
<p>Among other things, the budget would cut payments to nursing homes and rehabilitation hospitals. These kinds of payment cuts have been tried many times in the past and haven’t solved the problem because they do not address the fundamentally flawed financial incentives embedded in the program. What’s needed in health care is the discipline of a functioning marketplace.</p>
<p>Adopting the president’s budget would represent a huge economic gamble because it does not seriously reduce the risks of a debt crisis emerging in the next several years. Using the president’s own numbers, U.S. government debt will hold at 73 percent of GDP in 2023. That’s very high by historical standards, and it will only be that low with the president’s policies if the economy performs miraculously.</p>
<p>For instance, the budget assumes real GDP growth of 3.7 percent, unemployment of just 6.2 percent, and interest rates on ten-year Treasury notes of 3.7 percent in 2016. It also assumes inflation will hold steady at 2.2 percent in perpetuity.</p>
<p>If any one of these assumptions is overly optimistic (and there’s good reason to think all of them are), then the budget outlook will be far worse than advertised. In which case, the United States would be heading toward a fiscal crisis of some sort, with the potential to do serious damage to the economy. That’s a threat that Congress needs to take far more seriously than the president apparently does.</p>
<p>James C. Capretta is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.</p> | The President’s Budget Is No Move Toward the Center | false | https://eppc.org/publications/the-presidents-budget-is-no-move-toward-the-center/ | 1 |
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<p>A Norman, Oklahoma teacher has just been added to the long list of why so many people are yanking their kids out of the brainwashing cesspool known as the public education system and opting for homeschool programs.</p>
<p>A female student at Norman North High School said she was stunned when her teacher began a lecture on how to "heal the racial divide in our country," that quickly devolved into an "all white people are racist" lecture.</p>
<p>In disbelief about what she was hearing, the young lady pulled out her phone and started recording.</p>
<p>In the audio (below), you can hear the teacher say "to be white is to be racist, period."</p>
<p>The girl spoke with <a href="http://kfor.com/2016/10/14/to-be-white-is-to-be-racist-norman-student-offended-by-teachers-lecture/" type="external">KFOR</a> News about the "shocking" and deeply offensive comments from the teacher:</p>
<p>"Half of my family is Hispanic, so I just felt like, you know, him calling me racist just because I'm white... I mean, where's your proof in that,? she said.</p>
<p>The words that followed were even more shocking to her.</p>
<p>In the recording you hear the teacher ask "Am I racist? And, I say yeah. I don't want to be. It's not like I choose to be racist, but do I do things because of the way I was raised?"</p>
<p>"I felt like he was encouraging people to kind of pick on people for being white," the student said.</p>
<p>"Why is it okay to demonize one race to children that you are supposed to be teaching a curriculum to," her dad asked.</p>
<p>The well-spoken young lady added that, "You start telling someone something over and over again that's an opinion, and they start taking it as fact. So, I wanted him to apologize and make it obvious and apparent to everyone that was his opinion."</p>
<p>Dr. Joe Siano, the superintendent of Norman Public Schools released the following statement about the incident:</p>
<p>"Racism is an important topic that we discuss in our schools. While discussing a variety of philosophical perspectives on culture, race and ethics, a teacher was attempting to convey to students in an elective philosophy course a perspective that had been shared at a university lecture he had attended. We regret that the discussion was poorly handled. When the district was notified of this concern it was immediately addressed. We are committed to ensuring inclusiveness in our schools."</p>
<p>Exit thought:</p>
<p /> | High School Teacher Lectures Students: 'To Be White Is To Be Racist. Period.' | true | https://dailywire.com/news/10052/high-school-teacher-lectures-students-be-white-be-chase-stephens | 2016-10-19 | 0 |
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<p>Prior to that, she was the president of the Albuquerque Hispano Chamber of Commerce, which is where she was working when she was featured in a March 1999 cover story, “Power and Presence,” with Terri Cole, president and CEO of the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce.</p>
<p>Armenta was again featured on the cover in June 2004 (“Latina Power”) with her daughters.</p>
<p>Though Armenta has always loved to make art, travel and spend time with her grandchildren, she now, at 70, has the time to make those her priorities. She continues to serve on numerous boards that work with women’s issues, children’s disabilities and education.</p>
<p>Reflecting on life: In life, there are ups and downs, and as time goes on, she says, “I think you become a little wiser. You’re more judicious about the decisions you make and how you make them and who they will impact.”</p>
<p>Something she doesn’t miss: Going into the office every day.</p>
<p>What she’s always known: “It’s great to work with our hands and minds.” It’s something her grandmother taught her as a child, whether it was cooking in the kitchen or learning to sew.</p>
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<p>“Taste and see that God is good” is a saying she embossed on the tin backing of one of the decorative spoons she’s used in her colorful art.</p>
<p>“That’s especially true in the Hispanic family for celebrations, sadness, joy,” Armenta says. “I guess that’s why I decided to do spoons.”</p>
<p>What you didn’t know: She loves to cook. Maybe you knew that, but bet you didn’t know that Armenta’s most requested dishes for gatherings are her deep-fried chicken tacos and rice paper spring rolls.</p>
<p>— Rebecca Roybal Jones</p>
<p /> | 'Hands and minds' – Loretta Armenta (1999: Power and Presence) | false | https://abqjournal.com/511629/hands-and-minds.html | 2 |
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<p>In an effort to jump into the video streaming business, Barnes &amp; Noble (NYSE:BKS) said Tuesday it plans to launch a video service this fall that will include content from major studios like HBO, Sony Pictures, Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS) and Warner Bros.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>It’s a jab to Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX), which had for a time led the video streaming market, and an effort to keep up with rival Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), whose Kindle tablets have long led Nook sales.</p>
<p>The video market continues to be inundated with new competitors, including Verizon (NASDAQ:VZ) and Coinstar’s (NASDAQ:CSTR) RedBox that have together chipped away at Netflix's market share.</p>
<p>Amazon offers the Prime Instant Video service for $79 a year that allows customers to stream videos on its Kindle Fire tablet. Earlier this month, the online retail giant signed a three-year deal with Epix to add thousands of movies to its library, giving the tablet a sharp competitive advantage over Barnes &amp; Noble's Nook Tablet.</p>
<p>The New York-based bookseller said the new video service will be available across its Nooks, as well as on TVs and smartphones.</p>
<p>“Our new NOOK Video service will give our customers another way to be entertained with a vast and growing digital video collection, as part of our expansive Nook Store,” Barnes &amp; Noble CEO William Lynch said in a statement.</p>
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<p>The service, which will also include content from STARZ and Viacom (NASDAQ:VIA), is expected to widen to include other leading studios, Barnes &amp; Noble said.</p>
<p>Videos that are streamed and downloaded from the Nook Store will be stored in the Nook Cloud.</p>
<p>The company also plans to integrate compatible physical DVD and Blu-ray Discs across their devices through UltraViolet, enabling customers to link their UltraViolet accounts to the NOOK Cloud.</p>
<p>The company did not provide prices but said Nook Video will roll out in the U.S. this fall and in the U.K. this holiday season.</p>
<p>Shares of Netflix were down more than 1% to $55.79 on Tuesday, while those of Barnes &amp; Noble climbed 2% to $13 and Amazon's (NASDAQ:AMZN) were up 1.3% to $258.21.</p> | Barnes & Noble to Roll Out Video Streaming Service | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2012/09/25/barnes-noble-to-roll-out-video-streaming-for-nook-users.html | 2016-03-03 | 0 |
<p>Republicans are right: The White House is greatly exaggerating when it says that “women, in particular,” benefit from a prevention fund that the House GOP proposes to repeal. The truth is that the fund in question wasn’t set up specifically for women’s health programs, and we could find no concrete evidence that it has paid anything to gender-specific health programs so far. For example, the fund has paid for programs to discourage tobacco use, encourage physical fitness,</p>
<p /> | false | https://factcheck.org/tag/womens-health/ | 2 |
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<p>As the chief executive of McAlester Regional Health Center in McAlester, Okla., Joel Tate is in the business of saving lives. So he said it came as a shock when Human Rights Watch <a href="http://www.hrw.org/press/2001/06/tatelet0614.htm" type="external">suggested last June</a> that his hospital was indirectly helping to kill people.</p>
<p>For the past twenty years, the hospital had been the Oklahoma Department of Corrections’ sole supplier of potassium chloride, one of the drugs used during lethal injection executions — a procedure which Oklahoma carried out more often than any other state in 2001.</p>
<p>Human Rights Watch, as part of a larger campaign to limit states’ access to lethal injection drugs, urged Tate to sever his hospital’s drug supply relationship with Oklahoma’s prisons. The New York group’s arguments swayed Tate, who ordered an immediate end to the sale of potassium chloride to corrections officials.</p>
<p>That single decision marked the first victory in what could become an innovative new push by anti-death penalty activists. Rather than attempting to convince state lawmakers to abandon capital punishment, the activists are setting their sights on the pharmaceutical companies and drug distributors on whom state and federal prisons rely. The hope, activists say, is that the companies and institutions which provide lethal injection drugs will be sufficiently influenced by negative publicity to drop the practice.</p>
<p>Activists acknowledge that this new campaign won’t put an end to capital punishment. The goal, they say, is simply to make it more complicated — and possibly more costly — for states to carry out a death sentence.</p>
<p>“Drug companies are in the business of making drugs for health and well-being, not to kill people,” says Steve Hawkins, Executive Director of the Washington, DC-based National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. “If a department of corrections wants to be in the business of killing people, let it be expensive, and let it be difficult.”</p>
<p>Lethal injection is used by the US government and military as well as 36 of the 38 states which provide for the death penalty. A combination of three drugs are used in the process: sodium thiopental, or Pentothal, an anesthetic which puts the inmate to sleep; Pancuronium, which paralyzes the muscles and stops breathing; and potassium chloride, which stops the heart.</p>
<p>Human Rights Watch has launched an effort targetting distributors of potassium chloride. Allyson Collins, a senior researcher with the group, says the organization is preparing a letter-writing campaign directed at two California companies — Bergen Brunswig Corporation and Cardinal Health — which are the nation’s major suppliers of the drug. Similarly, the National Coalition Against the Death Penalty has launched a letter-writing campaign directed at Illinois-based Abbott Laboratory, the sole suppliers of Pentothal.</p>
<p>The new effort is not without precedent. In 1994, activists joined with the American College of Physicians and Physicians for Human Rights to launch a campaign aimed at discouraging doctors and other medical professionals from taking part in lethal injection executions. Since lethal injection involves the administering of drugs normally used for medical purposes, prison officials often ask that heath care professionals be involved, with some states even requiring their presence.</p>
<p>“It is hypocritical for health professionals to be involved in the death of individuals, instead of promoting health and life,” argues Abe Bonowitz, director of Florida based Citizens United Against the Death Penalty, which joined in the 1994 campaign.</p>
<p>While that effort has had mixed results, death penalty opponents are hoping that applying similar pressure to drug companies will have a more far-reaching effect. Given the initial reactions from company officials, however, the campaign could be a long and difficult one.</p>
<p>Most of the companies targeted in the campaign insist they cannot be held accountable for how corrections officials use the drugs, all of which have other medical uses. Officials at Abbott, for instance, claim they have already tried to keep their product from being used in executions.</p>
<p>“Abbott does not support the use of Penthothal in capital punishment,” says Abbott vice-president Catherine Babington. “In fact, (we) communicated with departments of corrections in the United States to request that this product not be used in capital punishment procedures.” But the company can’t control how their products are used, she says, claiming that corrections officials purchase sodium thiopental for use as a medical anesthetic.</p>
<p>Officials at Baxter International, Inc., which produces Pancuronium, the third drug in the lethal injection cocktail, likewise deny responsibility for the use of their product in executions.</p>
<p>“Information on the proper uses of Pancuronium are clearly stated on the label, in accordance to regulatory procedures,” says Deborah Spak, a spokesperson for Baxter International, Inc. “We cannot know every use of the product that we sell. ”</p>
<p>Activists acknowledge that theirs will be an uphill struggle. Still, they see their efforts to influence drug manufacturers and distributors as a significant part of a broad effort.</p>
<p>“This is not going to be the one key in ending the death penalty, says Jeff Garis, executive director of Pennsylvania Abolitionists Against the Death Penalty. “It is part of a larger overall strategy, that is going to take multiple tactics and campaigns.”</p>
<p /> | Undercutting Executions | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2001/12/undercutting-executions/ | 2001-12-28 | 4 |
<p>AOL CEO Tim Armstrong shares advice about the M&amp;A process, reports of Facebook ‘trending topics’ bias, and tech in New York City.</p>
<p>With Yahoo sale talks ongoing, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong shared what he sees as one of the more important components to the deal-making process: Having a vision and strategy.</p>
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<p>“I think it’s really about strategy, structure and cost structure. If those three things are in alignment, deals usually work. If one of those is off they usually don’t work," he said.</p>
<p>As for AOL, Armstrong said the company is striving toward continuing growth, specifically reaching two billion users. He also commented on the state of the regulatory environment for growth in New York City, where he says the tech sector is blossoming and is the fastest growing job category.</p>
<p>"It’s had double to triple the job growth of any other industry in the last 15 years. I think right now tech has an emotional seat at the table because everybody knows it’s an important part of the city,” he said.</p>
<p>Recently, ride sharing companies Uber and Lyft decided to end operations in the tech-friendly city of Austin due to local regulations that included fingerprinting drivers. The AOL CEO explained why U.S. cities should work with these “new economy” companies.</p>
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<p>“If you’re a city and you’re not working in the new economy it may be a detriment to your economy over time,” he said. “So they’re going to be highly incentivized to work with the new economy companies.”</p> | AOL CEO Armstrong Talks Yahoo Sale, M&A Advice | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2016/05/10/aol-ceo-armstrong-talks-yahoo-sale-m-advice.html | 2016-05-10 | 0 |
<p>This article is being republished as part of our daily reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S. print edition of The Wall Street Journal (January 30, 2018).</p>
<p>Selling in government bonds intensified around the world. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note notched its highest closing level since April 2014.</p>
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<p>U.S. stocks retreated as utilities and real estate shares declined. The Dow fell 177.23 points to 26439.48.</p>
<p>Global investors are shifting more money from U.S. to foreign stocks, betting on opportunities overseas.</p>
<p>The household saving rate fell in December to its lowest level since September 2005 amid a spending splurge by Americans.</p>
<p>Coffee company Keurig is taking over Dr Pepper Snapple, a deal that will unite popular brands that have faced struggles.</p>
<p>JPMorgan named two executives to share the No. 2 post, the bank's clearest step yet to designate a potential successor to CEO Dimon.</p>
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<p>MetLife delayed its earnings report and said it would revise prior financial reports due to unpaid pensions.</p>
<p>France's Sanofi said it would acquire Belgian biotech company Ablynx for $4.85 billion.</p>
<p>Lawmakers are moving to stanch the flow of U.S. technology to foreign investors with legislation to broaden CFIUS's authority.</p>
<p>China's JinkoSolar said it plans to open a solar-panel plant in the U.S., a week after Trump imposed tariffs.</p>
<p>Fitch is exiting a joint venture and will apply to operate independently in China.</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>January 30, 2018 02:47 ET (07:47 GMT)</p> | What's News: Business & Finance -- WSJ | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/11/30/whats-news-business-finance-wsj.html | 2018-01-30 | 0 |
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<p>But changing consumer habits, extremely aggressive competition and increased pushback from its merchants are putting heavy pressure on AmEx.</p>
<p>Rivals are trying to steal away business and are succeeding in some cases. Costco, for example, is ending its 15-year relationship with AmEx and defecting to Citigroup and Visa starting next March. And airlines that used to give VIP lounge access to AmEx cardholders have been switching in recent years to other credit card companies.</p>
<p>Compounding its troubles, AmEx recently lost a major government antitrust lawsuit, a verdict that could damage its ability to compete.</p>
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<p>“The competitive environment for AmEx is very challenging,” said Jason Arnold, a Wall Street analyst who covers AmEx for RBS Securities. “Major competitors have all directed their efforts to take chunks away from their business. They’ve got serious problems.”</p>
<p>As a result, American Express stock is down 12 percent this year. Analysts, on average, have cut their 2015 profit forecast from $6.2 billion to $5.6 billion. AmEx recently announced 4,000 layoffs, or about 6 percent of its workforce. And CEO Kenneth Chenault will face a skeptical Wall Street audience Wednesday at the company’s annual investor day.</p>
<p>One of the biggest threats to AmEx is the slew of competing cards aimed at the well-to-do, sometimes with lower annual fees. Card issuers have energetically courted merchants who used to accept only American Express. Merchants who once coveted AmEx’s high-net-worth cardholders are discovering they can find the same customers elsewhere.</p>
<p>Citigroup, in particular, has been going after AmEx’s core customer. Citigroup has hired executives away from AmEx over the past few years to help it overhaul its credit cards and revamp its loyalty program, known as ThankYou. Citi Cards CEO Jud Linville, for example, worked at AmEx for nearly 20 years.</p>
<p>The capture of Costco by Citigroup and Visa was the biggest blow to AmEx. The warehouse-club chain accounted for $80 billion of spending on AmEx’s network last year and 10 percent of AmEx’s cards.</p>
<p>“Costco was a real punch in the gut,” said David Robertson, publisher of the Nilson Report, a major trade journal for the credit card industry.</p>
<p>Citi also recently created a card called Citi Prestige, a high-annual-fee card aimed at AmEx Platinum Card holders.</p>
<p>“Citi’s ThankYou program, a year and a half ago, was pretty much worthless,” said Brian Kelly, editor in chief of thepointsguy.com, a travel and credit card rewards tracking website. “But over the past year Citi has really started to get into the game. They are not at a Chase or AmEx level yet, but based on where they have gone in a short amount of time, they’re becoming quite formidable.”</p>
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<p>JPMorgan Chase introduced its own reward cards in 2009 with a program similar to AmEx’s. It is called Chase Ultimate Rewards.</p>
<p>Airport lounge access was once a perk basically guaranteed by AmEx. But American Airlines switched allegiance last year, turning over exclusive access to lounges to Citi cardholders. AmEx cardholders lost access to United Continental’s lounges in 2011 and lost the ability to transfer their points to United in 2012.</p>
<p>Even Discover Financial has gotten into the game. Last month, it introduced a credit card focused on building up miles that can be redeemed for travel.</p>
<p>AmEx hasn’t sat idle. To generate revenue, it has raised annual fees and interest rates on some products. It has also added perks for its customers, such as waiving foreign transaction fees and giving a $100 credit for incidental airline expenses for Gold Card members.</p>
<p>And when AmEx parted ways with United Continental, it went ahead and opened its own airport lounges. It has 13 worldwide so far, with plans to open more this year.</p>
<p>“American Express is still the gold standard when it comes to their rewards program, but lately it seems like all they’re doing is playing catch-up,” Kelly said.</p>
<p>While competitors have been moving upmarket, AmEx in response has been moving in the opposite direction. It now has two pre-paid debit cards, one of them with Wal-Mart. Pre-paid debit cards are typically aimed at low-income consumers who may not have checking accounts.</p>
<p>The company also launched a no-annual-fee credit card last year aimed at “everyday” purchases — not the travel-heavy, corporate-expense-account business AmEx is known for.</p>
<p>“I don’t think there’s anything structurally wrong at AmEx,” said Sanjay Sakhrani, an analyst at Keefe, Bruyette &amp; Woods. “They’re going to get in front of the revenue they are going to lose next year when the Costco relationship ends.”</p>
<p>Along with increased competition, AmEx is facing heavier regulatory pressure. Last month, the Justice Department won an antitrust lawsuit against American Express over its practice of making merchants sign agreements not to express a preference for one card over another.</p>
<p>If AmEx loses on appeal, merchants will be free to express their preferences, and that could force the company to lower the percent it charges them to process cards. That would be a drastic hit to AmEx’s bottom line, and company executives have acknowledged as much.</p>
<p>During the trial last summer, AmEx’s Chenault said the company would be “fighting for our survival” if it lost the case.</p> | Trouble at AmEx: Some cardholders can leave home without it | false | https://abqjournal.com/559445/trouble-at-amex-some-cardholders-can-leave-home-without-it.html | 2015-03-24 | 2 |
<p>The <a href="" type="internal">Huffington Post</a>, the news and opinion website that has been an influential upstart in U.S. journalism since 2005, is expanding to France.</p>
<p>Media group Le Monde, which owns the centre-left daily of the same name, has inked a deal with the Huffington Post Media Group to create a new French-language web site with an editorial staff based in France, the parties said on Monday.</p>
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<p>"Le Huffington Post", as it will be named, will be launched before the end of the year with a French newsroom created in coming weeks. A search is under way for an editor in chief.</p>
<p>No financial detail was released.</p>
<p>"This will be ... an information site and a platform of expression for bloggers and writers of note," Ariana Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post, was quoted saying in Le Monde.</p>
<p>The Huffington Post, which was purchased by <a href="" type="internal">AOL</a> for $315 million in February, has already launched international sites in Canada and Britain. Negotiations are underway for a site to be launched in Brazil, Huffington told Le Monde.</p>
<p>Le Monde launched an online site, www.lepost.fr, in 2007 that was designed to be an online portal for citizen journalism and bloggers, with a focus on celebrities. But the venture posted a loss of about 1 million euros ($1.4 million) last year, despite attracting some 3 million unique visitors per month.</p>
<p>A third partner in the French venture is Les Nouvelles Editions independantes, a holding company of investment banker Matthieu Pigasse, part owner of Le Monde together with Pierre Berge, former business partner of designer Yves Saint Laurent, and Internet tycoon Xavier Niel. ($1 = 0.732 Euros) (Reporting By Alexandria Sage; Additional Reporting by Gwenaelle Barzic; Editing by David Holmes)</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | 'Le Huffington Post' to Launch in France | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2011/10/10/le-huffington-post-to-launch-in-france.html | 2016-01-29 | 0 |
<p>This article is being republished as part of our daily reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S. print edition of The Wall Street Journal (September 26, 2017).</p>
<p>LONDON -- Unilever PLC has agreed to buy Carver Korea, a Seoul-based maker of toners and moisturizers, for $2.7 billion, the latest in a string of skin-care acquisitions as it pivots toward higher-growth sectors.</p>
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<p>Unilever is buying what it described as South Korea's fastest-growing skin-care business from Bain Capital Private Equity and Goldman Sachs, which acquired the company slightly over a year ago. Carver sells age-management, skin-hydration and skin-nourishment products under the brand AHC. It sells its products in Korea, China and the U.S.</p>
<p>In recent years Unilever has upped its exposure to skin products, buying four high-end skin-care brands in 2015 alone. Last year it bought Dollar Shave Club, which gave it men's skin-care brand Big Cloud and hairstyling brand Boogies.</p>
<p>Under Paul Polman, a former Procter &amp; Gamble Co. executive who became Unilever's chief executive in 2009, the company has shifted away from food and toward higher-margin personal care. In 2016, personal care made up 40% of Unilever's revenue, up from 28% in 2008.</p>
<p>The company has also been working to fend off an increasingly sophisticated array of local competitors that market through channels such as Instagram and YouTube and often sell directly to customers over the web. Last year it embarked on a restructuring aimed at making its local units more responsive to trends in their markets and is employing its own social-media influencers while also buying local brands.</p>
<p>Buying Carver will help Unilever gain ground in the Korean beauty market, where hair and beauty trends often influence ones further west. South Korea is the world's fourth largest market for skin care, according to Unilever.</p>
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<p>Carver, which started out in 1999 selling products to beauty salons, reported sales of EUR321 million ($383.5 million) and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of EUR137 million in 2016. It sells essences, toners, moisturizers, masks, and sun protection.</p>
<p>Write to Saabira Chaudhuri at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>September 26, 2017 02:47 ET (06:47 GMT)</p> | Unilever to Add Skin-Care Brand From South Korea -- WSJ | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/09/26/unilever-to-add-skin-care-brand-from-south-korea-wsj.html | 2017-09-26 | 0 |
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<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
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<p>2016 began about as ugly as imaginable for investors, but it sure looks to be ending on a high note. After opening with the worst two-week losses in history to begin a year, all three major U.S. indexes are seemingly knocking on the door of new all-time highs every day. From top to bottom, stocks of nearly all industries and all sizes are taking part in the rally.</p>
<p>But as we head into 2017, talk of the stock market being "overvalued" or "overpriced" could begin ramping up, especially given the voracious post-election rally. While it's often best not to get caught up in this type of short-term thinking, it may nonetheless be the impetus needed for investors to take a closer look at large-cap stocks.</p>
<p>Large-caps, or as the category is traditionally defined, businesses with market valuations of $10 billion or more, have usually earned their large valuations because they have time-tested business models that can withstand fluctuations in the economy and stock market. Given their time-tested business models, large-cap stocks are also prime targets for income investors. With volatility and uncertainty about the continuation of this rally likely to persist into 2017, large-cap stocks could be the stabilizing force your portfolio needs.</p>
<p>Here are three large-cap stocks that could be worth buying in 2017.</p>
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<p>Image source: Bank of America.</p>
<p>Yes, national banking giant Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) has rallied 40% over the past three months, but that doesn't mean it's anywhere near finished.</p>
<p>The biggest catalyst as we move into 2017 is the strengthening economy and potential for further interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve. Just a few days ago the Fed chose to increase interest rates by 25 basis points to 0.75%. For all intents and purposes, this is still well below the historical average for the federal funds rate. In a recent 10-Q filing, Bank of America estimated that if short- and long-term lending rates were to rise by 100 basis points, it would generate an extra $7.5 billion in net interest income. Of all the money center banks in America, it's by far the most levered to interest rate increases. If the Fed were to stick to its plan of raising lending rates three times in 2017, Bank of America could, in theory, have between $0.60 and $0.70 of additional annual EPS flowing to its bottom-line within the next two years.</p>
<p>In addition to an expected increase in interest-based income, Bank of America has done an exceptional job of reducing its expenses. One of the ways it'll likely do so in the years to come is by shuttering some of its nonessential branches as consumers move into the digital age. Mobile transactions are many times cheaper than in-person transactions, meaning Bank of America has levers it can pull on the expense side of the equation to increase its margins.</p>
<p>President-elect Trump may also be a positive "X-factor" for banks. Throughout his campaign, Trump had called for removing some of the stringent regulations in the banking industry, which for Bank of America would allow for improved flexibility and lower regulatory costs. Couple this with Bank of America finally putting its Great Recession-based mortgage woes in the rearview mirror, and we have what I believe could still be called a cheap bank stock.</p>
<p>2017 Cadillac CTS. Image source: General Motors.</p>
<p>For more conservative income-seekers, I'd suggest driving on over to Detroit's finest and giving General Motors (NYSE: GM) a closer look.</p>
<p>The biggest issues that have weighed on GM include pundits' expectation that auto sales in America will peak in the next year or two, the effect rising interest rates could have on auto sales, and the lingering effects of GM's record number of recalls in 2015. Recalls not only hammered GM's bottom-line, but in the near-term they have the potential to hurt its brand image.</p>
<p>On the bright side, General Motors remains a superstar in China, the world's largest auto market. Despite sluggish sales in the U.S., GM's retail sales in China are up 8.5% year-over-year to 3.44 million units. In particular, GM noted that Cadillac sales have grown by more than 50% for five straight months, with sales of Baojun and Buick also hitting all-time monthly highs. China's middle-class is still rapidly growing, meaning GM could see substantial retail sales growth in the years to come, even with China's GDP growth slowing a bit in recent years.</p>
<p>Also, investors may have overstated the customer loyalty issues caused by GM's millions of recalls. In fact, the 20th Annual Automotive Loyalty Awards from IHS Automotive awarded GM the title of brand that customers are most loyal to, unseating Ford'smulti-year run at the top. What this suggests is that GM is having few issues crossing the generational gap and keeping consumers loyal to the brand. Repeat customers are more likely to upgrade to higher margin models as they age and move up the socioeconomic ladder, so this is good news for GM and its shareholders.</p>
<p>A minuscule valuation and healthy shareholder return policy is another reason to consider buying GM. After completing its $5 billion share repurchase program a quarter early, GM added an additional $4 billion to its repurchase program in January. What's more, after returning around $6 billion in dividends and share repurchases in 2015, GM upped its dividend in 2016 by another 6%.Even with GM near a 52-week high, it's still valued at less than seven times Wall Street's forecasted profit in 2017, and has a yield of 4%! Those are pedal to the metal numbers for income and value investors.</p>
<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>Another large-cap stock that I personally can't get enough of lately (it was recently added to my portfolio), and that I believe could be of benefit to investors in 2017 and beyond, is hybrid drug developer Teva Pharmaceutical (NYSE: TEVA).</p>
<p>If you were to look at Teva's 2016 chart, you'd think you were stuck in a Stephen King novel -- it's horrific. Teva has been plagued by slower product launches, which have resulted in modestly lowered full-year sales and profit guidance, and for years it's been fending off the imminent launch of generic Copaxone. Copaxone is an injectable treatment for relapse-remitting multiple sclerosis patients, and it's Teva's leading brand-name drug. As icing on the cake, its acquisition of Actavis from Allergantook longer and required more asset divestitures than expected to satisfy regulators.</p>
<p>While it's had some speed bumps, the future remains bright for Teva. The addition of Actavis vastly broadens Teva's generic drug portfolio, with the company expected to launch 1,500 products globally in 2017. Being the leading generic-drug manufacturer in the world may also give Teva more clout with insurers when it comes to drug pricing, which could help its margins. Furthermore, the combination should result in ample cost savings. By 2019, Teva expects to realize $1.4 billion in cost synergies from its Actavis deal.</p>
<p>Teva has also done wonders with Copaxone. It wound up tying up the launch of generic versions of Copaxone through legal means, while at the same time reformulating Copaxone to be used three times a week as opposed to injected every day with its original formulation. By doing this Teva should be able to retain a good number of its core customers and physicians since the new reformulation is more convenient for the patient. In other words, generic Copaxone entrants aren't a big concern anymore.</p>
<p>Even Teva's earnings warning can be taken with a grain of salt. Though some of its launches were delayed, and sales were softer than expected, at no point did Teva suggest it was because of competition. Teva's management merely guided Wall Street to expect a ramp up in sales in 2017/2018 as opposed to 2016/2017. Not a big deal if you're a long-term investor.</p>
<p>With a 3%+ dividend yield and single-digit forward P/E, Teva looks to be an attractive large-cap stock to consider in 2017.</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=c9a5e4e4-6c23-4c1e-a9f5-ef55e56d2d7b&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>
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<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of Nov. 7, 2016</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFUltraLong/info.aspx" type="external">Sean Williams Opens a New Window.</a>owns shares of Bank of America and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, but has no material interest in any other companies mentioned in this article. You can follow him on CAPS under the screen name <a href="http://caps.fool.com/player/tmfultralong.aspx" 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>.</p>
<p>The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Ford. It also recommends General Motors and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=isiedilnk018048&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/motley.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | 3 Large-Cap Stocks Worth Buying in 2017 | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/12/19/3-large-cap-stocks-worth-buying-in-2017.html | 2016-12-19 | 0 |
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<p>During an interview on the FOX Business Network’s Varney &amp; Co., former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft defended President Trump’s decision to fire Acting Attorney General Sally Yates Monday night.</p>
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<p>“If a private lawyer abandons his client and doesn’t resign, the private lawyer is subject to discipline by the bar. And, here is a public lawyer whose client is the United States of America, who has the best judgment of the Justice Department, the office of legal counsel, saying this is perfectly good stuff – it’s legal, it’s constitutional,” said Ashcroft. “And she decides she’s going to abandon the side of the United States in the courts, and not to resign. I think the President of the United States did the right thing in quote, resigning for her.”</p>
<p>Yates refused to advise the Justice Department to enforce Trump’s executive order, which temporarily bans travelers from seven Muslim majority countries for 90 days and halts the admission of refugees for 120 days until the Trump administration can rework the vetting process.</p>
<p>Trump’s stance on immigration has sparked controversy and protests nationwide, even forcing former President Obama to weigh in, who claimed “American values are at stake.”</p>
<p>Ashcroft argues, however, there that there is nothing unconstitutional about Trump’s decision, and in fact, “it conforms with the legislation that has been acted on by a variety of presidents.”</p>
<p>He went on to add that Trump’s decision to fire Yates, instead of waiting for Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) to assume the role of Attorney General in a few short days, “indicates that President Trump is not going to be diverted by dereliction of duty.”</p>
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<p>Ashcroft continued, “The President is on the soundest footing possible in this setting, and he deserves the support of his Justice Department.”</p> | Fmr. AG John Ashcroft: Trump is Right to Fire Yates | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2017/01/31/fmr-ag-john-ashcroft-trump-is-right-to-fire-yates.html | 2017-01-31 | 0 |
<p>MARQUETTE, Mich. (AP) — An art project in northwest Michigan is encouraging people to be creative for 100 consecutive days.</p>
<p>The 100DayProject is running in Marquette until April 30, <a href="http://www.miningjournal.net/news/front-page-news/2018/01/100-days-of-creativity/" type="external">The Mining Journal of Marquette</a> reported. It’s the project’s fifth year in the city. This year’s theme is “Mirrored Light.”</p>
<p>Catherine Benda of Houghton and Marquette ceramist Ann Russ are spearheading the project.</p>
<p>“The 100DayProjects really give us that permission to play and explore and experiment for an extended period of time, and how often do we give (ourselves) that gift?” Russ asked.</p>
<p>The theme can be interpreted literally, symbolically or metaphorically, Russ said.</p>
<p>“The theme is strictly optional,” Russ said. “It’s up to you if you want to use it or not. It’s for those people who want a bit of a nudge.”</p>
<p>Participating artists shouldn’t focus on creating perfect art, Russ said. Instead they should view the 100 day project as a “creativity excavation” and something that can be developed overtime with practice, she said.</p>
<p>“It stimulates our imagination,” Russ said. “Creativity helps us make better decisions.”</p>
<p>Kim Danielson doesn’t have any formal art experience, but is participating in the project this year. While she didn’t have time in the past to take part in the exercise, Danielson said she wants to explore her creative side following her recent retirement.</p>
<p>“I’m hoping to nurture that part of me and develop a routine where I can explore that on a daily basis,” Danielson said.</p>
<p>The Marquette Artist Collective is partnering with the project this year and will display artwork from participants in an October exhibit at the Peter White Public Library.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Mining Journal, <a href="http://www.miningjournal.net" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.miningjournal.net" type="external">http://www.miningjournal.net</a></p>
<p>MARQUETTE, Mich. (AP) — An art project in northwest Michigan is encouraging people to be creative for 100 consecutive days.</p>
<p>The 100DayProject is running in Marquette until April 30, <a href="http://www.miningjournal.net/news/front-page-news/2018/01/100-days-of-creativity/" type="external">The Mining Journal of Marquette</a> reported. It’s the project’s fifth year in the city. This year’s theme is “Mirrored Light.”</p>
<p>Catherine Benda of Houghton and Marquette ceramist Ann Russ are spearheading the project.</p>
<p>“The 100DayProjects really give us that permission to play and explore and experiment for an extended period of time, and how often do we give (ourselves) that gift?” Russ asked.</p>
<p>The theme can be interpreted literally, symbolically or metaphorically, Russ said.</p>
<p>“The theme is strictly optional,” Russ said. “It’s up to you if you want to use it or not. It’s for those people who want a bit of a nudge.”</p>
<p>Participating artists shouldn’t focus on creating perfect art, Russ said. Instead they should view the 100 day project as a “creativity excavation” and something that can be developed overtime with practice, she said.</p>
<p>“It stimulates our imagination,” Russ said. “Creativity helps us make better decisions.”</p>
<p>Kim Danielson doesn’t have any formal art experience, but is participating in the project this year. While she didn’t have time in the past to take part in the exercise, Danielson said she wants to explore her creative side following her recent retirement.</p>
<p>“I’m hoping to nurture that part of me and develop a routine where I can explore that on a daily basis,” Danielson said.</p>
<p>The Marquette Artist Collective is partnering with the project this year and will display artwork from participants in an October exhibit at the Peter White Public Library.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Mining Journal, <a href="http://www.miningjournal.net" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.miningjournal.net" type="external">http://www.miningjournal.net</a></p> | Michigan project encourages creativity for 100 days | false | https://apnews.com/a0752c9dd32646ccbe4cb47efaa9158f | 2018-01-21 | 2 |
<p>Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on the investigation into the Russia collusion allegations and Attorney General Jeff Sessions considering a special counsel investigation into potential Clinton Foundation ties to the Uranium One deal.</p>
<p>Sen. Chuck Grassley chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told FOX Business’ “Mornings with Maria,” wherever there is political influence there is a responsibility to investigate.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Attorney General Jeff Sessions is calling on senior federal prosecutors to evaluate “certain issues” involving the Obama-era Uranium One deal and possible wrongdoing by the Clinton Foundation.</p>
<p>In a letter to Congress, first obtained by <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/11/13/justice-dept-won-t-rule-out-another-special-counsel-to-investigate-uranium-one-and-clinton.html" type="external">Fox News Opens a New Window.</a>, Sessions said he’s considering a second special counsel to investigate the FBI’s handling of the Clinton email probe.</p>
<p>“Wherever there is political influence it’s wrong, whether it’s under a Democrat president or under a Republican president, and we have a responsibility within the committee to investigate it.&#160;So that’s the way we have been pursuing both Trump and Russia, Uranium One and other things involving the previous administration,” Grassley, (R-Iowa), told Maria Bartiromo.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Sessions is set to testify on Tuesday over the alleged Russia interference in the 2016 presidential election. Grassley reaffirmed there’s no proof existing of collusion between Trump and Russia.</p>
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<p>“I can answer for the Justice Department just looking into this is a big step forward in regard to what special counsel Mueller’s doing—you won’t know until he gets done. And remember special counsels have wide jurisdiction and, quite frankly, if they are going to charge somebody as they’ve already done, and whether absolutely no evidence to this point of any collusion between Trump and Russia and that’s been going on for over a year, so I hope that special counsel Mueller will come to a point where he says there’s no ‘there, there,’” he said.</p> | Grassley: All political influence must be investigated | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2017/11/14/grassley-all-political-influence-must-be-investigated.html | 2017-11-14 | 0 |
<p>Networking used to be organic. You went to a gathering of like-minded people in your community, or to lunch with individuals the host thought might like to get to know each other. Now it's a job. Get to the right event. Meet the right people. Make that contact and follow up. And while there are plenty of stories of the ways people have wowed an executive with a memorable opening line or a particularly creative approach, there are far more networking fails than networking unicorns. There's a fine line between innovative and inappropriate.</p>
<p>Here's what&#160;not&#160;to say when networking.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The primary rule of thumb is "Be prepared. Be aware. Be wary." Know why you're going and the general purpose of the meet-up. Be alert to the people and the surroundings. Is everyone there in a suit and tie, talking about crunching numbers? Be wary of saying something that might be misconstrued, or is just idiotic. Listen first. Ask questions first. Don't spout off, before you know who you're talking to.</p>
<p>Never, ever trash your boss -- present or past. I don't care if your employers have been&#160; <a href="https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/quiz-what-kind-of-boss-are-you/" type="external">Frank Underwood and Miranda Priestly Opens a New Window.</a>. Just don't go there, even if you're asked. This is the time to play it safe. Lots of smiling and evading are called for. Often times you don't know who's asking you or why. And for goodness sake, don't bring it up yourself.</p>
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<p>Be careful about name dropping. Again, you may not know the other person's opinions or experiences with the name you're dropping. And this goes for name dropping well-known figures or just acquaintances. If unbeknownst to you, it's her ex-brother-in-law who got her into Exxon stock, she may not be too happy to hear about your close relationship.</p>
<p>Some over-eager&#160;job seekers&#160;wedge their college or grad school into all conversations, especially if it's a big logo institution. Be careful. People may be impressed. Or, they may be irritated, laugh at your expense or assume you're the pretentious person you appear to be. Modesty is a good policy when you are networking, at least until you get a sense of your room.</p>
<p>Politics and religions. EEEEH. You may want to steer clear of both of these until you get the lay of the land. Dumping on Obama at a Dem heavy event is obviously not too smart, but then neither is trashing Trump when you have no idea of someone's background or POV.</p>
<p>Religion is the same situation. Don't start conversations by making fun of an individual or a group's belief system. Humor at networking events can be filled with landmines. You just never know.</p>
<p>Don't use outdated, over-used and badly applied clichés. These are sure to get eye rolls:&#160;Think out of the box. Disruptor. Game-changer. Break down silos. I have the bandwidth. Push the envelope.</p>
<p>While speaking directly is important in business, being this direct is downright presumptuous and rude. When networking, it's risky to&#160;ask for a job&#160;from a new acquaintance. It's just as&#160;risky to request a reference, especially if you've just met the person. Networking should yield a mutually beneficial relationship, not an Aladdin and the genie arrangement. Your wish is not their command.</p>
<p>This article <a href="https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/never-say-when-networking/" type="external">originally appeared Opens a New Window.</a> on Glassdoor.com.</p>
<p>The $16,122 Social Security bonus most retirees completely overlook If you're like most Americans, you're a few years (or more) behind on your retirement savings. But a handful of little-known "Social Security secrets" could help ensure a boost in your retirement income. For example: one easy trick could pay you as much as $16,122 more... each year! Once you learn how to maximize your Social Security benefits, we think you could retire confidently with the peace of mind we're all after.&#160; <a href="http://www.fool.com/mms/mark/ecap-foolcom-social-security?aid=8727&amp;source=irreditxt0000002&amp;ftm_cam=ryr-ss-intro-report&amp;ftm_pit=3186&amp;ftm_veh=article_pitch&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=372f7870-c624-11e7-941f-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Simply click here to discover how to learn more about these strategies Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>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;referring_guid=372f7870-c624-11e7-941f-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | What to Never Say When Networking | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/11/11/what-to-never-say-when-networking.html | 2017-11-11 | 0 |
<p>In his alarmist, best-selling book, The Population Bomb (originally published in 1968), Paul Erlich predicted global disaster on account of overpopulation and mounting consumption. Increasing violent conflict would be one of the deadly results. The likelihood of war, he wrote, would grow “with each addition to the population, intensifying competition for dwindling resources and food.”</p>
<p>The post-Cold War era has seen a dramatic increase in the outbreak of wars. From the former Yugoslavia to the Congo, the former Zaire, from Rwanda to Indonesia, horrific violence has plagued numerous countries since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The question is, why? Might it be related to Erlich’s apocalyptic prognostications?</p>
<p>Researchers associated with Population Action International (PAI), a Washington, D.C.-based pro-family planning and policy advocacy group seem to think so. In a 100-page report released with great fanfare on December 17, they contend that there is a significant link between excessive population growth and violent civil conflict–deadly violence between national governments and non-state insurgents, or between different factions of a territorial state.</p>
<p>The authors emphasize, however, that it is not simply population growth that is the problem. It is the combination of disproportionately high numbers of young adults (between 15 and 29 years of age), rapid urbanization, and scarcities of cropland and water, which make conflict more likely.</p>
<p>At the same time, the PAI researchers are careful to note that “Demographic processes neither lead inevitably to, nor do they eliminate the risk of, civil conflict.” That said, they assert that countries in the later stages of the demographic transition –a shift from high population growth to low that typically takes place as countries evolve from “developing” to “developed”–are significantly less likely to experience violent civil conflict. This relationship, they argue, although not one of “direct causation,” is, nevertheless, “striking and consistent.”</p>
<p>In other words, population growth is, in the end, the principal source of the problem.</p>
<p>Part of the political agenda in publicizing the report, entitled “The Security Demographic,” is to encourage Western governments–especially that of the United States–to increase funding for family planning and programs that augment the status of women and girls. Although laudable in and of themselves, the objectives are based on faulty assumptions. As such, they lay the groundwork for dangerous “solutions” to the supposed problem of population growth in the name of reducing violent conflict.</p>
<p>A key, unspoken assumption of the authors is that nation-states are self-contained, and are thus uniquely responsible for their own successes and failures. The world, however, has always been one of connections–ones that transcend boundaries and that are typically profoundly unequal in terms of their effects. Indeed, the very making of the world political map and global economy–one in which tens of millions die annually from preventable malnutrition and disease due to unequal access to and distribution of resources–is, in large part, a result of Western imperialism. It is hardly a coincidence that the vast majority of the poverty-stricken countries that concern the authors as sites of current or potential future conflict are former colonies.</p>
<p>For such reasons, it is folly to try to comprehend the existence of geographic concentrations of poverty–or wealth for that matter–by analyzing factors only contained within those particular areas, just as it would be wrong to limit such an inquiry to a narrow time frame that ignored history. Poverty and wealth are the outcomes of processes that transcend narrow notions of history and geography. Similarly, it is too simple to make sharp distinctions between countries at war and those at peace, especially when the latter are often intimately involved in supporting in numerous ways direct protagonists in an armed conflict.</p>
<p>To state the obvious, one can only understand why a specific conflict occurs by comprehensively examining a complex array of factors, a key one being history. Although the PAI press release announcing the report’s release gushes that it “builds on 25 years of existing scholarly research and examines 180 countries,” a look at the report’s references reveals that the authors avoided any such thorough consideration. Apart from a single book on Sierra Leone and a handful of articles that focus on individual countries, the literature upon which they drew is devoid of in-depth analysis of the roots of any conflict. Instead, they relied largely on global or regional surveys of population trends, environmental matters, and war, as well as generalized development analyses. By uncritically embracing the totalizing framework of the demographic transition, the authors display a notion of history that suggests some sort of universal process-one size fits all. Thus, it is the interplay between the size of a population, its growth rate, and a fixed resource base that determine the likelihood of conflict, not the specific underlying phenomena or other myriad factors.</p>
<p>The shortcomings of such an approach are painfully evident if one analyzes any of the specific countries that concern the authors. Two of the twenty-five they identify as having “very high levels of demographic risk of civil conflict,” for example, are East Timor and occupied Palestine as both have high levels of population growth, rapidly increasing urbanization, and insufficient amounts of cropland and potable water. But it is nonsense to think that one can understand the presence of these phenomena without any sort of serious historical and political analysis, one that entails examining the systematic dispossession of the territories’ peoples and resource base by colonizing forces and their partners-in-crime from the “international community.” To the extent these areas risk “civil conflict,” limiting population growth–the key variable–would do little to nothing to reduce societal tensions.</p>
<p>As even the PAI authors contend, “demographically high-risk” countries have avoided mass violence through various mechanisms–ranging from land redistribution to encouraging out-migration. Thus, high population growth is not a causal factor. At best, it only seems to be an accompanying factor, the effects of which are far less clear than the report suggests.</p>
<p>Given the types of interventions discussed by the authors that have lessened tensions within particular territories, would it not make more sense to focus on combating endemic poverty, lessening socio-economic inequality within and between countries, and stifling the international arms trade? Or how about eliminating or, at least, greatly liberalizing immigration controls by wealthy countries so that the poor have greater opportunities to access resources (such as relatively high-paying jobs) that will allow them to break out of their poverty? Or, to address a specific “at-risk” area of the world, how about ending Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands and allowing Palestinians a just share of the area’s water resources?</p>
<p>Despite all their caveats and liberal pretensions, the PAI researchers have produced a dangerous and profoundly conservative report. Regardless of their intentions, the effect of their analysis and prescriptions is to reinforce an ugly global status quo–one in which there are huge and growing gaps between rich and poor. It is a socio-chasm that often corresponds to racial distinctions, what many have characterized as “global apartheid.”</p>
<p>The framing of their analysis in terms of demography focuses attention on mythical hyper-fertile Third World hordes, while obfuscating historical and contemporary factors that underlie poverty. As a result, the authors put forth an argument that is literally backward: Poverty and insecurity are not the result of too many people, as they suggest; rather, large numbers of people, and their urban concentrations are the result of historic impoverishment and insecurity, as well as misguided forms of development. Perhaps if the researchers had actually conducted on-the-ground research in the countries concerned, and spoken to some of the human beings that embody the supposed demographic high risk their conclusions would have been very different.</p>
<p>Backward analysis leads to misguided solutions. Hence, the report includes among its recommendations that military and intelligence analysts develop expertise in demographic matters. This is a recipe for disaster: Given the typical brutality of military establishments–especially in countries under occupation or authoritarian regimes, or in countries with ethnically different populations deemed undesirable by ruling elites–one can imagine all sorts of ugly types of interventions to combat “demographic threats.”</p>
<p>In mid-December, for example, Ha’aretz, an Israeli newspaper, reported that Dr. Yitzhak Ravid, a senior researcher at the Israeli government’s Armaments Development Authority, had called upon the state to “implement a stringent policy of family planning in relation to its Muslim population.” Explaining why there was a need for such a policy, he continued: “the delivery rooms in Soroka Hospital in Be’ersheba have turned into a factory for the production of a backward population.”</p>
<p>There is nothing in the PAI report to suggest that its authors would endorse such practices. To the contrary, they emphasize voluntary measures. But in advocating military involvement in population control, the authors open the door to unsavory characters and institutions. And by pointing the finger of blame at the poor and those at the margins of economic power, people who have little control over the forces shaping their lives, while failing to call for redistribution of wealth and control of and access to resources, the PAI team shields and serves the interests of the rich and powerful. It is this latter group (numerically small on a global scale) that consumes the majority of the world’s resources, while working to maintain an international political economy that denies the global majority a fair share of the planet’s wealth.</p>
<p>This is what needs to be challenged.</p>
<p>Joshua Muldavin is the Henry R. Luce Professor in Asian Studies and Human Geography at Sarah Lawrence College.</p>
<p>Joseph Nevins is an assistant professor of geography at Vassar College, and the author of Operation Gatekeeper: The Rise of the “Illegal Alien” and the Making of the U.S.-Mexico Boundary.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Population International on Violent Conflict | true | https://counterpunch.org/2004/01/17/population-international-on-violent-conflict/ | 2004-01-17 | 4 |
<p>Grizzly Bear hunting salmon at Katmai National Park, Alaska.Credit: &lt;a href="http://www.daphoto.info/"&gt;Dmitry Azovtsev&lt;/a&gt; via &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Grizzly_Bear_Fishing_Brooks_Falls.jpg"&gt;Wikimedia Commons&lt;/a&gt;.</p>
<p>On this day 38 years ago Richard Nixon signed into law the <a href="http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/laws/esa/text.htm" type="external">Endangered Species Act</a> (ESA), a landmark moment in human development when we formally recognized that animals and plants—imperiled as “a consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation”—deserved to survive… and need our protection in order to survive.</p>
<p>The ESA has been embattled since its birth. But so is every advance in human thinking that expands the rights and humane treatment of nonhuman others.</p>
<p>Currently, there are ~ <a href="http://ecos.fws.gov/tess_public/TESSBoxscore" type="external">1,990 species</a> listed under the ESA. Some 1,380 of these inhabit the US and its waters. The rest are foreign species.</p>
<p>Here’s a list of some species whose populations have grown since getting their ESA listing (HT <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endangered_Species_Act" type="external">Wikipedia</a>):</p>
<p>There are a lot of unsung heroes behind the reversals of fortune embodied in this list. Thanks to all of you.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p><a href="http://vimeo.com/8426920" type="external">RARE</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/joelsartore" type="external">Joel Sartore</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com" type="external">Vimeo</a>.</p> | Happy Birthday Endangered Species Act! | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2011/12/happy-birthday-endangered-species-act/ | 2011-12-28 | 4 |
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<p>Paul Graver, the new director of the Albuquerque International Balloon Museum, plans to see it concentrate on technology. (Jim Thompson/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>The new director of Albuquerque's balloon museum is afraid of heights.</p>
<p>Although he is grounded in a career's worth of museum experience, Paul Garver has never ridden in a balloon.</p>
<p>"I think the pilots are lining up to give me my first flight," he said with a laugh.</p>
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<p>In early October, the Albuquerque International Balloon Museum will launch a yearlong 10th anniversary celebration with Garver at the helm.</p>
<p>The director of museum services of the Washington, D.C.-based U.S. Holocaust Museum for 11 years, Garver now lives in Albuquerque. He's worked as a contractor/consultant to the Holocaust Museum for five years. He moved to New Mexico to help care for his aging parents. Both his brother and sister live here.</p>
<p>Garver's museum career began in 1985 when he began working in visitor services at an art museum while he attended California State University in Fullerton.</p>
<p>He grew up in Southern California, heading to museums in both Los Angeles and San Diego on field trips and with his family.</p>
<p>"I was enthralled," he said. "I loved the history and science and historic sites."</p>
<p>Post-college, he worked for the city of Fullerton as a special events and facility coordinator at the Fullerton Museum Center, later taking a job as cultural arts supervisor for the city of Chino before moving to Washington, D.C.</p>
<p>Garver wants to brand the balloon museum as a nexus of technology and science. By mid-December, he'll open a weather lab designed to give visitors an immersive, interactive experience.</p>
<p>"There is a wind wall that will be tactile and you'll be able to tell and sense different wind speeds," he said.</p>
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<p>Additional exhibits will focus on the sun, the clouds, storms and Albuquerque's famous box, a weather phenomenon where the lowest winds move in one direction, while the higher winds blow in another.</p>
<p>Sometime this fall, Albuquerque will be home to a 4-D theater screening both locally produced and acquired ballooning films.</p>
<p>"The fourth dimension is physical sensation," Garver said. "You'll feel movement; you may feel a spritz of water."</p>
<p>Sometime in February, visitors will see an exhibition about a 19th-century ballooning expedition to the Arctic. The show will include a late-19th-century balloon house.</p>
<p>Misconceptions about the museum abound, Garver said.</p>
<p>"We are not a museum about the balloon fiesta," he explained. "We're open year-round and our scope is broader."</p>
<p>To differentiate itself from Albuquerque's Museum of Natural History, the balloon museum will concentrate on science, technology, engineering and math, Garver said.</p>
<p>"Ballooning is transformational," he continued. "Ballooning is a gateway to experience science and discovery. Ballooning builds community."</p>
<p /> | New director seeks to brand Albuquerque's balloon museum as a nexus of technology and science | false | https://abqjournal.com/629065/new-director-seeks-to-brand-albuquerques-balloon-museum-as-a-nexus-of-technology-and-science.html | 2 |
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<p>Herman Cain told his staff this morning that he is “reassessing” his presidential candidacy, in a conference call, according to <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/284321/breaking-cain-reassessing-candidacy-robert-costa" type="external">a report at the National Review</a>. Cain last night claimed that <a href="" type="internal">new allegations that he had a 13-year long affair</a> with an Atlanta businesswoman,&#160;Ginger White, are false.</p>
<p>Cain has also been accused by four women of sexual harassment and/​or sexual assault.</p>
<p>One of the sexual harassment/assault victim’s lawyer, Gloria Allred, said Ginger White is the fifth woman Cain has called a liar.</p>
<p>One of the comments on the National Review post stated:</p>
<p>Wait, are we still pretending that this is all a liberal/media conspiracy? I’m confused.</p>
<p>The Tea Party confuses me. For people with such great gut instincts about the role of government, they choose to get behind some awful candidates.</p>
<p>Indeed.</p>
<p>Tagged as: <a href="" type="internal">affair</a>, <a href="" type="internal">allegations</a>, <a href="" type="internal">ginger white</a>, <a href="" type="internal">gop 2012</a>, <a href="" type="internal">herman cain</a>, <a href="" type="internal">presidential nomination</a>, <a href="" type="internal">republican party</a>, <a href="" type="internal">sexual harassment</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Tea Party</a></p>
<p>Friends:</p>
<p>We invite you to <a href="http://visitor.r20.constantcontact.com/manage/optin?v=001whLQo73KzGhEjdskYG07rHNy_XoDDkSBBO4INZHx6oD9kfp2yeeQAJeMQUu9oTviZa0VEl5k0rNiLifxlZsOFScMz8rVGmIaN-FFOO3GTKc%3D" type="external">sign up for our new mailing list</a>, and&#160; <a href="http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=TheNewCivilRightsMovement&amp;amp;loc=en_US" type="external">subscribe to The New Civil Rights Movement via email</a> or <a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/thenewcivilrightsmovement" type="external">RSS</a>.</p>
<p>Also, please&#160; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-New-Civil-Rights-Movement/358168880614" type="external">like us on Facebook</a>, and <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/gaycivilrights" type="external">follow us on Twitter</a>!</p> | Herman Cain Tells Staff He Is “Reassessing” His Presidential Candidacy | true | http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/herman-cain-tells-staff-he-is-reassessing-his-presidential-candidacy/politics/2011/11/29/30916 | 2011-11-29 | 4 |
<p>The US Air Force is set to test-launch a Minuteman III missile, just days after North Korea fired its latest ICBM into the Sea of Japan (also called the East Sea). The US missile, carrying no warhead, is expected to hit a mock target on a Pacific atoll.</p>
<p>An unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is scheduled to lift-off between 12:01am and 6:01am local time from the US Air Force North Vandenberg base situated some 210km (130 miles) northwest of Los Angeles, AP reported.</p>
<p>Read more</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/397879-north-korea-missile-launch-icbm/" type="external" /></p>
<p>The launch is said to “validate and verify the effectiveness, readiness, and accuracy of the weapon system,” according to Colonel Michael Hough, commander of Air Force Global Strike Command’s 30th Air Wing.</p>
<p>“Team V is postured to work with Air Force Global Strike Command to test launch the Minuteman III missile,” Hough said in a statement. “Our long history in partnering with the men and women of the 576th Flight Test Squadron shows that the Western Range stands ready and able to create a safe launch environment.”</p>
<p>This will be the fourth Minuteman ICBM launched from the Vandenberg base this year. The first 2017 test took place in February, involving a Minuteman III that traveled to the Marshall Islands, carrying a non-explosive warhead. Another test was conducted by the Air Force on April 26. Days later, a third test missile launched from Vandenberg base.</p>
<p>The latest Minuteman launch happens days after North Korea test-fired a long-range projectile assessed by the US and South Korean militaries as an ICBM. The missile has been launched last Friday from an area in Mupyong-ni, traveling about 1,000km (621 miles) before landing into the Sea of Japan.</p>
<p>The move has drawn wide condemnation in the international community as the projectile may have crossed paths with commercial airliners flying through the area. Numerous media reports said an Air France flight 293, traveling from Tokyo to Paris on the day of the missile test with 323 people on board, passed through trajectory of the missile just 10 minutes before it plummeted from above.</p>
<p>The White House released a statement in response to the missile launch, saying, “North Korea’s test launch today of another intercontinental ballistic missile – the second such test in less than a month – is only the latest reckless and dangerous action by the North Korean regime.”</p>
<p>Earlier in July, Pyongyang claimed it conducted its first-ever launch of an ICBM, the Hwasong-14, which reportedly flew 933km in 39 minutes, reaching an altitude of 2,802km.</p>
<p>Read more</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/395321-north-korea-gifts-yankees/" type="external" /></p>
<p>Notably, the preceding Hwasong test occurred on July 4, specifically sending a message to the US as it celebrated Independence Day. Though the Pentagon said the missile was an ICBM, South Korea’s intelligence maintained that the reclusive state did not appear to be technologically capable of building intercontinental ballistic missiles or have testing facilities for them.</p>
<p>Russia also provided evidence indicating that the missile launch on July 4 was a test of an intermediate range rocket, much smaller in size and with lower capabilities than a conventional ICBM.</p>
<p>The Minuteman III is a silo-based ICBM, manufactured by <a href="http://www.boeing.com/defense/weapons/minuteman-iii/index.page#/gallery" type="external">Boeing</a>. It entered service with the US military in 1975 having an expected 10-year life span. In 1993, the corporation upgraded the missile’s avionics to extend its service life beyond 2020.</p> | USAF to test-fire Minuteman III missile days after N. Korean ICBM launch | false | https://newsline.com/usaf-to-test-fire-minuteman-iii-missile-days-after-n-korean-icbm-launch/ | 2017-08-02 | 1 |
<p>LAS VEGAS (AP) — Oddsmakers like the chances of Tom Brady winning a sixth Super Bowl ring, making the New England Patriots nearly a touchdown favorite to beat the Philadelphia Eagles.</p>
<p>Sports books around Las Vegas opened the Patriots around a 6-point favorite Sunday to win their second straight Super Bowl. They also made New England a big favorite to win the Super Bowl next year in Atlanta.</p>
<p>But the closest thing to a lock in this gambling city is that betting on this Super Bowl will smash the existing record of $138.5 million set just last year.</p>
<p>"Sports betting couldn't be more popular than it is now," said Jay Kornegay of the Westgate Las Vegas sports book. "That combined with the fan base of the Eagles and the strong economy will mean a record handle on this game."</p>
<p>Bookmakers posted their opening lines early in the fourth quarter of the Eagles-Vikings game, with lines ranging between 5 and 6 1/2 points. The over/under in most books for total points scored in the game was 48.</p>
<p>Bettors didn't take long to weigh in themselves, with one gambler taking the 6 points and putting a big bet on the Eagles at the South Point resort before their rout of the Minnesota Vikings was even over.</p>
<p>"Our first bet was $10,000 on the Eagles," said Jimmy Vaccaro, oddsmaker at the South Point.</p>
<p>Bettors jammed into sports books Sunday for the two conference championship games, with millions wagered in person and millions more bet on phone apps. Bookmakers had a good day, with most winning money on both games.</p>
<p>That shouldn't change in the Super Bowl, where bookmakers have turned a profit every time except the 2008 game when the New York Giants upset the previously unbeaten and 12-point favorite Patriots.</p>
<p>At the Westgate, Kornegay said the opening line of the Patriots minus-5.5 points was made knowing there would be money coming in from both the Eagles' rabid fan base and by bettors who simply have a dislike for the dominance of Brady and the Patriots.</p>
<p>"This is the only event where we make a line that depends on public opinion," Kornegay said. "There's so much more money from the public on this game than you would get from the so-called sharks. They come in here and they just don't want to root for the Patriots."</p>
<p>Unlike the games preceding it, a lot of the money on the Super Bowl comes from so-called "prop" bets that often crossover to other sports. Some of the bigger sports books will put up several hundred prop bets later this week that will include the coin flip and other possibilities that having nothing to do with the final score of the game.</p>
<p>"It's much easier to do lots of props with Brady," Vaccaro said. "Either you love him or you hate him. Half the people bet on him to see him win and half bet to see him lose."</p>
<p>One of the more popular prop bets is whether there will be a safety in the game, and Vaccaro said about $15,000 was wagered on either side of that prop even before the second game ended Sunday.</p>
<p>Oddsmakers at the William Hill chain also made the Patriots a 9-2 favorite to win next year's Super Bowl in Atlanta, followed by the Eagles at 17-2.</p>
<p>LAS VEGAS (AP) — Oddsmakers like the chances of Tom Brady winning a sixth Super Bowl ring, making the New England Patriots nearly a touchdown favorite to beat the Philadelphia Eagles.</p>
<p>Sports books around Las Vegas opened the Patriots around a 6-point favorite Sunday to win their second straight Super Bowl. They also made New England a big favorite to win the Super Bowl next year in Atlanta.</p>
<p>But the closest thing to a lock in this gambling city is that betting on this Super Bowl will smash the existing record of $138.5 million set just last year.</p>
<p>"Sports betting couldn't be more popular than it is now," said Jay Kornegay of the Westgate Las Vegas sports book. "That combined with the fan base of the Eagles and the strong economy will mean a record handle on this game."</p>
<p>Bookmakers posted their opening lines early in the fourth quarter of the Eagles-Vikings game, with lines ranging between 5 and 6 1/2 points. The over/under in most books for total points scored in the game was 48.</p>
<p>Bettors didn't take long to weigh in themselves, with one gambler taking the 6 points and putting a big bet on the Eagles at the South Point resort before their rout of the Minnesota Vikings was even over.</p>
<p>"Our first bet was $10,000 on the Eagles," said Jimmy Vaccaro, oddsmaker at the South Point.</p>
<p>Bettors jammed into sports books Sunday for the two conference championship games, with millions wagered in person and millions more bet on phone apps. Bookmakers had a good day, with most winning money on both games.</p>
<p>That shouldn't change in the Super Bowl, where bookmakers have turned a profit every time except the 2008 game when the New York Giants upset the previously unbeaten and 12-point favorite Patriots.</p>
<p>At the Westgate, Kornegay said the opening line of the Patriots minus-5.5 points was made knowing there would be money coming in from both the Eagles' rabid fan base and by bettors who simply have a dislike for the dominance of Brady and the Patriots.</p>
<p>"This is the only event where we make a line that depends on public opinion," Kornegay said. "There's so much more money from the public on this game than you would get from the so-called sharks. They come in here and they just don't want to root for the Patriots."</p>
<p>Unlike the games preceding it, a lot of the money on the Super Bowl comes from so-called "prop" bets that often crossover to other sports. Some of the bigger sports books will put up several hundred prop bets later this week that will include the coin flip and other possibilities that having nothing to do with the final score of the game.</p>
<p>"It's much easier to do lots of props with Brady," Vaccaro said. "Either you love him or you hate him. Half the people bet on him to see him win and half bet to see him lose."</p>
<p>One of the more popular prop bets is whether there will be a safety in the game, and Vaccaro said about $15,000 was wagered on either side of that prop even before the second game ended Sunday.</p>
<p>Oddsmakers at the William Hill chain also made the Patriots a 9-2 favorite to win next year's Super Bowl in Atlanta, followed by the Eagles at 17-2.</p> | Patriots favored by 5-6 points over Eagles in Super Bowl | false | https://apnews.com/amp/79e3985d696c4c559db9f6ad720b7683 | 2018-01-22 | 2 |
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<p>SANTA FE – Police in New Mexico can obtain search warrants over the telephone from a judge, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday.</p>
<p>Judges don’t have to see in writing the sworn statement from authorities that provides the probable cause for issuing a search warrant, the justices said in a unanimous decision.</p>
<p>The ruling came in a case involving Lester and Carol Boyse of Mesilla, who were sentenced in 2010 to five years’ probation after pleading no contest to more than 100 charges of animal cruelty.</p>
<p>Authorities searched the couple’s southern New Mexico property in 2008 and found about 100 cats inside their home, including four dead cats in a freezer.</p>
<p>The state District Court in Las Cruces rejected a request by the couple to exclude any evidence seized in the search. They contended the state constitution requires a “written showing” of probable cause to obtain a warrant.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The Court of Appeals agreed with the couple, ruling in 2011 that telephonic search warrants aren’t permitted.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court reversed the decision, saying the law allows for the showing of probable cause for a search warrant when there is “a presentation or statement of facts that can be made through audible or other sensory means as well as through visual means.”</p>
<p>In the Boyse case, an officer of the Mesilla Marshal’s Department finished preparing a written affidavit for the search warrant application after a court was closed. But the sworn statement was read over the telephone to a magistrate judge, who then approved the warrant.</p>
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<p /> | Court: OK to get search warrant by phone | false | https://abqjournal.com/209031/court-ok-to-get-search-warrant-by-phone.html | 2013-06-11 | 2 |
<p>Town Danceboutique (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)</p>
<p>By Dorgham Abusalim</p>
<p>On Saturday, Nov. 7, Town Danceboutique, D.C.’s destination gay dance club, featured an event called Tel Aviv Vibe with Israeli DJ Erez Ben Ishay and drag performer Osher Sebbag.</p>
<p>When I first heard about the event through <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/806282792830840/" type="external">Facbeook</a>, I was excited at the prospect of going to celebrate global equality and human rights. It isn’t often that D.C.’s gay nightlife features international faces.</p>
<p>Besides good tunes and the lively atmosphere Town has to offer, I noticed something unusual. Step-up posters and a table of giveaways that promoted EL AL, Israel’s airline, bearing the words: “It’s not just an airline, it’s Israel.” As the night went on, I began to wonder, why EL AL? How is it related to the event?</p>
<p>After some digging, I learned that two officials of the Israeli embassy in Washington were present and promoted the event on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/search/str/tlvibe%2Btown/stories-keyword/stories-live" type="external">social media</a>: <a href="http://www.brown.edu/academics/judaic-studies/news/2015-06/alumni-news-evan-pelz-11-and-sophie-felder-married-may-31-2015" type="external">Sophie Felder</a>, director of regional affairs, and colleague <a href="https://www.facebook.com/glintdc/posts/799902270079837" type="external">Zafrir Nesher-Kazaz</a>.</p>
<p>It wasn’t surprising then that a question kept nagging at me: Did I partake in pinkwashing?</p>
<p>Pinkwashing: a portmanteau compound word of the words pink and whitewashing. In the context of LGBT rights, it is used to describe a variety of marketing and political strategies aimed at promoting a product or an entity through an appeal to queer-friendliness, primarily by political or social activists.</p>
<p>In the context of Israeli-Palestinian affairs, pinkwashing highlights Israel’s branding efforts abroad at a time human rights violations it commits against Palestinians are increasingly visible. The Tel Aviv Vibe campaign dates back to 2010, when Israel’s Ministry of Tourism, the Tel Aviv Tourism Board, and Agudah, an Israeli LGBT organization, set out to brand the city as the world’s gay capital.</p>
<p>Controversy surrounding LGBT issues in this context persist. For instance, as Philip Weiss, founder and co-editor of Mondoweiss, highlights in a 2014 article, Israel has repeatedly used knowledge of sexual orientation of Palestinians, among other private information, to blackmail them into becoming informants —&#160;that is to forcefully make them to take part in a violent conflict contrary to their well-being and beliefs.</p>
<p>The issue here is not only the use of sexual orientation as a tool of extortion, but also the assumption that one can paint Palestinian society with a single brush as unfriendly and homophobic, standing in stark contrast to Israel’s promoted tolerance. As with every society around the world, including Israel’s own outside the confines of the Tel Aviv bubble, human sexuality is always a hot-button issue, spanning a wide range of complex and diverse opinions. Such was the case in Palestine when the SCOTUS marriage equality decision was delivered according to&#160;Khaled Jarrar, a Palestinian artist whose “ <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/why-i-painted-rainbow-flag-israels-apartheid-wall/14660" type="external">Through the Spectrum</a>” rainbow mural on Israel’s illegally built wall in Palestine raised eyebrows.</p>
<p>Events like the Tel Aviv Vibe at Town suggest a lack of a much needed understanding of these dynamics, <a href="http://www.alqaws.org/siteEn/index/language/en" type="external">Palestinian</a> LGBT issues and the role of Israeli branding efforts that maintain a false and misguided image of Palestinian society, especially at a time civil rights alliances are growing between Americans and Palestinians. Indeed, while Palestine is not free of homophobia, any effort to advance human rights and LGBT protections must begin with the recognition of Israel’s abuse of the difficult reality LGBT Palestinians face — being stuck between a rock (the occupation) and a hard place (a society that de-prioritizes sexual matters).</p>
<p />
<p>Dorgham Abusalim recently graduated with a master’s in International Affairs from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland. He is originally from Palestine and writes frequently on Israeli-Palestinian affairs in&#160;English&#160;and Arabic.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Agudah</a> <a href="" type="internal">DJ Erez Ben Ishay</a> <a href="" type="internal">El AL</a> <a href="" type="internal">Israel</a> <a href="" type="internal">Khaled Jarrar</a> <a href="" type="internal">Mondoweiss</a> <a href="" type="internal">Osher Sebbag</a> <a href="" type="internal">Philip Weiss</a> <a href="" type="internal">pinkwashing</a> <a href="" type="internal">Sophie Felder</a> <a href="" type="internal">Tel Aviv</a> <a href="" type="internal">Tel Aviv Vibe</a> <a href="" type="internal">Town Danceboutique</a> <a href="" type="internal">Zafrir Nesher-Kazaz</a></p> | Pinkwashing at Town Danceboutique? | false | http://washingtonblade.com/2015/11/13/pinkwashing-at-town-danceboutique/ | 3 |
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<p>TV producers in the Czech Republic have been criticized over a history-themed reality show featuring a family trying to live in the era of Nazi occupation.</p>
<p>Actors playing the role of German soldiers and Gestapo informers will feature in “Holiday in the Protectorate,” a show that will attempt to recreate 1939 household life in the puppet state set up by Hitler's advancing Third Reich.</p>
<p>On a farm fitted out with furniture from 76 years ago, the family will have to deal with everything from “milking cows to interrogation by the Gestapo,” according to the show’s <a href="http://www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/10871520054-dovolena-v-protektoratu-vitejte-v-pekle/" type="external">website</a>.</p>
<p>They will also have to cope with food shortages and intimidation by German soldiers.</p>
<p>The show, which airs from Saturday, has already been vociferously attacked.</p>
<p>“What’s next? Big Brother Auschwitz?” wrote one infuriated viewer in the Czech Republic, where the state broadcaster is funded by a mandatory license fee for TV owners.</p>
<p>Another called the show "a perversion,” saying it was "an insult to those who really suffered through [World War Two].”</p>
<p>The show’s creator, Zora Cejnkova, has defended the program, telling the Czech newspaper <a href="http://www.blesk.cz/clanek/celebrity-serialy-a-reality-show/319185/reality-show-dovolena-v-protektoratu-se-vysmivaji-divaci-driv-nez-zacali-vysilat.html" type="external">Blest</a>: "The entire production team is aware of the controversy about returning to such a precarious period,”</p>
<p>By “maintaining specific ethical rules and historical accuracy,” she said it was an appropriate way of presenting the period.”</p> | Czech TV Reality Show Criticized for Recreating Nazi Occupation | false | http://nbcnews.com/news/world/czech-reality-show-slammed-recreating-nazi-rule-n363206 | 2015-05-22 | 3 |
<p />
<p>Investors have been optimistic about Philip Morris International (NYSE: PM) lately, believing that the tobacco giant would be able to balance its hopes for a future in which reduced-risk products replace traditional cigarettes with the harsh reality of needing to rely on cigarette sales for years to come. The stock has reflected hopes that an end to the U.S. dollar's advance might finally let earnings grow more dependably, and coming into Thursday's first-quarter financial report, Philip Morris investors wanted further signs of solid performance on the top and bottom lines.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Philip Morris wasn't able to give investors that level of reassurance, as cigarette shipments were unexpectedly weak. Despite promising signs about the company's long-term future, few shareholders were happy with Philip Morris' current situation. Let's look more closely at Philip Morris International to see how it did and why many are nervous about the tobacco giant.</p>
<p>Image source: Philip Morris International.</p>
<p>Philip Morris International's first-quarter results didn't inspire a huge amount of confidence among shareholders. Revenue net of excise tax was down a fraction of a percentage point to $6.06 billion, which was far worse than the roughly 6% growth in the top line that most investors were looking to see. Net income fared a bit better, climbing 4% to $1.59 billion. But after making allowances for some one-time tax items, adjusted earnings of $0.98 per share were flat from last year's first quarter and fell $0.04 per share short of the consensus forecast among those following the tobacco stock.</p>
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<p>The scariest number in the whole report came from shipment volumes of traditional cigarettes. Philip Morris suffered an 11.5% decline in cigarette shipments to 173.6 billion units. The company saw huge drops across all of its major regions.</p>
<p>More broadly, weakness across Philip Morris' business was unusually uniform. Net revenue from combustible products dropped almost 7%, and all four of the company's geographical regions were within a few of percentage points of that figure. Asia fared the best with a 4% drop in revenue, maintaining its position as the largest sales producer among Philip Morris' four regions. Europe was unusually weak, with the Eastern Europe segment faring a bit worse than the European Union. Currency impacts also hit the company in Europe, even though it helped Philip Morris in Asia. Performance in Latin America and Canada was fairly close to the overall company total.</p>
<p>The best news in the quarterly release came on the reduced-risk product front. Revenue rose nearly eightfold to $435 million, with Asia dominating the scene and producing more than 90% of Philip Morris' overall reduced-risk sales. Sales volume of heated tobacco units was up almost tenfold to 4.4 billion units.</p>
<p>CEO Andre Calantzopoulos tried to put the company's weakness into a broader context. "Our results were in line with our previously communicated expectation of a relatively weak first quarter," Calantzopoulos said, because of "lower cigarette volume -- primarily related to low-price brands in specific markets where the impact on our profitability was limited -- and certain timing factors." The CEO also highlighted the success of the iQOS heated tobacco product, noting that 1.8 million consumers have made the switch away from regular cigarettes.</p>
<p>More importantly, Philip Morris doesn't see the quarter's weakness affecting its full-year results. In fact, the company actually increased its earnings projections for 2017, now expecting bottom-line figures between $4.84 and $4.99 per share. However, Philip Morris was careful to note that the upward movement was due solely to a tax-related item and not from fundamental business performance.</p>
<p>Philip Morris shareholders were nervous about the news, and that's a big part of why the stock fell nearly 4% during the trading session following the morning announcement. Philip Morris has the ability to bounce back from a sluggish quarter, and the disappearance of currency-related impacts to its bottom line was welcome. But to succeed, the tobacco giant can't afford to give up entirely on cigarettes just yet.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Philip Morris InternationalWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*</p>
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<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of April 3, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFGalagan/info.aspx" type="external">Dan Caplinger Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Plunging Cigarette Shipments Hurt Philip Morris International | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/04/20/plunging-cigarette-shipments-hurt-philip-morris-international.html | 2017-04-20 | 0 |
<p>How many more will they get rid of to atone to their audience? Dick Morris and many of his cohorts at Fox News kept lying to their audience even as most polls showed President Obama with a definitive lead. There is no doubt that they all knew who Nate Silver is and what his projections were, based not on one poll, but on many polls.</p>
<p>It was reported a couple of hours ago that Fox News will not renew Dick Morris’ contract. During the election Dick Morris was a fixture on Fox News providing the constant drumbeat of a Mitt Romney victory. He said Mitt Romney would win by a landslide over and over again.</p>
<p>In the video below Greta van Susteren gave Morris the opportunity to right himself. Instead he dug deeper. He said even as the polls had President Obama up, he read those same polls and came out with a different conclusion. He said the party percentages were wrong as well as the voter turnout model. It is not difficult to see why the Fox News viewers, <a href="" type="internal">viewers that have been polled and shown to be the least informed</a>, were so gullible and taken. The bravado and surety with which he spoke was intoxicating.</p>
<p />
<p>Fox News had an orchestrated effort to deceive, including giving Dean Chambers of UnskewedPolls.com plausibility, even as it disagreed with Fox News’ own polls. They gave their audience hope where there was none.</p>
<p>Last week <a href="" type="internal">Fox News also dumped Sara Palin</a>. They may believe that throwing two of their most well known charlatans would restore their credibility to their viewers. Unfortunately one of their most prolific mis-informers remains, Sean Hannity. A dismissal of Hannity will likely be the only action that would lead the more skeptic Fox News viewer to return with the expectation of some semblance of news.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/EgbertoWilliescom/181893712536" type="external">LIKE My Facebook Page</a></p> | Fox News Attempt At Credibility?– No More Dick Morris – C’est la vie Sarah Palin (VIDEO) | true | http://egbertowillies.com/2013/02/05/fox-news-attempt-at-credibility-no-more-dick-morriscest-la-vie-sarah-palin-video/ | 2013-02-05 | 4 |
<p>WASHINGTON—A new analysis by the Harvard Business School outlines why U.S. voters are so frustrated with their political leaders: There is a lack of genuine competition between Republicans and Democrats to deliver actual results on major policies such as education, health care, taxes and infrastructure.</p>
<p>The two major U.S. political parties have distorted the rules of elections and the legislative process to avoid competing directly with each other, according to <a href="http://www.hbs.edu/competitiveness/Documents/why-competition-in-the-politics-industry-is-failing-america.pdf" type="external">the analysis</a> released Wednesday.</p>
<p>This has created a political leadership that increasingly emphasizes differences rather than common goals, while focusing more on the interests of donors, special interests and primary voters than the country as a whole. If the competition was healthy between the parties, the analysis said, political leaders and policymakers would be competing to deliver better outcomes for voters and also be held accountable for any results.</p>
<p>“The political system is now America’s most fundamental weakness and it used to be one of our greatest strengths,” said Michael Porter, a Harvard professor and economist who co-authored the analysis. “The system is designed not to collaborate, not to find common ground.”</p>
<p />
<p>The findings build on previous surveys and reports by Harvard Business School on declining U.S. competitiveness compared to much of the world. The political system, infrastructure, taxes, health care and education were each identified as weaknesses for the U.S. economy that are worsening.</p>
<p>Academic research has shown that the broader U.S. economy is becoming less competitive, with profitable companies becoming less likely to make new investments and a decline in the rate of entrepreneurs forming new companies. But the Harvard analysis suggests that government dysfunction helps to explain why many Americans and business leaders feel that the United States is slipping.</p>
<p>Multiple surveys show a level of voter dissatisfaction with the status quo. Congress holds an <a href="http://news.gallup.com/poll/218984/congress-approval-remains-september.aspx" type="external">approval rating of just 16 percent</a>, according to survey data released Wednesday by the Gallup Organization. The House and Senate received equally abysmal ratings from Republicans, Democrats and unaffiliated voters. Several surveys show that the majority of Americans disapprove of President Donald Trump.</p>
<p>Some voters in 2016 elected Trump on the hopes that he would break the dominant grip of both political parties. But after a series of bold promises, his administration has struggled to move any major bills through Congress that would meaningfully help the business environment in the long-term. Both Porter and his co-author Katherine Gehl, the former head of Gehl Foods and a political activist, said that Trump’s election did little to create a healthier competition among political leaders.</p>
<p>The analysis includes recommendations to change the election process so that states have a single primary ballot and allow the top four vote-getters to then participate in the general election, as well as redistricting to prevent candidates from gerrymandering, rewriting campaign finance rules and starting a commission to develop new rules for legislatures.</p> | Harvard Study: U.S. Government Is Its Own Worst Enemy | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/harvard-business-school-study-u-s-government-worst-enemy/ | 2017-09-18 | 4 |
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<p>After several mostly dreary weeks of football, finally we had our first swing weekend of the season. My latest Class 6A football projections feature some serious movement up and down the top 12 after a weekend in which so many contenders squared off against one another.</p>
<p>Clearly, Alamogordo's statement win over Mayfield was the one that caught everyone's eye, including mine. Biggest regular-season win in about a decade for the Tigers, who I jumped from No. 7 to No. 2 behind Cleveland. I was waiting to see about Alamogordo against someone decent before I committed, but the Tigers have earned the raise.</p>
<p>Las Cruces and Mayfield round out the top 4; the Bulldawgs have won back-to-back close games against Volcano Vista and Rio Rancho, so high marks for that. I only bumped the Trojans from No. 2 to No. 4, as it seemed too penal to drop them any further.</p>
<p>My next two were tough, and the same from last week. Eldorado is 4-0, and the Eagles were a bit choppy in their win over Volcano Vista. This is easily the most controversial of my 12 picks this week, but there remain some chances for additional changes next week, what with Eldorado playing Mayfield and Clovis visiting Rio Rancho. As I've said, this thing will continue to be in flux until district play starts, at which time we'll gain some more clarity.</p>
<p>Volcano Vista falls to seventh after consecutive losses, and Sandia is in the top eight for the first time following a third straight decisive victory. Although Rio Rancho lost a close game at Las Cruces, the Rams are up a spot, from 10th to No. 9.</p>
<p>Hobbs, Cibola and newcomer La Cueva round out the top 12. Remember, no teams from District 5-6A. Sadly for La Cueva, the Bears appear to be the bubble team most likely to miss the playoffs at this point. La Cueva meets Valley next week. Just thinking out loud here, but wouldn't it be interesting if the Bears won that game, and then Valley came back to win its district?</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Here is my latest top 12. Follow me on Twitter ( <a href="https://twitter.com/jamesdyodice" type="external">@JamesDYodice</a>) or email me at [email protected].</p>
<p>(record; last week's ranking)</p>
<p>1. Cleveland (4-0; LW: 1) 2. Alamogordo (4-0; LW: 7) 3. Las Cruces (3-1; LW: 3) 4. Mayfield (3-1; LW: 2) 5. Clovis (3-1; LW: 5) 6. Eldorado (4-0; LW: 6) 7. Volcano Vista (2-2; LW: 4) 8. Sandia (3-1; LW: 9) 9. Rio Rancho (2-2: LW: 10) 10. Hobbs (2-2; LW: 8) 11. Cibola (3-1; LW: 11) 12. La Cueva (1-3; LW: unranked) FIRST TEAM OUT: Deming TEAMS THAT COULD BE KNOCKING SOON: Manzano</p>
<p>That leaves us the following first-round matchups: - La Cueva at Clovis (winner to face Mayfield) - Cibola at Eldorado (winner to face Las Cruces) - Hobbs at Volcano Vista (winner to face Alamogordo) - Rio Rancho at Sandia (winner to face Cleveland)</p>
<p>See you next Sunday! - JY</p> | Yode's Baker's Dozen (Week 4): Weekly 6A football projections | false | https://abqjournal.com/647162/yodes-bakers-dozen-week-4-weekly-6a-football-projections.html | 2 |
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<p>A recent article in the Chicago Tribune detailed the experiences of one of a growing number of black women who obtained a concealed carry permit in Chicago. The article is surprisingly positive about her experiences. An important point is that minority women make up a significant percentage of the growth in concealed carry permits nationwide.&#160; <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-black-female-gun-owners-chicago-20170831-story.html" type="external">From chicagotribune.com</a>:</p>
<p>Robinzine, 51, is a gun owner with a concealed carry license. Since she received her permit in late spring, she carries her firearm wherever she goes.</p>
<p>“It’s like a part of me now,” Robinzine said with the smile.</p>
<p>Data show Robinzine is part of a burgeoning group in Cook County: black women obtaining concealed carry permits. Since Illinois began issuing licenses in 2014, the number of African-American women receiving a permit in Cook County has grown every year.</p>
<p>About 800 black women got a license in 2014, according to Illinois State Police. So far in 2017, nearly 1,400 black women have received a concealed carry permit — already more than all of 2016. In all, more than 4,000 black women have received a concealed carry license in Cook County.</p>
<p>4,000 black women with permits to carry guns for self defense may not seem like a lot in Cook County, Illinois. The County, dominated by Chicago, has a population of 5.2 million. That is less than one legally armed black woman on the streets for each thousand residents.</p>
<p>Illinois was the last state to allow for legal concealed carry of handguns, in 2014. Chicago fought against the exercise of Second Amendment rights and continues to do so. It took two Supreme Court decisions (Heller and McDonald) and a Seventh Circuit decision to force the Illinois Legislature to pass the law.</p>
<p>Permits have only been issued for three years. The growth in permits for blacks and women has been highlighted in research of the Crime Prevention Research Center.&#160; <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3004915" type="external">From the CRPC</a>:</p>
<p>There are now over 16.3 million permit holders, a record 1.83 million increase in permits since last July. Nationwide, 6.5% adults have a concealed handgun permit. Outside of California and New York, 8 percent of adults have a permit. Permits for women and blacks are increasing much faster than they are for men and whites.</p>
<p>Black women with guns destroy the stereotype that guns are only for old white men.&#160; John Lott’s research shows that the utility of guns for defense against violent crime is greater in high crime areas.&#160; <a href="http://www.catb.org/esr/guns/gunslott.html" type="external">From the 1996 paper</a>:</p>
<p>For most violent crimes such as murder, rape, and aggravated assault concealed weapons laws have a much greater deterrent effect in high crime counties, while for robbery, property crimes, auto theft, burglary, and larceny the effect appears to be greatest in low crime counties.</p>
<p>The result may seem obvious now. Recall that in 1996, the “common sense” assumption in the national media was that more guns caused more crime. The assumption has been derailed as the per capita number of firearms in the United States has increased from .89 in 1993 to 1.125 in 2015, while the homicide rate dropped in half. In addition, people with concealed carry permits have shown themselves to be extremely law abiding, much more than the general population, and more than police officers.</p>
<p>The highest densities of black women live in high crime areas. Chicago is a classic example.&#160; It is not surprising that black women are discovering the utility of the legal carry of defensive firearms.</p>
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<p>We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, vulgarity, profanity, all caps, or discourteous behavior. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain a courteous and useful public environment where we can engage in reasonable discourse.</p> | Black Women Carrying Guns in Chicago part of National Trend | true | http://bulletsfirst.net/2017/09/14/black-women-carrying-guns-chicago-part-national-trend/ | 0 |
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<p>&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/truthout/7328234992/"&gt;Truthout.org&lt;/a&gt;/Flickr</p>
<p>This <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175779/" type="external">story</a> first appeared on the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch</a> website.</p>
<p>What if Edward Snowden was made to disappear? No, I’m not suggesting some future CIA rendition effort or a who-killed-Snowden conspiracy theory of a disappearance, but a more ominous kind.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com" type="external" />What if everything a whistleblower had ever exposed could simply be made to go away? What if every National Security Agency (NSA) document Snowden released, every interview he gave, every documented trace of a national security state careening out of control could be made to disappear in real-time? What if the very posting of such revelations could be turned into a fruitless, record-less endeavor?</p>
<p>Am I suggesting the plot for a novel by some twenty-first century George Orwell? Hardly. As we edge toward a fully digital world, such things may soon be possible, not in science fiction but in our world—and at the push of a button. In fact, the earliest prototypes of a new kind of “disappearance” are already being tested. We are closer to a shocking, dystopian reality that might once have been the stuff of futuristic novels than we imagine. Welcome to the memory hole.</p>
<p>Even if some future government stepped over one of the last remaining red lines in our world and simply assassinated whistleblowers as they surfaced, others would always emerge. Back in 1948, in his eerie novel <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four#The_War" type="external">1984</a>, however, Orwell suggested a far more diabolical solution to the problem. He conjured up a technological device for the world of Big Brother that he called “ <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_hole" type="external">the memory hole</a>.” In his dark future, armies of bureaucrats, working in what he sardonically dubbed the Ministry of Truth, spent their lives erasing or altering documents, newspapers, books, and the like in order to create an acceptable version of history. When a person fell out of favor, the Ministry of Truth sent him and all the documentation relating to him down the memory hole. Every story or report in which his life was in any way noted or recorded would be edited to eradicate all traces of him.</p>
<p>In Orwell’s pre-digital world, the memory hole was a vacuum tube into which old documents were physically disappeared forever. Alterations to existing documents and the deep-sixing of others ensured that even the sudden switching of global enemies and alliances would never prove a problem for the guardians of Big Brother. In the world he imagined, thanks to those armies of bureaucrats, the present was what had always been—and there were those altered documents to prove it and nothing but faltering memories to say otherwise. Anyone who expressed doubts about the truth of the present would, under the rubric of “ <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughtcrime" type="external">thoughtcrime</a>,” be marginalized or eliminated.</p>
<p>Government and Corporate Digital Censorship</p>
<p>Increasingly, most of us now get our news, books, music, TV, movies, and communications of every sort electronically. These days, Google earns more <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57548432-93/google-makes-more-money-from-ads-than-print-media-combined/" type="external">advertising revenue</a> than all US print media combined. Even the venerable Newsweek no longer publishes a <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324660404578201432812202750" type="external">paper edition</a>. And in that digital world, a certain kind of “simplification” is being explored. The <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=4707107" type="external">Chinese</a>, <a href="http://www.blockediniran.com/" type="external">Iranians</a>, and others are, for instance, already implementing web-filtering strategies to block access to sites and online material of which their governments don’t approve. The US government similarly (if somewhat fruitlessly) blocks its employees from <a href="http://wemeantwell.com/blog/2012/04/10/she-remained-silent-we-do-not/" type="external">viewing</a> Wikileaks and Edward Snowden material (as well as websites like <a href="http://wemeantwell.com/blog/2011/05/15/state-department-censors-web-sites-china-allows/" type="external">TomDispatch</a>) on their work computers—though not of course at home. Yet.</p>
<p>Great Britain, however, will soon take a significant step toward deciding what a private citizen can see on the web even while at home. Before the end of the year, almost all Internet users there will be “opted-in” to a system designed to <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/29/uk-internet-filter-block-more-than-porn_n_3670771.html" type="external">filter out</a> pornography. By default, the controls will also block access to “violent material,” “extremist and terrorist related content,” “anorexia and eating disorder websites,” and “suicide related websites.” In addition, the new settings will censor sites mentioning alcohol or smoking. The filter will also block “esoteric material,” though a UK-based rights group says the government has yet to make clear what that category will include.</p>
<p>And government-sponsored forms of Internet censorship are being privatized. New, off-the-shelf commercial products guarantee that an organization does not need to be the NSA to block content. For example, the Internet security company <a href="http://www.edgeblue.com/?gclid=CJX47-iCi7sCFWQOOgodOzoAig" type="external">Blue Coat</a> is a domestic leader in the field and a major exporter of such technology. It can easily set up a system to monitor and filter all Internet usage, blocking web sites by their address, by keywords, or even by the content they contain. Among others, Blue Coat software is used by the US Army to <a href="http://americablog.com/2013/01/blue-coat-internet-censor-syria-burma.html" type="external">control</a> what its soldiers see while deployed abroad, and by the repressive governments in <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/10/blue-coat-acknowledges-syrian-government-use-its-products" type="external">Syria</a>, <a href="http://americablog.com/2013/01/blue-coat-internet-censor-syria-burma.html" type="external">Saudi Arabia, and Burma</a> to block outside political ideas.</p>
<p>Google Search…</p>
<p>In a sense, Google Search already “disappears” material. Right now Google is the good guy vis-à-vis whistleblowers. A quick Google search (0.22 seconds) turns up more than 48 million hits on Edward Snowden, most of them referencing his leaked NSA documents. Some of the websites display the documents themselves, still labeled “Top Secret.” Less than half a year ago, you had to be one of a very limited group in the government or contractually connected to it to see such things. Now, they are splayed across the web.</p>
<p>Google—and since Google is the planet’s number one search engine, I’ll use it here as a shorthand for every search engine, even those yet to be invented—is in this way amazing and looks like a massive machine for spreading, not suppressing, news. Put just about anything on the web and Google is likely to find it quickly and add it into search results worldwide, sometimes within seconds. Since most people rarely scroll past the first few search results displayed, however, being disappeared already has a new meaning online. It’s no longer enough just to get Google to notice you. Getting it to place what you post high enough on its search results page to be noticed is what matters now. If your work is number 47,999,999 on the Snowden results, you’re as good as dead, as good as disappeared. Think of that as a starting point for the more significant forms of disappearance that undoubtedly lie in our future.</p>
<p>Hiding something from users by reprogramming search engines is one dark step to come. Another is actually deleting content, a process as simple as transforming the computer coding behind the search process into something predatory. And if Google refuses to implement the change-over to “negative searches,” the NSA, which already appears to be able to reach <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24751821" type="external">inside Google</a>, can implant its own version of malicious code as it has already done in at least <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/2066840/nsa-reportedly-compromised-more-than-50000-networks-worldwide.html" type="external">50,000</a> instances.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805096817/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external" />But never mind the future: here’s how a negative search strategy is already working, even if today its focus—largely on pedophiles—is easy enough to accept. Google recently introduced software that makes it harder for users to locate child abuse material. As company head <a href="http://www.google.com/about/company/facts/management/" type="external">Eric Schmidt</a> put it, Google Search has been “ <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2512752/Google-technology-catches-man-accused-uploading-3-000-child-porn-images-arrested-FBI.html" type="external">fine-tuned</a>” to clean up results for more than 100,000 terms used by pedophiles to look for child pornography. Now, for instance, when users type in queries that may be related to child sexual abuse, they will find <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/google-chief-says-company-has-introduced-software-to-block-child-sex-abuse-searches/2013/11/18/3659f110-503e-11e3-9ee6-2580086d8254_story.html" type="external">no results</a> that link to illegal content. Instead, Google will redirect them to help and counseling sites. “We will soon roll out these changes in more than 150 languages, so the impact will be truly global,” Schmidt wrote.</p>
<p>While Google is redirecting searches for kiddie porn to counseling sites, the NSA has developed a similar ability. The agency already controls a set of servers codenamed <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/10/how-nsa-deploys-malware-new-revelations" type="external">Quantum</a> that sit on the Internet’s backbone. Their job is to redirect “targets” away from their intended destinations to websites of the NSA’s choice. The idea is: you type in the website you want and end up somewhere less disturbing to the agency. While at present this technology may be aimed at sending would-be online jihadis to more moderate Islamic material, in the future it could, for instance, be repurposed to redirect people seeking news to an Al-Jazeera lookalike site with altered content that fits the government’s version of events.</p>
<p>…and Destroy</p>
<p>However, blocking and redirecting technologies, which are bound to grow more sophisticated, will undoubtedly be the least of it in the future. Google is already taking things to the next level in the service of a cause that just about anyone would applaud. They are implementing picture-detection technology to identify child abuse photographs whenever they appear on their systems, as well as testing technology that would remove illegal videos. Google’s actions against child porn may be well intentioned indeed, but the technology being developed in the service of such anti-child-porn actions should chill us all. Imagine if, back in 1971, the <a href="http://www.archives.gov/research/pentagon-papers/" type="external">Pentagon Papers</a>, the first glimpse most Americans had of the lies behind the Vietnam War, had been deletable. Who believes that the Nixon White House wouldn’t have disappeared those documents and that history wouldn’t have taken a different, far grimmer course?</p>
<p>Or consider an example that’s already with us. In 2009, many Kindle owners discovered that Amazon had reached into their devices overnight and <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2009/07/why_2024_will_be_like_nineteen_eightyfour.html" type="external">remotely deleted</a> copies of Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984 (no irony intended). The company explained that the books, mistakenly “published” on its machines, were actually bootlegged copies of the novels. Similarly, in 2012, Amazon <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/22/amazon-kindle-deleted-remotely-ebooks-drm_n_2001952.html" type="external">erased the contents</a> of a customer’s Kindle without warning, claiming her account was “directly related to another which has been previously closed for abuse of our policies.” Using the same technology, Amazon now has the ability to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/forum/kindle?_encoding=UTF8&amp;cdForum=Fx1D7SY3BVSESG&amp;cdThread=Tx3RVFW5BNK9WP9" type="external">replace books</a> on your device with “updated” versions, the content altered. Whether you are notified or not is up to Amazon.</p>
<p>In addition to your Kindle, remote control over your other devices is already a reality. Much of the software on your computer communicates in the background with its home servers, and so is open to “updates” that can <a href="http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/60276-63-strange-software-update-habits-recently-computer" type="external">alter content</a>. The NSA uses malware—malicious software remotely implanted into a computer—to <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/10/how-nsa-deploys-malware-new-revelations" type="external">change the way</a> the machine works. The <a href="http://isis-online.org/isis-reports/detail/did-stuxnet-take-out-1000-centrifuges-at-the-natanz-enrichment-plant/" type="external">Stuxnet</a> code that likely damaged 1,000 centrifuges the Iranians were using to enrich uranium is one example of how this sort of thing can operate.</p>
<p>These days, every iPhone checks back with headquarters to announce what apps you’ve purchased; in the tiny print of a disclaimer routinely clicked through, Apple reserves the right to <a href="http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/apple-can-kill-iphone-apps/" type="external">disappear any app</a> for any reason. In 2004, TiVo sued Dish Network for giving customers set-top boxes that TiVo said infringed on its software patents. Though the case was settled in return for a large payout, as an initial remedy, the judge ordered Dish to <a href="http://www.techhelpfox.com/7817379/Latest-On-Tivoforgentechostar-Lawsuits" type="external">electronically disable</a> the 192,000 devices it had already installed in people’s homes. In the future, there will be ever more ways to invade and control computers, alter or disappear what you’re reading, and shunt you to sites weren’t looking for.</p>
<p>Snowden’s revelations of what the NSA does to gather information and control technology, which have riveted the planet since June, are only part of the equation. How the government will enhance its surveillance and control powers in the future is a story still to be told. Imagine coupling tools to hide, alter, or delete content with smear campaigns to discredit or dissuade whistleblowers, and the power potentially available to both governments and corporations becomes clearer.</p>
<p>The ability to move beyond altering content into altering how people act is obviously on governmental and corporate agendas as well. The NSA has already gathered <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/26/nsa-porn-muslims_n_4346128.html" type="external">blackmail data</a> from the digital porn viewing habits of “radical” Muslims. The NSA sought to <a href="http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/11/27/in-2009-nsa-said-it-had-a-present-example-of-abuse-similar-to-project-minaret/" type="external">wiretap a Congressman</a> without a warrant. The ability to collect information on Federal judges, government leaders, and presidential candidates makes J. Edgar Hoover’s 1950s <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/02/fbi-director-hoover-s-dirty-files-excerpt-from-ronald-kessler-s-the-secrets-of-the-fbi.html" type="external">blackmail schemes</a> as quaint as the bobby socks and poodle skirts of that era. The wonders of the Internet regularly stun us. The dystopian, Orwellian possibilities of the Internet have, until recently, not caught our attention in the same way. They should.</p>
<p>Read This Now, Before It’s Deleted</p>
<p>The future for whistleblowers is grim. At a time not so far distant, when just about everything is digital, when much of the world’s Internet traffic flows directly through the United States or allied countries, or through the infrastructure of American companies abroad, when search engines can find just about anything online in fractions of a second, when the <a href="https://www.eff.org/issues/patriot-act" type="external">Patriot Act</a> and secret rulings by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court" type="external">Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court</a> make Google and similar tech giants <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/18/phone-companies-silent-nsa-data-collection" type="external">tools</a> of the national security state (assuming organizations like the NSA don’t simply take over the search business directly), and when the sophisticated technology can either block, alter, or delete digital material at the push of a button, the memory hole is no longer fiction.</p>
<p>Leaked revelations will be as pointless as dusty old books in some attic if no one knows about them. Go ahead and publish whatever you want. The First Amendment allows you to do that. But what’s the point if no one will be able to read it? You might more profitably stand on a street corner and shout at passers by. In at least one easy-enough-to-imagine future, a set of Snowden-like revelations will be blocked or deleted as fast as anyone can (re)post them.</p>
<p>The ever-developing technology of search, turned 180 degrees, will be able to disappear things in a major way. The Internet is a vast place, but not infinite.&#160; It is increasingly being centralized in the hands of a few companies under the control of a few governments, with the US sitting on the major transit routes across the Internet’s backbone.</p>
<p>About now you should feel a chill. We’re watching, in real time, as 1984 turns from a futuristic fantasy long past into an instructional manual. There will be no need to kill a future Edward Snowden. He will already be dead.</p>
<p>Peter Van Buren blew the whistle on State Department waste and mismanagement during Iraqi reconstruction in his first book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805096817/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People</a>. A <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175732/tomgram%3A_peter_van_buren,_the_manning_trial_began_on_9_11/" type="external">TomDispatch regular</a>, he writes about current events at his blog, <a href="http://www.wemeantwell.com/" type="external">We Meant Well</a>. His next book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1935462911/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the #99Percent</a>, will be available April 2014.</p>
<p>Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/tomdispatch" type="external">Facebook</a> or <a href="http://tomdispatch.tumblr.com/" type="external">Tumblr</a>. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Ann Jones’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608463710/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return From America’s Wars—The Untold Story</a>. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com <a href="http://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&amp;id=1e41682ade" type="external">here</a>.</p> | Could the Government Erase Everything Snowden Exposed? | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2013/12/surveillance-technology-government-censorship/ | 2013-12-04 | 4 |
<p>Q: Was it recently revealed that the U.S. found uranium in Iraq after the invasion in 2003? A: No. Uranium recently shipped from Iraq to Canada was left over from Saddam Hussein’s defunct nuclear weapons program and had been in sealed containers, under guard, since the end of the first Gulf War in 1991. Claims that this material is "vindication" for President Bush’s WMD claims in 2003 are completely false.</p>
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<p>IVN will be hosting the first ever, <a href="" type="internal">&#160;online presidential debate</a>&#160;on Thursday, October 18 at 4pm PST/ 7pm EDT. Unlike debates in the past, the candidates and moderators will simultaneously participate from different states. IVN is working with Google+ Politics to host the&#160; <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/events/ccrsllod8ebmjdn8v6q1mjsdqqg" type="external">event</a>&#160;using a live Google+ Hangout.</p>
<p>The participants will include Libertarian candidate and former Governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein. Governor Johnson will be joining the debate from Laramie, Wyoming and Dr. Stein will join from Seattle, Washington.</p>
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<p /> | IVN Hosts Online Presidential Debate, October 18 | false | https://ivn.us/2012/10/16/first-ever-online-presidential-debate/ | 2012-10-16 | 2 |
<p>When Solyndra collapsed in 2011, the failure of the Bay Area-company got lots of media coverage. Losing more than $500 million of taxpayer funds on a project that was never really vetted by federal stimulus overseers was considered news. Duh. Here’s a good overview of scandal coverage from an East Coast newspaper.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" />But this week, when one more federally subsidized green firm went belly-up, it doesn’t even seem to be considered news in California or elsewhere.&#160; The screen grab at right shows zero hits on a Google News search for “Ecototality.”</p>
<p>I only heard about it via New York state professor/blogger Walter Russell Mead, who cited this Sept. 17 <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/17/ecotality-bankruptcy-idUSL2N0HD26E20130917" type="external">Reuters report</a>:</p>
<p>“(Reuters) – <a href="http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ECTY&amp;lc=int_mb_1001" type="external">Ecotality Inc</a>, a maker of charging stations for electric cars that won a $99.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy four years ago, has filed for <a href="http://www.reuters.com/finance/deals/bankruptcy?lc=int_mb_1001" type="external">bankruptcy</a> protection and said it plans to auction its assets next month.</p>
<p>“The San Francisco-based company is among a growing number of U.S. alternative-energy companies that have struggled or succumbed amid consumer resistance to the high cost and restricted driving range associated with electric vehicles. …</p>
<p>“Citing ‘significant liquidity constraints and the difficulty of obtaining long-term financing,’ Ecotality said an auction is necessary to maximize value for creditors and avoid a ‘fire-sale liquidation.’ …</p>
<p>“Among other U.S. alternative energy companies, green car startup Coda Holdings Inc filed for bankruptcy protection in May after selling just 100 all-electric sedans.</p>
<p>“Meanwhile, the Energy Department on Tuesday said it will in October sell a non-performing loan made to another green car startup, Fisker Automotive.</p>
<p>“Ecotality’s $99.8 million grant was awarded in August 2009 to help develop the EV Project, a network of charging stations for vehicles such as the Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf in major U.S. metropolitan areas.”</p>
<p>Apparently California journos simply don’t find it newsworthy that subsidized green ventures keep failing. It’s the norm, so why bother informing the public about it?</p>
<p>Sheesh.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Subsidized CA green firm goes belly-up; no one thinks it’s news | false | https://calwatchdog.com/2013/09/20/subsidized-ca-green-firm-goes-belly-up-no-one-covers-latest-fiasco/ | 2018-09-20 | 3 |
<p><a href="" type="internal" />MARCH 24, 2011</p>
<p>Sponges come in all shapes and sizes. And some sponges are much more absorbent. Unfortunately for Californians, the freeloading sponges in the state are soaking up more than ever as California sinks deeper into a sinkhole of deficit.</p>
<p>While California’s legislators remain focused on such important issues as cell phones in prisons, training the underprivileged how to use the Internet, high-speed rail and multi-billion dollar computer systems —&#160;and while they continue to ban sodas, sugar, fat, cigarettes, perfume, and anything that offends very few — California’s relevance is waning and the sponges are the only entity thriving.</p>
<p>A recent poll showed that Gov. Jerry Brown <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2011/0322/Poll-California-voters-approve-of-Jerry-Brown-not-the-Legislature" type="external">remains fairly popular</a>, but the California Legislature’s approval ratings continue slipping. Some ratings will soon be hovering as low as Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/nancy-pelosi-bp-poll/2010/09/30/id/372157" type="external">dismal approval rating</a> … but rarely is the reason why discussed.</p>
<p>Elsewhere in America, citizens and their representatives appear concerned about historic budget deficits, looming socialized healthcare and an increasing loss of liberties through government infringement on our purses and personal lives.</p>
<p>In response to these concerns, the rest of the country overwhelmingly voted out Democratic politicians in the November election. California Republicans, ironically, instead lost another Assembly seat and helped elect a liberal governor, Jerry Brown, who already had a significant hand in harming the state — and did it as governor during his first two terms in the 1970s and early 1980s.</p>
<p>The majority party has been leading the kooky causes of extreme environmentalism, union growth and unchecked public pensions, while simultaneously forcing a multi-billion-dollar high-speed rail system onto Californians, massive subsidies for solar and wind power, and cap and trade restrictions through California’s global warming law. Most Democrats in the state are a walking, talking contradiction.</p>
<p>But that does not matter to a sponge … just keep feeding the entitlements to the sponges and don’t bother them with the details.</p>
<p>The problem in California is not necessarily the Democrats. The problem is that too many Republicans just go along with the government expansion and absurdity. They rarely thrown up roadblocks that anyone takes seriously.</p>
<p>The justification is elections. Many Republican lawmakers insist that their constituents want them to vote for Democratic issues. But that’s just hogwash designed to conceal a missing spine, and a love for holding elected office.</p>
<p>Californians expect Democrats to lie. And Californians used to expect Republicans to do the right thing, even if it meant losing elected office. Acting and voting on principle seems to have gone the way of the typewriter and the rotary phone.</p>
<p>Today, the sponges are winning and thriving while the rest of the shrinking middle class of Californians are suffering under some of the worst conditions in the history of the state:</p>
<p>Taxes never decrease in California, and agencies are never dissolved — well, almost never.</p>
<p>The sunset review legislation Democratic Assemblywoman Allison Huber (El Dorado Hills) pushed for a couple of years seeking to end unnecessary boards, commissions and agencies, was met again last year with less-than-enthusiastic support among colleagues. Eventually it passed, but was scaled down.</p>
<p>Prior to former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signing Huber’s bill, only <a href="http://asmdc.org/members/a10/news-room/press-releases/item/2896-huber-legislation-to-streamline-government-signed-by-governor" type="external">three agencies were ever eliminated by the Legislature</a>: the Board of Fabric Care (licensing dry cleaners), the Auctioneer Commission and the Board of Polygraph Examiners.</p>
<p>Most private businesses are very small, and have equally small operating budgets. According to the Small Business Administration, there were 3.4 million small businesses in California in 2008 (the last year for statistics). Of these, 711,313 were employers (as opposed to non-employer business owners), and they accounted for 51.6 percent of private-sector jobs in the state. Small firms made up 99.2 percent of the state’s employers because many of them are owner-operated without employees.</p>
<p>Every time a new tax, fee or regulation is increased or added, it comes right out of the business owners’ pockets. And, while not many businesses can pass along additional costs, it’s the employees who end up feeling the pinch with no raises and even salary and benefit cuts.</p>
<p>Most business owners know that the cost of doing business in California is quickly tilting into the red, which is why so many businesses leave the state if they can afford the move. Others just close down, rather than continuing to operate until bankruptcy is the only option left.</p>
<p>Which leaves the sponges, public employees and big labor in California.</p>
<p>We know who the public employees and big labor are. But many don’t know who makes up the “sponge” class of California residents.</p>
<p>Sponging off of the working people in the state are the folks who send their kids to school without breakfast or lunch. They get free bus and rail passes from the county along with food stamps and welfare payments. And they get financial aid for their kids to attend college. Their utilities are subsidized, as are their homes, mortgages and cars. They received free or subsidized day care, elderly care, medical care, pharmaceuticals, vision and dental care and even “ <a href="http://www.cdph.ca.gov/programs/OFP/Pages/default.aspx" type="external">family planning</a>.” The sponging never stops.</p>
<p>They don’t pay anything into the system, except sales tax on their purchases.</p>
<p>The top 10 percent of Americans now pay more than 71 percent of the total federal income tax burden. And it’s the top 50 percent of working Americans who pay 97.11 percent of the total income tax burden.</p>
<p>The sponging bottom half of Americans pays less than even 3 percent of federal income taxes. But they get to vote on tax increases, according to California’s Gov. Jerry Brown proposal for a $12 billion tax increase.</p>
<p>And Democratic legislators just keep upping the ante for the sponges. Only sponges aren’t just receiving traditional government assistance and welfare.</p>
<p>Subsidies come in all shapes and sizes in California, beginning with big subsidies to wind and solar “innovators.” Anything that involves green technology qualifies for a subsidy today.</p>
<p>Green technology is an industry that can’t stand up on its own two feet, but is funneled so much money through subsidy channels that it’s a house of cards with only a few making money off of it — the “innovators.” In my world, we call these people hedge fund managers.</p>
<p>President Obama authorized $2.3 billion in federal tax credits last year for creating 17,000 subsidized temporary jobs in the green energy industry, equating to a nearly a 30 percent taxpayer subsidy. Unfortunately, the only winners were money managers and corporate interests in the wind and solar industry.</p>
<p>Sponges come in many forms. It’s not just the people who send their kids to school without breakfast.</p>
<p>Don’t expect sponges to go away quietly. if Gov. Brown succeeds in passing his tax increases, we&#160; — the middle class — are doomed. We are at the tipping point. Too much government money has been passing hands for the last 45-50 years for these subsidies to really be eliminated.</p>
<p>And Gov. Brown knows it.</p>
<p>– Katy Grimes</p> | Wealthy and Poor California Spongers | false | https://calwatchdog.com/2011/03/24/wealthy-and-poor-california-spongers/ | 2018-03-20 | 3 |
<p>There’s no longer any reason to believe the police in this case.</p>
<p>The dramatic changing of the timeline on when security guard Jesus Campos was shot was the final straw.</p>
<p>Listen to the Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo BS his way through explaining the change, insisting it was “minute.”</p>
<p />
<p>It doesn’t make any sense that Campos was shot 6 minutes before Paddock’s attack began and police did nothing in response.</p>
<p>MGM came out today and said the police’s new timeline “may not be accurate” and people should&#160; <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4968802/MGM-questions-accuracy-Las-Vegas-police-timeline.html" type="external">expect the timeline to change again</a>.</p>
<p />
<p>I don’t know if there was multiple shooters or not, but it’s becoming clearer by the day we’re being lied to and intentionally kept in the dark.</p>
<p>They also tried to claim his “note” contained information on bullet trajectories, which they won’t share with us for handwriting analysis, etc. The shooter planned the hell out of this shooting, I guarantee he knew how to properly use a scope (he had multiple according to the pictures which were leaked).</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Today we learn his house was broken into over the weekend.</p>
<p>From&#160; <a href="https://www.rt.com/usa/406310-paddock-house-reno-break-in/" type="external">RT</a>:</p>
<p>FBI agents returned to search a house in Reno owned by Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock after local police told them that someone had broken into the home over the weekend.</p>
<p>Reno police officer Tim Broadway said they were called to the house Sunday morning by a neighbor who saw lights on in the home owned by Paddock.</p>
<p>“Nobody really saw anything, just a light was on with nobody in the residence,” Broadway said, according to the&#160; <a href="https://lasvegassun.com/news/2017/oct/10/break-in-reported-at-las-vegas-shooters-home-in-re/" type="external">Associated Press</a>.</p>
<p>Broadway said officers discovered that “someone had broken into the house” and he immediately contacted the FBI.</p>
<p>He added that the suspects broke into the home through the front door over the weekend, but said he was not sure exactly how they gained entry. Police are not aware of any damages or anything that was stolen.</p>
<p>There are no suspects at this time or any descriptions of a suspect.</p>
<p>The FBI is working with Reno police to ensure “there are no further incidents,” Broadway told the&#160; <a href="http://www.rgj.com/story/news/crime/2017/10/10/las-vegas-shooters-reno-home-broken-into-fbi-revisiting/750725001/" type="external">Reno-Gazette Journal</a>.</p>
<p>Paddock, 64, bought the house in the upscale retirement community in 2013 and lived there with his girlfriend, Marilou Danley.</p>
<p>Investigators previously searched the residence on October 3 and found five handguns, two shotguns, numerous electronic devices and a “plethora of ammunition,” according to&#160; <a href="http://www.kolotv.com/content/news/RPD-not-involved-in-investigation-into-Vegas-shooting-suspect-449079193.html" type="external">KOLO</a>.</p>
<p>During a&#160; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=935&amp;v=HkOdPK0Qgv8" type="external">news conference</a>&#160;Monday, Las Vegas Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said the FBI and behavioral analysis agents were revisiting Paddock’s properties in order to possibly “discern additional evidence.”</p>
<p>How do they not know if anything was taken? Did they not take photographs of his property?</p>
<p>This whole case reminds me of how the Florida Sheriff’s office that investigated Casey Anthony&#160; <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/casey-anthony-detectives-overlooked-google-search-for-fool-proof-suffocation-methods-sheriff-says/" type="external">only checked her search history on Internet Explore and not Firefox</a>, where they later found she did a Google search for “full-proof” suffocation methods the same day her daughter was last seen alive.</p>
<p>What we know for certain is Paddock chose to massacre white Christian conservatives at a country music concert, which is just about as close to a Trump rally as you can get.</p>
<p>Courtesy of <a href="http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=57495" type="external">Information Liberation</a></p>
<p />
<p /> | Cleanup Crew?: “Break-In At Las Vegas Shooter’s Home In Reno Confounds Police” | true | http://dcclothesline.com/2017/10/12/cleanup-crew-break-in-at-las-vegas-shooters-home-in-reno-confounds-police/ | 2017-10-12 | 0 |
<p>Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock, left, with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). &lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mourdock2012/8100688083/sizes/m/in/photostream/"&gt;Hoosiers for Richard Mourdock 2012&lt;/a&gt;/Flickr</p>
<p />
<p>Richard Mourdock, who’s running for US Senate in Indiana, is only the latest Republican to court controversy with comments about rape and pregnancy. On Tuesday night Mourdock voiced his opposition to abortion even in cases of rapes, saying that a pregnancy <a href="http://www.bradenton.com/2012/10/24/4250881/romney-distances-himself-from.html" type="external">resulting</a> from rape is “something God intended to happen.”</p>
<p>Mitt Romney has <a href="http://www.bradenton.com/2012/10/24/4250881/romney-distances-himself-from.html" type="external">already distanced himself</a> from Mourdock’s rape comment. “We disagree on the policy regarding exceptions for rape and incest but still support him,” Romney’s campaign <a href="https://twitter.com/aseitzwald/status/261138245771997186" type="external">said in a statement</a>. However, Mourdock’s Senate campaign has benefited from the largesse of Romney’s running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). Ryan’s leadership political action committee, Prosperity PAC, <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/PACs/pacgot.php?cycle=2012&amp;cmte=C00377689" type="external">gave $5,000</a> to Mourdock’s campaign during the 2012 election cycle.</p>
<p>Mourdock has received <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/races/contrib.php?cycle=2012&amp;id=INS1" type="external">tens of thousands of dollars more</a> from other lawmakers’ leadership PACs. Mourdock backers include Sens. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), John Barasso (R-Wyo.), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), and Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who is a top Romney campaign adviser.</p>
<p>Before his rape comments, Mourdock <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/senate/in/indiana_senate_mourdock_vs_donnelly-3166.html" type="external">enjoyed a modest lead</a> in his Senate race over Democratic congressman Joe Donnelly, according to RealClearPolitics.</p>
<p>Correction: The headline of this post initially misspelled Mourdock’s name.</p>
<p /> | Richard Mourdock, Under Fire for Rape Comments, Got $5,000 from Paul Ryan’s PAC | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/richard-mourdock-under-fire-rape-comments-got-5000-paul-ryans-pac/ | 2012-10-24 | 4 |
<p>With the Department of Education cutting funding across the board this year, families and communities everyone are feeling the squeeze. Now, resistance to school closures and consolidations is moving visibly beyond big cities like Chicago and Philadelphia into more rural regions — the latest being Sullivan County, in northeastern Tennessee.</p>
<p>In the case of the Chicago School District, the third largest in the nation, 49 schools are closing this year in addition to the 100 or so that have already been shuttered in recent years. Parents and students are protesting the decision, often with tears and yelling, to no avail.&#160; <a href="http://www.ctunet.com/" type="external">Chicago Teachers Union</a>&#160;President Karen Lewis stated: “Closing 50 of our neighborhood schools is outrageous and no society that claims to care anything about its children can sit back and allow this to happen to them.”</p>
<p>The CTU has cited in a comprehensive report that at least two of the city's schools are closing due to direct neglect by the Chicago Public Schools&#160; <a href="http://www.cps.edu/Pages/home.aspx" type="external">system</a>. Now, according to the Huffington Post, the CTU is&#160; <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/29/chicago-school-closing-la_n_3355185.html" type="external">filing a lawsuit</a>&#160;on behalf of parents and students to keep some of these schools open.</p>
<p>But Chicago isn't the only city that seeks to consolidate its schools to ease its empty district wallets. The same thing is happening in Washington, D.C., Philipstown, N.Y. — and now in Sullivan County, Tennessee, the scene of recent outrage and protest.</p>
<p />
<p>Most districts claim their closures are a result of low enrollment and lack of funding. But is school consolidation really the answers to low enrollment?&#160; <a href="http://savethesouthzone.org/" type="external">Save the South Zone</a>, a grassgroots group in Sullivan County, says no.</p>
<p>Save the South Zone's families and students are fighting the consolidation of local middle schools into the area's high schools. They suggest, instead, that the school board consider attracting additional students to the district as well as finding areas within the district budget to help cover the $3 million annual shortfall.</p>
<p>The group has collected over 300 signatures in its effort to turn back the tide of school closings, and it recently succeeded getting the county school board to postpone a decision on school consolidation for six months, according to the minutes taken from a recent board meeting.</p>
<p>This small victory is important — and it could lead to other ones elsewhere. The closing of Colonial Heights Middle School in the south of the county would lower property values, the group argued. Added to this was the fact that the school actually did not suffer the degree of enrollment problems the school board suggested. An independent study by the school board showed that after a few years of slight decline, the school will in fact show an increase in enrollment. So why is the school board insisting that low enrollment be translated into an "emergency" consolidation of middle and high schools?</p>
<p>Because it's the easiest way out for them, of course. Rather than admit to not adequately managing the upkeep of school buildings and reigning in spending, the board chose to follow the path of its Washington siblings and continued to use band aids to patch the gushing expenses. One question on the school board's website asked where the district's $3 million budget shortfall came from. The school board responded that it had to pull from its "savings account" last year to balance the budget, to the tune of $2 million.</p>
<p>Save the South Zone shot back, at a school board meeting on June 3, stating: “Are we to believe that the Dept of Education is run so tightly that they can’t find 3% of their operating budget in cost cutting? Thanks to Medicare, doctors are cutting 10% from their budget this year. If they can do it, the DOE can do it as well.”</p>
<p />
<p>What the conflict comes down to is this: sacrificing education and community to balance over-sized spending. Not just in Tennessee, but all across America, if communities consolidate their schools, teachers will lose jobs and communities will suffer. It is becoming harder and harder for licensed teachers to get jobs, despite the supposed demand. Additionally, most neighborhoods spring up around schools; these neighborhoods will now decline as people move away to be closer to new schools.</p>
<p>If education is a priority for America, school consolidation and school closures are not the way forward. The success that Save the South Zone has achieved in Sullivan County comes from its members' commitment, organization and vocal approach to the issue. Parents, teachers and community members went through the proper channels. The spoke at board meetings. They started a petition. They made themselves heard.</p>
<p>The same holds true for teachers everywhere who are concerned about losing their jobs. As teachers, we cannot stay silent and hope the situation goes away. We cannot be afraid to voice our interests and fight for what we know to be right. The option before us is clear: speak out. And do it soon.</p> | The Fight to Save Public Schools Moves to Northeastern Tennessee | true | http://occupy.com/article/fight-save-public-schools-moves-northwestern-tennessee | 4 |
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<p>When <a href="http://poli.vub.ac.be/team/mohammad-salman" type="external">Mohammad Salman</a> moved to Belgium to pursue a Ph.D. in political science back in 2010, he had every intention of returning home to Syria. He was on a full scholarship from the Syrian government, after all.</p>
<p>But then the war broke out. And as sanctions kicked in against the Syrian government, Salman's money dried up.</p>
<p>"Financially, it was a really bad time for me," he says. He's talking about 2013 and 2014. At one point, his bank account was down to 80 euros (about $90).&#160;</p>
<p>But his professors at VUB, the Free University of Brussels,&#160;weren't willing to abandon him.&#160;&#160;They scrounged up some grant money, gave him some teaching work and encouraged him to finish his thesis within six to nine months.</p>
<p>He did it. And because he'd been in Belgium for five&#160;years by the time he finished, he was eligible to apply for citizenship, which he received.</p>
<p />
<p>Mohammad Salman</p>
<p>Courtesy Mohammad Salman/VUB</p>
<p>Now he’s ready to give back. He’s been hired to start a <a href="http://www.vub.ac.be/en/welcome-student-refugees-programme" type="external">new program at VUB</a>&#160;to welcome between 100 and 200 refugees come fall. They must have asylum papers and they must be eligible for higher education.&#160;He’s had 800 applications so far.&#160;</p>
<p>"I am so happy to support this program," he says. "I see myself in each of them."</p>
<p>It's up to Salman to verify applicants'&#160;diplomas and other documents from back home. And it's also up to him to vet them for the kind of openmindedness and freedom of thought the Free University is known for.&#160;</p>
<p>"We will quickly feel whether it's people who fit," says Koen Van den Abeele, who coordinates a university task force on refugees.</p>
<p>Van den Abeele did the initial research to see what sort of&#160;demand there might be for the program and he had a hard time getting data from government officials.</p>
<p>"They were very reluctant to give that data because it's interview information, which is quite confidential," says Van Den Abeele. But eventually he found someone willing to give him some inside information. About 23&#160;percent&#160;of the people who applied for asylum in Belgium&#160;last year reported that they were studying before they fled their countries of origin.</p>
<p>Van den Abeele was amazed.</p>
<p>"It's people between 18 and 25," he says. "You cannot just let them live for the rest of their days on social welfare!&#160;They have ambition, they want to do something,&#160;they want to feel part of this society."</p>
<p>Not everyone thinks the way he does. Europe, just like the US, has its share of anti-immigrant, anti-refugee sentiment. But countries like Belgium are also desperate for skilled workers.&#160;</p>
<p>“We see people with engineering diplomas,” Van Den Abeele says. “We see architect engineers, civil engineers, we see industrial engineers, mathematicians, scientific highly-skilled people. Those&#160;people are valuable for the Belgian economic situation. At this time there are vacancies for engineers which are open for the last six months. They don't find anybody!"</p>
<p>And even without the economic argument, there's another reason to care about educating newcomers, according to Van den Abeele.</p>
<p>He says Belgium failed to integrate the children of its North African immigrants, leading to the ghettos and segregation blamed for helping to create terrorists.</p>
<p>“If we don't want to reproduce the same issue I think we have to focus on integrating those people,” says Van den Abeele. “And for us, studying is still the best way of integrating people into a society.”</p>
<p>It's certainly a way to make people feel grateful. Van den&#160;Abeele's Syrian colleague Mohammad Salman is passionate about his homeland, but also about his new country, Belgium. And he knows that he too might have been trapped inside Syria as it disintegrated. He too might have had to make that treacherous journey across Europe. Which is why he's only too happy to spend his days sifting through applications from refugees hoping to enroll on his campus. &#160;He hopes other universities in Belgium will follow suit.&#160;</p> | A Belgian campus puts out a welcome mat for refugees | false | https://pri.org/stories/2016-03-07/belgian-campus-puts-out-welcome-mat-refugees | 2016-03-07 | 3 |
<p>BALTIMORE — Photographs documenting an immigrant's journey, masquerade masks and paintings stretching the edge of imagination—all are part of supporting the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship's HIV/AIDS ministry in Africa and reaching out to a transitioning Baltimore community.</p>
<p>Hosted by University Baptist Church in Baltimore, “Art Under the Dome” ran June 22-July 6, with participating artists donating 20 percent of the proceeds to the Fellowship's HIV/AIDS ministry in Africa. More than 250 people attended the opening.</p>
<p>The church was already planning to host an art show when members studied Affect, the Fellowship's missions education resource for adults. Church members learned about Ana Marie and Scott Houser, CBF Global Missions field personnel who work among HIV/AIDS caregivers in South Africa.</p>
<p />
<p>CARLA WYNNE DAVIS</p>
<p>University Baptist Church member and artist Kandra Wynne Bellanca discusses a piece of artwork with church interms Dayne Eng and Tom Burns.</p>
<p>“Our church is extremely interested in missions,” said Robin Anderson, associate pastor of education and outreach. Through Affect, “the church got excited about AIDS ministry. The art gallery was a separate idea. Then the idea became, ‘Let's connect the two.' ”</p>
<p>The event also supported the ministry of Fran and Lonnie Turner, CBF Global Missions field personnel who minister to those living with HIV/AIDS in the sub-Saharan region of Africa.</p>
<p>The art show was more than a ministry to those affected by HIV/AIDS—it represented an outreach to local artists and to the surrounding neighborhood. By providing an affordable setting to display and sell their work, the show met a felt need of many local artists.</p>
<p>“University Baptist Church seeks to care for our community by valuing the expression of our local artists,” Anderson said. “Through ‘Art Under the Dome,' we hope to bring our community together by celebrating our artists, listening to their voices and working together to help others.”</p>
<p>Church members hope the show creates a common ground for communication with artists and the local community.</p>
<p>“If [our church] can provide a comfortable environment, it can help us become a part of the local [art] community, and there are things the church can learn from the artist,” said church member and exhibiting artist Kandra Wynne Bellanca.</p> | Missions education resource inspires church’s art show | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/missionseducationresourceinspireschurchsartshow/ | 3 |
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<p>In <a href="" type="internal">part I</a> of my interview with Senate candidate Austin Petersen, we discussed abortion, criminal justice reform, the Second Amendment, and more.</p>
<p>In part II of this exciting series, Petersen talks about war, interventionism, religious liberty, black and white thinking, and the political mind games in Washington.</p>
<p>Intervention &amp; War</p>
<p>On foreign policy, specifically American interventionism, Petersen reveals shades of his libertarian background, affixing necessary standards to the beginning of international conflict:</p>
<p>“Sometimes, intervention and regime changes are absolutely necessary. The perfect example would be Germany in World War II, and imperial Japan. Those were interventions and regime changes that were absolutely necessary. We had to destroy the fascist regimes of imperial Japan and Germany and Italy, and we did so. We did it with total mobilization of our country.”</p>
<p>“The difference between those interventions and other regime changes,” Petersen stressed, “is that in those instances, we had a full vote of Congress, and a signing of the declaration of war by the president, which means that the people, as well as the Executive Branch, were entirely behind the efforts.”</p>
<p>Petersen criticized the way in which the United States currently conducts foreign conflict, saying that “at the moment, it feels as though we have a totally unilateral approach. For example, we have a kill list. The president, in some ways, is judge, jury, and executioner when he has executive agencies determine the guilt of a suspected terrorist or criminal, and uses drones to assassinate people extrajudicially — which I think is a violation of due process and the proper executive authority.”</p>
<p>Religious Liberty</p>
<p>Petersen’s defense of religious liberty during the Fox Business Network debate has become a flashpoint in his political career. During an exchange with Gary Johnson, who believes Christian businesses should be forced to participate in activities they find morally objectionable, Petersen flatly stated: “Should a Jewish baker be required to bake a Nazi wedding cake?”</p>
<p>When asked about his position on defending religious liberty and freedom of conscience, Petersen said that he believes “the issue lies in a misunderstanding of the purpose of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”</p>
<p>“The question centers on protected classes. If homosexuals are a protected class in this country, the unintended consequence is that the government can force the purveyors of private businesses to provide services to someone with whom they disagree — often a violation of their religious conscience.”</p>
<p>Petersen made sure to note the historical circumstances around which this issue exists: “I understand that discussion of the Civil Rights Act is devoid without context because of the problems we had with racial strife in the 1960s, and I'm not interested in going back and overturning the Civil Rights Act. What I am interested in is protecting religious liberty. There have been religious freedom laws that have been passed, federally and in many states, that would allow people to have the freedom of conscience regarding whether or not they should participate in a ceremony that they disagree with.”</p>
<p>“I support the right of Christians or Muslims or Jews or anyone to have the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason — anybody should be able to,” Petersen stated. “People should have the freedom of conscience. I defend religious liberty because despite the fact that I have a historical understanding of the issues of race relations in this country, the unintended consequence of that has been to force people to associate in a manner that is anathema to their beliefs.”</p>
<p>Petersen continued, explaining why discrimination legislation is a well-intentioned but ultimately corrosive idea in his opinion:</p>
<p>“Because of discrimination legislation, you're not allowed to discriminate whatsoever in many ways. In housing, for example, you're not allowed to discriminate for age, race, gender, or anything else. People think this is obviously good. The issue, however, is that it stifles the speech of people who would like to know who the prejudiced people are in their community. I would never want to live on the property of someone who is prejudiced against blacks or Jews. I would like to know who they are so that I can organize a boycott if I wish.”</p>
<p>“If a bakery in my community refused to serve Jewish people, I would like to know who they are. Right now, what we're doing is driving these people underground, so we don't know who is bigoted or prejudiced. I would prefer to know who the bigoted people are so that I can use my free speech rights to boycott them or refuse to use their services.”</p>
<p>Whitewashing History</p>
<p>Regarding the recent trend of protesting and removing statues and monuments dedicated to individuals who were products of their time, often called the “whitewashing of history,” Petersen walks a different path than most conservatives:</p>
<p>“These things often go too far. The problem is that people are victims of bifurcated thinking; it has to be 100% one way or 100% the other way. I don't celebrate confederate generals, people like Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was the founder of the KKK. If he's being celebrated on public property, I may have a problem with that.”</p>
<p>“Probably the best solution,” Petersen stated, “is to either sell the monuments to private owners, or put them in a museum. It's a local issue, and the locals should be able to solve that. I'm running for federal office, and as a federalist, it's not quite any of my business.”</p>
<p>That said, Petersen made clear that there are differences between certain historical figures: “I wouldn't put Nathan Bedford Forrest on par with someone like Thomas Jefferson. Yes, Jefferson owned slaves, but in many ways, he was the architect of the future of freedom that would eventually result in the release of the slaves.”</p>
<p>Nuance vs. Black and White</p>
<p>I pressed Petersen on the notion of bifurcated thinking, specifically because, as someone in the liberty movement, his opinions sometimes fall in the gray areas between conservative and liberal:</p>
<p>“The problem with our thinking today is that 'everything I like should be subsidized, and everything that I don't like should be banned.' That's the mainstream way of thinking. If we think something is a ‘good,’ like education or agriculture or churches, there's going to be some constituency that thinks the American people should subsidize it. On the opposite side, if there are people who don't like agriculture or don't like churches, they want to ban it.”</p>
<p>Petersen got specific by offering a recent instance of bifurcated thinking: “Here's a good example — transgenders in the military. The nuanced opinion that I have is that you shouldn't kick them out of the military, but we also shouldn't be paying for gender reassignment surgery. That makes nobody happy because one side is saying ‘ban them from the military,’ and the other side is saying ‘subsidize them.’ I'm in the middle saying, ‘Don't ban them, but don't subsidize them.’”</p>
<p>Instead, Petersen offered a simple solution for the issue: “I think that serving in the military is a privilege, not a right, and combat readiness is something that has to be considered when it comes to who serves on the front lines. But, as we understand, these people have already served honorably. I believe there was a former Navy Seal who transitioned after they got out of the armed services. I think that's probably what will happen, is that you'll have people who will self-identify while they're in the military, but probably wait until they get out to transition. That's probably the best way to go about it.”</p>
<p>He also cited the hypocritical nature of some critics: “The big issue, of course, is with the commanders in the military. People say, ‘We need to listen to the generals. We need to listen to the commanders.’ Well, I have listened to the generals and I have listened to the commanders, and they say that it doesn't diminish combat readiness and we shouldn't be trying to kick these people out who are basically saying they want to take a bullet for us. As soon as you say that, the conservatives will say, ‘Well, don't listen to those commanders. Don't listen to those people. They were appointed by Obama.’”</p>
<p>“We're all waiting for the warrior monk, Mad Dog Mattis, to make a ruling on this. I think he's probably going to sit and wait, and hope this all blows over because it was probably just a distraction from the failure to pass an Obamacare repeal anyway.”</p>
<p>Political Games</p>
<p>Transitioning from the topic of transgender individuals in the military, Petersen spoke of the toxicity of modern politics:</p>
<p>“In the end, we all lose because the issue has divided us against each other. Remember, politicians love dividing us on racial, gender, cultural, and class lines because when we’re divided against each other and warring with one another, it's easier to conquer us. I'm trying to preach a unifying message, one that brings all Americans together,” Petersen said before offering his personal pitch to voters.</p>
<p>“I think the liberty message — while it can sometimes be difficult to understand, not to mention terrifying because it involves personal responsibility, which is the most politically incorrect theme today — is incredibly valuable. But that’s a difficult sell. It’s much easier to play the game, and to buy into the black and white thinking of ‘everything I like, subsidize it; everything I don’t like, ban it,’ because that will get votes.”</p>
<p>“I'm out searching for a constituency of people who are not willing to give in to the confirmation bias game most political actors are playing. I'm playing a different game by my own rules.”</p>
<p>Make sure to come back for the final part of my interview with Austin Petersen in which we discuss agnosticism, Christianity, lying politicians, taxation, sticking to principle, as well as some lighter material.</p> | EXCLUSIVE: Part Two Of My Interview With Senate Candidate Austin Petersen | true | https://dailywire.com/news/19380/exclusive-part-two-my-interview-senate-candidate-frank-camp | 2017-08-05 | 0 |
<p>ALTENBERG, Germany (AP) - Nico Walther edged German rival Francesco Friedrich by five-hundredths of a second to win his second four-man bobsled World Cup of the season on Sunday.</p>
<p>Walther, pushed by Kevin Kuske, Christian Poser and Eric Franke, finished in a combined time of 1 minute, 48.79 seconds after two runs.</p>
<p>Friedrich, who was pushed by Candy Bauer, Martin Grothkopp and Thorsten Margis, was left to rue a minor mistake in the first run, where the team finished fourth.</p>
<p>Oskars Kibermanis' Latvian team was third, 0.24 seconds behind Walther, while Justin Kripps of Canada was fourth, ahead of overall leader Johannes Lochner of Germany.</p>
<p>After six races, Lochner leads with 1,235 points, ahead of Walther on 1,196 and Kripps on 1,156.</p>
<p>ALTENBERG, Germany (AP) - Nico Walther edged German rival Francesco Friedrich by five-hundredths of a second to win his second four-man bobsled World Cup of the season on Sunday.</p>
<p>Walther, pushed by Kevin Kuske, Christian Poser and Eric Franke, finished in a combined time of 1 minute, 48.79 seconds after two runs.</p>
<p>Friedrich, who was pushed by Candy Bauer, Martin Grothkopp and Thorsten Margis, was left to rue a minor mistake in the first run, where the team finished fourth.</p>
<p>Oskars Kibermanis' Latvian team was third, 0.24 seconds behind Walther, while Justin Kripps of Canada was fourth, ahead of overall leader Johannes Lochner of Germany.</p>
<p>After six races, Lochner leads with 1,235 points, ahead of Walther on 1,196 and Kripps on 1,156.</p> | Walther edges Friedrich to win 4-man bobsled World Cup | false | https://apnews.com/amp/79b1f6d2299a451b8310547f4d573d1c | 2018-01-07 | 2 |
<p>Winters in Canada get cold. Really, really cold.</p>
<p>So people would have to be pretty desperate to walk across the wide expanses of deep snow separating Canada from the US.</p>
<p>But that’s what’s happening.</p>
<p />
<p>Dr. Paul Caulford runs a clinic in&#160;for refugees without health insurance.</p>
<p>Andrea Crossan</p>
<p>He’s talking about the executive orders President Donald Trump has issued that make it harder for people to qualify for refugee status. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police say they’ve seen a spike in illegal immigration to Canada in the month since Trump has been in office. At Caulford’s clinic they’ve seen the number of people coming to them for help double. Most have walked across the unfenced, minimally patrolled,&#160;open border. Sometimes they’re dragging suitcases. Often they’re wearing clothes that offer little protection from the freezing temperatures.</p>
<p>"All of the people we've seen have been women and children,” says Caulford, who treats migrants who show up with blue hands frostbitten to the bone. “They've all had cold journeys in the back of trucks to save their lives literally but fleeing from, if you can believe this, from the United States.”</p>
<p />
<p>"Coming to Canada shouldn't be a health risk," a poster hanging in the Canadian Center for Refugee Immigrant Healthcare clinic.</p>
<p>Andrea Crossan/PRI</p>
<p>“They made their claims, or were planning to make their claims to asylum, in the US,” Caulford says. “And they have learned very quickly from media ...&#160;that [the US] is now a changed nation.”</p>
<p>These families aren’t using the regular routes into Canada, through an official border crossing, because of an agreement between Canada and the US. It says that anyone who’s already claimed asylum in the US can’t also apply in Canada.</p>
<p>But, there’s a loophole. If there’s no record of a family crossing the US-Canada border, and they just show up in Canada, the family can apply for refugee status. So Caulford says migrants pay what they call “agents” to smuggle them across the border. The smugglers often abandon families in parks, or by the side of a highway. Caulford recalls one mother who didn’t understand what the cold could do — she had never been in a climate like this before. She didn’t understand how frozen her arms were until she dropped her baby.</p>
<p>Stories like that make Brad Sinclair, the clinic’s executive director, say that no matter what policies Trump implements, Canadians will be ready.</p>
<p>“The world will unfold as it unfolds. We’re not going to be able to have any influence on what happens in the US, or the EU, or in sub-saharan Africa,” he says. “But I do know that the implications of that is that people are going to be arriving here who are sick. And we’re going to be there to give them help. Because that’s what we do in Canada.”</p>
<p />
<p>Flags represent some of the home countries of the patients at the clinic.</p>
<p>Andrea Crossan/PRI</p>
<p>“In terms of discrimination, my God, [the] US is worse. I still prefer Canada,” she says. The US doesn’t want people like her, she says —&#160;she can see that’s the case by looking at news of what Trump says. Canada, she says, offers more freedom, equality and opportunity.</p>
<p>“Canada is a multicultural country where you see different immigrants from different cultural backgrounds and religions,” she says. “They don’t discriminate and the country is just so wonderful.”</p>
<p>But there are ways Canada could improve, says&#160;Sumathy Rahunathan, the clinic’s volunteer coordinator. The Canadian healthcare system doesn’t cover migrants from the time they enter the country so the clinic has had to step up fundraising.</p>
<p>Rahunathan has found herself wondering: “How long does it take to be Canadian enough to get healthcare? Is it the first week you arrive? Is it after 10 years?” she says. “We have patients like that who are here trying to get naturalized for eight years, paying taxes and working. But [they] have no access to healthcare. Are they not Canadian enough to get healthcare?”</p>
<p />
<p>Sumathy Rahunathan is a volunteer clinic coordinator.</p>
<p>Andrea Crossan/PRI</p>
<p>Many Canadians support expanding healthcare coverage and changing policies so people who’ve applied for asylum in the US can officially come into Canada&#160;and apply for refugee status. But there are Canadians who oppose the country’s liberal immigration policy, especially if Canada continues to absorb refugees turned away by the US.</p>
<p>A woman waiting to be seen by a doctor at Caulford’s clinic says she doesn’t expect Canada to accept her claim for asylum —&#160;even though, back home in Venezuela, she’s often robbed and threatened with rape. There’s little electricity, and it’s hard to find food.</p>
<p>“When you go to the supermarket you can’t buy anything because there is nothing there. You are so lucky,” she tells me. “You are lucky you can find even pads when you have [a] period. We can’t.”</p>
<p>But she doesn’t think Canadian authorities will believe her. And she thinks US officials would be even more skeptical.</p>
<p>“I never considered go[ing] there. Because I know it’s really really hard get the papers there,” she says. “And it’s already hard here. So I&#160;can’t imagine how it is there.”</p>
<p>She’s right. It’s hard in the US —&#160;and it might get tougher to get refugee status, under Trump's new executive orders. The more the US turns people away, the more Canada will feel it. Soon Canadians may face the choice Americans made in the last election — whether to welcome immigration and globalism, or reject it.</p> | Refugees are freezing to flee the US for Canada | false | https://pri.org/stories/2017-02-17/refugees-are-freezing-flee-us-canada | 2017-02-17 | 3 |
<p />
<p>Are You Ready for Cyber Monday?</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The day after Thanksgiving used to be D-Day for holiday shopping; but thanks to the Web, brick-and-mortar-focused Black Friday must now compete with <a href="http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/best-ways-to-save-for-holiday-shopping.aspx" type="external">online bargains Opens a New Window.</a> on Cyber Monday.</p>
<p>According to Edgar Dworsky, founder of the consumer resource guide ConsumerWorld.org, Cyber Monday is gaining traction.</p>
<p>"Black Friday may still be the single best day to <a href="http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/5-tips-for-classy-frugal-holiday-fun-1.aspx" type="external">shop for price Opens a New Window.</a>, but Cyber Monday gives some retailers -- particularly online-only ones -- a chance to shine," Dworsky says.</p>
<p>The numbers agree: According to comScore Inc., online shoppers spent $1.028 billion on Cyber Monday last year, making it the heaviest online shopping day ever. Savvy shoppers can make the most of the Web frenzy by taking advantage of a few key strategies to <a href="http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/savings/simple-savings-calculator.aspx" type="external">save money Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Get Organized With a Spreadsheet</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Make a list and, yes, check it twice. Create a list or spreadsheet with the names of the recipients, <a href="http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/money-saving-tips-for-the-holidays-1.aspx" type="external">gift ideas Opens a New Window.</a> and addresses. By staying organized, you'll avoid accidentally buying three gifts for your colleague and none for your sister. If you have&#160;all of the addresses in front of you, you also can take advantage of Cyber Monday's myriad free shipping deals to save money, says Andrea Woroch, a spokeswoman for CouponWinner.com and other sites.</p>
<p>"Search for free shipping codes and send your&#160; <a href="http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/7-common-holiday-budget-busters-1.aspx" type="external">gift Opens a New Window.</a> directly to the recipients," she says. "You'll save money by shipping the present just once, and you can avoid costly baggage fees if you might otherwise pack them in your luggage on a flight."</p>
<p>Do Research on The Best Prices</p>
<p>The best deal-hunters are well-prepared when they begin their Monday purchasing. Take inventory of what you need and your list of <a href="http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/savings/holiday-spending-calculator.aspx" type="external">holiday gifts Opens a New Window.</a>, and head out on the Internet highway to save money, says J. Brian Preston, a financial planner at Preston &amp; Cleveland Wealth Management LLC in McDonough, Ga., and host of the "Money Guy" blog.</p>
<p>"You can find the <a href="http://www.bankrate.com/finance/video/saving-on-holiday-shopping.aspx" type="external">best products Opens a New Window.</a> by doing research on a site like ConsumerReports.org, and then check current prices at a site like PriceGrabber.com," he says.</p>
<p>Once you have&#160;context, head to sites such as CyberMonday.com to compare your&#160; <a href="http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/savings/saving-goals-calculator.aspx" type="external">needs Opens a New Window.</a> with what will be offered. Dworsky adds that Black Friday circulars can serve as a benchmark for your Cyber Monday shopping.</p>
<p>Pay Attention to Extra Costs</p>
<p>Sometimes, what you see isn't really what you get. Shipping, handling and taxes can easily double the cost of an inexpensive <a href="http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/christmas-club-can-tame-holiday-bills-1.aspx" type="external">holiday gift Opens a New Window.</a>, says Dworsky.</p>
<p>"Recognize that the <a href="http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/be-frugal-even-at-clearance-sale.aspx" type="external">attractive price Opens a New Window.</a> on the website may not include those extra costs, and sites may not disclose those fees until well after you've put the item in your cart," he says. "If it costs you an extra $10 to buy a single $10 item, you're not getting much of a deal."</p>
<p>Before you click "buy" on Cyber Monday, be sure you know the <a href="http://www.bankrate.com/finance/video/holiday-tipping.aspx" type="external">final cost Opens a New Window.</a> -- and how it stacks up with deals at other sites. That's the only way to save money.</p>
<p>Find out if Your Deal Is a 'Doorbuster'</p>
<p>Some of the best deals on Cyber Monday have an&#160;extremely limited supply. That means you'll have to be at the front of the virtual line to take advantage of the offer and <a href="http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/find-frugal-but-not-cheap-gifts-1.aspx" type="external">save money Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>"Look for any indication of <a href="http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/don-t-get-suckered-by-supersales-1.aspx" type="external">limited quantities Opens a New Window.</a>, then check the e-mail or website to find out when the sale starts," and plan accordingly, says Dworsky. "Don't think you can roll out of bed at 2 p.m. on Monday to get a deal on an item with a <a href="http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/12-recession-proof-holiday-gifts-1.aspx" type="external">rock-bottom price Opens a New Window.</a>."</p>
<p>Use the Wisdom of the Crowds</p>
<p>Bargain message boards like Slickdeals.net and FatWallet.com are virtual gold mines to save money. On a big <a href="http://www.bankrate.com/finance/credit-cards/tips-for-stretching-your-holiday-budget-1.aspx" type="external">shopping day Opens a New Window.</a> like Cyber Monday, you'll find fantastic up-to-date insights, says Dworsky.</p>
<p>"Sometimes you'll find out about a deal that not a lot of people know about," he says. "It's also valuable because someone may post with what seems like a great deal, but subsequent posters will note that there's a <a href="http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/throw-a-great-holiday-party-on-a-budget-1.aspx" type="external">better deal Opens a New Window.</a> at another site or how to get an additional 10 percent off. It's a great word-of-mouth way to find out what's going to be available at a <a href="http://www.bankrate.com/finance/smart-spending/saving-money-at-home-infographic.aspx" type="external">good Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p>Don't Get Sidetracked by Unneeded Items</p>
<p>Your mission on Cyber Monday is to get the gifts you need at the price you want, not to <a href="http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/one-holiday-tradition-to-break-overspending.aspx" type="external">save money Opens a New Window.</a> on stuff you'll never use, says Preston.</p>
<p>"Do you really need that bundle of 60 CD-ROMs or a memory card reader for your camera?" he asks. "Don't just <a href="http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/12-ways-to-create-holiday-magic-for-less-than-15-1.aspx" type="external">buy something Opens a New Window.</a> because it's practically free. That's just noise that's distracting you from getting what you need."</p>
<p>Stack up Coupons and Save</p>
<p>One coupon on Cyber Monday is great to <a href="http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/6-tips-for-savvy-holiday-shipping-1.aspx" type="external">save money Opens a New Window.</a>, but two are even better, says Woroch.</p>
<p>"Stacking <a href="http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/8-tips-for-online-coupon-clipping-1.aspx" type="external">coupons Opens a New Window.</a> is when a retailer allows you to use more than one coupon on the same offer," she says.</p>
<p>For example, you might be able to stack a 20 percent off coupon with a code for <a href="http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/your-online-shopping-check-list.aspx" type="external">free shipping Opens a New Window.</a>. While not all retailers will allow this practice, there are a few major stores that do, including Target and Sears.</p> | Online Bargains Abound on Cyber Monday | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2011/11/18/online-bargains-abound-on-cyber-monday.html | 2017-02-08 | 0 |
<p>The evidence that police committed a crime in the handling of Freddie Gray is far from beyond a resonable doubt.</p>
<p>In fact, as Andrew Branca has analyzed here many times, based on publicly available information there seems to be serious doubt that police did anything wrong, much less anything criminal.</p>
<p>So what explains the Baltimore Mayor’s decision to pay $6.4 million to Freddie Gray’s family?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/freddie-gray/bs-md-ci-boe-20150908-story.html" type="external">The Baltimore Sun</a> reports:</p>
<p>Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s decision to pay Freddie Gray’s family a $6.4 million civil settlement drew praise and criticism Tuesday, with some Baltimore leaders saying the move will help heal the city and others calling it premature.</p>
<p>Former Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke said the settlement — expected to be approved Wednesday by the city’s spending panel — was a “very positive development for the city.”</p>
<p>“The mayor and her staff are trying to do all they can to heal the wounds in the community, and this is a step in the right direction,” said Schmoke, president of the University of Baltimore. “This settlement will give some people in the community at least some sense of justice.”</p>
<p>Superficially, peace through money seems to be the goal, because the dollar amount is hard to explain relative to other settlements, as the Baltimore Sun further explains:</p>
<p />
<p>The Gray settlement exceeds the combined total of more than 120 other lawsuits brought against Baltimore police for alleged brutality and misconduct since 2011. State law generally caps such payments, but local officials can authorize larger awards.</p>
<p>The mayor’s office declined to answer questions about the settlement, including why it was brought to the spending panel before any civil lawsuit was filed and how the payment amount was reached.</p>
<p>I don’t see it that way. I think there’s a much more mischievous motivation.</p>
<p>My theory: Money to Freddie’s family may not buy peace on the streets, but convictions will.</p>
<p>This settlement, while technically not an admission of guilt and one that will not be allowed to be presented in court, nonetheless will taint the jury pool. Everyone in Baltimore will know that there was a big payout, and big payout means something wrong was done.</p>
<p>So I don’t see this as a peace deal in itself, but a strategy to make convictions more likely. Peace through convictions.</p>
<p>And since the City will have settled up already, there’s no extra cost to the City for guilty verdicts.</p>
<p>Update 9-9-2015 – AP has an article along similar lines today, <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/article34440108.html" type="external">Experts say settlement in Gray case could affect hearing</a>:</p>
<p>… experts say the city’s willingness to pre-empt a lawsuit could have an effect on the officers’ ability to receive a fair trial in Baltimore — an issue Williams will likely decide Thursday.</p>
<p>“Damages would have been paid if the city went to trial and they’re willing to settle it. But they tell us it’s by no way an admission of fault by the police officers,” said David Harris, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh. “There’s no doubt that this will figure in to the hearing for change of venue. If I was an attorney for a defendant I’d be revising my motion right now to say the settlement was made to persuade the jury pool that the officers did something wrong.”</p>
<p>And this:</p>
<p /> | Mischievous motive behind Baltimore settlement with Freddie Gray family? | true | http://legalinsurrection.com/2015/09/mischievous-motive-behind-baltimore-settlement-with-freddie-gray-family/ | 2015-09-08 | 0 |
<p>Shortly before Robert Champion's parents filed suit against Florida A&amp;M University today, school president James Ammons submitted his resignation.</p>
<p>While the president didn't specify the high-profile event led to his decision, the alleged hazing has followed him since it happened last year.</p>
<p>Ammons wrote in a letter to the board of trustees that "considerable thought, introspection and conversations with my family" led to the choice, <a href="" type="external">The Famuan</a> reported.</p>
<p>Champion, a 26-year-old drum major in FAMU's famed Marching 100, died in Orlando after a football game. Officials suspect he was beaten to death inside the school bus in a hazing incident.</p>
<p>His parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit claiming damages of more than $15,000; the lawsuit didn't specify exactly how much more, <a href="" type="external">Reuters reported</a>.</p>
<p>They claim FAMU tolerated hazing that sent three other band members to hospital and cite at least 107 other incidents in 21 years.</p>
<p>"I personally am looking forward to getting answers for this family and finding out how this happened, why this happened and how we can prevent this from happening to other people," lawyer Christopher Chestnut told Reuters.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="" type="external">Criminal charges filed against 13 FAMU students</a></p>
<p>In the associated criminal case, 13 band members face charges - 11 with felony hazing with a maximum six years in jail - and two with misdemeanors.</p>
<p>The band has since been suspended for a year, and its director resigned in the spring.</p>
<p>Ammons's resignation is effective Oct. 11, and he will remain a professor at FAMU, <a href="" type="external">The Associated Press</a>reported.</p>
<p>"Following the presidency, I will continue my work on science, technology, engineering and math STEM initiatives as a tenured full professor on our great faculty," Ammons wrote.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="" type="external">Documents show Champion agreed to hazing</a></p> | FAMU hazing death: family sues school, president resigns | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-07-11/famu-hazing-death-family-sues-school-president-resigns | 2012-07-11 | 3 |
<p />
<p>Shoot! You were planning a rice-and-beans dinner party for 100, and you thought for sure your local Wal-Mart would meet all your bulk rice needs.</p>
<p>Think again. Because of rising rice prices around the globe and worries about shortages, the biggest big box has announced that it will <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN2323679120080423?pageNumber=2&amp;virtualBrandChannel=0" type="external">ration long grain, jasmine, and basmati rice</a>, allowing customers to purchase only four bags per visit.</p>
<p>Since the beginning of 2008, rice prices have risen 68 percent worldwide. This is one of the main reasons that <a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/18/america/18food.php" type="external">food riots</a> have broken out recently all over the developing world.</p>
<p>Saint Louis Meriska’s children ate two spoonfuls of rice apiece as their only meal recently and then went without any food the following day. His eyes downcast, his own stomach empty, the unemployed father said forlornly, “They look at me and say, ‘Papa, I’m hungry,’ and I have to look away. It’s humiliating and it makes you angry.”</p>
<p>In light of this two-spoonfuls anecdote, Wal-Mart’s four-bag limit sounds downright decadent, but rice rationing in the U.S. means that whatever is going on with supply and demand trends is not good. Once land-o’-plenty retailers start fretting about global food shortages, you can be sure <a href="http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/food/2008/01/cheap_food_is_dead.html" type="external">it’s time to worry</a>.</p>
<p /> | Wal-Mart Rations Rice | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2008/04/wal-mart-rations-rice/ | 2008-04-23 | 4 |
<p>House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Ca.) is considered to be the frontrunner to replace John Boehner (R-Oh.) as Speaker of the House. Would McCarthy be an improvement over Boehner?</p>
<p>There are some conservatives who think so. As noted establishment critic Erick Erickson <a href="http://www.redstate.com/2015/09/25/the-one-thing-you-must-understand-about-boehner-resigning/" type="external">writes</a>, while many House conservatives do not view McCarthy as conservative, they view him as "transactional" in that he would give them a seat in the table.</p>
<p>The argument in favor of McCarthy argues that he would more likely be swayed by House conservatives than Boehner was. As Erickson <a href="http://www.redstate.com/2015/10/07/the-fickle-spinelessness-of-a-wet-noodle-choice/" type="external">writes</a> in a separate post:</p>
<p>There is one benefit for conservatives to McCarthy as Speaker. He is not one of them. McCarthy knows he has to give conservatives a seat at the table or see himself go the way of Boehner. He could not simply declare himself a conservative like [Jason] Chaffetz and use media claims to his conservative bona fides to marginalize conservatives. I fear that would happen with Chaffetz.</p>
<p>To his credit, McCarthy has also surrounded himself with a team that is not hostile to conservatives — a big difference between him and Boehner.</p>
<p>McCarthy also opposes the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank and an Internet sales tax, while Chaffetz is likely to support them.</p>
<p>McCarthy has gotten heat for supposedly admitting that the Benghazi Committee in the House was solely created to politically harm Hillary Clinton.</p>
<p>"Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?" McCarthy <a href="" type="internal">told</a> Fox News's Sean Hannity in an interview. "But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she's untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened had we not fought and made that happen."</p>
<p>It could be argued that his words show that McCarthy is prone to be moved by conservatives, since he intimated that the House was fighting to hold Clinton's feet to the fire.</p>
<p>McCarthy's voting record is also slightly better than Boehner's. According to Conservative Review's <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/" type="external">scorecard</a>, McCarthy's record is 45 percent conservative while Boehner's is 37 percent.</p>
<p>But there are reasons for conservatives to be wary of McCarthy. According to Erickson, when McCarthy was in the California State Legislature he was known for reading People magazine and Us Weekly while his colleagues were reading white papers and legislative memos.</p>
<p>"I’m not sure we need a Speaker more interested in keeping up with the Kardashians than with policy proposals," Erickson <a href="http://www.redstate.com/2015/10/07/the-fickle-spinelessness-of-a-wet-noodle-choice/" type="external">writes</a>.</p>
<p>McCarthy also punished members of his own party in the state legislature when they didn't go along with him and had then-Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez do the dirty work, according to <a href="https://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/magazine/78566/kevin-mccarthy-republican-whip-machiavelli" type="external">The New Republic</a>.</p>
<p>“Sometimes he would come to me and say, ‘Look, a couple of the Republicans here are not being team players. Do whatever you need to do, but I would appreciate it if they didn’t have good offices,’” Núñez told TNR. “Then I would take away their offices.”</p>
<p>Núñez then chuckled, “I would never say I was doing it to help Kevin McCarthy.”</p>
<p>McCarthy has also <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/Commentary/2015/09/5-machiavellian-mccarthy-moments" type="external">backed a group</a> called Mainstreet Advocacy, a George Soros-funded organization whose sole purpose is defeating conservatives. In addition, McCarthy <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/Commentary/2015/09/5-machiavellian-mccarthy-moments" type="external">expressed support</a> for Republicans who are "less partisan" and believe in "abortion rights."</p>
<p>John Boehner wouldn't have been able to advance his agenda if not for McCarthy. The House Majority Leader's job is to schedule legislation to be put on the floor and shape the chamber's agenda. McCarthy could have stopped Boehner's goals to fund Planned Parenthood and reauthorize the Ex-Im Bank, and yet they're going through.</p>
<p>McCarthy's comments on Clinton have been widely criticized on both sides of the aisle. Clinton has even used his words in a <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/6/kevin-mccarthy-in-hillary-clinton-campaign-ad-afte/" type="external">campaign advertisement</a>.</p>
<p>"Kevin, you're wrong," Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-Sc.), who runs the Benghazi committee, <a href="http://therightscoop.com/trey-gowdy-rips-into-kevin-mccarthy-for-misrepresenting-the-benghazi-investigation/" type="external">declared</a> on MSNBC's Morning Joe. "When Speaker Boehner called me, he never mentioned Secretary Clinton's name. In fact, we've had three public hearings, Joe; I've never mentioned her name."</p>
<p>Gowdy also mentioned the fact they haven't even interviewed Clinton yet and less than five percent of the relevant documents they have access to mention her name.</p>
<p>"She [Clinton] was the secretary of state at all relevant times, so of course you have to talk to her," Gowdy said. "But we didn't start with her, we're not going to end with her. In fact, I've been pretty patient as to when she came before the committee."</p>
<p>One also has to be concerned about the fact that Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Ca.) wants any Republican that votes against McCarthy to be kicked out of the party.</p>
<p>"You have to caucus as parties and if you don’t like what happened in your party you have to leave and go start your own party," Nunes <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/10/07/rep-devin-nunes-kick-all-republicans-who-wont-support-kevin-mccarthy-on-floor-for-speaker-out-of-gop/" type="external">told</a> Breitbart. "Which is kind of what’s happened anyway, and it’s fine. They have every right to do that.”</p>
<p>Nunes is an ally of McCarthy; McCarthy has not rebuked Nunes's comments. If McCarthy holds that same mentality, what would stop him from kicking conservatives off of committees?</p>
<p>McCarthy may give conservatives a seat of the table, but there are some concerns about how much he will be swayed and whether he can effectively articulate the conservative agenda.</p> | Should Conservatives Be Wary Of McCarthy? | true | https://dailywire.com/news/292/should-conservatives-be-wary-mccarthy-aaron-bandler | 2015-10-07 | 0 |
<p>&amp;amp;lt;i&amp;amp;gt;This post originally ran Sunday on &amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.juancole.com/2015/05/called-patriot-terrorism.html" title="Juan Cole’s Web page"&amp;amp;gt;Juan Cole’s website&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt;.&amp;amp;lt;/i&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;gt;Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) &amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/exclusive-rand-paul-i-will-force-the-expiration-of-the-patriot-act-118443.html%20"&amp;amp;gt; has vowed to force the expiration of the so-called PATRIOT Act&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt; on Sunday. Paul is right that it is unconstitutional and in this regard he is a better constitutional scholar than Barack Obama, whose stance on this issue is, to say the least, disappointing.&amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;gt;Obama is not interested in the Fourth Amendment. PBS Frontline says that the National Security Agency didn’t even bother to read him into its massive domestic surveillance program until 2010, two years into his first term, and that when they did, he just sat there and nodded approval. You have to wonder if they are blackmailing him in some way, though there isn’t any reason think that. This kind of surveillance is corrosive of democracy, because we can never trust elected politicians on whom the super-spies might have dirt.&amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;gt;The so-called PATRIOT Act was pushed as an anti-terrorism measure after 9/11, but it was never about terrorism. The bureaucrats and the GOP had clearly had such an assault on civil liberties and the US Constitution prepared in the 1990s. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) once told me the story of how this 1100 page bill was dropped on all the congressmen and women late one afternoon and then they were expected to vote on it the next day. He doubted that anyone even read it. But the point is that the bill was off the shelf and ready to go. It was a preexisting conspiracy.&amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;lt;div class="sidebar__ad-label"&amp;amp;gt;Advertisement&amp;amp;lt;/div&amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;broadstreet-zone zone-id="58577"&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;/broadstreet-zone&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.juancole.com/2013/07/unreasonable-documents-revolution.html%20"&amp;amp;gt; Warrantless and general searches through people’s papers without probable cause was one of the sparks&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt; that set off the American Revolution. The Fourth Amendment was enacted to ensure that the abuses that occurred under the crown would not continue in the Republic. In 2001 the PATRIOT Act abrogated the Fourth Amendment.&amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;gt;It used to say: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”&amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.juancole.com/2014/10/patriot-warrants-terrorism.html%20"&amp;amp;gt; Section 213 of the unconstitutional Patriot Act&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt; allowed “sneak and peak” searches, where law enforcement did not even tell the suspect that his or her premises were being searched. Only 0.5 % of searches conducted with these secret warrants involved terrorism. Mostly, they have been used in the “war on drugs.” That “war” is, in turn, likely an attempt by liquor companies and pharmaceuticals to make pot and other recreational drugs expensive and hard to get, so as to cut down on competition.&amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;gt;All that is not to mention Section 215, which has a secret interpretation inside the FBI that differs from that of the congressmen who authored the act and passed it. (Sen. Ron Wyden found out about this but was prevented by the PATRIOT Act from revealing it to the public!) We know from the Snowden revelations that this law and some executive orders are used to authorize absolutely outrageous warrantless snooping into the affairs of millions of Americans. If you know who someone calls and for how long, and where they are when they do it, you can figure out all sorts of things about him or her. Does she call an abortion clinic? Does he call a venture capitalist? Do public officials have any vices as revealed by their calls? Of course, the National Security Agency goes way beyond just collecting and storing Americans’ call records. With British help, it scoops up the text of emails and phone audio files, i.e. it gets substance and not just metadata. But the metadata would tell them a lot.&amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;gt;We also now know that the metadata is &amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.juancole.com/2014/05/snowden-alexander-traitor.html%20"&amp;amp;gt; shared with the Drug Enforcement Agency, which uses it to prosecute drug dealers but routinely lies to judges about how the case developed.&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt; While it is hard to sympathize with drug dealers, whenever law enforcement acts unconstitutionally and illegally, it harms us all.&amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;gt;</p> | Why Rand Paul Was Right to Kill the So-Called Patriot Act: It Was Never About Terrorism | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/why-rand-paul-was-right-to-kill-the-so-called-patriot-act-it-was-never-about-terrorism/ | 2015-06-01 | 4 |
<p>BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Authorities in the Belgian capital Brussels have banned an advertising campaign for a dating website putting young women in touch with rich older men, that politicians said encouraged prostitution.</p>
<p>Billboards seen on lorries around the city’s university quarter at the start of the academic year read: “Hey women students! Improve your lifestyle. Go out with a ‘sugar daddy’.”</p>
<p>Rudi Vervoort, the head of the Brussels regional government said his administration had taken a “simple decision, namely the total ban (on the billboards) in the whole area of the Brussels Region.”</p>
<p>“I’m not here to lecture anyone, as long as it is between consenting adults,” he said. “On the other hand we are facing here a mechanism, in a way, a form of ‘pimping 2.0’.”</p>
<p>The site’s founder, Norwegian Sigurd Vedal, has said the site “RichMeetBeautiful”, which operates in several countries, aims to put people in contact with each other, and has denied any similarity to prostitution.</p>
<p>Vedal told Belgian broadcaster VTM that young women were looking for “something more than just appearance” from older men, citing the values of mentoring and “meaningful mental stimulation”.</p>
<p />
<p>Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.</p> | Brussels bans 'sugar daddy' dating site street ads | false | https://newsline.com/brussels-bans-039sugar-daddy039-dating-site-street-ads/ | 2017-09-27 | 1 |
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p /> PROTESTOR (through megaphone): “On May 15th, the citizens of this country – free, conscious and outraged!”
<p />
<p />NOAH GIMBEL: Before Adbusters called on activists to Occupy Wall Street, thousands of Spaniards set up camp in Madrid’s iconic Puerta del Sol, and in public squares across the country. Now, as the occupy movement around the U.S. sets its sights on the longer term struggle for social and economic justice with movements like Take Back the Land and Occupy Our Homes, the Spanish experience has valuable lessons to offer what is now a globalized popular front.
<p />
<p />It started in Spring 2011 as the economic crisis in Spain worsened. A small group of activists sought to unify the country’s disparate social movements behind a common cause. They launched Democracia Real Ya – Real Democracy Now – and called for a day of action on May 15th for all people to express their dissatisfaction with the status quo. Miguel Yarza, one of the spokespeople for the group, was a founding member.
<p />
<p />MIGUEL YARZA: “Everyone in Spain was saying how bad the situation was, and that something needed to be done, but nobody did anything. So what that demonstration achieved was to join together the complaints of the society at large and bring a huge number of people into the streets. The following days, people camped in the Puerta del Sol, not from any initiative of DRY, but in a manner in which people decided to do so spontaneously. So that's how this whole movement, known as 15-M, was born in Madrid.
<p />
<p />We have arrived at an absolutely critical situation, and we start to hear the blame cast on the fact that Spaniards are living beyond their means. But if you ask anyone, they will respond that first, Spaniards haven't been living beyond their means, second, they comply with everything they're asked to do - they've bought houses like they were told by the political class - a political class whose responsibility should be to protect the people they are supposed to represent - a job they have never done. So we have ended up in a very serious crisis, with an unemployment rate almost twice that of the next European country. And this type of protest generates more and more people, discontent with the situation, fully conscious of its seriousness, knowing that things can change.”
<p />
<p />GIMBEL: The encampment at the Puerta del Sol lasted until August 2, when the national police evicted protesters and closed the iconic central plaza to the public, turning it into a parking lot for police vans. A number of demonstrators and journalists were seriously injured by often-unprovoked police violence. The eviction brought even more people into the streets demanding that public space be restored to the public, which it was after several days of demonstrations.
<p />
<p />While the encampment was not restored, the movement continued its activities in other ways, most notably by joining forces with the Plataforma Afectados por la Hipoteca – a group founded in early 2009 to promote solidarity among people who couldn’t pay their mortgages. They began to mobilize to stop evictions in November 2010. By May 15th they had successfully paralyzed some 20 evictions. Since May 15th, that number has reached 116.
<p />
<p />The movement got another burst of energy as it spread around the world with the October 15th call to action that came to be known as Occupy Everywhere.
<p />
<p />The October 15th protests drew a half a million people into the streets of Madrid and another quarter of a million in Barcelona. This time, though, instead of camping in public squares, protestors took over an abandoned hotel.
<p />
<p />YARZA: “There was a lot of controversy, most notably around the hotel just down the street from here. It was occupied the 15th of October, the police evicted the occupation in early December. The hotel had many floors, and the various floors were dedicated to, for example, the housing office for people who had had their homes foreclosed because they couldn't pay their mortgages, they let them live there in the hotel throughout the occupation.
<p />
<p />Evidently, the state doesn't meet its obligations. Article 47 of the Spanish Constitution specifically obliges the state to guarantee dignified housing to all citizens. And there is no dignified housing. People get thrown out of their houses and are forced to sleep in a car. So if the state doesn't provide, we are trying to ourselves. And we are perfectly legitimate in so doing, because what we are doing is trying to realize what is laid out in the constitution.
<p />
<p />This is very serious - the basic laws are not followed, and human rights are not respected. And if you read the preface to the Declaration of Human Rights, it says that the citizen has the ultimate right to rebellion. So if human rights are not observed, if the constitution is not observed, naturally, it becomes necessary to rebel against this system that prevents you from living with dignity.”
<p />
<p />GIMBEL: The public appropriation of unused and abandoned buildings also has precedent in Spain. Throughout the capital, and around the country, groups and individuals have taken part in a many types of occupations, ranging from state-sanctioned takeovers of public properties lacking funding, to the clandestine occupation of empty apartments in direct confrontation with established notions of private property.
<p />
<p />The now iconic social center known as La Tabacalera belongs in the former category. In the diverse neighborhood of Lavapiés, the former tobacco factory has been converted into a self-sustaining popular space for art, music, gardening, social gathering and political assembly.
<p />
<p />Other occupied spaces exist knowingly outside the law. Some seek to house families and individuals who lose their homes to foreclosure, others seek to create radical spaces from which to advance alternatives to dominant social norms. Few of these spaces grant access to journalists.
<p />
<p />But all of these forms of resistance to the socio-economic inequality engendered by neoliberal corporatism have something to offer their international counterparts. And that is one of the primary tasks currently being undertaken by Democracia Real Ya and the 15-M movement.
<p />
<p />YARZA: “Now we are making great efforts to expand the movement outside of Spain, we have partners working in the US, in Sydney, in New Zealand, in different European countries, we participate in whatever conferences there are, because it's very important to generate a critical spirit in society and culture to eliminate the conformity that prevails, and bring about change.
<p />
<p />Even in the U.S. it's mainly the same - very many people, totally desperate, are living well below the poverty line. So I think in that sense it is very important to expand these movements beyond borders. Because the economy is global, speculation is global, the great fortunes invest their money all over the world. Markets - well, 'markets,' 'markets' are a group of investors who, if they go against the Euro, if they go against whatever, it's because they make more money, not because of anything to do with confidence. So what we have is a group of speculators who are attacking the Euro solely for their own benefit.
<p />
<p />So here there should be a series of laws that regulate exactly this type of activity to avoid this tie of attacks. But in a fully neoliberal system as the one that exists, this doesn't happen. So what we are doing is to fight against this very society in general.”
<p />
<p />GIMBEL: Part of that fight is to affect real change to the political system and achieve real representation in government’s dominated by narrow special interests.
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<p />YARZA: “If you vote for a third party, you won't be represented. One of our principle battles is for a more just electoral law under which everyone will be represented.
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<p />We've also achieved things politically. For example, the city of Leganés was discussing the inclusion of people from “Plataforma Afectados por la Hipoteca" (affected by mortgage) and the 15-M movement in the actual political commission. Indirectly, it has been notable in the villages, at the local level, etc., that there have been great repercussions with respect to the movement.
<p />
<p />Right now we're in a more pedagogic, educative phase, teaching the people what rights they have, bringing the movement to other countries, but most of all generating a critical spirit that is lacking in our society.”
<p />
<p />GIMBEL: Affecting the political system poses massive challenges, especially with the recent ascent of the right-wing Popular Party to full majority power in November promising to impose harsh austerity measures in order to cut government debt.
<p />
<p />YARZA: “And sadly, the PP is going to help us a lot: by making these cuts, what they are going to achieve is much more protest. People will become conscious that we are all responsible for putting into power irresponsible people, people who lie continually, and these cuts only drive this point. So we are looking to reach a critical mass of people to protest and exercise direct influence.”
<p />
<p />GIMBEL: But as the movement moves forward, as much in Spain as in the U.S., it is important to recognize its failures and setbacks and learn from them.
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<p />YARZA: “The foremost principal error is that people come with great hopes right from the start, and after a little while, they burn out and get tired thinking that this won't be a slow process. So what we tell to all of those who participate in our activities is to pace themselves.
<p />
<p />The second error lies in the smaller groups that have broken off from the starting point of the movement. And this is an error that has always divided the working class, differentiating ourselves into groups. To focus on our differences accomplishes nothing. The important thing is to look at all the things that unite us - we are an immense majority with a lot of diversity - and then ignite a critical spirit.
<p />
<p />We oughtn't go about trying to impose our solutions and our way of thinking, instead we should listen. The art of debating, as we practice in the assemblies, is an art of listening, listening to people and learning that they have different perspectives, which then enriches your own perspective. Thus you can be strong and steadfast in the future rather than have your efforts slowly die off…So to realize that however small you feel, what gives us power are these connections and the ability to work together, and most of all to share the information that we have.”
<p />
<p />GIMBEL: For the Real News, I’m Noah Gimbel in Madrid. | Spain's "Indignados" and the Globalization of Dissent | true | http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D767%26Itemid%3D74%26jumival%3D7825 | 2012-01-20 | 4 |
<p>Incoming! Incoming!</p>
<p>Uh . . . pardon me while I interrupt this false alarm to quote Martin Luther King:</p>
<p>“Science investigates,” he says in The Strength To Love, “religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals.”</p>
<p>These words stopped me in my tracks on MLK Day. They seemed to fill a hole in the breaking news, which never quite manages to balance power with wisdom, or even acknowledge the distinction.</p>
<p>Our relationship to power is unquestioned, e.g.: “In the United States itself, there are around [nuclear] 4,500 warheads, of which approximately 1,740 are deployed,” Karthika Sasikumar writes at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. “Even more worrying, around 900 of these are on hair-trigger alert, which means that they could be launched within 10 minutes of receiving a warning (which could turn out to be a false alarm). . . .</p>
<p>“The threat to the United States is very real, but fattening the nuclear arsenal is not a rational response. The United States already has 100 times as many warheads as North Korea. . . .”</p>
<p>The U.S. has enormous power, but so what? Such data is almost never addressed in the mainstream media — certainly not in the context of . . . disarmament. That concept is sealed shut, barred from the consciousness of generals and news anchors. Certainly it didn’t come up in the coverage of what happened last Saturday in Hawaii, when an employee of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency hit the wrong link on his computer screen during a shift change and an incoming-missile alert went statewide, throwing residents and tourists into 38 minutes of panic: “Children going down manholes, stores closing their doors to those seeking shelter and cars driving at high speeds . . .”</p>
<p>Nor did it come up three days later, when a false missile alert went off in Japan, a country with a few memories of the real thing: “Within 10 seconds the fire that wiped out the city came after us at full speed. Everyone was naked. Bodies were swelling up. Some people were so deformed I couldn’t tell if they were male or female. People died screaming, ‘Please give me water!’”</p>
<p>So said Emiko Okada, who was a little girl living with her family on the outskirts of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. Her older sister, who had just left for school, disappeared that morning and was never seen again. Emiko tells her story in the remarkable 2010 documentary Atomic Mom.</p>
<p>In a column I wrote about the movie at the time, I asked: “What if schoolchildren stood facing not the American flag every morning before class started but a photograph of a devastated Hiroshima, shortly after it was obliterated by our atomic bomb, and pledged their allegiance to the idea that such a thing will never happen again?”</p>
<p>What, I wondered, if we started facing our fears instead of living in fear? To do so, we have to find wisdom in the maw of power.</p>
<p>What we find instead is a president who shook up the whole planet when he called Haiti and the countries of Africa shithole nations — managing, as far as I can tell, to make the word “shithole” far more acceptable to utter in public than “disarmament.”</p>
<p>But the monstrousness of the word isn’t that it used to be obscene, but rather that it does what so many other words do: renders a segment of humanity soulless: the enemy, and therefore expendable. Japan is now our ally, but when we nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki, its people were Japs or Nips and without value.</p>
<p>Is not the first step toward wisdom when it comes to a world still preposterously armed with weapons of mass destruction a national and international commitment never to dehumanize a living soul? With such a commitment in place, the obvious next step is committing never to launch a nuclear weapon, and therefore agreeing to get rid of the ones we have and, of course, refraining from developing new, more “usable” generations of nukes.</p>
<p>To put it another way, mutually assured destruction is not wisdom. It’s playing with global holocaust, an outcome that may be beyond the ability of anyone, at least anyone who is not a hibakusha — an atomic bomb survivor — to imagine. Free of such paralyzing awareness, national leaders postulate how they would retaliate if attacked, as though a counterattack, killing millions more people, is in any way a sane response to a nuclear attack (or apparent attack).</p>
<p>The Atlantic, in an article about the Hawaii false alarm, quoted one scholar’s tweet of a possible scenario: “POTUS sees alert on his phone about an incoming toward Hawaii, pulls out the biscuit, turns to his military aide with the football and issues a valid and authentic order to launch nuclear weapons at North Korea. Think it can’t happen?”</p>
<p>Come on. With this president?</p>
<p>I think it’s time to free MLK from his day of honor and put him back at the center of the national news.</p> | The Wisdom of Mass Salvation | true | https://counterpunch.org/2018/01/19/the-wisdom-of-mass-salvation/ | 2018-01-19 | 4 |
<p>Jan 19 (Reuters) - China Harmony New Energy Auto Holding Ltd :</p>
<p>* ‍EXPECTED FY PROFIT ATTRIBUTABLE WILL NOT BE LOWER THAN APPROXIMATELY RMB1 BILLION​</p>
<p>* - EXPECTED RESULTS DUE TO ‍CONTINUING GROWTH OF REVENUE GENERATED FROM GROUP’S 4S OUTLETS BUSINESSES​ Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>PARIS (Reuters) - Air France grounded just under a third of flights on Saturday as staff staged a walkout over pay, and travelers also braced for a fresh wave of train strikes starting later in the day, crippling much of France’s transport network.</p>
<p>The industrial action at France’s flag carrier - marking the fifth day of worker stoppages over the past month and a half - has began to overlap with nationwide rolling train strikes, as rail unions protest against President Emmanuel Macron’s reforms.</p>
<p>Air France had forecast that some 70 percent of flights would operate on Saturday.</p>
<p>Unions representing airline staff, locked in a dispute with Air France management over their request for a six percent pay rise, last week called four more strike days in April, in addition to stoppages planned for April 10 and 11.</p>
<p>Queues formed at Paris’ Roissy airport on Saturday as stranded passengers sought to rebook flights.</p>
<p>“We wasted one day here,” said Harinath Reddy, an Indian software engineer whose connecting flight in Paris between Nuremberg in Germany and Mumbai was canceled, causing him to miss another leg of his journey within India.</p>
<p>“If I have to book new ticket within a short time, it’s very expensive. And they are saying they cannot do anything about that. It’s totally ridiculous.”</p> Passengers arrive at the Air France check-in at Bordeaux-Merignac airport, as Air France pilots, cabin and ground crews unions call for a strike over salaries in Merignac near Bordeaux, France April 7, 2018. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau
<p>Train strikes due to start at 1900CET (17GMT) and lasting through to the early hours of Tuesday spelled more chaos for commuters and travelers at the beginning of some mid-term school holidays in France.</p>
<p>The rolling strikes, called in protest at Macron’s bid to modernize the state-run rail company SNCF, through a reform that would end job-for-life guarantees for workers, are set to last until June.</p>
<p>On Sunday, some 35 percent of the workers needed for the network to run smoothly were expected to be absent, SNCF officials said on Saturday. That compares to a 48 percent absentee rate during strikes last Tuesday and Wednesday.</p> Slideshow (2 Images)
<p>One in five high-speed TGV trains were set to run on Sunday, while three out of four international Eurostar and Thalys routes would be operational, the SNCF said.</p>
<p>Reporting by Michaela Cabrera and Myriam Rivet, Writing by Sarah White; Editing by Stephen Powell</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Christian Sewing, currently co-deputy chief executive officer of Deutsche Bank ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DBKGn.DE" type="external">DBKGn.DE</a>), is to become the new CEO of Germany’s biggest lender, replacing John Cryan, Der Spiegel reported on its website on Sunday.</p> Christian Sewing, member of the board of Germany's Deutsche Bank is pictured in Frankfurt, Germany, February 2, 2018. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski
<p>A spokeswoman for Deutsche Bank declined to comment.</p>
<p>The German magazine said that Chairman Paul Achleitner will nominate Sewing at a hastily called board meeting on Sunday evening. Sewing, 47, would assume the helm at the company’s annual general meeting in May, the report said.</p>
<p>Deutsche Bank confirmed late on Saturday that the board would discuss the CEO position and make a decision.</p> John Cryan, CEO of Germany's Deutsche Bank is pictured in Frankfurt, Germany, February 2, 2018. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski
<p>Sewing, a German national, would replace Cryan, a Briton, at a time when the bank is trying to strengthen its brand in its home market.</p>
<p>Cryan has been in office less than three years but investors have lost faith that he can return the bank to profitability after three consecutive years of losses.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DBKGn.DE" type="external">Deutsche Bank AG</a> 11.352 DBKGn.DE Xetra -0.31 (-2.64%) DBKGn.DE
<p>In picking up the baton, Sewing would face challenges including further cost cutting, intense competition at home and abroad, increased regulation and questions about the future path of the investment bank.</p>
<p>Sewing oversees the bank’s private and commercial bank division, which includes the Postbank retail banking unit. He has been a member of the management board since 2015.</p>
<p>Sewing joined Deutsche Bank in 1989 and has worked in Frankfurt, London, Singapore, Tokyo and Toronto, according to the bank’s website.</p>
<p>His appointment would be a blow to co-deputy Marcus Schenck, long considered a future CEO. The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday that Schenck has been in discussions to leave the lender as soon as next month.</p>
<p>Reporting by Tom Sims; Editing by Christoph Steitz and Susan Fenton</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Deutsche Bank’s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DBKGn.DE" type="external">DBKGn.DE</a>) supervisory board intends to “take a decision” on Sunday after discussing John Cryan’s job at the helm of the bank, the German lender said late on Saturday.</p> Deutsche Bank building before the bank's annual news conference in Frankfurt, Germany, February 2, 2018. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski
<p>In a brief statement, the bank confirmed earlier reports that Chairman Paul Achleitner had invited the supervisory board to an “update call”. Two people familiar with the matter told Reuters that a replacement for Cryan could be discussed at the meeting.</p>
<p>“Deutsche Bank’s Supervisory Board will have a discussion on the bank’s CEO position on Sunday evening,” the bank said. “It is planned to take a decision in this context on the same day.”</p>
<p>A representative for the bank was not immediately available to elaborate, but the two sources said earlier on Saturday that they could not rule out the possibility of a major announcement.</p>
<p>An external candidate to succeed Cryan was more likely than an internal candidate, one of the sources said.</p>
<p>Achleitner will act quickly to resolve the situation, said a third person who is a major investor in the bank, also speaking on condition of anonymity.</p>
<p>The Sunday discussion by the board follows two weeks of turmoil over the bank’s leadership.</p>
<p>Achleitner had initiated a search to replace Cryan, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters on March 27, following a flurry of negative headlines after the bank reported a third consecutive annual loss.</p>
<p>Cryan, who has been in office less than three years, responded by writing a memo to staff in which he said he remained “absolutely committed” to the bank. But Achleitner stayed silent, to the chagrin of major investors seeking clarity.</p>
<p>In recent days, Achleitner has broken his silence and reached out to some major investors, according to two other people with knowledge of the matter.</p>
<p>Achleitner was criticized by two major investors this week over the bank’s performance and his handling of the search for a new chief executive.</p>
<p>The leadership debate underscores the continued fragility of the 148-year-old bank after speculation of a possible government bailout just over a year ago.</p> Deutsche Bank CEO John Cryan during the bank's annual news conference in Frankfurt, Germany, February 2, 2018. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski INVESTMENT BANK WOES
<p>The debate also parallels concern about the path forward for Deutsche’s investment bank, whose swift expansion in the years leading up to the financial crisis is blamed for many of the bank’s current woes.</p>
<p>Revenue at the investment bank in 2017 was down 25 percent compared with 2015, a steeper fall than those suffered by its competitors. The division employed more than 41,000 staff at the end of 2017, up 4 percent from 2015, but key staff have left.</p>
<p>Cryan is conducting a global review of the investment bank, known internally as Project Colombo, a person with direct knowledge of the matter has said.</p>
<p>Cryan, the son of a jazz musician, is married into the wealthy Du Pont family of the United States. He was appointed to the helm of Deutsche in 2015 to overhaul the bank after years of rapid growth under investment bankers.</p>
<p>But his tumultuous tenure as CEO highlights many of the bank’s underlying issues.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DBKGn.DE" type="external">Deutsche Bank AG</a> 11.352 DBKGn.DE Xetra -0.31 (-2.64%) DBKGn.DE
<p>Early on, Cryan quickly announced thousands of job cuts to trim costs but reversed the bank’s plans to sell its Postbank retail unit after tepid interest from buyers.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the bank announced earlier this year that it would post its third consecutive annual loss for 2017.</p>
<p>The German government and some of the nation’s most senior politicians criticized Cryan for paying 2.3 billion euros ($2.82 billion) in staff bonuses despite those losses, four times higher than the previous year.</p>
<p>One board member, Kim Hammonds, told leadership at a recent meeting that the bank was “the most dysfunctional company” she had ever worked for, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.</p>
<p>Over the past weeks, a number of names have surfaced in the media as possible replacements for Cryan. But some analysts wonder whether anyone would be able to do a better job on turning the bank around.</p>
<p>“There has been actually a disciplined execution in a tough environment by this team,” said Peter Nerby, who analyses the bank for Moody’s. “I wonder if anyone really has a better way to get there. It’s not obvious to me what that way would be.”</p>
<p>($1 = 0.8143 euros)</p>
<p>Reporting by Tom Sims and Hans Seidenstuecker; additional reporting by Christoph Steitz and Oliver Hirt; editing by Jason Neely and Daniel Wallis</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany’s public debt is falling faster than expected thanks to high tax revenues and should drop below the European Union’s target threshold next year, a year earlier than previously expected, magazine Der Spiegel reported on Saturday.</p> FILE PHOTO - The Frankfurt skyline with its financial district is photographed on early evening in Frankfurt, Germany, March 25, 2018. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach
<p>Citing the government’s new stability program, due to be agreed by the cabinet next Wednesday, Spiegel said the debt ratio was now projected to fall to just over 58 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2019 from 61 percent this year.</p>
<p>That would see the debt ratio drop below the EU Stability and Growth Pact threshold of 60 percent of GDP a year earlier than previously forecast.</p>
<p>Writing by Paul Carrel; Editing by Hugh Lawson</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | BRIEF-China Harmony New Energy Auto Expects FY Profit Attributable To Not Be Lower Than about Rmb1 bln Air France strike hits flights as French brace for rail stoppages Christian Sewing to become new CEO of Deutsche Bank: Spiegel Deutsche Bank board to discuss CEO and make decision on Sunday German public debt falling faster than expected - Spiegel | false | https://reuters.com/article/brief-china-harmony-new-energy-auto-expe/brief-china-harmony-new-energy-auto-expects-fy-profit-attributable-to-not-be-lower-than-about-rmb1-bln-idUSFWN1PE02G | 2018-01-19 | 2 |
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<p>PHOENIX - A teenager has been arrested in connection with a shooting that critically wounded a high school student in Phoenix.</p>
<p>Phoenix police announced Thursday that a 16-year-old boy has been taken into custody. His name is being withheld because he's a juvenile.</p>
<p>Tayler Maggi was shot on April 14 as he was driving with his girlfriend in north-central Phoenix.</p>
<p>Police say the 18-year-old Sunnyslope High student was struck in the head by a bullet and lost control of the car that then crashed into a wall.</p>
<p>Maggi remains hospitalized in critical condition. His girlfriend wasn't seriously injured.</p>
<p>Police say detectives were able to gather information that identified the 16-year-old boy as the possible shooter.</p>
<p>They say no motive has been established for the shooting and the investigation is continuing.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Phoenix police: Teen accused of shooting high school student | false | https://abqjournal.com/765182/phoenix-police-teen-accused-of-shooting-high-school-student.html | 2 |
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<p>With $1.2 million already shelled out, another $3.9 million on the table and some bills still in the pipeline, the legal costs of the recent redistricting could be on track to top $5 million.</p>
<p>Taxpayers will pick up the tab for the redrawing of district boundaries for elected officials, which ended up being done by a court this year after a clash between Republican Gov. Susana Martinez and the Democratic-controlled Legislature.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>For the redistricting of 2001-02 — some of which also went to court — the state paid more than $3.7 million in legal costs.</p>
<p>Martinez said she wanted to curb the costs of the recent redistricting fight, and on Monday her lawyers filed a petition with retired state District Judge James Hall objecting to the awards sought by lawyers for Democratic plaintiffs and a group of Indian tribes.</p>
<p>Hall has before him more than $3.9 million in requests for legal fees and costs from various parties in the lawsuits.</p>
<p>He has scheduled a hearing for April 20 to hear arguments on the requests.</p>
<p>Martinez and the other GOP executive defendants — Lt. Gov. John Sanchez and Secretary of State Dianna Duran — said the “vast sums” sought by the Democratic and tribal plaintiffs were “shocking.”</p>
<p>They said the awards are “grossly out of proportion” with what is sought by two groups of Republican plaintiffs and the Navajo Nation, and asked Hall to reduce them.</p>
<p>The legal work included brief trials on new district boundaries for U.S. House, the Public Regulation Commission and the state Senate; an eight-day trial for the state House; and a redo after the state Supreme Court overturned the state House plan.</p>
<p>There are technical costs as well: Through the end of January, the Legislature has paid consultant Brian Sanderoff’s firm, Research &amp; Polling Inc., nearly $909,000 since November 2010 for redistricting work, according to the Legislative Council Service.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The bulk of that, $755,600, was before and during the special legislative redistricting session of September 2011, but Sanderoff also produced maps and related information during the trials.</p>
<p>Since last October, the Legislature has paid the lawyers who represented the legislative leadership or did other legal work on redistricting — including Luis Stelzner and Richard Olson — more than $725,000, according to the Legislative Council Service.</p>
<p>During the same period, the General Services Department’s Risk Management Division has paid the lawyers representing Sanchez and Duran —who were defendants in the lawsuits —nearly $484,000 in legal fees, not including costs and expenses. Those lawyers include Robert M. Doughty III and Charles Peifer.</p>
<p>And that doesn’t count whatever the governor’s contracted lawyer, Paul Kennedy, bills for his work. According to a spokesman for the Risk Management Division, Kennedy hasn’t submitted any bills yet.</p>
<p>The requests pending before Hall include lawyers’ fees and other litigation-related costs and expenses.</p>
<p>They include:</p>
<p>♦ Joseph Goldberg and others representing plaintiffs including Democratic Rep. Brian Egolf of Santa Fe: $1,042,689.</p>
<p>♦ John Wertheim, David Thomson and others representing plaintiffs including Democratic Rep. Moe Maestas of Albuquerque: $826,712; Stephen Durkovich, also representing Maestas: $217,026.</p>
<p>♦ Teresa Leger and others representing plaintiffs including five Indian pueblos and the Jicarilla Apache Nation: $770,021.</p>
<p>♦ David A. Garcia, Henry Bohnhoff and others representing plaintiffs including Republican Rep. Conrad James of Albuquerque: $625,828.</p>
<p>♦ Patricia Williams and others representing the Navajo Nation: $312,837.</p>
<p>♦ Pat Rogers and others representing plaintiffs including House Republican Whip Don Bratton of Hobbs: $159,004.</p>
<p>♦ Santiago Juarez representing the League of United Latin American Citizens: $20,597.</p> | Legal Tab for Redistricting Could Top $5M | false | https://abqjournal.com/97984/legal-tab-for-redistricting-could-top-5m.html | 2012-04-03 | 2 |
<p>Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH) announced her surprise retirement on Friday, opening up one of the nation’s most hotly contested swing districts and creating a possible headache for national Democrats.</p>
<p>“The time has come in my life to pause and decide on a different path,” she said in a statement.</p>
<p>Shea-Porter, a liberal community activist, had been in the middle of some of the toughest House races of the last decade. She&#160;first won her seat in 2006, campaigning stridently against the Iraq War, beat former Rep. Jeb Bradley (R-NH) in a 2008 rematch, lost it to Rep. Frank Guinta (R-NH) in 2010, beat him in 2012, lost to him in 2014 and defeated him again in 2016 after Guinta struggled with corruption charges.</p>
<p>She’d never been a favorite of national Democrats&#160;due to her unrepentantly liberal views in the centrist district, but her fervent base support had helped keep her in the race and eventually won over some internal party critics.</p>
<p>She won the district last fall even though President Trump narrowly won it by 48 percent to 47 percent after President Obama carried it twice.</p>
<p>Her retirement is likely to create a scramble in New Hampshire politics, with a number of local politicians who may be interested in the seat.</p>
<p>Democrats are already talking up New Hampshire Executive Council member Chris Pappas (D) as a strong possible candidate, though he’s likely to face a primary.</p>
<p>On the GOP side, New Hampshire state Sen. Andy Sanborn (R) is squaring off against former local police chief Eddie Edwards (R) in the primary.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee insisted that there “is no doubt that Democrats will hold this seat” in a statement thanking Shea-Porter for her service, while the National Republican Congressional Committee said they&#160;“are confident we will turn this district red once again.”</p> | Swing-District House Democrat Announces Retirement in New Hampshire | true | http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/swing-district-house-democrat-announces-retirement-in-new-hampshire | 4 |
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<p>“What serious, let alone decent religiously conscious person — left or right, conservative or liberal — would knowingly work to enrich this dreadful man who will go down in history as the epitome of everything that all religion says it’s against: lies, greed, criminality and sheer disgusting exploitation of the defenseless that would shame a sewer rat?” Frank Schaeffer The evangelist was calling on Christian writers not to be published by Zondervan, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, under fire in a phone hacking scandal. He was quoted by RNS.</p>
<p>“I had thought about bringing a message on Hell tonight, but if you were out in the heat today, you’ve already had enough of that.” Rolen Bailey The retired director of missions for the Roanoke Valley (Va.) Baptist Association was preaching in Culpeper, Va., during an extreme heat wave on the East Coast in July.</p>
<p>“The issue is this: if faith is becoming a badge of identity and it says: ‘I am what I am in opposition to you,’ then that’s when religion is dangerous. If, on the other hand, faith becomes a humanizing and civilizing set of values it can play an important role in making globalization work.” Tony Blair The former British prime minister was discussing his involvement in focusing on the interaction between faith and globalization. He was quoted by Sydney’s The Australian.</p> | OUT LOUD | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/outloud-48/ | 3 |
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<p>(Reuters) – Kansas City Chiefs cornerback Marcus Peters appeared to stage a silent protest before the NFL’s season opener on Thursday as he stayed seated during the playing of the U.S. national anthem.</p>
<p>Peters sat alone on a table with his helmet perched atop his head while he looked toward the field ahead of his team’s game against the reigning Super Bowl champion New England Patriots in Foxborough, Massachusetts.</p>
<p>Prior to the game, Peters shared a photo on Twitter with a pair of cleats with one having “Liberty” written on the bottom while the other said “Justice For All.”</p>
<p>He also tweeted: “Stand for what you stand in. If you see the potential for good, speak up. Don’t be Quiet.”</p>
<p>NFL players protesting during the “Star-Spangled Banner” has become increasingly common since Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the anthem last season, saying he was protesting police brutality and social inequality.</p>
<p>Kaepernick opted out of his contract in March and has not been signed by another team.</p>
<p>Peters, a first-round draft pick in 2015 who was named to the Pro Bowl in each of his first two seasons, has opted not to stand for the anthem on previous occasions.</p>
<p>The 24-year-old rode a stationary bike during the anthem before a pre-season game in August and raised a fist ahead of a regular season game in 2016.</p>
<p>Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett, Oakland Raiders running back Marshawn Lynch and a number of Cleveland Browns players were among those who have not stood for the anthem during the 2017 pre-season.</p>
<p />
<p>Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.</p> | NFL: Chiefs' Peters sits for national anthem before season opener | false | https://newsline.com/nfl-chiefs039-peters-sits-for-national-anthem-before-season-opener/ | 2017-09-07 | 1 |
<p>Investing.com – The dollar remained moderately lower against other major currencies on Friday, as ongoing uncertainty over the fate of a major U.S. tax reform plan and concerns over an investigation into Donald Trump’s presidential campaign weighed.</p>
<p>The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday , which will now be debated by the Senate.</p>
<p>Investors were still cautious however, as the Republican majority is smaller in the Senate and no decisive action is expected until after next week’s Thanksgiving holiday.</p>
<p>following reports that U.S. President Donald Trump’s election campaign had been subpoenaed for documents in an ongoing investigation relating to possible Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.</p>
<p>The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that Special Counsel Robert Mueller issued a subpoena to more than a dozen officials.</p>
<p>Robert Mueller is currently heading an investigation into attempts by the Russian government to meddle in the 2016 election and potential collusion with Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.</p>
<p>The , which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was down 0.26% at 93.60 by 05:15 a.m. ET (09:15 GMT), not far from Wednesday’s three-week lows of 93.31.</p>
<p>was up 0.21% to 1.1795, while gained 0.42% to trade at 1.3249.</p>
<p>In a speech Friday morning, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said the central bank .</p>
<p>Draghi also said that the ECB’s bond purchasing program could continue beyond September 2018 “if necessary, and in any case until we see a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation.”</p>
<p>The remarks came a day after official data showed that euro zone consumer prices rose at an annual rate of in October, down from 1.5% in September and still below the ECB’s target of close to 2%.</p>
<p>Elsewhere, declined 0.44% to trade at 112.55, while slipped 0.26% to 0.9914.</p>
<p>The Australian and New Zealand dollars were weaker, with down 0.45% at 0.7554 and with retreating 0.79% to 0.6794.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, held steady at 1.2756 as markets were eyeing the release of .</p>
<p>Investors were also looking ahead to reports on U.S. and set to be released later Friday.</p>
<p />
<p>Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.</p> | Forex – Dollar Broadly Lower on Mueller Investigation, Tax Jitters | false | https://newsline.com/forex-dollar-broadly-lower-on-mueller-investigation-tax-jitters/ | 2017-11-17 | 1 |
<p>BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombian street vendors clashed for hours with Venezuela’s national guard Wednesday after an alleged Colombian smuggler was killed, leading authorities to briefly close the main border crossing between the two countries.</p>
<p>Officials in Colombia said the trouble began when Venezuelan authorities discovered a man on a hidden trail trying to smuggle goods across the notoriously porous border and the man died in the confrontation.</p>
<p>There was no official word on how the Colombian merchant died, but local media reported that he was hit by a bullet in the neck. Another person was injured in the initial confrontation.</p>
<p>As news of the death spread, more than 100 Colombian vendors began protesting on the Venezuelan side of the Simon Bolivar bridge connecting the two countries. That escalated into more than eight hours of clashes as riot police fired tear gas and masked demonstrators burned tires.</p>
<p>Order was restored by the end of the day and a long line of trucks held up at the crossing were allowed to proceed.</p>
<p>Colombian merchants routinely cross the border to purchase price-regulated goods in Venezuela and then sneak them into Colombia to be resold for big profits.</p>
<p>BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombian street vendors clashed for hours with Venezuela’s national guard Wednesday after an alleged Colombian smuggler was killed, leading authorities to briefly close the main border crossing between the two countries.</p>
<p>Officials in Colombia said the trouble began when Venezuelan authorities discovered a man on a hidden trail trying to smuggle goods across the notoriously porous border and the man died in the confrontation.</p>
<p>There was no official word on how the Colombian merchant died, but local media reported that he was hit by a bullet in the neck. Another person was injured in the initial confrontation.</p>
<p>As news of the death spread, more than 100 Colombian vendors began protesting on the Venezuelan side of the Simon Bolivar bridge connecting the two countries. That escalated into more than eight hours of clashes as riot police fired tear gas and masked demonstrators burned tires.</p>
<p>Order was restored by the end of the day and a long line of trucks held up at the crossing were allowed to proceed.</p>
<p>Colombian merchants routinely cross the border to purchase price-regulated goods in Venezuela and then sneak them into Colombia to be resold for big profits.</p> | Colombia-Venezuela border closed after merchant’s death | false | https://apnews.com/36dbe62a68d047b3a4c4f7ab8f044ba0 | 2015-07-29 | 2 |
<p>Jan. 24 (UPI) -- Luann de Lesseps is "doing great" after a three-week stay in rehab.</p>
<p>The 52-year-old Real Housewives of New York star reunited with her co-stars Tuesday after seeking treatment for alcohol abuse.</p>
<p />
<p>"It's good to be home. I'm doing great. Spending time with friends and family. Thanking everyone for your continued good wishes and support," she <a href="https://twitter.com/CountessLuann/status/955868801601622016" type="external">tweeted</a>.</p>
<p>Ramona Singer shared a since-deleted photo with de Lesseps, <a href="" type="internal">Bethenny Frankel</a>, Dorinda Medley, Sonja Morgan, Carole Radziwill and Tinsley Mortimer at dinner that night, according <a href="http://people.com/tv/rhony-luann-de-lesseps-rehab-return/" type="external">to People</a>.</p>
<p>"The gang's all here!" Singer wrote, adding "#reunited."</p>
<p><a href="http://www.eonline.com/news/907729/luann-de-lesseps-has-returned-from-rehab-following-her-arrest" type="external">E! News reported</a> de Lesseps completed a 21-day program Sunday and has resumed filming The Real Housewives of New York.</p>
<p>"She sounds amazing. Very clear-headed," a source said. "She's in a good space right now."</p>
<p>De Lesseps <a href="" type="internal">checked into a rehab facility</a> in December after she was arrested and charged with disorderly intoxication and battery on an officer. She is scheduled to return to court Thursday, Jan. 25.</p> | Luann de Lesseps 'doing great' after leaving rehab | false | https://upi.com/Entertainment_News/TV/2018/01/24/Luann-de-Lesseps-doing-great-after-leaving-rehab/9131516805996/ | 2 |
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<p>Image: AP/WideWorld</p>
<p />
<p>When President Bush tapped Donald Rumsfeld for defense secretary, he signaled his intention to assign this well-seasoned Pentagon veteran the task of selling missile defense to Congress and US allies. Although his proposed plan appears to be similar to Ronald Reagan’s original Star Wars vision, Bush has yet to reveal any specifics except that it should be able to “protect all 50 states and our friends and allies and deployed forces overseas.”</p>
<p>Given the serious technical, cost, and arms-control problems plaguing the proposed national missile defense system, Rumsfeld faces no small task.</p>
<p>Technically speaking, there’s nothing to sell just yet. The system has failed two of its three intercept tests. Regardless of whether it succeeds in its next one this spring, serious questions remain about the system’s ability to defend against real-world threats in which an attack would be accompanied by countermeasures and decoys.</p>
<p>Cost estimates for the limited NMD system currently being tested range from $60 billion to $120 billion. A full-scale missile defense “triad” consisting of sea-, space-, and ground-based interceptors — the system Bush and his Republican colleagues are advocating — could cost $240 billion or more.</p>
<p>Even if the NMD system can be made to work on the military/technical level without breaking the budget, a hasty decision to deploy NMD poses grave risks to global stability.</p>
<p>Deployment could derail Russian President Vladimir Putin’s offer to reduce US and Russian nuclear arsenals to 1,000 strategic warheads each, and would almost certainly provoke new nuclear weapons production by Russia and China. As the government’s top intelligence analyst on missile proliferation suggested last summer, deployment of an NMD system would set off “an unsettling series of political and military ripple effects … that would include a sharp buildup of strategic and medium-range nuclear missiles by China, India, and Pakistan and the further spread of military technology in the Middle East.”</p>
<p>Clearly, Rumsfeld has his work cut out for him. But he’s just the man for the job. His close involvement with conservative think tanks and missile defense contractors allies him with the lobby that has promoted missile defense for decades.</p>
<p>Despite Rumsfeld’s reputation as a moderate Republican, when it comes to national security issues such as missile defense and nuclear-arms control, he is an ideologue in moderate’s clothing.</p>
<p>Rumsfeld’s most-praised recent work was his key role in leading the congressional panel charged with assessing the ballistic missile threat facing the United States. The 1998 report asserted that, within five years of deciding to do so, a rogue state such as North Korea or Iran could acquire a ballistic missile capable of reaching the US. Previous CIA estimates had placed the timetable at 10 or 15 years. The report painted the ultimate worst-case scenario, ignoring all of the real-world obstacles Third World countries face in trying to obtain a long-range ballistic missile capability, and playing up any factors, however remote, that might increase their chances of getting usable ballistic missiles in a shorter time frame.</p>
<p>Though the report did not explicitly advocate missile defense, it gave Star Wars boosters in Congress the quasi-official endorsement they needed to push the program forward. Sen. Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican and anti-arms control hardliner, asserts that “ <a href="http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1998_cr/s980731-rumsfeld.htm" type="external">The Rumsfeld Report</a> was the main reason the debate was gradually turned around and the administration turned around.”</p>
<p>But the missile threat facing the United States has been exaggerated, to say the least.</p>
<p>North Korea, the main impetus behind the current push for an NMD system, has agreed to a moratorium of new missile tests, has begun rapprochement with South Korea, and has expressed willingness to limit its nuclear and ballistic missile programs as part of an agreement with the United States.</p>
<p>As US intelligence analyst Robert Walpole pointed out in testimony before Congress, a ballistic missile is the least likely way a foreign nation would choose to deliver a weapon of mass destruction to US territory, because ballistic missiles have a “return address” that would allow swift and devastating American retaliation.</p>
<p>Beyond the unrealistic threat assessment, few remarked at the time that Rumsfeld, the panel’s chair, was far from an objective analyst on this subject, given his parallel role as a card-carrying member of the missile defense lobby.</p>
<p>Rumsfeld is listed as an “informal adviser and faithful supporter” of the <a href="http://www.security-policy.org/" type="external">Center for Security Policy</a> in its annual report. The Center, founded and directed by former Reagan Pentagon official Frank Gaffney, is a highly partisan advocacy organization that serves as the de facto center of the Star Wars lobby. Its 100-member advisory board is a virtual Star Wars hall of fame, including such luminaries as original Star Warriors Edward Teller and former Reagan science adviser George Keyworth.</p>
<p>The board also includes heads of like-minded, right-wing foundations such as William J. Bennett of <a href="http://www.empower.org" type="external">Empower America</a> and Henry Cooper of High Frontier. Rounding out the board are almost two dozen former and current members of Congress, retired military and defense officials, and six defense industry CEOs from <a href="/news/special_reports/arms/boeing.html" type="external">Boeing</a> and <a href="/arms/lockheed.html" type="external">Lockheed Martin</a>. The Center receives roughly 20 percent of its annual revenues from corporate sponsors, including generous contributions from top missile defense corporations.</p>
<p>Rumsfeld was awarded the Center for Security Policy’s Keeper of the Flame award in 1998 at a gala dinner attended by retired military officers, conservative political and foundation leaders, and representatives of missile defense contractors such as <a href="/reality_check/F22.html" type="external">Lockheed Martin</a>. Past recipients of the award include Sen. Kyl, Ronald Reagan, and Newt Gingrich.</p>
<p>Rumsfeld also serves on the board of Empower America (along with Bennett, former Defense Secretary William Cohen, Jack Kemp, and Jeanne Kirkpatrick), which ran misleading, pro-Star Wars radio ads against incumbent Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., in the 1998 congressional elections, just a few months after Rumsfeld’s allegedly non-partisan analysis of the Third World missile threat was released.</p>
<p>The work of Rumsfeld and his associates has been backed up and supported every step of the way by the arms industry. During the past decade, the major weapons makers have made generous campaign contributions to key members of Congress and invested tens of millions of dollars in their already formidable Washington lobbying operations. Since 1997, the top four missile defense contractors have doled out more than $4 million in PAC contributions and almost $3 million in soft money. But this lavish giving pales in comparison with what these firms spend on lobbying each year: an estimated $18 million.</p>
<p>Rumsfeld’s appointment is great news for the motley collection of weapons makers and conservative ideologues who make up the Star Wars lobby. But unless he distances himself from the rigid views of his cohorts and makes a truly objective assessment of the ballistic missile threat to our nation, he could end up spending tens of billions of our tax dollars on a costly, unproven, and provocative missile defense initiative that could spark a new nuclear arms race.</p>
<p /> | Star Wars: The Next Generation | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2001/01/star-wars-next-generation/ | 2001-01-31 | 4 |
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>Wired.com recently published&#160; <a href="http://www.wired.com/business/2013/03/ipo-man/" type="external">an article</a> about Mike Merrill, a man who sold shares in himself in exchange for a cut of his future earnings and for the right to make decisions about his life — that is to say, the shares were voting shares.</p>
<p>The story recounts some entertaining/troubling consequences. For example, when Merrill brought the question of whether to have a vasectomy to his shareholders, his girlfriend became apoplectic. In another instance, one of the biggest shareholders, who didn’t know Merrill personally, successfully pushed him to try a regimented and inconvenient <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep" type="external">polyphasic sleep schedule</a>. His girlfriend objected, but Merrill felt beholden to his shareholders and carried on anyway. She left him.</p>
<p>The piece’s point (if there is one other than amusement) apparently is to reveal what works for companies doesn’t necessarily work for individuals. But reading it, I was struck by the opposite thought: the problems of Merrill’s system are identical to the problems of real publicly traded companies.</p>
<p>Shareholder interests regularly differ from the interests of employees, customers, and other stakeholders (Merrill’s girlfriend, by analogy here), and shareholders often prevail. The presence of absentee owners creates another conflict of interest (on top of conflicts between management and employees), upping the chance that someone – usually the (relatively powerless) employees, customers, or the public – will get screwed.</p>
<p>This dynamic is so dominant that these latter groups are, in general, permanently, systemically and ubiquitously screwed across the US, which, some argue, is the <a href="" type="internal">core reason for our country’s dramatic inequality</a>.</p>
<p>The only difference between public corporations and Mike Merrill is that we’ve come to accept the consequences of absentee ownership as “normal” in the context of publicly traded companies, so we’re blind to their pathologies. When the same thing happens in an unusual context, it’s easy to see what’s wrong with it.</p>
<p>Any dysfunction can seem perfectly normal if we’re sufficiently used to it. But that doesn’t mean the world wouldn’t be a much better place if we woke up to the problem and fixed it.</p>
<p>By <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/112548140311901180911?rel=author" type="external">Nick Bentley</a> Organizer, Reclaim Democracy</p> | What We Can Learn About Corporations From the Man Who Sold Shares in Himself | true | http://reclaimdemocracy.org/what-we-can-learn-about-corporations-from-the-man-who-sold-shares-in-himself/ | 4 |
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<p>YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Several earthquakes caused some panic in Myanmar's largest city early Friday, but no serious injuries or major damage has yet been reported.</p>
<p>Residents said their six-story building shook three times, with the strongest quake lasting at least a minute.</p>
<p>"We were sleeping, but as the building was shaking pretty strong, we all woke up in a panic," Yangon resident Swe Swe Myint said.</p>
<p>The U.S. Geological Survey said the first quake just before 1 a.m. was magnitude-6.0 and had a shallow depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles). The epicenter was about 27 kilometers (17 miles) southwest of Phyu township, about 172 kilometers (107 miles) north of Yangon.</p>
<p>Three quakes of magnitude-5.3 and magnitude-5.2 followed within 20 minutes.</p>
<p>Myanmar Earthquake Committee said the epicenters were close to at least two dams.</p>
<p>But after daylight broke, no major damage or casualties had yet been reported.</p>
<p>YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Several earthquakes caused some panic in Myanmar's largest city early Friday, but no serious injuries or major damage has yet been reported.</p>
<p>Residents said their six-story building shook three times, with the strongest quake lasting at least a minute.</p>
<p>"We were sleeping, but as the building was shaking pretty strong, we all woke up in a panic," Yangon resident Swe Swe Myint said.</p>
<p>The U.S. Geological Survey said the first quake just before 1 a.m. was magnitude-6.0 and had a shallow depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles). The epicenter was about 27 kilometers (17 miles) southwest of Phyu township, about 172 kilometers (107 miles) north of Yangon.</p>
<p>Three quakes of magnitude-5.3 and magnitude-5.2 followed within 20 minutes.</p>
<p>Myanmar Earthquake Committee said the epicenters were close to at least two dams.</p>
<p>But after daylight broke, no major damage or casualties had yet been reported.</p> | Several quakes rattle Myanmar's largest city, no damage seen | false | https://apnews.com/amp/0769501bcafb46ca89fc4613e2e26f91 | 2018-01-12 | 2 |
<p>In a rant that sounds a whole lot more like a teenager lashing out at his father than a 45-year-old massively successful celebrity talking about the President of the United States, Eminem said in a recent interview that he's "very angry" that Trump's "not paying attention to me."</p>
<p>"I was and still am extremely angry," said Eminem, <a href="https://www.bet.com/music/2017/11/20/eminem-donald-trump-bet-cypher.html" type="external">BET</a> reports. "I can’t stand that motherf***er. I feel like he’s not paying attention to me. I was kind of waiting for him to say something and for some reason, he didn’t say anything."</p>
<p>Eminem has been desperately trying to get Trump's attention, most notably in the racially charged <a href="" type="internal">freestyle rap</a> he performed for BET in early October in which he accused Trump of being a racist.</p>
<p>"From his endorsement of Bannon, support for the Klansmen, tiki torches in hand for the soldier that’s black and comes home from Iraq and is still told to go back to Africa, fork and a dagger, and this racist 94-year-old grandpa, who keeps ignoring our past, historical deplorable factors," Eminem rapped (video below).</p>
<p>In the performance, he also condemned every American who voted for Trump, declaring, "Any fan of mine who’s a fan of his, I’m drawing in the sand a line, you either for or against, and if you can’t decide who you like more in this split, on who you should stand beside, I’ll do it for you with this, f*** you."</p>
<p>For all his effort and vitriol, Eminem got no response whatsoever from Trump.</p>
<p>The BET rap wasn't the first time Eminem attacked the president. In a song by Big Sean called " <a href="" type="internal">No Favors</a>" released in February that features Eminem, he calls Trump a "b*tch" and vows to "make his whole brand go under."</p>
<p>"I'm anti, can't no government handle a commando," Eminem raps. "Your man don't want it, Trump's a b*tch. I'll make his whole brand go under."</p>
<p>In the song, Eminem also fantasized about violently raping conservative Ann Coulter, a strong Trump supporter during the primary.</p>
<p>"And f*** Ann Coulter with a Klan poster. With a lamp post, door handle, shutter. A damn bolt cutter, a sandal, a can opener, a candle, rubber. Piano, a flannel, sucker, some hand soap, butter. A banjo and manhole cover," raps Eminem. The disturbing lyrics were met with no outcry from liberal feminists.</p>
<p>Eminem recently <a href="" type="internal">appeared on Saturday Night Live</a> to perform his new single, "Walk On Water." While many celebrated his "revival" online, others suggested the "washed up" 45-year-old performer should "retire back into the trailer park."</p> | Eminem 'Extremely Angry' At Trump: 'He's Not Paying Attention To Me'! | true | https://dailywire.com/news/23912/eminem-extremely-angry-trump-hes-not-paying-james-barrett | 2017-11-23 | 0 |
<p>A new plan for developing the shuttered Badlands golf course calls for a boutique hotel, more than 2,000 multifamily units and 65 homes spread across the 250-acre property.</p>
<p>The Las Vegas Planning Commission will consider next week a new comprehensive development for the Badlands, which has stirred controversy in the interwoven Queensridge development for well over a year.</p>
<p>A non-gaming, 130-room boutique hotel and more than 1,600 multifamily units would be set on roughly 50 acres, east of the Alta Drive and Rampart Boulevard intersection, where the City Council previously approved a plan to build 435 for-sale condos.</p>
<p>To the west, 65 single-family homes would sprawl across estate lots on 184 acres that weave through the Queensridge development. The proposal adds buffer zones to the existing homes that are most affected by the development proposal.</p>
<p>In a letter to city Planning Director Tom Perrigo dated May 22, developer Yohan Lowie contended the plan will revitalize the area and is “the best plan for the adjacent homeowners, the neighborhood at large and the city of Las Vegas.”</p>
<p>A statement on Tuesday from developer EHB Cos., which Lowie helms, said the group has been working directly with stakeholders within Queensridge and the city to reach the new development agreement.</p>
<p>“They have all provided valuable insight and the overall tenor in the discussions has been extremely positive and cooperative in nature,” the EHB statement said.</p>
<p>A number of Queensridge residents have fiercely opposed development there. Shauna Hughes, attorney for the Queensridge Homeowners Association, said Tuesday she and the residents are reviewing the plan.</p>
<p>“Because changes are continuing to come, we’re trying to get our arms around it,” Hughes said.</p>
<p>Planning Commission and City Council meetings on past versions of the development proposal have lasted hours into the night.</p>
<p>Hughes characterized the talks leading to the new development agreement as “intense.”</p>
<p>The commission convenes Tuesday night, just as votes are counted in the Ward 2 City Council race between Councilman Bob Beers and Steve Seroka, where the Badlands issue has loomed large.</p>
<p>The total number of homes, condos and apartments planned for the 250-acre course tops out at more than 2,100, down from 3,080 in the initial proposal the Planning Commission and City Council considered last year.</p>
<p>The issue has sparked lawsuits and prompted the creation of political action committees that have pumped thousands of dollars into both sides of the City Council race.</p>
<p>The new development agreement will likely be slated for the June 21 City Council agenda, the final meeting before a new council is seated. Ward 6 Councilman Steve Ross is term-limited and will be leaving the council, while Beers is facing a challenge in his bid for re-election. In February, Beers and Ross voted in favor of the Rampart and Alta condo proposal, which passed 4-3.</p>
<p>One of the main concerns voiced by both city officials and residents has been “piecemeal” development, and Mayor Carolyn Goodman urged the developers to come back with a comprehensive plan.</p>
<p>The Planning Commission shot down a proposal last year to develop much of the former golf course, but it recommended development for the corner of Alta and Rampart, already home to the luxury Queensridge towers.</p>
<p>Contact Jamie Munks at [email protected] or 702-383-0340. Follow <a href="http://www.twitter.com/JamieMunksRJ" type="external">@JamieMunksRJ</a> on Twitter.</p>
<p>Badlands proposal details</p>
<p>— Total of 2,169 homes and multi-family units spread across the 250-acre former golf course.</p>
<p>— Boutique hotel and 2,119 luxury multi-family development on 67 acres just west of the intersection of Rampart Boulevard and Alta Drive, including 435 for-sale condos already approved by the City Council. Includes 2,000 trees.</p>
<p>— 65 lots for single-family homes spread across 184 acres, with more than 7,500 trees.</p>
<p>— The Las Vegas Planning Commission meets at 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 13 at Las Vegas City Hall.</p>
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<p /> | Negotiations for Badlands deal could soon be sent to Las Vegas City Council | false | https://reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/las-vegas/negotiations-for-badlands-deal-could-soon-be-sent-to-las-vegas-city-council/ | 2017-06-06 | 1 |
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<p />
<p>But Mr. R came for a different reason.</p>
<p>“What brings you in today?” I asked.</p>
<p>“Well,” he shifted uncomfortably. “I think my health care will be taken away.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>I was surprised to learn that I was the first doctor he had ever seen to establish care. Mr. R, whom I’m identifying by his initial to protect his privacy, was among the more than 20 million Americans who gained insurance after the Affordable Care Act was passed in March 2010. He was fearful that he would once again join the ranks of the uninsured after the newly elected Congress promised to repeal the landmark health law. Although House leaders have presented a replacement plan that keeps some aspects of the ACA and is far from final, some of the proposed changes could have a profound effect on those with low incomes.</p>
<p>Mr. R is a warm, middle-aged man. He never learned to read and write, and so getting health-care coverage was always a challenge. Previously, he couldn’t afford the insurance that his employer offered. Once the exchanges came online in 2014, he proudly purchased subsidized health insurance for the first time.</p>
<p>“I was so excited to finally get care,” he said.</p>
<p>As the new plan is being developed, it’s worth noting the federal policies that I consider to have worked synergistically to get Mr. R to my office for his inaugural doctor visit.</p>
<p>First, he was redirected to a “navigator” after finding out that he made too much money to qualify for Medicaid. The ACA made this redirection possible because it enabled individuals to apply for coverage using a single application to Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and ACA plans. This streamlined application process made sure that a patient like Mr. R was offered ACA plans at the same time that he was told he did not qualify for Medicaid.</p>
<p>Second, Mr. R was helped by a navigator to find insurance coverage. The ACA created navigators, specially trained personnel who help people apply for insurance and select the best coverage. Navigators help steer patients through sometimes unfamiliar terms such as “premium,” “deductible” and “out-of-pocket maximum.” For patients who have language barriers or for those who are illiterate, navigators can help prepare applications to establish eligibility.</p>
<p>Third, Mr. R found a plan and paid less than $50 a month for his coverage. The ACA provides subsidies to purchase insurance, which has made coverage significantly more affordable for millions of Americans. In 2016, 85 percent of insurance plans purchased on exchanges involved subsidies, which covered on average 73 percent of the monthly premiums. Even with large increases in premiums in 2017, lower-income consumers are protected by subsidies – and more than 70 percent of shoppers can still find a plan for less than $75 a month.</p>
<p>Finally, Mr. R was able to afford his appointment with me. The ACA helps those who are low-income actually use their insurance, and subsidizes such care as clinic visits and medications for anyone with an income of less than 250 percent of the poverty rate.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>As I sat across from Mr. R, I couldn’t help but reflect on the fact that so many steps had to have worked in concert to get this jovial man insurance. If the ACA didn’t coordinate between Medicaid and private insurance exchanges, he wouldn’t have found out that he qualifies for other affordable options. If navigators didn’t exist, he wouldn’t have filled out the forms to purchase insurance. If the subsidies were less generous, he wouldn’t have been able to afford coverage or his appointments. And now, everything could be in jeopardy.</p>
<p>I wanted to tell Mr. R that everything was going to be okay, but I make it a point of not being overly optimistic when I talk with patients. Indeed, the Urban Institute estimated that repealing the Medicaid expansion, insurance subsidies and the individual mandate would increase the number of uninsured Americans from 29 million to 59 million, creating more uninsured people in this country than before the ACA passed in the first place.</p>
<p>The new House replacement plan doesn’t seem viable for patients like Mr. R. It rearranges how subsidies are calculated, so that low-income people receive less financial help to purchase coverage, while high-income people receive more. Furthermore, the new replacement plan eliminates cost-sharing assistance, meaning that Mr. R would have to pay more for his medications, doctor visits and hospital stays. If these increased costs force Mr. R to have a gap in coverage, the proposed plan forces him to have to pay 30 percent more for his premiums to sign up again.</p>
<p>While it is still unclear whether and how health care will be changed, we need to keep patients like Mr. R in mind as we examine the actual policies being presented. How would each proposal affect those most at risk of losing their insurance?</p>
<p>If Congress repeals integral parts of this law without a viable replacement plan, then Mr. R, along with millions of people just like him, will lose his coverage. If Congress replaces the law with one that disadvantages low-income Americans by altering subsidies for insurance, then Mr. R will still lose his coverage.</p>
<p>It has become clear to me that the ACA was not an amalgamation of random policy ideas ripe for repeal, but a coherent act, with interwoven parts that work synergistically. Just as repealing the ACA’s subsidies would make Mr. R uninsured once again, replacement plans that target other key aspects of the law could be just as devastating.</p>
<p>Some politicians have argued that the ACA gets in the way of the “doctor-patient relationship.” What they do not seem to understand is that without the ACA, I wouldn’t have a relationship with patients like Mr. R at all – because he wouldn’t have health insurance. And without insurance, if Mr. R had chest pain, he would face the terrible choice that nobody should make: stay home and risk permanent disability or death from a heart attack, or go to the emergency room and risk bankruptcy.</p>
<p>Mr. R deserves better. As he sat across from me, I sighed and tried to ask a little bit more about his insurance coverage.</p>
<p>“Mr. R, what kind of insurance do you have?”</p>
<p>“Obamacare,” he stated simply. “And it’s going away.”</p>
<p>– – –</p>
<p>Jacobs is a resident physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.</p> | My patient came to the office worried about his insurance instead of his health | false | https://abqjournal.com/965439/my-patient-came-to-the-office-worried-about-his-insurance-instead-of-his-health.html | 2 |
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<p>Daniel Weitzner, former White House deputy chief technology officer for internet policy, now an adviser to the Coalition for Privacy and Free Trade. &lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/newamerica/4117731486/"&gt;New America Foundation&lt;/a&gt;/Flickr</p>
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<p>As the Obama administration and tech company lobbyists <a href="" type="internal">chip away</a> at the European Union’s attempts to protect online privacy, a new pro-industry coalition has popped up to join the fray. Not quite two weeks ago, the <a href="http://www.hldataprotection.com/2013/03/articles/international-eu-privacy/hogan-lovells-launches-coalition-for-privacy-and-free-trade-former-eu-ambassador-to-us-former-us-trade-representative-and-former-white-house-privacy-lead-involved/" type="external">Coalition for Privacy and Free Trade</a> announced its existence. The group’s senior academic adviser is <a href="http://www.csail.mit.edu/user/1283" type="external">Daniel Weitzner</a>, who,&#160;less than two years ago, was working as the White House’s deputy chief technology officer for internet policy.</p>
<p>Weitzner tells Mother Jones that he joined the coalition because he wants to strengthen privacy laws while ensuring the free flow of information. He worked for the administration from March 2011 to August 2012, leading the development of the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/23/web-privacy-bill-of-rights_n_1294230.html" type="external">much-lauded</a> <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/02/23/we-can-t-wait-obama-administration-unveils-blueprint-privacy-bill-rights" type="external">Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights,</a> a blueprint that asserts Americans’ right to control what happens to their online data. Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, calls the document “a significant achievement” and says that “Danny deserves a fair amount of credit for it.” But, he adds, “the critical question is whether it will be enacted into law.” For now, its recommendations are voluntary.</p>
<p>Some privacy experts are concerned that Weitzner and the Coalition for Privacy and Free Trade will help companies like Facebook and Google continue to have free rein over their users’ personal information. “This coalition appears to be a well-oiled campaign driven by the special interests of tech companies,” says Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the <a href="http://www.democraticmedia.org/" type="external">Center for Digital Democracy</a>. “The use of a former, now revolving-door, White House official is also disturbing, because it gives them influence to win major concessions.” Joe McNamee, the EU advocacy coordinator at European Digital Rights, a coalition of privacy groups, notes, “There is a fundamental concern whenever high-level staff or politicians take a corporate position.”</p>
<p>“It’s true that I worked on privacy in the administration and I continue to work on privacy issues,” Weitzner says. “But I believe really strongly that privacy tends to make progress when there are broad coalitions.” He says he is not lobbying the Obama administration in any way.</p>
<p>Weitzner is currently the director and cofounder of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory’s Decentralized Information Group. He has also <a href="http://gov20.govfresh.com/daniel-weitzner-is-the-new-white-house-deputy-cto-for-internet-policy/" type="external">worked</a> as the policy director of the World Wide Web Consortium (which has been <a href="http://epic.org/reports/prettypoorprivacy.html" type="external">criticized</a> for emphasizing voluntary regulation over privacy laws) and cofounded the <a href="https://www.cdt.org/" type="external">Center for Democracy and Technology</a>.&#160;</p>
<p>The Coalition for Privacy and Free Trade was launched on March 18 by <a href="http://www.hoganlovells.com/aboutus/overview/" type="external">Hogan Lovells</a>, an international law firm that has worked with corporations like <a href="http://www.chambersandpartners.com/Usa/Editorial/71029" type="external">Apple</a>, <a href="http://www.hoganlovells.com/logan-breed/" type="external">IBM</a>, and <a href="http://www.kinneyrecruiting.com/news/8983-hogan-lovells-warsaw-office-advises-amazon-group-on-acquisition-of-ivona-software-group" type="external">Amazon</a>, as well as various governments. The coalition’s members include legal experts, a former EU ambassador to the United States, and Reagan-era trade representative Clayton Yeutter. Christopher Wolf, director of Hogan Lovells’ privacy and information management practice group, says that the coalition is not intended to be comprised solely of tech companies, but instead, “we welcome all companies that collect, use, and transfer personal data.” Wolf says the coalition is not ready to announce its members, but will soon.</p>
<p>The coalition plans to participate in the upcoming Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement negotiations, pushing for laws that provide privacy protections like those found in Obama’s consumer privacy bill, while also making sure that “ <a href="http://www.hldataprotection.com/2013/03/articles/international-eu-privacy/hogan-lovells-launches-coalition-for-privacy-and-free-trade-former-eu-ambassador-to-us-former-us-trade-representative-and-former-white-house-privacy-lead-involved/" type="external">excessive</a>” regulations don’t inhibit economic growth. Earlier this month, Wolf testified before the <a href="http://www.hldataprotection.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/USITC-Testimony-of-Christopher-Wolf2.pdf" type="external">US International Trade Commission</a> that one of the big differences between the US and the EU proposals is that the United States still intends to rely on “self-regulation” and won’t require companies to report data breaches within 24 hours.</p>
<p>Companies like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Amazon, and eBay have been spending millions of dollars lobbying against the European Union’s attempt to protect internet users’ personal information. In January, the EU proposed requiring its member states to let users opt out of targeted advertising and web tracking (similar to what the struggling <a href="" type="internal">“Do Not Track</a>” bill proposed by West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller would do). It also proposed giving users the right to erase any of their personal information from the web, meaning that you could ask Facebook to stop holding on to your information even after you delete your profile (Facebook tends <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/blog/london/facebook-still-doesnt-delete-your-photos-three-years-later/2936" type="external">to hang on for dear life to your info</a>) or, more controversially, ask Google to remove information from its search results that you <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/9895279/EU-judges-to-hear-Google-right-to-be-forgotten-case.html" type="external">plain just don’t like.</a></p>
<p>It’s not just tech companies that are trying to weaken the EU proposals: The Department of Commerce is also <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/26/technology/eu-privacy-proposal-lays-bare-differences-with-us.html?_r=0" type="external">lobbying</a> the European Parliament. “The Obama administration has been very destructive in the EU privacy discussions so far,” says McNamee of European Digital Rights. “It intervened even before the draft regulation was published and put sufficient pressure on the European Commission to have entire swaths of text deleted.”</p>
<p>McNamee thinks that the Obama administration will have better luck influencing the EU Commission through the upcoming free-trade negotiations. In a letter the Department of Commerce sent to the Center for Digital Democracy on March 12, Lawrence E. Strickling, assistant secretary for communications and information, acknowledged that discussions about the privacy regulations were taking place between the US government and European governments, but said that they “are not intended to limit the protections that the European law would provide its citizens. Our primary focus is to achieve interoperability between our systems.”</p>
<p>Interoperability is the big, snazzy word in these discussions, but what does it mean? Weitzner explains, “I think there’s a real opportunity to improve privacy standards both in the US and Europe and do so in a way that keeps the free flow of information on the internet…I want to make sure that we don’t end up with a privacy law only because people think a law sounds nice.” In other words, interoperability is about finding a way for different privacy frameworks to work together—be it in China or the EU—without necessarily changing the way US corporations do business.</p>
<p>Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, notes this could lead to a scenario where “interoperability becomes this race to the bottom, where the weaker protections of the American system are exported to Europe and the world.”</p>
<p>But Weitzner says some of the proposals the EU is suggesting, like the “right to be forgotten,” could be “very damaging for the right to free expression around the world” because anyone could have the right to erase information from the web that makes them unhappy. He also says that the United States “has a lot of very good, strong privacy practices that US companies are held legally accountable for by the Federal Trade Commission.” Wolf agrees: “Tech companies generally know their practices are subject to extreme strict scrutiny by regulators, including the FTC and state attorneys general.”</p>
<p>Wizner concurs that the FTC has been “admirably aggressive in enforcing its mandate” but points out that “the FTC mandate is limited—they can only police outright deceit and unfairness. There is no basic privacy law that governs whether those companies can collect information, what information they can collect, and how long they can store it.”</p>
<p>Rotenberg, who supervised Weitzner as an intern when they both worked for the Washington, DC, office of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, calls the concerns about the Coalition for Privacy and Free Trade “legitimate” but says that “Danny Weitzner should be working to ensure that the White House makes good on its commitment to establish privacy legislation…The fact that the president has made clear his support for stronger privacy laws is very important. I tend to be an optimist.”</p>
<p /> | Ex-White House Official Joins Group Fighting “Excessive” Online Privacy Laws | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2013/03/daniel-weitzner-internet-privacy-coalition/ | 2013-03-29 | 4 |
<p>A look at the 10 biggest volume decliners on Nasdaq at the close of trading:</p>
<p>ASB Bancorp Inc. : Approximately 100 shares changed hands, a 96.8 decrease from its 65-day average volume. The shares remained unchanged at $20.97.</p>
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<p>Collabrium Japan Acquisition Corp. : Approximately 200 shares changed hands, a 98.7 decrease from its 65-day average volume. The shares rose $.01 or .1 percent to $10.50.</p>
<p>Gbl Def &amp; Nat Sec : Approximately 1,300 shares changed hands, a 97.4 decrease from its 65-day average volume. The shares rose $.02 or .2 percent to $10.25.</p>
<p>Greene County Bancorp Inc. : Approximately shares changed hands, a 99.1 decrease from its 65-day average volume. The shares remained unchanged at $26.55.</p>
<p>IF Bancorp Inc. : Approximately shares changed hands, a 99.0 decrease from its 65-day average volume. The shares remained unchanged at $16.49.</p>
<p>Liberty Interactive Corp. B : Approximately shares changed hands, a 99.4 decrease from its 65-day average volume. The shares remained unchanged at $29.11.</p>
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<p>Pathfinder BanCorp Inc. : Approximately shares changed hands, a 99.0 decrease from its 65-day average volume. The shares remained unchanged at $14.51.</p>
<p>Peoples Financial Corp. : Approximately shares changed hands, a 97.5 decrease from its 65-day average volume. The shares remained unchanged at $13.66.</p>
<p>Sound Financial Bancorp Inc. : Approximately shares changed hands, a 98.9 decrease from its 65-day average volume. The shares remained unchanged at $17.49.</p>
<p>Westbury Bancorp Inc. : Approximately 300 shares changed hands, a 97.7 decrease from its 65-day average volume. The shares rose $.02 or .1 percent to $15.13.</p> | Top 10 Nasdaq-traded stocks posting largest volume decreases | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2014/06/26/top-10-nasdaq-traded-stocks-posting-largest-volume-decreases.html | 2016-03-05 | 0 |
<p>The animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals ( <a href="http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/Peta-to-launch-porn-site-20110919" type="external">PETA</a>), known for its controversial campaigns featuring nude women, plans to launch a <a href="http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/Peta-to-launch-porn-site-20110919" type="external">porn site</a> to raise awareness about veganism.</p>
<p>PETA says it wants to publicize veganism by showing both pornography and graphic footage of animal suffering on its new .XXX website, Reuters reports. Visitors to the website will initially see pornographic material, but this will be followed by photos and videos showing the mistreatment of animals.</p>
<p>"We're hoping to reach a whole new audience of people, some of whom will be shocked by graphic images that maybe they didn't anticipate seeing when they went to the PETA triple-X site," Lindsay Rajt, the group's associate director of campaigns, told Reuters.</p>
<p>PETA has been criticized for exploiting women and using sexism in its high-profile campaigns for animal rights, which often feature celebrities, including porn stars. Reuters says that a&#160; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Real-Women-Against-PETA/126680116695" type="external">Facebook group</a> called "Real Women Against PETA" was launched after PETA paid for a billboard showing an obese woman with the message: "Save the Whales. Lose the Blubber. Go Vegetarian."</p>
<p>PETA's new .XXX domain is expected to become active in early December. The animal rights group is one of many organizations to snap up one of the new triple-X domain names.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/the-rice-bowl/giant-crocodile-50-cent-tourist-attraction" type="external">More from GlobalPost:&#160;Giant crocodile is 50-cent tourist attraction</a></p> | PETA to launch porn site promoting veganism | false | https://pri.org/stories/2011-09-19/peta-launch-porn-site-promoting-veganism | 2011-09-19 | 3 |
<p>JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - In a case of TMI, the graphic details of South African sports minister <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fikile_Mbalula" type="external">Fikile Mbalula</a>'s sex life&#160;were spread over the front pages of this country's Sunday newspapers.</p>
<p>But rather than sparking calls for his resignation, the lurid reports drew support for Mbalula, with Twitter users in South Africa saying his sex life was "not news," and the ruling party's youth league praising his courage, as well as his "energy and oomph."</p>
<p>Mbalula, who is married, allegedly impregnated a 27-year-old model during a one-stand stand after they met at a party in Johannesburg, the Sunday World tabloid says. The woman then tried to extort money from him, according to reports.</p>
<p>The model declined to comment.&#160;But Mbalula, 40, admitted that he had a brief relationship with her, <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2011/10/30/sports-minister-shown-red-card-for-playing-away" type="external">telling the newspaper</a>:</p>
<p>"She has told me that she will go public and say I have not used a condom when I slept with her and that I was cheating on my wife with her," he said.</p>
<p>"The truth is that I used a condom with her, but it burst during sex."</p>
<p>Media reports of the affair then go into the lengthy deliberations of how to handle the burst condom. According to Mbalula, the woman had promised take a morning-after pill, but later told him she was pregnant and asked for R2,000 ($250) for an abortion - and then for R10,000 ($1,240), and then for R40,000 ($4,950).</p>
<p>Mbalula, who is a former leader of the ruling African National Congress party's youth league, apologized "to the South African society, to the African National Congress and the South African government."</p>
<p>"I have apologized to my family, particularly to my wife, as I should have known better," he said, <a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/Politics/Mbalula-wants-privacy-amid-sex-claims-20111030" type="external">the South African Press Association reports</a>.</p>
<p>The ANC youth league on Monday <a href="http://www.ancyl.org.za/show.php?id=8115" type="external">released a statement</a> saying it "accepts the apology of Comrade Fikile Mbalula!"</p>
<p>"The humility and courage of Comrade Fikile Mbalula to accept that he erred and publicly apologized to his family, the ANC and country should be celebrated," the youth league's statement said.</p>
<p>The statement also noted, apparently without irony, that "Comrade Mbalula gives energy and oomph to every responsibility assigned to him."</p>
<p><a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2011-10-31-mr-razzmataz-and-the-sunday-papers" type="external">The Mail and Guardian newspaper says</a> South African Twitter users were for the most part "enraged' by the reports about Mbalula's affair, "arguing that a politician's sex life was not news."</p>
<p><a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Minister-in-sex-scandal-20111030" type="external">City Press says</a>&#160;Mbalula "preaches safe sex and abstinence," and "had unprotected sex with the model on at least two occasions."</p> | South African sports minister in TMI sex scandal | false | https://pri.org/stories/2011-11-01/south-african-sports-minister-tmi-sex-scandal | 2011-11-01 | 3 |
<p>After the Islamic terrorist attack in Nice, the French Prime Minister actually said that "times have changed" and we "should learn to live with terrorism." Where to begin with all the things wrong with that statement?</p>
<p />
<p>PS: Our Premium Members get <a href="" type="internal">exclusive access to the rest of my show,</a> as well as our other great programs hosted by Faith Goldy, Gavin McInnes, Lauren Southern and Tiffany Gabbay. (PLUS there are NEW shows in the works.)</p>
<p>We've got different membership levels, <a href="" type="internal">so check them out HERE!</a></p> | French PM says 'We should learn to live with terrorism' - but he has VIP security | true | http://therebel.media/french_pm_we_should_learn_to_live_with_terrorism_he_has_vip_security | 2016-07-19 | 0 |
<p>Equity markets found firmer footing in the Asia-Pacific region early Tuesday, with stocks in Singapore leading gains following five straight sessions of declines.</p>
<p>The FTSE Straits Times Index gained 0.7% in early trading, making up for some of the 1.9% pullback there since last Monday, led by strength in blue chips. Elsewhere, Korea's Kospi was up 0.5%, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index gained 0.7% in early trade.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Still, trading volumes broadly remained light, as investors took to the sidelines ahead of the Jackson Hole economic symposium this week.</p>
<p>Top central bankers, including Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, will gather at the annual conference that starts Thursday.</p>
<p>"The market continues to wait on policy makers for direction," said Michala Marcussen, global head of economics at Société Générale. "Unless there is fresh guidance forthcoming from ECB President Draghi or from officials at Jackson Hole, markets are likely to keep trending."</p>
<p>In Japan, the Nikkei Stock Average was up in morning trade, after recovering from early softness, having fallen in 10 of the past 12 trading sessions to cut the year-to-date gain to 1.5%. All listed companies with market capitalizations of at least $5 billion there were trading within 2% of Monday's close, underscoring directionless trading, thanks to the earlier strength in the yen.</p>
<p>The Japanese currency rose after Monday stock trading ended, with the dollar falling below Yen109 overnight from Yen109.27. That put pressure on the export-heavy index. Still, the dollar rebounded and was last at Yen109.23.</p>
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<p>Among the bright spots in the region, mining-company stocks in Australia notched strong gains after a solid rise in metal prices in the previous session and good news from heavyweight BHP Billiton. The gains helped drive a 0.2% rebound in the S&amp;P/ASX 200 index.</p>
<p>BHP declared on Tuesday that it would triple its final dividend, joining fellow miners in rewarding shareholders as its fortunes have rebounded with a recovery in commodity prices. Like its peers, BHP has spent recent years focused on lowering costs and working to strengthen its balance sheet. The company also said Tuesday that it was looking to sell its onshore U.S. oil-and-gas operations.</p>
<p>Shares of BHP Billiton were last up 1.3%, while fellow miner Rio Tinto added 0.8% and Fortescue Metals gained 1.2%.</p>
<p>In the energy market, oil prices moved higher in Asian trade, helping buoy related company stocks. Nymex crude futures were last up 0.4% at $47.70 a barrel, while Brent crude futures were up 0.3% at $51.80 a barrel.</p>
<p>Kosaku Narioka contributed to this article.</p>
<p>Write to Ese Erheriene at [email protected]</p>
<p>Stock markets were broadly higher across Asia on Tuesday, with Singapore performing especially well and on track to snap a five-session losing streak.</p>
<p>The FTSE Straits Times Index was up 0.8%, making up for some of the 1.9% pullback there since last Monday, led by strength in blue chips. Elsewhere, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index gained 1% at the midday break, while Taiwan's Taiex added 0.7% and Korea's Kospi was up 0.5%.</p>
<p>Volumes were relatively light, though, as investors broadly sat on the sidelines ahead of the Jackson Hole economic symposium later this week.</p>
<p>The roster of top central bankers includes Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, who will gather at the annual conference that kicks off Thursday.</p>
<p>"The market continues to wait on policy makers for direction," said Michala Marcussen, global head of economics at Société Générale. "Unless there is fresh guidance forthcoming from ECB President Draghi or from officials at Jackson Hole, markets are likely to keep" their listless trend, she said.</p>
<p>In Japan, the Nikkei Stock Average was most recently down 0.1%, after earlier rising 0.1% after morning softness. It has fallen in 10 of the past 12 trading sessions to cut the year-to-date gain to 1.5%.</p>
<p>The Japanese currency rose after Monday stock trading ended, with the dollar falling below Yen109 overnight from Yen109.27. That put pressure on the export-heavy index. But the dollar rebounded this morning and was last at Yen109.31.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Chinese equities took a back seat following earlier gains. The Shanghai Composite Index was up 0.2% in the morning session, while the Shenzhen benchmark was down 0.1%.</p>
<p>The Shanghai-listed shares of telecom firm China Unicom, which last week unveiled plans to sell stakes to key Chinese tech giants, rose by the upward limit of 10% for the second-straight session, as trading resumed Monday after a near five-month suspension, when the company's share-ownership reform plan was being completed.</p>
<p>Also in Hong Kong, shares of Great Wall Motor halted trading after the company confirmed its interest in buying Fiat Chrysler's iconic Jeep brand. The Chinese auto maker's stock was up almost 40% so far this year.</p>
<p>Among the bright spots in the region, mining-company stocks in Australia notched strong gains after a solid rise in metal prices in the previous session and good news from heavyweight BHP Billiton. The gains helped drive a 0.3% rebound in the S&amp;P/ASX 200 index.</p>
<p>The metals sector "continues to benefit from an increasingly positive sentiment as economic growth betters expectations amid a weaker" U.S. dollar, ANZ analysts said in a note.</p>
<p>BHP declared on Tuesday that it would triple its final dividend, joining fellow miners in rewarding shareholders as its fortunes have rebounded with a recovery in commodity prices. Like its peers, BHP has spent recent years focused on lowering costs and working to strengthen its balance sheet. The company also said Tuesday that it was looking to sell its onshore U.S. oil-and-gas operations.</p>
<p>Shares of BHP Billiton were last up 1.3%, while fellow miner Rio Tinto added 1.2% and Fortescue Metals gained 1.6%.</p>
<p>In the energy market, oil prices edged higher in Asian trade, helping buoy related company stocks. Nymex crude futures were last up 0.5% at $47.75 a barrel, while Brent crude futures were up 0.3% at $51.83 a barrel.</p>
<p>S&amp;P Global Platts said the widening price spreads between the Nymex benchmark and the global standard Brent may "encourage U.S. producers to export more crude oil, which could help relieve pressure on U.S. stockpiles about the time they typically rise because of easing refinery demand."</p>
<p>Kosaku Narioka contributed to this article.</p>
<p>Write to Ese Erheriene at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>August 22, 2017 01:23 ET (05:23 GMT)</p> | Asian Shares Broadly Higher as Markets Await Central Bankers' Summit | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/08/21/singapore-ends-five-session-decline-leading-asia-shares-higher.html | 2017-08-22 | 0 |
<p>Americans have bought an incredibly high number of guns under President Barack Obama. A new study found that an average of 52,600 were purchased every day during his presidency.</p>
<p>No, that is not a typo.</p>
<p>The Washington Examiner <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/gun-salesman-in-chief-52600-a-day-under-obama-more-seen-under-hillary/article/2594961" type="external">reports</a> that there have been a total of 141.1 million background checks under Obama's reign as well as over 46 million guns produced in total, which is about 21,000 produced a day.</p>
<p>There has also been <a href="" type="internal">a recent run on AR-15s</a> since the Orlando terror attack, with one store selling a reported 30,000 rifles in a week.</p>
<p>Justin Anderson, marketing director for Hyatt Guns, told the Examiner that "fear of government intrusion on Second Amendment rights" and "people interested in personal protection" are the reasons for the recent spike in gun sales.</p>
<p>"Our sales have doubled across the board, not just in AR-style rifles, but also in small frame handguns and home defense shotguns," Anderson said. "We saw this just after the San Bernardino shooting, as well. More and more people are coming to realize that their personal safety is at risk and their government cannot protect them."</p>
<p>Anderson also suggested that the gun sales could be even higher than what the National Instant Criminal Background system is reporting.</p>
<p>"In North Carolina, the background checks for handguns are performed by the county sheriff offices and not by direct instant background check," said Anderson. "So this data is likely left out. However, it's a yardstick that shows the overall health of the industry. When NICS checks spike, it can be used a good measure of overall gun sales."</p>
<p>Anderson predicted that gun sales could rise even higher if it looks like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is going to be elected president.</p>
<p>The run on guns has resulted in a boom in the firearms industry. Last year, the industry <a href="" type="internal">gained over 20,000 jobs</a>.</p>
<p>This is the unintended consequence of Obama's gun-grabbing rhetoric: more people rush to buy guns out of fear that Obama will implement gun control.</p> | You Won't BELIEVE How Many Guns Americans Buy Every Day Under Obama | true | https://dailywire.com/news/6992/you-wont-believe-how-many-guns-americans-buy-every-aaron-bandler | 2016-06-28 | 0 |
<p>Photo from &lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/soldiersmediacenter/457702742/"&gt;Army.mil&lt;/a&gt;</p>
<p>Introduction by Tom Engelhardt</p>
<p>[Note to TomDispatch Readers: For those of you who have, in recent months, clicked on the new “Resist Empire, Support TomDispatch” button to the right of this screen and sent money our way—I only wish I could thank each of you individually—think of this post as something your contributions have made possible. Dahr Jamail is now in Iraq reporting in ways you’re just not going to see in the mainstream media and this site is able, for the first time, to offer him (and other young journalists) at least some support, however modest, when it comes to expenses. So here’s a collective thank you for your help. Take my word for it, those contributions, no matter how small, matter.]</p>
<p>Already it’s begun—the endless non-departure from Iraq. The Obama plan, restated many times during the presidential campaign, involved a 16-month schedule for withdrawing not all U.S. forces, but only U.S. “combat troops.” Now, his (and, of course, George W. Bush’s) generals are showing visible evidence of dragging their combat boots in the sand on the subject. We were given fair warning. Over the last two years, numerous military figures have claimed that, as fast as they got into Iraq, it would be hell just getting all the U.S. <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175005/a_consumer_s_paradise_of_war" type="external">stuff now embedded there</a> out—and that’s without even taking into account the political situation in that country. Recently, according to <a href="http://www.antiwar.com/porter/?articleid=14222" type="external">military leaks</a> to the media, “U.S. military planners” have come up with <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090207/ts_nm/us_iraq_usa_withdrawal" type="external">two alternate scenarios</a> to Obama’s 16-month plan. One is reportedly 19 months long, the other 23 months long, and—here’s a shock—the two top generals in charge, Centcom commander David Petraeus and U.S. commander in Iraq, General Ray Odierno, favor the 23-month approach.</p>
<p>“Odierno and Petraeus have said that we really need 23 months to do this without jeopardizing the security gains that we’ve secured,” was the way one typical anonymous official put it. President Obama has yet to show any sign of agreeing to this, but the pressure is evidently <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/02/generals-seek-to-reverse_n_163070.html" type="external">only beginning</a>. Gareth Porter of Inter Press Service <a href="http://www.antiwar.com/porter/?articleid=14184" type="external">indicates</a> that a “network of senior military officers is also reported to be preparing to support Petraeus and Odierno by mobilizing public opinion against Obama’s [16-month plan]… If Obama does not change the policy, according to the source, they hope to have planted the seeds of a future political narrative blaming his withdrawal policy for the ‘collapse’ they expect in an Iraq without U.S. troops.” <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174859" type="external">Stab in the back</a>, anyone?</p>
<p>Oh, and in the bargain, the generals are evidently also planning to <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/02/generals-seek-to-reverse_n_163070.html" type="external">re-label</a> some of those withdrawable combat forces among the still staggering 144,000 troops in Iraq—the American invasion force of 2003 was only about 130,000 strong—as non-combat “support troops” or advisors. They would, Robert Burns of the Associated Press <a href="http://wire.antiwar.com/2009/02/06/obama-considering-at-least-2-iraq-withdrawal-plans/" type="external">writes</a>, be “redesigned and reconfigured as multipurpose units to provide training and advising for Iraqi security force” and so would “be considered noncombat outfits.” What’s in a name, after all?</p>
<p>In the end, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/us/politics/29prexy.html" type="external">according to</a> the New York Times, the generals hope to leave one third of American troops, almost 50,000 of them, in Iraq for an undetermined period (and that number, of course, doesn’t including private security contractors) after the combat troops are withdrawn.</p>
<p>Dahr Jamail, author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1931859612/ref=nosim/?tag=nationbooks08-20" type="external">Beyond the Green Zone</a> and TomDispatch regular, is now back in Iraq and, in his typical, incisive way, he offers another view of just what “success” has meant for Americans, at least in Iraq’s Sunni heartland. So slip into a well armored BMW with him and check out the scene for yourself. It’s the only way a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/07/world/middleeast/07falluja.html" type="external">“tourist”</a> is likely to be welcomed in this part of Iraq. Tom</p>
<p />
<p>The New Fallujah Up Close and Still in Ruins By Dahr Jamail</p>
<p>Fallujah, Iraq—Driving through Fallujah, once the most rebellious Sunni city in this country, I saw little evidence of any kind of reconstruction underway. At least 70% of that city’s structures were destroyed during massive U.S. military assaults in April, and again in November 2004, and more than four years later, in the “new Iraq,” the city continues to languish.</p>
<p>The shells of buildings pulverized by U.S. bombs, artillery, or mortar fire back then still line Fallujah’s main street, or rather, what’s left of it. As one of the few visible signs of reconstruction in the city, that street—largely destroyed during the November 2004 siege—is slowly being torn up in order to be repaved.</p>
<p>Unemployment is rampant here, the infrastructure remains largely in ruins, and tens of thousands of residents who fled in 2004 are still refugees. How could it be otherwise, given the amount of effort that went into its destruction and not, subsequently, into rebuilding it? It’s a place where a resident must still carry around a U.S.-issued personal biometric ID card, which must also be shown any time you enter or exit the city if you are local. Such a card can only be obtained after U.S. military personnel have scanned your retinas and taken your fingerprints.</p>
<p>The trauma from the 2004 attacks remains visible everywhere. Given the countless still-bullet-pocked walls of restaurants, stores, and homes, it is impossible to view the city from any vantage point, or look in any direction, without observing signs of those sieges.</p>
<p>Everything in Fallujah, and everyone there, has been touched to the core by the experience, but not everyone is experiencing the aftermath of the city’s devastation in the same way. In fact, for much of my “tour” of Fallajah, I was inside a heavily armored, custom-built, $420,000 BMW with all the accessories needed in twenty-first century Iraq, including a liquor compartment and bulletproof windows.</p>
<p>One of the last times I had been driven through Fallujah—in April 2004—I was with a small group of journalists and activists. We had made our way into the city, then under siege, on a rickety bus carrying humanitarian aid supplies. After watching in horror as U.S. F-16’s dropped bombs inside Fallujah while we wound our way toward it through rural farmlands, we arrived to find its streets completely empty, save for mujahideen checkpoints.</p>
<p>To say that my newest mode of transportation was an upgrade that left me a bit disoriented would be (mildly put) an understatement. The BMW belonged to Sheik Aifan Sadun, head of the Awakening Council of Fallujah. Thanks to the Awakening movement that began forming in 2006 in al-Anbar Province, then the hotbed of the Sunni insurgency—into which American occupation forces quickly poured significant amounts of money, arms, and other kinds of support—violence across most of that province is now at an all-time low. This is strikingly evident in Fallujah, once known as the city of resistance, since the fiercest fighting of the American occupation years took place there.</p>
<p>Today, 34-year-old Sheik Aifan may be the richest man in town, thanks to his alliance of self-interest with the U.S. occupation forces. Aifan’s good fortune was this: He was the right sheik in the right place at the right time when the Americans, desperate over their failures in Iraq, decided to throw their support behind the reconstitution of a tribal elite in the province where the Sunni insurgency raged with particular fierceness from 2004-2006.</p>
<p>In the “Construction Business”</p>
<p>Don’t misunderstand. This wasn’t a careful, strategically laid, made-in-the-USA plan. It was a seat-of-the-pants, spur-of-the-moment quick fix. After all, by the time U.S. planners decided to throw their weight behind the Awakening Movement, it was already something of a done deal.</p>
<p>In late 2006, roughly speaking, months before George W. Bush’s “surge” strategy sent 30,000 more American troops into Baghdad and surrounding areas, the U.S. began making down-payments on the cooperation of local al-Anbar tribal sheiks and started funding and arming the Sunni militias they were then organizing. As a result, the number of insurgent attacks quickly began to drop, and so the Americans widened the program to other provinces. It grew to include nearly 100,000 Sunni fighters, most of whom were paid $300 a month—a sizeable income in a devastated city like Fallujah with sky-high unemployment rates.</p>
<p>The program was soon hailed as a success, and the groups were dubbed anything from The Awakening, to Sons of Iraq (al-Sahwa), or as the U.S. military preferred for a time, Concerned Local Citizens. Whatever the name, most of their members were former resistance fighters; many were also former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party; and significant numbers were—and, of course, remain—both.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1931859612/ref=nosim/?tag=nationbooks08-20" type="external" />There was an even deeper history to the path the Americans finally chose in order to tame the insurgency and the home-grown al-Qaeda-in-Iraq (AQI) groups that had spun off from it. In an interview with David Enders and Richard Rowley, colleagues of mine, in the summer of 2007, Sheikh Aifan laid this out quite clearly: “Saddam Hussein supported some tribes and some sheiks. Some of those sheiks, he used their power in their areas. The first support came by money. He supported them by big projects, by money, and he made them very rich. So you see, they can deal with anyone in Iraq with money. The Americans, they made the same plan with all the sheiks.”</p>
<p>The main goal of the Americans was never the reconstruction of devastated al-Anbar Province. That was just the label given to a project whose objective—from the U.S. point of view—was to save American lives and to tamp down violence in Iraq before the U.S. presidential election of 2008.</p>
<p>Today, leading sheiks like Aifan will tell you that they are in “the construction business.” That’s a polite phrase for what they’re doing, and the rubric under which a lot of the payouts take place (however modest actual reconstruction work might be). Think of it this way: Every dealer needs a front man. The U.S. bought the sheiks off and it was to their immediate advantage to be bought off. They regained a kind of power that had been seeping away, while all the money and arms allowed them to put real muscle into recruiting people in the tribes they controlled and into building the Awakening Movement.</p>
<p>The reasons—and they are indeed plural—why the tribal leaders were so willing to collaborate with the occupiers of their country are, at least in retrospect, relatively clear. Those in al-Anbar who had once supported, and had been supported by, Saddam Hussein, and then had initially supported the resistance became far keener to work with occupation forces as they saw their power eroded by al-Qaeda-in-Iraq.</p>
<p>AQI proved a threat to the sheiks, many of whom had initially worked directly with it, when it began to try to embed its own fierce, extremist Sunni ideology in the region—and perhaps even more significantly, when it began to infringe on the cross-border smuggling trade that had kept many tribal sheiks rich. As AQI grew larger and threatened their financial and power bases, they had little choice but to throw in their lot with the Americans.</p>
<p>As a result, these men obtained backing for their private militias, renamed Awakening groups, and in addition, signed “construction” contracts with the Americans who put millions of dollars in their pockets, even if not always into actual construction sites. As early as April 2006, the Rand Corporation released a report, “The Anbar Awakening,” identifying America’s potential new allies as a group of sheiks who used to control smuggling rings and organized crime in the area.</p>
<p>One striking example was Sheik Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, who founded the first Awakening groups in al-Anbar and later led the entire movement until he was <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6993370.stm" type="external">assassinated in 2007</a>, shortly after he met with President Bush. It was well known in the region that Abu Risha was primarily a smuggler defending his business operations by joining the Americans.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, given the lucrative nature of the cooperative relationship that developed, whenever an Awakening group sheik is assassinated, another is always there to take his place. Abu Risha was, in fact, promptly replaced as “president” of the Anbar Awakening by his brother <a href="http://dahrjamailiraq.com/wpg2?g2_itemId=12052" type="external">Sheik Ahmad Abu Risha</a>, also now in the “construction business.”</p>
<p>Dreaming of the New Dubai</p>
<p>When George W. Bush visited Iraq in September 2007, my host on my tour of Fallujah, Sheik Aifan, was <a href="http://dahrjamailiraq.com/wpg2?g2_itemId=12043him" type="external">delighted to meet him</a>. Bush, he claimed, was “very smart and a brother.” During the summer of 2008, he would <a href="http://dahrjamailiraq.com/wpg2?g2_itemId=12033Barak" type="external">meet Barack Obama</a> as well. When asked what he thought of Obama, he told Richard Rowley, “U.S. foreign policy tends not to change with a new president.” A photo of him with <a href="http://dahrjamailiraq.com/wpg2?g2_itemId=12046" type="external">Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki</a> is proudly displayed, among many others, at his home in Fallujah.</p>
<p>To fully understand why tribal leaders like Aifan began working so closely with American forces, you also have to take into account the waves of staggering sectarian violence that were sweeping across Iraq in 2006. As Sunni suicide and car bombings slaughtered Shiites, so, too, Shia militias and death squads were murdering Sunnis by the score on a daily basis.</p>
<p>Before the U.S. invasion in 2003, Sunnis had been nearly a majority in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. By 2006, they were a rapidly shrinking minority, largely driven out of the many mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhoods that dotted the city and some purely Sunni ones as well. Hundreds of thousands of them were displaced from homes in Baghdad alone.</p>
<p>At his Informed Comment blog, Juan Cole <a href="http://www.juancole.com/2009/02/religious-parties-sweep-shiite-south.html" type="external">reports</a> that Sunnis may now make up as little as 10%-15% of the population of the capital. No wonder their tribal leaders, outnumbered and outgunned on all sides, felt the need for some help and, with options limited, found it by reaching out to the most powerful military on the planet. With their finances, livelihoods, and even lives threatened, they resorted to a classic tactic of the beleaguered, summed up in the saying, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”</p>
<p>The result today? Sheik Aifan is a millionaire many times over. And his dreams are fittingly no longer those of a local smuggler. He wants to “make Anbar the next Dubai,” he told two of my colleagues and me as we powered down the battered streets of Fallujah.</p>
<p>His house is a fittingly massive, heavily guarded mansion complete with its own checkpoint near the street, two guard towers, and even two heavy machine guns emplaced near the door to his office. A bevy of guards surround him at all times and live in the mansion full time for his protection.</p>
<p>During our first visit to his home, my companions and I ended up spending the night, since we had not completed our interviews by the time the sun began to set. It was just days ahead of the recent provincial elections in which the list of Awakening members he was a part of would take second place. As we munched on delicious kebabs, he proudly discussed his own campaign that he hoped would land him high in the city council. “I’m running,” he insisted, “because if I don’t, the bad people will keep their seats. We can’t change things if we don’t run.”</p>
<p>With most Sunni groups boycotting the 2005 election, the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP), a heavily religious group, took control of the seats of power in Fallujah. While I was with Aifan, he was visibly anxious and angered by rumors that the IIP was attempting to pressure voters and rig the elections. “We will fight with any means necessary if they win by fraud,” he said adamantly—and, as I would soon find out, he was already taking the fight to the IIP.</p>
<p>John Gotti in Iraq</p>
<p>As the night grew late, Aifan suddenly decided that we should accompany him on a quick visit to the provincial capital, Ramadi. He wanted to consult with a compatriot, Sheik Abu Risha, in order to file a joint letter of complaint about the alleged fraud the IIP was conducting in the run-up to the elections. It was interesting to note that, only two years and a few months after the Awakening Movement was formed, the two sheiks feared a Sunni electoral party far more than al-Qaeda-in-Iraq.</p>
<p>En route he proudly showed off the BMW’s extras, including its two-inch thick bulletproof windows (so useful if you fear assassination), the handy flip-out whiskey compartment that held Johnny Walker and some sodas, and a top-of-the-line music system. As he drove, his cell phone in one hand and a walkie-talkie beside him a constant link to his security guards in SUVs which had us sandwiched front and back, he continued to talk enthusiastically with us. Riding in the front, I couldn’t help but be exceedingly aware of the pistol that rested conveniently near him on the seat. In the back on the floor were a shotgun and an AK-47 assault rifle.</p>
<p>Abu Risha’s compound in Ramadi was even larger than Sheik Aifan’s mansion—and even more heavily guarded. We arrived to find an election official already waiting to take Aifan’s written complaint on the rigging charges. The chief of police for the province was in attendance too, a sign of the power and influence of these two men who share a bond of power and money. (Abu Risha even owns a camel farm.)</p>
<p>Once the visit was concluded, we headed back for Fallujah and had a late night snack at Sheik Aifan’s place before settling in for a night’s sleep as his guest. His daughter, a shy girl of perhaps seven years of age, sat beside him as we ate. At one point, he suddenly peeled a crisp U.S. $100 bill off a wad of bills that would have stunned any movie mafia boss, smiled benevolently, and added that she shouldn’t let her mother know about the gift.</p>
<p>The sheik, of course, had $100 bills to spare, as millions of dollars for so-called construction projects have been funneled his way. It’s how he pays the roughly 900 men that he estimates make up his private militia. For all of this he can thank the U.S. military, which delivers regular installments of money—shrink-wrapped bricks of those $100 bills—because post-invasion Iraq remains largely a cash-only economy.</p>
<p>Before our journey to Ramadi, a patrol of U.S. Marines had paid Sheik Aifan a visit. As the soldiers climbed the stairs to his meeting room, they took clips of ammunition away from the sheik’s security team, and kept them until they left his compound. It was a gentle reminder of who still has the final say in this part of Iraq and of just how far the trust extends between these partners of necessity.</p>
<p>Sheikh Aifan offered a warm greeting to the Marine commander, and the two men sat down to talk. Each was visibly distracted, anxiously looking around. Sheik Aifan toyed anxiously with his prayer beads, wiggling his legs like a nervous schoolchild, while telling his guest how well everything was going. The meeting was repeatedly interrupted by cell phone calls for the sheik who, at one point, left briefly to welcome another visitor.</p>
<p>After the meeting, platters of food were brought in and everyone feasted. As they were leaving, I asked one of the Marines if meetings like these happened regularly. “This is our job,” he replied. “We visit sheiks. And this guy is like John Gotti.” (Gotti, labeled “the Teflon Don,” ran the Gambino crime family in New York City before being jailed.)</p>
<p>I wasn’t eager to stay the night, but the alternatives—at least the safe ones—were nil. Though in luxurious circumstances, we caught something of the newest Iraqi dilemma: we had “security” of a sort, but no freedom.</p>
<p>Outside the gates of Sheik Aifan’s well-guarded compound, generators hummed in the night providing electricity in a land where, if you can’t pay for a generator of your own or share one with your neighbor, you are in trouble. In Fallujah, like Baghdad, four hours of electricity delivered from the national grid is considered a good day. Generally, a self-imposed curfew kept the streets relatively traffic free after total darkness settled in.</p>
<p>The city in which Sheik Aifan lives, of course, still lies in rubble, its people largely in a state of existential endurance. The Awakening groups have earned the respect of many Iraqis by providing “security,” but at what price?</p>
<p>Reconstruction has yet to really begin in Sunni areas and the movement, sheiks and all, only works as long as the U.S. continues funneling “reconstruction funds” to tribal leaders. What happens when that stops, as it surely must with time? Will the people of Fallujah be better served? Or has this process merely laid the groundwork for future bloodshed?</p>
<p>[Note of thanks: Bhashwati Sengupta, Richard Rowley, Jacqueline Soohen, and David Enders contributed research to this article.]</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Copyright 2009 Dahr Jamail</p>
<p>Dahr Jamail, an independent journalist, has been covering the Middle East for more than five years and is the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1931859612/ref=nosim/?tag=nationbooks08-20" type="external">Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq</a>. He reports for Inter Press Service and is a regular contributor to TomDispatch. He has also published in Le Monde Diplomatique, the Independent, the Guardian, the Sunday Herald of Scotland, the Nation, and Foreign Policy in Focus, among others. To visit his website, click <a href="http://dahrjamailiraq.com/" type="external">here</a>.</p> | Iraq from the Inside of an Armored BMW | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2009/02/iraq-inside-armored-bmw/ | 2009-02-12 | 4 |
<p>One of the best tools to help stay healthy this summer might be in our pockets. Whether it’s staying protected from the sun or keeping our blood pressure at safe levels…there’s an app for that.</p>
<p>Here’s a look at four apps that can help protect you from the elements this summer.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Allergies can be a year round problem, but for many, their symptoms get worse when the weather gets warm.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.zyrtec.com/allergy-tools/allergycast" type="external">Zyrtec’s AllergyCast app</a> - shows the pollen index and weather forecast to help &#160;users plan their day. The free app isn’t a completely altruistic endeavor on Zyrtec’s part, the company does push its medicine, its forecast tool and symptom log is useful for allergy sufferers. The tool allows you to check the pollen in your area or any place you may be visiting.</p>
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<p>People with food allergies can also find relief in the form of an app when dining out. While you can control what goes into the food you prepare at home, dining out can be a bit of a gamble.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.allergyeats.com/" type="external">AllergyEats</a> is a free app for both the iPhone and Android-based phones, and lets you find allergy-friendly restaurants based on your GPS location. Choose your allergy or intolerance, and the app will provide a list of restaurants based on their level of allergy friendliness.</p>
<p>Protecting yourself from the sun is important year round, but it becomes particularly critical in the summer months. Stay protected the techie way this summer with June, the personalized sun protector by <a href="http://www.netatmo.com/en-US/site" type="external">Netatmo</a>.</p>
<p>The wrist device syncs with your smart phone to measure your sun exposure throughout the day and sends you real-time advice on how to protect yourself from the sun’s harmful rays. The device will tell you the exact SPF you need, recommend when to wear a hat or sunglasses, and alert you when it’s time to get out of the sun altogether.</p>
<p>June, which is slated to be released in the second quarter, is priced at $99.</p>
<p>Managing asthma can get complicated, especially if you have multiple triggers. AsthmaMD is a free app that allows you to log your asthma attacks, take notes on any triggers, chart the severity of attacks and review past information to help identify any patterns.</p>
<p>The app also allows you to securely send data to your doctor based on a corresponding peak flow meter that measures lung performance. &#160;The peak flow meter costs extra, and can be purchased in drug stores.</p>
<p>High blood pressure can lead to several types of diseases, which makes tracking your levels important. Going to the doctor or the drugstore for a test regularly can be inconvenient, but now there are many home devices that can help keep your blood pressure in check.</p>
<p>The Wireless Blood Pressure Monitor from iHealth relies on your smart phone to precisely self-measure your blood pressure. For $99.95, consumers can check their blood pressure wherever and whenever without worrying about finding a power outlet.</p>
<p>All you have to do is put on the monitor, push a button and it will send the data to your smartphone or tablet. The readings are automatically saved on the app and in the cloud, and consumers have the option to share the information with their doctor or caregiver.</p> | Apps to Keep Your Health in Check | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2014/06/24/apps-to-keep-your-health-in-check.html | 2016-06-14 | 0 |
<p>Sexual harassment and assault are not limited to Hollywood. Rumors and vague accounts of aspiring actresses being preyed upon have circulated in Asian showbiz for years. But it is highly unlikely that Asian actresses will come forward in the way that their Western counterparts have done following the explosion of the <a href="http://variety.com/t/harvey-weinstein/" type="external">Harvey Weinstein</a> scandal.</p>
<p>Asia’s relatively conservative attitude towards sex, the fear of consequences that could jeopardize the lives of their families as well as careers, and public judgment are reasons that stop abuse victims in the Asian entertainment business from coming forward, industry insiders say.</p>
<p>Candice Yu, executive secretary of Hong Kong Performing Artistes’ Guild, said that her organization has not received such complaints since she took over the position two years ago. But she does not deny such situations exist.</p>
<p>“People are much more reserved and conservative here in China or Asia. People are afraid of the consequences, such as losing their career,” Yu said.&#160;She said coming forward to reveal the truth about sexual assault was never easy for anyone, let alone those living in the limelight. “Many of the allegations against <a href="http://variety.com/2017/biz/news/harvey-weinstein-family-dispute-daughter-remy-1202587709/" type="external">Harvey Weinstein</a> referred to events that happened many years ago. But if our members seek help from us, we will definitely support them,” Yu said.</p>
<p>One insider who spoke on condition of anonymity said there had been instances involving men masquerading as film or music executives and making sexual advances towards aspiring actresses. “They pretend to offer these girls a movie or record deal opportunity, if these girls could ‘return favor.’ But these girls will not come forward, because they would put themselves in the spotlight, be judged by netizens, and considered as gold-diggers,” said one producer who asked not to be named.</p>
<p>Public sex scandals are unusual in Asia, but not unheard of. Action star <a href="http://variety.com/t/jackie-chan/" type="external">Jackie Chan</a> made news headlines in 1999 when a former Miss Asia, Elaine Ng, was found to be pregnant with his child. Chan belatedly acknowledged the affair, but has maintained arm’s-length relations with Ng and their daughter.</p>
<p>In 2012, Chinese actress <a href="http://variety.com/t/zhang-ziyi/" type="external">Zhang Ziyi</a> was accused by U.S.-based dissident website&#160;Boxun.com&#160;of having sex with top Chinese officials, including the disgraced politician Bo Xilai. She sued for libel and settled out of court in 2013 after the site retracted its story.</p>
<p>In Korea, where the Busan Film Festival opened Thursday, an unnamed actress this year accused leading indie director Kim Ki-duk of physical and verbal abuse during the filming of his 2013 movie “Moebius.” Through the Federation of Korean Movie Workers’ Union, she said that the director forced her to take part in an unscripted, violent sex scene. She withdrew from the film and was replaced. Kim denies the accusations and said that he was providing her with acting coaching on the first day of production. The case is currently with prosecutors.</p>
<p>In India, where rape and other violence against women has become a major social issue in recent years, there are multiple examples of sexual misconduct in show business. But the industry has barely tackled the issue.</p>
<p>Mahmood Farooqui, co-director of India’s 2011 foreign-language Oscar contender, “Peepli (Live),” was arrested by Delhi police in June 2015 on charges of raping an American woman. He was sentenced to seven years in prison in August 2016, but acquitted and released in September 2017. The appeals court judge said: “Instances of woman (sic) behavior are not unknown that a feeble no may mean a yes.”</p>
<p>In July 2017, Kerala state police arrested popular Malayalam-language cinema actor Dileep on charges of kidnapping and attempting to rape an actress. He was granted bail this month, a week after his film “Ramaleela” opened in theaters. The film is now on its way to becoming a smash hit.</p>
<p>And in June 2009, a domestic servant accused Bollywood actor <a href="http://variety.com/t/shiney-ahuja/" type="external">Shiney Ahuja</a> of rape. Ahuja was sentenced to seven years in prison in March 2011, but was released on bail the following month. He has resumed work and made a comeback with 2015’s “Welcome Back.”</p> | Asian Film Business Likely to Keep Sex Violence Problems Under Wraps | false | https://newsline.com/asian-film-business-likely-to-keep-sex-violence-problems-under-wraps/ | 2017-10-12 | 1 |
<p>RIYADH (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia’s King Salman left on Wednesday for an official trip to Russia where he is set to meet President Vladimir Putin for talks on oil production and regional policy, state television said.</p>
<p>Several investment deals, including on a liquefied project and petrochemical plants, could also be signed during the trip and plans for a $1-billion fund to invest in energy projects are likely to be finalised.</p>
<p>The king appointed his son, 32-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to manage the kingdom’s affairs in his absence.</p>
<p />
<p>Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.</p> | Saudi king leaves for Moscow, crown prince in charge | false | https://newsline.com/saudi-king-leaves-for-moscow-crown-prince-in-charge/ | 2017-10-04 | 1 |
<p>Switch, Costco among stocks to watch</p>
<p>Wall Street equities were poised to trade near record levels at the open Friday, with U.S. stock-index futures mixed as investors waited for an important update on U.S. jobs growth.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>What stock benchmarks are doing</p>
<p>Dow Jones Industrial Average futures slipped 8 points to 22,732, while S&amp;P 500 futures eased 0.9 point to 2,549. Nasdaq-100 futures were up 3.75 points to 6,069.50.</p>
<p>Boosted by news of a budget resolution passing Congress (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/house-passes-budget-resolution-in-key-step-for-tax-plan-2017-10-05), the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Thursday (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-stocks-set-to-hover-at-record-levels-with-fed-speakers-in-the-spotlight-2017-10-05) rose 0.5% to finish at 22,775.39, for its 46th record close of the year. The S&amp;P 500 gained 0.6% to end at 2,552.07, its sixth straight record close and its 43rd such finish this year. The Nasdaq Composite Index closed 0.8% higher at 6,585.36.</p>
<p>For the week through Thursday, the Dow industrials were looking at a gain of 1.65%. The S&amp;P 500 and Nasdaq Composite were each on track for rises of around 1.3%.</p>
<p>Opinion:The next bear market gets closer every time stocks hit a record (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/complacent-bulls-still-control-this-market-for-now-2017-10-04)</p>
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<p>Read:Why stocks may be 'on verge' of a melt-up (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-stocks-may-be-on-verge-of-a-melt-up-2017-10-04)</p>
<p>What could drive markets?</p>
<p>The government's monthly reading on nonfarm payrolls and other labor data is due Friday. Economists polled by MarketWatch forecast jobs growth of 75,000 in September, compared with 156,000 in August. The unemployment rate is expected to come in unchanged at 4.4%, with average hourly earnings seen rising 0.3%.</p>
<p>The low jobs growth is being blamed on the effect of superstorms in Texas and Florida, the states with the second-highest and fourth-highest numbers of working Americans. September is expected to break an 83-month streak of rising payrolls in the U.S.</p>
<p>Read:Hurricanes may make it look like U.S. 'lost' jobs for the first time since 2010 (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/hurricanes-may-make-it-look-like-us-lost-jobs-for-the-first-time-since-2010-2017-10-01)</p>
<p>See:Tropical Storm Nate headed for Gulf Coast, leaves 22 dead in Central America (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/tropical-storm-nate-headed-for-gulf-coast-leaves-22-dead-in-central-america-2017-10-06)</p>
<p>A reading on wholesale inventories for August is due at 10 a.m. Eastern, followed by a report on consumer credit for the same month at 3 p.m. Eastern.</p>
<p>Investors will also hear from another bunch of Federal Reserve officials:</p>
<p>-- Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic, at a Fed workforce conference in Austin at 9 a.m. Eastern.</p>
<p>-- Dallas Fed President Rob Kaplan, at a discussion at the same event at 12:45 p.m. Eastern.</p>
<p>-- New York Fed President William Dudley, speaking on monetary policy at the Council for Economic Education at 12:15 p.m. Eastern.</p>
<p>-- St. Louis Fed President James Bullard, speaking on the standard of living at a development conference in St. Louis at 1:50 p.m. Eastern.</p>
<p>What do strategists say?</p>
<p>-- "Patrick Harker of the Federal Reserve stated the U.S. central bank is still penciling in a rate hike in December, and today's data could give us a clue as to what they will do next. Traders will be paying close attention to the wage data in the announcement as it hasn't been as impressive as the unemployment rate." -- David Madden, market analyst at CMC Markets U.K., in a note.</p>
<p>"Traders are confident of a strong Q4 after seeing that the recent US data keeps pointing towards more growth and with little risk currently on the horizon stocks are hitting fresh highs. If today's NFPs print in a positive -- or at least less negative -- manner, then equity traders will continue looking for opportunities." -- Konstantinos Anthis, ADS Securities research, in a note.</p>
<p>Which stocks are in focus?</p>
<p>Data-center operator Switch Inc. priced its initial public offering higher than expected (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/switch-prices-ipo-above-range-at-17-raises-more-than-500-million-2017-10-05) Thursday evening. The Las Vegas-based data-center company said it would sell 31.25 million shares at $17 apiece, after previously stating a target range of $14 to $16. Shares are due to begin trading Friday on the New York Stock Exchange.</p>
<p>Costco Wholesale Corp.(COST) shares fell 2.8% in premarket. The wholesale retailer reported results that topped Wall Street estimates (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/costco-shares-slip-even-after-earnings-top-street-view-2017-10-05)for the quarter, but shares fell 1% after the close of regular trading Thursday.</p>
<p>Yum China Holdings Inc.(YUMC) jumped 2.6% the Yum Brands Inc. (YUM) spinoff announced earnings that included its first dividend and an increased stock-buyback plan (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/yum-china-gains-after-establishing-dividend-detailing-ceo-succession-plan-2017-10-05). The operator of KFC and Pizza Hut restaurants also announced plans for a new chief executive officer.</p>
<p>What other assets are doing</p>
<p>European stocks traded mostly lower (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/european-stocks-slip-with-us-jobs-data-in-view-spanish-banks-resume-selloff-2017-10-06), with Spain's IBEX benchmark giving back some of Thursday's rebound as investors assessed the latest developments in the Catalonia-Spain standoff.</p>
<p>Australian stocks led gains in Asia (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/hang-seng-nikkei-reach-multi-year-highs-as-asian-stocks-rise-2017-10-05) on Friday, boosted by Thursday's climb in commodity prices and rises for financial stocks.</p>
<p>WTI oil futures are under pressure as Tropical Storm Nate strengthens, and is due to hit the Gulf Coast over the weekend (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/tropical-storm-nate-headed-for-gulf-coast-leaves-22-dead-in-central-america-2017-10-06). The ICE U.S. Dollar Index (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/british-pound-drops-set-for-worst-week-in-a-year-on-talk-of-early-uk-election-2017-10-06) rose. Under pressure, the British pound was set for its worst week in a year on talk of an early U.K. election (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/sterling-has-a-long-way-to-fall-as-snap-election-risk-mounts-in-the-uk-2017-10-05). Gold futures (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/british-pound-drops-set-for-worst-week-in-a-year-on-talk-of-early-uk-election-2017-10-06) slipped. (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/british-pound-drops-set-for-worst-week-in-a-year-on-talk-of-early-uk-election-2017-10-06)</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>October 06, 2017 07:56 ET (11:56 GMT)</p> | MARKET SNAPSHOT: Stock Market In Holding Pattern As Investors Wait For Jobs Data | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/10/06/market-snapshot-stock-market-in-holding-pattern-as-investors-wait-for-jobs-data.html | 2017-10-06 | 0 |
<p>BERLIN, Germany - The German government has agreed to pay compensation to relatives of the people killed by a violent neo-Nazi gang that went apparently unnoticed by the authorities for years.</p>
<p>There will also be an official memorial service to commemorate the gang's 10 known victims, <a href="http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15544835,00.html" type="external">Deutsche Welle reported</a>, following discussions between German Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Christian Wullf and members of parliament.</p>
<p>It was recently revealed that a group of far-right extremists calling themselves the National Socialist Underground (NSU) claimed to have killed eight Turkish and one Greek immigrant and one German policewoman between 2000 and 2007.</p>
<p>They are also suspected of carrying out several other hitherto unsolved attacks on immigrants in Germany, including a nail bombing in Cologne in 2004.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/germany/111114/germany-neo-nazi-terrorist-gang-linked-10-murders" type="external">Germany: Neo-Nazi terrorist gang linked to 10 murders</a></p>
<p>The German authorities have faced criticism in the wake of the revelations, which came about only when two of the suspects botched a robbery attempt and committed suicide, and a third handed herself in to police.</p>
<p>The domestic intelligence service then admitted that an undercover intelligence agent had been present at at least one of the murder scenes. The agent was known to have rightwing views and was even previously nicknamed "Little Adolf," <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/16/german-neo-nazi-security-service-scandal" type="external">the Guardian reported</a>.</p>
<p>The decision to award compensation could be taken as an admission of failings on the part of the authorities, though Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger was careful not use those terms when she announced the measure Sunday:</p>
<p>"Even if financial help cannot undo the suffering, I will attempt to give the victims' families a sign of our solidarity with compensation from my budget. I fear that at the end of the investigation, we will uncover more victims of xenophobia than we are aware of today."</p>
<p>Chancellor Merkel has called for a full investigation into the the case, including possible errors made by the police and intelligence services.</p>
<p>The Interior Ministry has also proposed creating a national database of far-right extremists, similar as that set up for Islamist extremists in the wake of September 11, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15764312" type="external">the BBC said</a>.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/germany/111027/spyware-scandal-germany" type="external">German authorities plant spyware on citizens' computers</a></p>
<p>There were an estimated 25,000 rightwing extremists in Germany at the end of 2010, according to intelligence service figures <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,798682,00.html" type="external">cited by Der Spiegel</a>. Of these, some 9,500 were considered "prone to violence."</p>
<p>Yet more worrying than this small percentage of known fringe extremists is the wider majority of "latent racists," said the Spiegel's <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,798450,00.html" type="external">Stefan Kuzmany</a>, referring to the fact that the killings quickly became known as the "doner kebab murders" despite only two of them taking place in kebab shops:</p>
<p>By calling the murder spree "doner killings," the victims are condescendingly dehumanized, as if they had no names or occupations. Imagine if it had been a series of murders involving primarily Italian victims. Would we have then called them the "spaghetti murders"? [...]</p>
<p>It provided distance, allowing Germans to sit comfortably and be creeped out by reports they read in the newspaper about the series of gruesome murders.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/germany/110825/germany-fights-neo-nazis-wake-breivik-killings" type="external">Germany fights neo-Nazis after Norway killings</a></p> | Germany: Government agrees to compensate neo-Nazi gang's victims | false | https://pri.org/stories/2011-11-20/germany-government-agrees-compensate-neo-nazi-gangs-victims | 2011-11-20 | 3 |
<p>The marijuana industry is growing like wildfire, and marijuana stock investors have taken notice. Over the trailing year, more pot stocks than not with a market cap of at least $200 million have doubled in value, if not moved even higher.</p>
<p>It's not hard to understand why investors are so excited about the prospects for legal cannabis. Cannabis research firm ArcView estimates that North American legal sales totaled $6.9 billion in 2016, up 34% from the previous year.&#160;But it's the $46.4 billion in black-market sales throughout North America last year that has investors excited. Continued legalization efforts and organic growth within existing states and countries gives investors numerous ways to take advantage of the green rush.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Perhaps no group of marijuana stocks offers a quicker pace of growth in the near term than Canadian medical cannabis companies. Canada legalized medical cannabis back in 2001, and its parliament is currently debating legislation introduced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that would legalize recreational pot for adult use by July 1, 2018. Canada's government estimates this could lead to $5 billion to $7 billion in additional revenue each year, which is a main reason why Canadian-based weed stocks have been scrambling to boost capacity.</p>
<p>One such name that's at the forefront of this trend is Aurora Cannabis (NASDAQOTH: ACBFF). Aurora, a provider of dried cannabis and cannabis oils, is in the midst of developing the <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/05/05/better-know-a-marijuana-stock-aurora-cannabis.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=3dffe724-a325-11e7-8e81-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Aurora Sky project Opens a New Window.</a>, an 800,000-square-foot facility that it claims will be the most technologically advanced and automated in the world when complete.</p>
<p>Earlier this week, Aurora Cannabis reported its fiscal fourth-quarter results and updated investors regarding the progress at Aurora Sky. On most accounts, Aurora Cannabis' quarter and full year were impressive. However, there's one eyesore within its report that investors need to be aware of.</p>
<p>First, let's take a look at everything that Aurora Cannabis did right.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>For the full year, Aurora Cannabis wound up reporting $14.6 million in sales, which was a clean 1,155% higher than what it reported last year.&#160;This growth is completely attributable to a huge increase in the number of registered medical patients in its network. It ended the year with 16,400 active registered patients compared to just 4,500 in the year-ago period. This growth jibes with commentary from Health Canada in May that the number of registered medical patients was increasing by about 10% a month!</p>
<p>Aurora Cannabis also delivered key margin improvements, with the average selling price per gram rising by 12.2% from the sequential third quarter and 22.3% from the prior-year period. Given the rapid increase in medical-eligible patients in Canada, it would appear demand is fueling these price increases. At the same time, cash cost of sales per gram of dried cannabis declined by nearly 10% from the sequential third quarter. Higher pot prices and lower costs are generally a good combination.</p>
<p>Of course, Aurora Cannabis is throwing everything and the kitchen sink at Aurora Sky right now, and rightly so. If the Canadian government moves forward with recreational legalization, some pundits have suggested that it could snare around 10% of the country's market share with Aurora Sky's added production capacity.</p>
<p>The project remains on track and on budget, with the first planting in finished bays expected before the end of 2017. The first crops are expected to be harvested in early 2018, with full project completion by the middle of next year. Once fully operational, Aurora Sky could deliver 100,000 kilograms of cannabis annually.</p>
<p>In terms of liquidity, Aurora Cannabis is no slouch, either. It ended the fiscal year with $129.3 million in cash and cash equivalents, which should be more than enough to fund its Aurora Sky project and varied investment opportunities over the next year. This capital should come in especially handy if Canada does indeed move forward with plans to legalize adult-use weed.</p>
<p>However, there's an eye-popping statistic that investors might easily overlook if they don't carefully read Aurora Cannabis' fourth-quarter and full-year report. Over the past fiscal year, the company generated $178.2 million from financing activities. A big portion of these financing activities involved bought-deal financings, which is really common in Canada.</p>
<p>Bought-deal financing is where an underwriter or investment firm agrees to purchase an allotment of shares from an issuer before a preliminary prospectus is filed. While bought-deal financing ensures that all secondary shares to market are sold, it also boosts the outstanding share count and dilutes existing shareholders in much the same way a standard secondary share offering would.</p>
<p>Aurora Cannabis ended last year with 245,423,422 common shares outstanding, at least based on its Canadian-issued full-year report.&#160;The new count as of the end of fiscal 2017 was 371,569,751 million shares outstanding.</p>
<p>Further, the number of options to purchase common shares more than doubled year over year, and the company in May completed a $75 million convertible debenture offering, which could allow debtholders to convert their debt to common stock in the future. In other words, Aurora Cannabis is <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/08/28/the-sneaky-way-profitable-canadian-marijuana-stock.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=3dffe724-a325-11e7-8e81-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">diluting its investors left and right Opens a New Window.</a>!</p>
<p>This is the danger inherent in Canadian pot stocks like Aurora Cannabis: They're so hell-bent on raising capital to expand that they're decimating shareholder value in the process.</p>
<p>If you're considering an investment in marijuana stocks, you should understand that your fate will probably be similar, considering that marijuana isn't necessarily a viable business model as of yet. Until we gain clarity on what the Canadian government plans to do about recreational pot, it's probably smart for investors to remain safely on the sidelines.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Aurora Cannabis Inc.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=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-static%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=2abe96f6-43ad-4b8f-9012-2d06ad22ddaf&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=3dffe724-a325-11e7-8e81-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now… and Aurora Cannabis Inc. wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.</p>
<p><a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-static%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=2abe96f6-43ad-4b8f-9012-2d06ad22ddaf&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=3dffe724-a325-11e7-8e81-0050569d32b9&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 September 5, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFUltraLong/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=3dffe724-a325-11e7-8e81-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Sean Williams Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=3dffe724-a325-11e7-8e81-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | The Eye-Popping Number in Aurora Cannabis' Fourth-Quarter Report That Investors Need to Know | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/09/29/eye-popping-number-in-aurora-cannabis-fourth-quarter-report-that-investors-need-to-know.html | 2017-09-29 | 0 |
<p>The tensions that ultimately exploded in an alleged assault on Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) stemmed from a landscaping dispute between him and a neighbor, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/06/us/politics/behind-rand-pauls-broken-ribs-a-trivial-dispute-lawyer-says.html" type="external">The New York Times</a>.</p>
<p>The Times on Monday reported that Paul and his longtime, next-door neighbor had squabbled over yard care before a violent altercation between the two last Friday.</p>
<p>The newspaper cited neighbors in the pair’s gated community south of Bowling Green, Kentucky and three state Republicans knowledgeable of the events.</p>
<p>Competing explanations of the drama’s origins attributed it to stray yard clippings, newly planted saplings or unraked leaves.</p>
<p>The Times reported that Paul composts on his property, grows pumpkins there and pays little heed to neighborhood regulations.</p>
<p>“They just couldn’t get along,” said Jim Skaggs, who developed the community and lives nearby to Paul and Rene Boucher, the senator’s neighbor.</p>
<p>“I think it had very little to do with Democrat or Republican politics,” he added. “I think it was a neighbor-to-neighbor thing.”</p>
<p>“They just both had strong opinions, and a little different ones about what property rights mean.”</p>
<p>Skaggs, who formerly led the county’s Republican Party, also responded to longstanding accusations that Paul has ignored his neighborhood’s regulations.</p>
<p>“[He] certainly believes in stronger property rights than exist in America,” he said of the 2016 GOP presidential candidate.</p>
<p>Paul was mowing his lawn last Friday when Boucher, a registered Democrat, allegedly charged and tackled him.</p>
<p>A friend familiar with the pair’s confrontation said that Paul was caught off guard by his neighbor of 17 years during the incident.</p>
<p>“Rand never saw him coming or heard him coming,” said Robert Porter, who visited Paul last Saturday.</p>
<p>A top aide to Paul, told The Associated Press on Sunday that the lawmaker is recovering from five broken ribs after the clash.</p>
<p>Doug Stafford added that it remains uncertain when Paul will return to Washington, D.C. due to severe pain from his injuries that hinders flying and traveling.</p>
<p>Boucher was charged with fourth-degree assault following the fracas, but he could face upgraded injuries due to the severity of Paul’s injuries.</p>
<p>Matthew Baker, the attorney representing Boucher, said Monday that the disagreement had “absolutely nothing to do with either’s politics or political agenda.”</p> | Neighbors said a landscaping dispute, not politics, provoked Rand Paul's alleged assault | false | https://circa.com/story/2017/11/07/politics/rand-paul-alleged-assault-over-landscaping-dispute-neighbors-say | 2017-11-07 | 1 |
<p>Sometimes the difference between a good and bad report is just a matter of giving Mr. Market a night to sleep on it. Shares of&#160;Select Comfort (NASDAQ: SCSS)&#160;initially moved sharply lower after the company posted its third-quarter results shortly after Tuesday's market close. The company behind the Sleep Number adjustable air-chambered mattress opened slightly lower come Wednesday morning, only to close nearly 6% higher on the day.</p>
<p>Wednesday's turnaround was followed by upticks on Thursday and Friday, with the shares closing out the week 11% higher. Select Comfort <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/10/18/select-comfort-stock-bounces-back-quickly.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=a8010934-b66f-11e7-9b28-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">fell short on both ends of the income statement Opens a New Window.</a>, but a legitimate scapegoat -- hurricanes -- and the reiteration of its near- and long-term profit goals were enough to give bulls a reason to stay. A short squeeze also could've been a factor, with short interest recently at its highest level in more than a year.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>It was a rough quarter for Select Comfort.&#160;Net sales rose 9% on the heels of expansion and positive comps, but analysts were modeling a 12% increase. Net income was flattish, and even though aggressive stock repurchases propped up profitability on a per-share basis to $0.62, Wall Street pros were forecasting $0.68 on the bottom line.</p>
<p>Select Comfort explained that with 13% of its store portfolio in Florida, Texas, and surrounding areas, hurricanes Harvey and Irma had a disruptive effect during the quarter. Select Comfort estimates that the catastrophic windstorms gobbled up $12 million to $15 million in lost or delayed sales during the period, and if you add that back to its results, it would've exceeded sales targets and probably profit expectations.</p>
<p>Unlike Select Comfort's similarly disappointing&#160; <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/07/19/select-comfort-stock-bounces-back-quickly.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=a8010934-b66f-11e7-9b28-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">second-quarter results Opens a New Window.</a>&#160;three months earlier, Wall Street thinks the third-quarter miss is both temporary and excusable. Select Comfort is once again putting out its goal to earn $2.75 a share in 2019, doubling the midpoint of its profit guidance for 2017. It's narrowing its profit-per-share target for this year&#160; -- going from $1.25 to $1.50 to a tighter range of $1.30 to $1.45 -- suggesting that the third quarter's miss will largely come back during the fourth quarter.</p>
<p>A couple of analysts are buying in to the hurricane rationale. Wall Street pros at Wedbush and SunTrust responded to last week's quarterly report by jacking up their estimates for the current quarter. Others are likely to follow suit.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>A lot of people are betting on Select Comfort's stock to fall apart. There were nearly 7 million shares of the stock sold short at the end of September, much more than the 4.1 million shorted shares when the year began. When the stock didn't crash on Wednesday, it could have triggered a short squeeze, with folks scrambling to cover their bearish wagers. Select Comfort longs would take that, of course.</p>
<p>You don't often miss badly in a quarter, only to see the stock climb 12% over the next three trading days. Investors will want to keep an eye on the fourth quarter to make sure it captures most of the sales that Select Comfort claims it lost, but for now it's hard to bet against a stock that has nearly doubled since bottoming out 11 months ago.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Select ComfortWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*</p>
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<p><a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-static%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=8a26eb04-477b-4c10-b0db-d035b1b948b5&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=a8010934-b66f-11e7-9b28-0050569d32b9&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 October 9, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFBreakerRick/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=a8010934-b66f-11e7-9b28-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Rick Munarriz Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Select Comfort. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=a8010934-b66f-11e7-9b28-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Can Select Comfort Stock Keep Going After Last Week's 11% Pop? | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/10/22/can-select-comfort-stock-keep-going-after-last-weeks-11-pop.html | 2017-10-22 | 0 |
<p>The Vegas Golden Knights signed defenseman Nate Schmidt to a two-year, $4.45 million deal following an arbitration decision.</p>
<p>The team announced the arbitrator’s decision on the contract Saturday night that is worth an average annual value of $2.225 million.</p>
<p>Schmidt, 26, was selected by the Golden Knights in the expansion draft on June 21, claiming him from the Washington Capitals.</p>
<p>The 6-foot-1, 194-pound Schmidt played in 60 games for the Capitals during the 2016-17 season and recorded 17 points (three goals, 14 assists). He added one goal and three assists in 11 playoff games.</p>
<p>Schmidt, a native of St. Cloud, Minn., initially signed with Washington as an undrafted free agent out of the University of Minnesota in 2013. He owns 43 points (eight goals, 35 assists) in 200 career NHL games over parts of four seasons.</p> | Las Vegas Golden Knights sign defenseman Nate Schmidt to two-year contract | false | https://newsline.com/las-vegas-golden-knights-sign-defenseman-nate-schmidt-to-two-year-contract/ | 2017-08-06 | 1 |
<p>By Jonathan Stempel</p>
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) – Nielsen Holdings Plc (N:) filed a lawsuit on Friday to stop comScore Inc (PK:) from using its technology to launch a competing service for measuring television audiences.</p>
<p>In a complaint filed with the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Nielsen is seeking an injunction to stop the launch of comScore’s Extended TV service, which it said would incorporate its proprietary Portable People Meter data.</p>
<p>ComScore declined to comment on the lawsuit, saying the matter was being addressed through binding arbitration.</p>
<p>The dispute arose from Nielsen’s 2013 purchase of Arbitron Inc, which was completed after those companies promised federal regulators to preserve competition for “cross-platform” services measuring both television and online viewership.</p>
<p>Nielsen, based in New York, said it contracted in 2014 to let its Reston, Virginia-based rival use Portable People Meter data to measure both TV and online audiences.</p>
<p>But it said that contract forbade using the data for “individual, stand-alone services,” which it said include Extended TV.</p>
<p>Nielsen said it has several large contracts up for renewal, and would suffer “irreparable harm to its business through () loss of important customers and decreased market share” if comScore launched Extended TV, perhaps by the end of 2017.</p>
<p>According to the complaint, Nielsen has filed for arbitration as required by the contract to establish comScore’s alleged breach, but is entitled to seek a court-ordered injunction before the arbitration is resolved.</p>
<p>In an Aug. 8 letter attached to the complaint, a lawyer for comScore said Extended TV qualifies as a “cross-platform” service, and is “not limited to linear TV estimates as it measures content across multiple platforms, including but not limited to television, online, mobile, tablets, etc.”</p>
<p>The case is Nielsen Holdings Plc v comScore Inc, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 17-07235.</p>
<p />
<p>Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.</p> | Nielsen sues comScore to block new TV ratings service | false | https://newsline.com/nielsen-sues-comscore-to-block-new-tv-ratings-service/ | 2017-09-22 | 1 |
<p>If Donald Trump is elected president, he could push for an American foreign policy that is more favorable toRussian President Vladimir Putin's goals and interests, some experts fear — and he could unnerve U.S. allies.</p>
<p>Trump's praise for Putin's "strong" leadership has already caused issues, said Evelyn Farkas, a former deputy assistant defense secretary for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia in the Obama administration and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.</p>
<p>"He's already done damage to us vis-a-vis Russia as a candidate. I frankly shudder to think what he could to U.S. interests as commander-in-chief and president," Farkas told NBC News.</p>
<p>Trump’s effusive admiration for Putin, who Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, referred to on Thursday as "a thug, a dictator, an autocratic ruler who has his opposition killed in the streets of Russia” has baffled many, <a href="" type="internal">including some in his own party</a>. The Republican nominee <a href="" type="internal">recently rattled</a> NATO partners in the Baltics when he suggested that he might not rush to their aid.</p>
<p>Putin annexed Crimea, invaded Ukraine, and Russia is the primary suspect in the hacking of the Democratic National Convention computers — just to name a few actions that have made the icy relationship with the U.S. even chillier in recent years.</p>
<p>Despite a history of differences, the U.S.'s relationship with Russia is not without hope: Late Friday, the two countries reached a ceasefire agreement to allow humanitarian aid into war-ravaged Syria. Secretary of State John Kerry hailed it as a possible "turning point."</p>
<p>But the agreement — which was welcomed by Turkey, the European Union, and other world powers — comes at a tenuous time in Syria's five-year-old civil war. Hours after it was announced, air strikes killed dozens in Syria.</p>
<p>Either way, long-standing disagreements between America and Russia haven't stopped Trump from heaping on the compliments of Putin.</p>
<p>“The man has very strong control over a country,” Trump told Matt Lauer Wednesday during NBC's Commander-in-Chief Forum. “It’s a very different system and I don’t happen to like the system, but certainly, in that system, he’s been a leader, far more than our president has been a leader.”</p>
<p>Related: <a href="" type="internal">Did Putin Really Call Trump 'Brilliant'? Experts Say It Got Lost in Translation</a></p>
<p>Nina Khrushcheva, a great-granddaughter of former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and a professor of international affairs at The New School, feels the Trump-Putin rapport could go one of two ways should Trump become president.</p>
<p>"It will supposedly be a very positive relationship," she told NBC News. "But since Putin and Trump in some ways are similar — that is, they say it like it is and really don't mind the consequences — it also is entirely possible and likely that that relationship will collapse quickly because one will insult the other and try to show each other who's the better man."</p>
<p>Related: <a href="" type="internal">Why Russians Like Donald Trump (Sort of)</a></p>
<p>"The Cuban Missile Crisis would be nothing in comparison to what we would expect" if they had a fallout, Khrushcheva said. "I think either way, Trump's love for Putin or potential hate for Putin would lead to incredible world insecurity."</p>
<p>Other than a shared desire to eliminate North Korea's weapons program, Russia holds very few of the same major objectives as the U.S., Farkas said.</p>
<p>That means as president, Trump couldpush to change existing foreign policies dealing with Russia.</p>
<p>"We have an obligation to come to our NATO allies if they are attacked by a state such as Russia, and there is a very real threat being posed to our allies who are close to Russia's border," Farkas said.</p>
<p>If Trump reduces confidence among our allies that we will come to their defense, it "can lead to a whole chain of negative repercussions. Ultimately, the stability of Europe is in the interest of the United States, not just for political reasons but because they are our number one trading partner," she added.</p>
<p>In Asia, there could be more consequences, due to Russia's solidarity with China on global disputes.</p>
<p>"There are a number of horrendous scenarios because Putin's objectives are not aligned with ours in many places," Farkas said.</p>
<p>Related: <a href="" type="internal">Kerry: Deal With Russia Could Be 'Turning Point' in Syria War</a></p>
<p>Another Russia expert pointed out that Trump's compliments as a candidate might not indicate anything at all about how he governs if he's elected.</p>
<p>Anna Vassilieva, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, said there's no way to speculate. What is clear, though, is why the businessman-turned-politician connects with Putin.</p>
<p>"Trump obviously positions himself as a maverick, an anti-establishment candidate," Vassilieva told NBC News. "Putin is an independent politician. He's not succumbing to pressure, and there's a lot of pressure — from the West, of course, and the United States, the establishment."</p>
<p>"He's not obliged to do things. And I think that's something that's appealing to Trump." she said.</p> | Experts Weigh In on What Trump-Putin Bond Could Mean | false | http://nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/horrendous-scenarios-could-result-trump-putin-bond-experts-say-n645541 | 2016-09-13 | 3 |
<p>PressThink "And this is especially for the 'we're fair and balanced, you're not' crowd, wherever I may have located you," writes Jay Rosen. &gt; <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/news/984722.asp?0cv=KB20" type="external">NYT's Gail Collins says the paper gets it from all sides.</a> "People who are on the left tend to get very angry at us because they’ve been convinced by the advocacy press that somehow we’re responsible for holding up the banner for left-wing theory in the United States, which just is not true. They get very disappointed with us because it’s not there." (Newsweek)</p> | Rosen has six questions for bias-obsessed media critics | false | https://poynter.org/news/rosen-has-six-questions-bias-obsessed-media-critics | 2003-10-24 | 2 |
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<p>Immediately after attacks by Islamic terrorists – including the recent one in San Bernardino, California, President Barack Obama’s immediate concern is never with American citizens. Instead, it’s with Muslims, and how followers of Islam are treated.</p>
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<p>If Americans speak poorly of the core beliefs of Islam or the violence it encourages, they are called racist and hateful. They are handcuffed by “political correctness” and scared to report suspicious behavior.</p>
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<p>In the mean time, politicians continue pointing to millions of so-called “peaceful Muslims,” and yet we never seem to hear from them. Do they exist?</p>
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<p>Watch (below) as a terrorism survivor <a href="http://www.westernjournalism.com/woman-reveals-experience-human-shield-70s-shows-true-colors-hamas/" type="external">Brigitte Gabriel</a>, an activist, is asked why “all Muslims” are portrayed poorly on television. Brigitte has seen – first hand- just what radical Islamists are capable of, and her response is incredible!</p>
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<p>&#160;</p>
<p>What do you think of Brigitte Gabriel’s response? Please leave us a comment (below) and tell us what you think.</p> | Terrorism Survivor Has POWERFUL Answer To Claim “All Muslims Are Portrayed Bad” (VIDEO) | true | http://thepoliticalinsider.com/this-terrorism-survivor-has-powerful-answer-to-claim-that-islam-is-peaceful/ | 2015-12-16 | 0 |
<p>On the Sunday before confirmation hearings kicked off for Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, we heard several misleading comments having to do with her or nominations of earlier years. We also found no evidence to back up Sen. John Cornyn’s claim that the new health care law was negatively impacting seniors’ access to health care. And Sen. Lindsey Graham’s assertion that Rahm Emanuel said it’s administration "policy" to pull troops out of Afghanistan "in large numbers" in July 2011 is false.</p>
<p>As for Phoenix holding the title of "number two kidnapping capital of the world"? We’re still looking to nail that one down.</p>
<p>Spinning for Kagan</p>
<p>With Republicans refusing to rule out a filibuster on Kagan, Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy denied that Democrats had tried to filibuster the nomination of Justice Samuel Alito in 2006. On CBS’ "Face the Nation," he said:</p>
<p>Jan Crawford (CBS News chief legal correspondent): But Senator Leahy, I mean, Justice Alito, obviously President Bush’s nominee was widely viewed as highly qualified, intellectual giant. He got the highest rating by the American Bar Association. He had support from liberals just like Elena Kagan has support from conservatives. Yet, you not only voted against Justice Alito, you and the president and the vice president then in the Senate thought that she should be filibustered. So how can you–</p>
<p>Leahy (overlapping): No, actually– actually we had– we– we had–</p>
<p>Crawford: –criticize Republicans for kind of doing the same thing?</p>
<p>Leahy: We had, sort of, a test vote on– on him. Everybody knew that was more symbolic.</p>
<p>Crawford (overlapping): Well, 25 Democrats voted not to have–</p>
<p>Leahy: Sure. And– and then we immediately went and we still could have held it up for a day. We went immediately to a vote on him.</p>
<p>The Vermont Democrat may call it "sort of a test vote," but most of the world called it a filibuster. Some headlines from the news of January 2006: " <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&amp;sid=avX8dE4XhVkw&amp;refer=us" type="external">Senate Plans to Cut Off Alito Debate as Democrats Filibuster</a>," " <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2006/jan/27/nation/na-alito27" type="external">Key Democrats Try to Mount Filibuster Against Alito</a>," " <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/01/27/politics/main1246773.shtml" type="external">Alito Filibuster Try Lacks Support</a>." Democrats may have known ahead of time that they <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/politics/politicsspecial1/30wire-rollcall.html?_r=1" type="external">didn’t have the 41 votes</a> they needed to block the Republicans, but they went through the filibuster motions.</p>
<p>Records Released</p>
<p>Sen. Jeff Sessions, a Republican from Alabama, also complained on "Face the Nation" that “the White House, Obama and President Clinton’s lawyers” might be unfairly holding up the release of documents about Kagan. But the general counsel at the National Archives says the processing of records has been consistent with those of previous confirmation hearings.</p>
<p>Sessions: The problem is the White House, Obama and President Clinton’s lawyers are reviewing these documents without any second independent review. They are deciding what we get. And I think that’s … not good.</p>
<p>Leahy: They’re doing the same review we had of Justice Roberts by the Reagan Library. And I felt that was fair and honest.</p>
<p>Gary Stern, general counsel at the National Archives and Records Administration, wrote in a <a href="http://judiciary.senate.gov/nominations/SupremeCourt/upload/061910SternToLeahySessions2.pdf" type="external">June 19 letter to Leahy and Sessions</a>: “NARA has processed these additional documents consistent with the other productions we have made” and “consistent with our prior three releases and the records provided by in Chief Justice Roberts’ confirmation.” Stern acknowledged that certain documents were withheld, and he cited “personal privacy restriction.” He added: ”We have made every effort to withhold as little as possible and to provide portions of documents where possible, rather than withholding an entire document.”</p>
<p>Gunning for Kagan</p>
<p>Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn sounded a skeptical note about Kagan’s interpretation of the Second Amendment on CNN’s "State of the Union":</p>
<p>Cornyn: We know she has expressed hostility to second amendment rights, saying she wasn’t sympathetic to the arguments of gun owners when she clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall.</p>
<p>Cornyn is referring to a very brief 1987 memo that Kagan wrote to Marshall recommending that the court decline to hear a case involving a man convicted of carrying a firearm in Washington, D.C., which had strong gun control laws. He challenged the conviction based on the Second Amendment, and was trying to get the Supreme Court to hear his appeal. <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704414504575244714220283610.html" type="external">Kagan wrote</a>: "I’m not sympathetic."</p>
<p>Kagan has said she was channeling Marshall’s views. But it’s also true that it was settled law at the time that localities could impose gun bans without being held in violation of the Constitution. That changed with a 2008 Supreme Court opinion, <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-290.ZS.html" type="external">District of Columbia v. Heller</a>, which was extended by a decision issued by the Court on June 28 in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/us/29scotus.html?src=me" type="external">McDonald v. Chicago</a>. Kagan, in her capacity as solicitor general, had decided not to file a brief on either side of the Chicago case on behalf of the government, a fact that is now <a href="http://blog.heritage.org/2010/05/14/kagans-inaction-on-second-amendment-case-raises-questions/" type="external">being held against her</a> by conservatives.</p>
<p>It’s a stretch to call her actions, and lack thereof, "hostility." In <a href="http://documents.nytimes.com/elena-kagan-documents#document/p318" type="external">responses to questions</a> posed to her when she was seeking confirmation as solicitor general, Kagan certainly seemed to accept that the legal landscape had changed:</p>
<p>Kagan: There is no question, after Heller, that the Second Amendment guarantees Americans "the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation."</p>
<p>Health Care Claims</p>
<p>Cornyn also said that cuts to Medicare in the new health care law were “having a very negative impact on access to health care.” But his support for the claim doesn’t show that the law is currently having that effect. He also said the legislation wouldn’t lower the cost curve, despite Obama’s claims to the contrary. That’s true, according to a government report.</p>
<p>Cornyn: Things like the health care bill which we’re just now learning that all of the promises the president made about the health care bill, that most of them have proven to be untrue in terms of lowering the cost curve — reducing the cost curve. Indeed, what we have seen is the increased taxes, the increased premiums that are caused by the government mandates, and the cuts in Medicare are having a very negative impact on access to health care in this country.</p>
<p>Cornyn is correct when he says President Obama promised the legislation would reduce the growth in health care spending. For instance, in a September 2009 address to Congress, Obama <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/remarks-by-the-president-to-a-joint-session-of-congress-on-health-care/" type="external">said</a> his plan would “slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government.” When he signed the legislation into law, the president again <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-and-vice-president-signing-health-insurance-reform-bill" type="external">said</a> it would “lower costs.”</p>
<p>And Cornyn is right that an <a href="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/health/oactmemo1.pdf" type="external">April report from Richard Foster,</a> the chief actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said that the health care law wouldn’t do that. Specifically, Foster wrote that national health expenditures "would increase by a total of $311 billion (0.9 percent) during calendar years 2010-2019." Why? Mainly because the law expands coverage to 34 million people and provides better coverage to others, so they’ll be using more services. Projected savings in the law from changes to Medicare and Medicaid, Foster said, would be more than offset by the cost of expanding coverage.</p>
<p>But Cornyn went on to claim that “the cuts in Medicare are having a very negative impact on access to health care in this country.” His office cited the same CMS report as support for that claim, but that’s not what the report said. And it in no way measures what’s happening because of the law now. In Foster’s report, he only said that access to care could "possibly" be affected, if – and he describes it as a big if — prescribed cuts in payment updates to health care providers were actually sustained. If those cuts are kept, he said, providers with a lot of Medicare clients “could find it difficult to remain profitable and, absent legislative intervention, might end their participation in the program (possibly jeopardizing access to care for beneficiaries).” In other words, access to doctors and hospitals could be affected, or the Medicare cuts won’t be fully carried out, resulting in far less savings than originally advertised.</p>
<p>Cornyn’s office also pointed to a <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-06-20-medicare_N.htm" type="external">USA Today article from June</a> about some doctors refusing to take new Medicare patients, because of low payment rates and the inability of Congress to stop a scheduled 21 percent cut in payments. The health care law didn’t fix that scheduled cut, but Obama recently <a href="http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Daily-Reports/2010/June/25/Medicare-Pay-Fix.aspx" type="external">signed legislation delaying that reduction</a>.</p>
<p>On CNN, Cornyn also mentioned “increased premiums that are caused by the government mandates.” As we’ve <a href="" type="internal">written before</a>, premiums are not expected to change significantly for most people, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office. Those likely to see an increase are persons who buy their own health insurance. Benefits for those in this individual market are expected to get much better, because of those government mandates. More than half of those in this market, however, would receive subsidies that make their total bills much lower than they normally would be.</p>
<p>Afghan Quicksand</p>
<p>On "Fox News Sunday," Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina misquoted White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel on the subject of getting U.S. troops out of Afghanistan:</p>
<p>Graham: Is he [Vice President Joseph Biden] saying what the policy is — we’re going to leave in large numbers July of 2011, you can bet on it? If that’s the policy, that will doom this operation. If it’s not the policy, he shouldn’t be saying it. My belief is that he thinks it’s the policy. Rahm Emanuel said last week it’s the policy.</p>
<p>Graham referred to a book by Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter, <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/2010/05/15/secrets-from-inside-the-obama-war-room.html" type="external">who quoted Biden</a> as saying, "In July of 2011 you’re going to see a whole lot of people moving out. Bet on it."</p>
<p>But contrary to Graham’s claim, Emanuel did not say that "it’s the policy" of the administration to “leave in large numbers” in July 2011. Appearing <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=10962588" type="external">one week earlier</a>on ABC’s "This Week," Emanuel simply said the number of troops to be withdrawn “will be determined at that date," echoing what President Obama has said.</p>
<p>ABC’s Jake Tapper (June 20): So what exactly does the July 2011 deadline mean? Is it going to be a whole lot of people moving out, definitely, as Vice President Biden says? Or could it be more nuanced, as General Petraeus says, maybe just a couple of people leaving one province?</p>
<p>Emanuel: Well, no, everybody knows there’s a firm date. And that firm date is a date — deals with the troops that are part of the surge, the additional 30,000. What will be determined at that date or going into that date will be the scale and scope of that reduction.</p>
<p>… And the goal is to take this opportunity, focus on what needs to get done, and then on July 2011, is to begin the reduction of …</p>
<p>Tapper: But it could be any…</p>
<p>Emanuel: … troops.</p>
<p>Tapper: But it could be any number of people.</p>
<p>Emanuel: That’s what you’ll evaluate based on the conditions on the ground.</p>
<p>Kidnap Capital?</p>
<p>Discussing border security on <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37943252/ns/meet_the_press-transcripts/" type="external">NBC’s "Meet the Press</a>," Arizona Sen. John McCain asked host David Gregory, "why is it that Phoenix, Arizona, is the number two kidnapping capital of the world?" We didn’t know that. And, after doing some research, we still don’t – and wonder how McCain does.</p>
<p>We contacted McCain’s office to see where his information came from, but we haven’t received a response. However, it may well have come from a <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=6848672&amp;page=1" type="external">Feb. 11, 2009, ABC News investigative report</a>, claiming "Phoenix, Arizona, has become the kidnapping capital of America, with more incidents than any other city in the world outside of Mexico City." But the network’s report doesn’t say exactly how that conclusion was reached. Our own Internet search turned up <a href="http://www.abqjournal.com/abqnews/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=10735:110pm-phoenix-kidnap-capital-of-us&amp;catid=1:latest&amp;Itemid=39" type="external">several</a> <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,519559,00.html" type="external">news</a> <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-drug-kidnappings12-2009feb12,0,1264800.story" type="external">articles</a> from 2009 referring to Phoenix as our nation’s "kidnapping capital," but they don’t source the information.</p>
<p>Don’t get us wrong: There’s little doubt that Phoenix has had its share of kidnappings. <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=9429552" type="external">According to a Dec. 27, 2009, Associated Press report</a>, the Arizona capital was on track to record a decline in kidnappings for the year for the first time since 2005. But just one year prior, in 2008, the city reported 359 kidnappings, a 10-year high. But second in the world?</p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2009/07/11/20090711Montini0712.html" type="external">July 12, 2009, Arizona Republic report</a> seeking to answer whether Phoenix is "really the ‘kidnapping capital,’ " quoted the city’s police Sgt. Tommy Thompson admitting to the city’s problem, but questioning whether other cities around the world were as forthcoming with data. "Does anyone know how many kidnappings there are in Bogotá [Colombia]? In Mogadishu [Somalia]? In Baghdad [Iraq]?," Thompson asked, according to the Republic. And we certainly have had trouble finding statistics on kidnappings not just in the U.S. (FBI’s Uniform Crime Report does not have a specific crime category for kidnapping), but outside the country as well. As far as we know, there’s no handy list ranking world cities for this dubious honor.</p>
<p>Besides McCain’s office, we’ve also contacted ABC News to see if anyone there can shed light on the matter. We’ll keep you posted if we hear back.</p>
<p>— by Viveca Novak, Lori Robertson, Brooks Jackson, D’Angelo Gore and Melissa Siegel</p> | Sunday Replay | false | https://factcheck.org/2010/06/sunday-replay-10/ | 2010-06-28 | 2 |
<p>“Peace” and “reconciliation” were the patois of Downing Street and the White House yesterday. But all those hopes of a collapse of resistance are doomed. Saddam was neither the spiritual nor the political guide to the insurgency that is now claiming so many lives in Iraq–far more Iraqi than Western lives, one might add–and, however happy Messrs Bush and Blair may be at the capture of Saddam, the war goes on.</p>
<p>In Fallujah, in Ramadi, in other centres of Sunni power in Iraq, the anti-occupation rising will continue. The system of attacks and the frighteningly fast-growing sophistication of the insurgents is bound up with the Committee of the Faith, a group of Wahabi-based Sunni Muslims who now plan their attacks on American occupation troops between Mosul and the city of Hilla, 50 miles south of Baghdad. Even before the overthrow of the Baathist regime, these groups, permitted by Saddam in the hope that they could drain off Sunni Islamic militancy, were planning the mukawama–the resistance against foreign occupation.</p>
<p>The slaughter of 17 more Iraqis yesterday in a bomb attack on a police station–hours after the capture of Saddam, though the bombers could not have known that–is going to remain Iraq’s bloody agenda. The Anglo-American narrative will then be more difficult to sustain. Saddam “remnants” or Saddam “loyalists” are far more difficult to sustain as enemies when they can no longer be loyal to Saddam. Their Iraqi identity will become more obvious and the need to blame “foreign” al-Qa’ida members all the greater.</p>
<p>Yet the repeated assertions of US infantry commanders, especially those based around Mosul and Tikrit, that most of their attackers are Iraqi rather than foreign, show that the American military command in Iraq–at least at the divisional level–knows the truth. The 82nd Airborne captain in Fallujah who told me that his men were attacked by “Syrian-backed terrorists and Iraqi freedom-fighters” was probably closer to the truth than Major Ricardo Sanchez, the US commander in Iraq, would like to believe. The war is not about Saddam but about foreign occupation.</p>
<p>Indeed, professional soldiers have been pointing this out for a long time. Yesterday, for example, a sergeant in the 1st Armoured Division on checkpoint duty in Baghdad explained the situation to The Independent in remarkably blunt words. “We’re not going to go home any sooner because of Saddam’s getting caught,” he said. “We all came to search for weapons of mass destruction and attention has now been diverted from that. The arrest of Saddam is meaningless. We still don’t know why we came here.”</p>
<p>There are groups aplenty with enthusiasm to attack the Americans but who never had any love for Saddam. One example is the Unification Front for the Liberation of Iraq, which was anti-Saddam but has now called on its supporters to fight the American occupation. In all, The Independent has identified 12 separate guerrilla groups, all loosely in touch with each other through tribal connections, but only one could be identified as comprising Saddam loyalists or Baathists.</p>
<p>When the first roadside bomb exploded in the centre of a motorway median at Khan Dari in the summer, killing one soldier, it was followed by identically manufactured mines–three mortars wired together–in both Kirkuk and Mosul. Within a week, another copy-cat mine exploded near US troops outside Nasiriyah. Clearly, groups of insurgents were touring the country with explosive ordnance capabilities, organised, possibly, on a national level.</p>
<p>In many areas, men identifying themselves as resistors have openly boasted that they are joining the new American-paid police forces in order to earn money, gain experience with weapons and gather intelligence on their American military “allies”. Exactly the same fate that befell the Israelis in Lebanon, where their proxy Lebanese South Lebanon Army militia started collaborating with their Hizbollah enemies, is now likely to encompass the Americans.</p>
<p>The same men who are going to carry on attacking the Americans will, of course, be making a secret holiday in their heart over the capture of Saddam. Why, they will argue, should they not rejoice at the end of their greatest oppressor while planning the humiliation of the occupying army which seized him?</p>
<p>Robert Fisk is a reporter for The Independent and author of <a href="" type="internal">Pity the Nation</a>. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch’s hot new book, <a href="http://www.easycarts.net/ecarts/CounterPunch/CounterPunch_Bookshop.html" type="external">The Politics of Anti-Semitism</a>.</p> | Capture of Saddam Won’t Stop the Guerrilla War | true | https://counterpunch.org/2003/12/12/capture-of-saddam-won-t-stop-the-guerrilla-war-2/ | 2003-12-12 | 4 |
<p>Black Lives Matter rallies feature some horrendous signs that are virulently anti-police, which contribute to the anti-cop sentiment that breeds cop killers like <a href="" type="internal">Gavin Long</a> and <a href="http://ijr.com/2016/07/645856-dallas-shooter-micah-xavier-johnson-liked-facebook-pages-promoting-black-panthers-and-cop-killing/" type="external">Micah X. Johnson</a>. Here are the 10 worst anti-cop signs at Black Lives Matter rallies.</p>
<p>1. "Oink Oink Bang-Bang!" This was a <a href="http://twitchy.com/misstripleem-35/2015/04/30/new-cop-killing-fashion-trend-the-assata-taught-me-protest-hoodie-photos/" type="external">sign</a> at a Black Lives Matter protest just last week:</p>
<p>Photo from a BLM march last week - That sign says "Oink Oink Bang Bang" - And now, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BatonRouge?src=hash" type="external">#BatonRouge</a> cops are dead <a href="https://t.co/IEJt0xtbUl" type="external">pic.twitter.com/IEJt0xtbUl</a></p>
<p>No one from <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BlackLivesMatter?src=hash" type="external">#BlackLivesMatter</a> had the guts to escort her out/rip this from her hands. They own these cops' deaths. <a href="https://t.co/8gXeGRAh0z" type="external">pic.twitter.com/8gXeGRAh0z</a></p>
<p>2. <a href="http://twitchy.com/misstripleem-35/2015/04/30/new-cop-killing-fashion-trend-the-assata-taught-me-protest-hoodie-photos/" type="external">"Assata Taught Me."</a></p>
<p>Disturbing new liberal trend: Idiots wearing "Assata taught me" shirts celebrating cop-killing run-away Assata Shakur <a href="https://t.co/4R6yg0yjRx" type="external">pic.twitter.com/4R6yg0yjRx</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">"Assata"</a> is a reference to Assata Shakur, also known as Joanne Chesimard, who was sentenced to life for murdering a cop but escaped prison and is currently in Cuba.</p>
<p>3. "Dear Pigs: What goes around comes around."</p>
<p>This was a sign <a href="http://www.news-leader.com/story/news/local/ozarks/2016/07/09/black-lives-matter-rally-brings-ozarkers-downtown-peace-and-remembrance/86911894/" type="external">reportedly</a> held by somebody named Jason Ozolins at a Black Lives Matter rally at Park Central Square in Springfield, MO. He later held up a second sign that was also horrible.</p>
<p>4. Ozolins' second sign thanked Johnson for his "sacrifice" in murdering the five Dallas police officers.</p>
<p>"Non-violence isn't bad," Ozolins told the News-Leader. "But it only works if people listen."</p>
<p>To their credit, many of the attendees, including the organizers of the rally, denounced Ozolins' signs for not being "peaceful." However, the lies spread by the Black Lives Matter movement that police offices are systemically racist against blacks foments the kinds of signs that Ozolins made.</p>
<p>5. "Fight Fire With Fire."</p>
<p>This was part of a <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-black-lives-matter-movement-20150901-story.html" type="external">sign</a> at a rally in August 2015 protesting the death of <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2015/0819/Why-ICE-agent-will-not-face-charges-in-Terrance-Kellom-shooting-video" type="external">Terrance Kellom</a>, who was reportedly shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent after charging at him with a hammer.</p>
<p>The full sign reads: "FIGHT FIRE WITH FIRE. STOP KILLING US. BLACK LIVES MATTER."</p>
<p>"Fight fire with fire" is an idiom that is <a href="http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/fight+fire+with+fire" type="external">defined</a> as using "against your opponent the same methods he or she is using against you." The sign then implies that blacks should kill police officers since police officers are supposedly killing blacks.</p>
<p>6. "F*** The Police."</p>
<p>A couple of men wore t-shirts at a rally in Baltimore, MD in May 2015 that <a href="http://www.mintpressnews.com/MyMPN/the-baltimore-uprising-and-the-u-s-record-on-human-rights/" type="external">read</a> "F*** The Police." One of the men held a sign saying, "Black Lives Matter Baltimore! WE WANT REAL JUSTICE!"</p>
<p>7. Another "F*** The Police" sign.</p>
<p>This <a href="http://www.gettyimages.com/pictures/protester-stands-near-an-anti-police-sign-during-a-rally-in-news-photo-471131800#protester-stands-near-an-antipolice-sign-during-a-rally-in-baltimore-picture-id471131800" type="external">sign</a> was standing alone at a April 2015 rally in Baltimore; not only did it read "F*** The Police," it also said: "I HATE YAll I WOULD KILL ALL 6 OF U BITCHES."</p>
<p>That is a clear references to the six police officers involved in the <a href="" type="internal">Freddie Gray killing</a>.</p>
<p>8. "Cop Criminals of Permission."</p>
<p>This was on a <a href="http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2015/04/photos_black_lives_matter_prot.html" type="external">sweatshirt</a> worn by a protester at an April 2015 Black Lives Matter rally in Springfield, MA.</p>
<p>9. "Prisons Are Slavery Police Are The Slave Trade."</p>
<p>This was a sign held at the aforementioned rally.</p>
<p>10. "Abolish Police Smash The State Liberate the HOOD!"</p>
<p>Another protester at the Springfield rally held this sign; standing next to her is a lady holding a sign saying, "ABOLISH PRISONS DISBAND POLICE."</p> | 10 Worst Anti-Cop Signs At Black Lives Matter Rallies | true | https://dailywire.com/news/7537/11-worst-anti-cop-signs-black-lives-matter-rallies-aaron-bandler | 2016-07-18 | 0 |
<p>If &#160;Trouble the Water is playing in your town, please go see it. This documentary about Hurricane Katrina will blow you away on so many levels. It delivers an urgent and immediate view of what Hurricane Katrina was like for actual poor black people living in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward, but it also serves as a devastating indictment of the Bush Administration’s lack of response to Katrina and, subsequently, of an entire history of racism and economic discrimination in America. But the movie is more than just a disaster narrative. It’s also an incredible tale of survival and strength.</p>
<p>A large chunk of the video footage used in the film is provided by Kimberly Rogers, a Ninth Ward resident who used her home video camera to document the hurricane and its aftermath. Through Kim’s eye we get a matter-of-fact glimpse at the hurricane itself and the hurricane that is her life and the life of poor black people in New Orleans, but we also get an incredible tale of survival and inner-strength. When you are born fighting for every fraction of your own survival, a devastating hurricane is just another bump in the road that can be overcome with perseverance and determination. Well, at least it was for Kimberly Rogers, but unfortunately not for many of her neighbors and family. The movie walks this edge beautifully – the line between outrage/horror and inspirational strength.</p>
<p>We all know about the United States government’s neglect of the poor black hurricane survivors in New Orleans. We have read about it. We have protested it. We have seen the media coverage of it. But as much as you think you know, you know nothing until you see this first-hand account of the experience. Almost avant-garde in its fractured handheld movie camera approach, Kim Rogers’ footage is immediate and incredibly real. Kim’s shaking camerawork is as urgent, chaotic and violent as the storm that hit the Ninth Ward, and it shakes up the washed-over media portrayal of the casualties of Katrina. Before the hurricane hits, we meet the people in Kim’s neighborhood – her uncle walking through the streets in sunglasses, the men at the liquor store, a young girl on a bike, two old women both called Momma. As the hurricane hits we see the lights go out, glimpses of the water rising, a stop sign reaching askew from the surface of the flood, a dog chained in a yard.</p>
<p>After the hurricane, Kim films a friend rescuing people with a punching bag. He struggles through armpit-high water pulling people from the flood on the punching bag. Kim finds her uncle’s dead body in a house. Learns her grandmother died when authorities failed to evacuate the hospital and instead left all the patients to drown. She takes her camera through an unfathomably vast sea of displaced people lining the freeways, a flood of people — old people sitting in wheelchairs or lying on makeshift cots, mothers with babies, children playing amongst the ruins. The old sit parked on the freeway waiting for death itself to take them away since no one else is helping them get out of there. Kim shows us this, nods in acceptance of the reality and moves on. She finds the photograph of her mother which barely survived the Hurricane. We learn that her mother died of AIDS when Kim was thirteen. We meet her brother who was left to die in prison where authorities kept the inmates locked in their cells and abandoned the facility during the hurricane. Kim shows us all these things with a matter-of-fact acceptance. This is how life is when you are poor and black and live in New Orleans. There is no Michael Moore didacticism. No self-pity. Kim is simply documenting the circumstances in which she is living, another chapter in the hurricane that has been her life. As onlookers, we are outraged and sickened. This movie tells you everything you need to know about the crimes of the Bush Administration whose lack of response to the Ninth Ward victims of Hurricane Katrina is just one step removed from genocide – “Just let the poor black people die.” Hurricane Katrina, as seen in this incredible film, becomes the literalization of the destruction that has been wrought upon this community of black people since the inception of slavery in this country. The movie is not only a condemnation of the Bush Administration, but it reminds us that we live in a country that was founded on slavery and continues to ignore and hide its racist core. Given the location is New Orleans, Louisiana, you can bet that every single one of the black faces we see in this movie – Kimberly Rogers, her husband Scott, the two mommas, Jimmy, the little girl on her bike, the grandmother left for dead in the hospital – is a descendant of slavery. We are reminded through the grim face of reality that this government has never been by and for the people. It has been by and for the privileged white people and their economic interests. And the movie tells us this so powerfully because it avoids speaking the words for us. It shows us a plain and clear picture of events that happened and the real people who were affected by them, but it does not interject with tidy self-righteous indignation. It allows us to put the pieces together ourselves. And when we put them together, the truth sits in our gut like a festering bomb.</p>
<p>But to make the movie just an angry condemnation of racism and criminal government neglect would be, in a way, to cave into the system that wants to beat down the poor and the disenfranchised. So yes, on one level this is a story of horrific trespasses and victimization, but more than anything it is a story of determination, will and survival. It is not just Kim’s struggle, it is the black struggle. It is the battle for a most basic survival in a system that leaves very few options for success. When the National Guard fails you, you can survive with a punching bag. While movie certainly reaches beyond the specificity of Kim and Hurricane Katrina, it would not exist without Kim – her voice, her powerful presence, and her video camera. When the movie ends, it is amazing how it reverberates like the very bass beats that back-up Kim’s astoundingly powerful rap vocals. We feel the crimes of our government. We feel the injustice and horror of what happened with Hurricane Katrina. We acknowledge the racist core of this country, but mostly we see that, against all odds and even in the worst of possible circumstances, sometimes human determination and faith can even kick the ass of the biggest government, especially when you’ve lived knowing that government doesn’t give two shits about you. For example, if you’re black and you’re poor. Indeed, toward the end of the movie, Kim’s husband Scott, who is standing in the middle of his still devastated neighborhood, says, “Katrina’s still going on.” Indeed, Katrina’s been going on for well over three hundred now. I wonder if it’s ever going to stop.</p>
<p>KIM NICOLINI is an artist, poet and cultural critic. She lives in Tucson, Arizona with her partner, daughter, and a menagerie of beasts. She works a day job to support her art and culture habits. She is currently finishing a book-length essayistic memoir about being a teenage runaway in 1970s San Francisco. Her work has appeared in Bad Subjects, Punk Planet, Bullhorn and Berkeley Review. She can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p> | Katrina’s Endless Loop | true | https://counterpunch.org/2009/01/23/katrina-s-endless-loop/ | 2009-01-23 | 4 |
<p>As I write, a horrible tragedy is unfolding in Egypt. The old order has reasserted itself with a vengeance. Nevertheless, it is hard to imagine that Egypt will ever again be what it was before 2011.</p>
<p>Many aspects of the situation remain murky. First, there is the question of how many of Morsi’s supporters have been slaughtered. The New York Times accepts the figure of 1,000, with 4,000 wounded (this includes a relatively small number of police and army, as well as anti-Muslim Brotherhood civilians) in the initial attack on the protest camps and during the four or five days afterwards. We may never know the true casualty figures, but there is good reason to believe that they are much higher than this. Certainly the number of deaths will continue to rise if Egypt descends into civil war, which seems to be happening.</p>
<p>Then there is the question of Washington’s role. According to reporting in the Times, American and European diplomats tried to broker a deal between the SCAF (Supreme Council of the Armed Forces) and the Brotherhood in order to prevent the massacre, but the military “brushed them off.” At the same time, Israel, the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates lobbied the U.S. not to pressure the Egyptian generals. Though the American ambassador in Cairo was considered to have friendly relations with Morsi, Obama made no public comments on the coup for several days, even after the army committed its first large-scale killings. Secretary of State Kerry actually praised the military for “restoring democracy.” Obama condemned the butchery of August 14, but his administration bears some of the responsibility for it by having given de facto support to the July 3 coup and thus signaling to the SCAF that they might escalate the violence with impunity. Moreover, in the aftermath of August 14 it was instantly made clear that Egypt’s $1.5 billion, mostly in military aid, would not be in jeopardy no matter what the army did – although under pressure (from Republicans, mostly) Obama is now hinting at some reductions in subventions to Egypt.</p>
<p>It is a scandal that the fight to cut off U.S. aid to this murderous regime is being led by elements on the right, like Robert Kagan, even though most of them, such as John McCain and Lindsey Graham, call only for its temporary “suspension.” Earlier, on July 31, a Senate attempt to block military aid, led by Rand Paul, was defeated 86-13, after intense lobbying by AIPAC, with every Democrat voting against. Even now, among Democrats there seems to be almost no interest in a cutoff. Some have used the pathetic excuse that Egypt would always be able to get military aid from Russia, Israel or the Saudis instead (true), and “we” would thereby lose our “leverage” with Cairo. Others are simply following the AIPAC line. But for most, as usual, it comes down to a reluctance to trouble their friend in the White House.</p>
<p>The argument about “leverage” is largely specious because U.S. aid does offer Egypt access to some very sophisticated weaponry and maintenance contracts for its existing arsenal. The United States and Egypt have long been highly integrated at the military and diplomatic levels, and if Obama were to act in a principled way it might very well have a sobering effect on the SCAF. In fact it seems possible that if Washington had forthrightly denounced the July 3 coup and threatened to cut off aid immediately, the massacres of August 14 might have been avoided.</p>
<p>In any case, it is certain that none of this was considered by the Obama administration and will not be in the future unless there is a determined campaign by the peace, human rights and social justice movements. American progressives should demand the termination of aid, not only because it is immoral to supply mass murderers with weapons, but because cutting off aid to the generals would offer comfort and solidarity to the Egyptian victims of the army’s repression and encourage those in the Arab and Muslim world who yearn for real democracy.</p>
<p>When Mubarak fell, it was generally assumed in the West that Egypt’s masses were so deeply attached to Islamic conservatism that the Muslim Brotherhood would win power by a sweeping majority. That condescending view quickly proved unfounded. Morsi and the Salafist candidate together won only 42 percent in the first round of the presidential election, and Morsi himself garnered only 51 percent in the second round – a victory, but hardly a landslide, much less a popular mandate to gather all power to himself and the Muslim Brotherhood, and to impose a sharia state. But that is what Morsi proceeded to do, albeit gradually.</p>
<p>Juan Cole has called Morsi’s presidency “a slow motion coup.” In light of the current, much more repressive military regime, it is easy to forget the sectarian and anti-democratic thrust of Morsi’s policies. The president quickly began to act as though he was above the law. He pushed through a new constitution, based on sharia principles, that was endorsed by a referendum in which only 30 percent of Egyptians participated; effectively a mass boycott. The new constitution made “the principles of Islamic law (sharia) the main source of legislation,” as did the old constitution, but it added language that more specifically defined sharia in terms of "evidence, rules, jurisprudence and sources" accepted by Sunni Islam – suggesting that sharia-mandated punishments for theft, adultery, and blasphemy might soon be imposed. Indeed, Coptic teachers were charged with blasphemy under the constitution. All of this was far from a Taliban-style system, of course, and far less than Salafists demanded. But it was ominous, and millions of Egyptians clearly believed that worse was to come if Morsi remained in office.</p>
<p>Above all, Morsi was flagrantly attempting to create a one-party state, asserting the right to rule by decree, attempting to pack the courts with pro-Brotherhood judges and accusing all his critics of being part of a foreign conspiracy. Morsi’s political style took on a very ugly, authoritarian and paranoid cast. Anti-Copt rhetoric, which had always been a staple of Brotherhood discourse, was strident. The police turned a blind eye to Brotherhood vigilantes who attacked Christians and Shias. Islamist gangs assaulted leftist demonstrations and imposed the jizya on Coptic communities – the tax on non-Muslims levied in the past by Islamic rulers, including the Ottomans. Morsi clamped down hard on freedom of expression, closing several newspapers and prosecuting bloggers.</p>
<p>Popular revulsion at these trends, including from millions who had voted for Morsi, contributed to the explosion last June. But the thing that turned most Egyptians against his rule was terrible economic hardship. Morsi unhesitatingly did the bidding of the IMF. The result was a massive increase in Egypt’s already catastrophic unemployment, scarcity of food and fuel and rising prices for staples. Of course, continuing austerity and the whole neoliberal project were exactly what the Egyptian ruling class expected Morsi to impose. In return for their support or acceptance, however, he was also expected to end the revolution. Egypt’s elite, including the military brass, hoped the Muslim Brotherhood’s efficient machine could co-opt and neutralize the disaffected masses, but it did not, and this is what prompted the elite to abandon him.</p>
<p>The revolt, or Tamarod, of June 30 was complex. The Tamarod organization itself was an extremely loose alliance of youth from the Social Democratic Party, the Socialist Popular Alliance Party, Mohamed ElBaradei’s Constitution Party, and the Revolutionary Socialists (RS). None of these groups, except the RS, are actually socialist or even very left; Hazem Al-Beblawi, for example, a founder of the Social Democrats, is the current prime minister. But behind the Tamarod were millions of Egyptians who wanted Morsi’s ouster and prompt new elections. Some 22 million signed the Tamarod petition calling on Morsi to step down, and an estimated 17 million demonstrated in Cairo on June 30 in what may have been the largest mass demonstration in history. These figures represent around one fourth of the country’s population, or about half of all Egyptian adults; a comparable number in the United States would be 78 million – more than voted for Romney or Obama. (Some have questioned these numbers, but no one, as far as I know, disputes that they were enormous and far larger even than the turnout in January 25, 2011.) In a democracy, no president is entitled to stay in office in the face of this kind of opposition. The Egyptian people, like citizens everywhere, have a moral right to recall governments that have lost their confidence, a right that for Americans is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. Morsi should have stepped down – but then there should have been new elections as quickly as possible. This is what many, probably most, Egyptians expected, but it was not what the army planned when it stepped in to “carry out the will of the people.” Nor, it seems, was this what most of the Tamarod’s leaders had in mind.</p>
<p>Adam Shatz, writing in the London Review of Books, cited a friend with “contacts in the [Egyptian] security establishment” who claims that the coup of July 3 was coordinated with Tamarod, which provided it with populist cover. In view of the fact that Tamarod’s leaders have vociferously supported Gen. Al-Sisi and are calling for vigilante attacks on the Muslim Brotherhood, there is good reason to suspect a degree of cooperation between them and the Egyptian army. Moreover, it was no secret that the movement as a whole always included supporters of the old regime and the army, who wanted to crush the Brotherhood at any cost. The bewildering aspect of all this, however, is how quickly and easily the democratic elements in Tamarod, especially the Revolutionary Socialists, were sidelined by the authoritarians.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the mass outrage of the movement that culminated on June 30 was real and sprang from deep, legitimate grievances. Those millions of demonstrators were not mere pawns of the SCAF and the activists of Tamarod. Among them were workers who had seen their strikes broken and their unions throttled by the Morsi regime, women who knew that their rights were threatened, Egyptians who were disgusted by the government’s encouragement of sectarianism and hatred for religious minorities, and the poor and underemployed demanding what the revolution had promised: bread, freedom and social justice. It was a tragedy of epic proportions that there was no leadership that could offer a consistently democratic perspective to the mass movement, one that clearly distinguished between a demand for Morsi’s ouster and a military takeover.</p>
<p>What now? The SCAF is conducting a reign of terror, and their targets will be labor and human rights activists as well as Islamists. The military’s ferocious attack on Egyptians’ freedom already makes Morsi’s authoritarianism pale in comparison. We who are outside Egypt should do everything we can to make this a pariah regime. It is imperative for the Egyptian left to defend the victims of the military’s savage repression, especially those Muslim Brotherhood members and supporters protesting the coup. At the same time, there should be concerted efforts to protect Egypt’s ten-million strong Coptic community against the ongoing pogroms carried out by Brotherhood and Salafist gangs. Al-Sisi’s government clearly intends to ban the Brotherhood, and when and if it permits new elections these will be fatally compromised as long as the imprisonment of opposition leaders and restrictions on political freedoms continue. Morsi, the Brotherhood leaders, and all political prisoners should be released, the state of emergency lifted, and free elections held as quickly as possible.</p>
<p>Egypt has gone backward. The revolution has suffered a terrible defeat, and the old regime has arrogantly taken back nearly everything it had lost in 2011. The crowning insult is the possibly imminent release of Mubarak himself. What cannot be restored however, is the crippling passivity of the masses before 2011. Egyptians have seen the power of great numbers in the streets – their power. They know that it was Egypt, after Tunisia, that unleashed the magnificent Arab spring. Under the generals, Egypt is now entering a very dark time. Leaderless, disoriented, millions of Egyptians are right now under the terrible illusion that the army has “saved” them and will take care of them. They will learn, and quickly. It is impossible to believe that the darkness will last for more than a short time. We have not heard the last of the Egyptian Revolution.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Thomas Harrison is on the editorial board of New Politics and co-director of the <a href="http://www.cpdweb.org" type="external">Campaign for Peace and Democracy</a>.</p>
<p><a href="/filter/tips" type="external">More information about formatting options</a></p> | Egypt: The Revolution at the Crossroads | true | http://newpol.org/content/egypt-revolution-crossroads | 2013-08-22 | 4 |
<p>What experience and history teach us is this- that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.</p>
<p>—&#160;Hegel</p>
<p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6188.Hegel" type="external">Hegel</a> remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He has forgotten to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.”</p>
<p>— Karl Marx</p>
<p>Will Trump’s foreign policy deviate from the immediate, or for that matter, the distant past? Many voters who supported him are mainly concerned with his pledge to bring back jobs yet the economic program Trump proposes will not remotely fulfill that promise. A trade war with China will nix that agenda and inflame the military tensions already in evidence from Obama’s “pivot to Asia.” &#160;Throughout the campaign most pundits believed that Wall Street was backing Clinton yet it is extremely interesting that the stock market has soared into record territory with big banks, and arms businesses leading much of the gains. &#160;He presents contradictory proposals. Throughout the campaign he has said he wants to renegotiate the terms of the NATO alliance, tamp down the demonization of Russia and stop the arms buildup along its borders. Yet, he is also talking tough on China. Based on a program pushed by the Heritage Foundation, Trump has also promised vastly to increase spending to rebuild the American military which he claimed has been allowed to atrophy and which he intends to unleash on ISIL. He seems to believe the defeat of Islamic terrorism will follow rapidly and thoroughly once this occurs. His “national security” team is top heavy with former military, congressional hawks, neo-cons and Islamophobes. What then will be the role of his bulked up military? History more than suggests that there is no reason to suppose that interventionist and aggressive foreign policy will now magically cease. After all war is and always has been the American way of life.</p>
<p>How else do we possess these dis-United States? The American people, colonists or citizens, have been at war since 1607. Of course our national mythology insists it was always the other guy’s fault. Absent from most mainstream accounts is the simple fact that U.S. policies have always had gain at other peoples’ expense at their core. We forget that the early British colonies were established as joint-stock companies, the antecedent of the modern corporation. Thus their primary function was to exploit the resources of the “new world”- fish, fur, lumber- and make profit for the investors. As the colonial markets grew, closely aligned in triangular trade to London and its other colonies, the principal measure of gain rapidly became pecuniary. As an astute French observer of the early American republic observed “As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in (Alexis de Tocqueville)?”</p>
<p>During the early colonial period the preoccupation was the acquisition of land. Today we tend to dismiss the campaigns against the aboriginal peoples as insignificant, especially when compared to the world wars, or the Civil War. But warfare against those tribes was constant until the late 19th Century and resulted in enormous carnage and the extinction of many. The Massachusett come immediately to mind. Nothing but their name remains of them. In King Philip’s War, the first outright war waged in British North America between colonists and natives, a higher percentage of people per capita of total population (native and colonist) died than in any of the U.S.’s other wars. This was tragically ironic since the father of Metacomet, the native who led the campaign against the colonists had enabled the Plymouth Plantation to survive in the first place (that was Massasoit of the Thanksgiving legend). To ensure that natives got the message about resisting colonization Metacomet’s head was displayed in Plymouth Town square for twenty years. In a new study Benjamin Madley exposes how white Californian settlers and their political barons called for and acted to ensure what they had no trouble naming the “extinction” of that states aboriginal population well into the late 19th Century (An American Genocide). Visualize Ishi, found starving in 1911, after the remaining members of his tribe, the Yahi, had been killed the same year by white bounty hunters.</p>
<p>We also downplay the guerrilla campaigns to wrest the territory European powers-British, French, Spanish- claimed to the west of the original thirteen states. And then there was the Mexican War that extended the U.S. border “from sea to shining sea,” brought about by the mendacity of President James Polk who claimed that “American blood had been shed on American soil.” The truth was that U.S. soldiers were killed as they conducted raids on Mexican land in furtherance of a strategy to promote outright war and then expand the territory for slavery, the pillar of the American economy for two and a half centuries. Of course northern banking and commercial textile interests also stood to profit greatly. “Manifest Destiny” expansionists concurred in this land grab too since that would result in the acquisition of vital Pacific ports which then could launch further extension into the Pacific. William Henry Seward, who would later acquire Alaska as the “drawbridge to Asia” avowed that control of the North American continent would “ensure the controlling interest of the world”… “Multiply your ships,” he urged “and send them forth to the East… The nation that draws most materials and provisions from the earth, and fabricates the most and sells the most…must be, and will be the great power of the earth.” In short order (1853) seeking safe harbors from which to penetrate the landmass of Asia, the U.S. overtly threatened Japan with armed force to open her doors to commerce on terms dictated by American warships. The result was that the island nation would soon imitate and compete with her European and American challengers, seeking to beat them at their own game, leading ultimately to the Pacific War of the 20th century and Hiroshima and Nagasaki.</p>
<p>Americans are highly propagandized to believe that U.S. foreign policy has always had as its mainstay and central focus our “national security” not matters so dull as commercial exploitation and financial dominance. Indeed the Truman Administration created the “National Security State” immediately after World War II-the very moment when the U.S. wielded unparalleled and awesome military might while the former empires were at their weakest or lay in ruin. In other words, when there was absolutely no threat. Germany and Japan were prostrate but so were the U.S.’s allies. The Soviet menace was invoked as a grave peril but the reality was that the USSR was utterly devastated, had suffered upwards of 30 million deaths (compared to 400,000 American deaths), and had over 70,000 of its cities and towns reduced to rubble. It did have the largest land army on the planet but that force had been the principle and indispensable agent of Nazi defeat, though we like to imagine that was accomplished by American forces. The USSR had no navy or airforce capable of crossing oceans and displayed no intent to move beyond the territories wrested from Nazi control. Nevertheless much ink and rhetoric accused the Soviets of aggression and the illegitimate takeover of much of Eastern Europe as justification for the claim that now the USSR constituted a peril to world peace and order and had to be confronted at every turn.</p>
<p>Hidden was the simple fact that nations like Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and even many Ukrainians had allied with the Third Reich and aided the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. The USSR defeated those allies of Nazi Germany too and subjugated them, just as the Soviets and the U.S. occupied and co-ruled Germany. The so-called Iron Curtain was a shield against another armed invasion &#160;from the West, the Soviet’s cordon sanitaire, however harsh it was for those under its rule, though to be sure Washington didn’t and doesn’t really care about human rights, all posturing to the contrary (note the brutal murderous dictatorships we have sponsored). Hidden too was the fact that the Soviets showed no evidence of the armed aggression proclaimed by Western propaganda. The Red Army withdrew from Mongolia, from Iran, from Korea and eventually from Austria. The U.S. could not have impelled them to retreat from areas they had taken with large cost. The Soviets withdrew on their own, thus disproving the claim that they were bent on “world conquest.”</p>
<p>During WWII neither Germany nor Japan had the military capacity to invade the United States and all in power knew this. Franklin Roosevelt lied to the public when he said that he possessed copies of a secret plan by Hitler to conquer the Western hemisphere. This document had been forged by British intelligence and the very idea was preposterous. Placing its services at the disposal of government, and in order to frighten the general public, Hollywood issued sophisticated propaganda films and faked footage to depict Japanese soldiers marching down Constitution Avenue.</p>
<p>Why this elaborate gambit to overcome public opposition to entering another global war? What was the real fear on the part of American rulers? FDR condemned the early anti-Jewish persecutions like kristalnacht but did nothing to rescue Jews except symbolically at the end of the war when two-thirds of Jews and many others were dead. We then have to make sense of Washington’s active recruitment of high-level Nazis to bolster the new CIA, and rocket and bio-warfare research. Our oft touted humanitarian concerns were duplicitous and hypocritical at best. Put simply, the Third Reich and Japan were sealing off huge areas of the globe from American commerce and investment and obstructing the main pillar of U.S. foreign policy, i.e. the Open Door to the resources, markets and labor power of the planet to be accessed on American terms. Closure of much of Europe and Asia by the Axis to American commercial and investment activity had exacerbated the continuing collapse of the American economy and social order brought on by the Great Depression As historian Thomas McCormick put matters, “living space for Germany and Japan was dying space for American private enterprise and for capitalism as an integrated world system.” Wall Street saw a “nightmare of a closed world.” The real issue after the defeat of the Axis was that the Soviets occupied about half of what the Nazis had seized in eastern Europe, and locked American commerce and capital investment out, just as the Nazis had.</p>
<p>Early on extremely intemperate voices, some from within the military, challenged Truman to employ the expanding atomic arsenal to get rid of the alleged threat immediately, calls that were often reported in the media, and to which the Soviets paid careful attention. There is no doubt but that such inflammatory declamations intensified&#160; Soviet fears of the United States who stepped-up production of their own A-Bombs, leading to the result that the only true threat to our national security, if by that we mean physical military danger, is nuclear war. We have no one to blame but ourselves for that un-sheathed sword of Damocles hanging perpetually over our heads. The sheer cold-bloodedness of using A-bombs on the civilian population of a nation already defeated was not lost on the Soviets, or later the Chinese. Certainly Stalin recognized that the United States could be as ruthless as himself.</p>
<p>All of the above, according to Trumpites and many others, places me firmly in the camp of the enemy. I hope soon to be on the new McCarthyite blacklist and am proud to be associated with Counterpunch. &#160;For 30 years now I’ve taught a highly critical view of United States foreign policy at the urban campus of a major state university. Most of the native born (as opposed to those with student visas) are working class or lower middle class and some can be quite incredulous and assertive in their reaction to my perspective but a majority want to hear more, certainly because they come from the classes most affected by war and economic downturns and uncertainty. Veterans often seek out my courses. Some are highly supportive of my perspective and conclusions. But some are viscerally opposed. One even wrote on our “free expression wall” some years ago that I should be lined up and shot. But if there is one sure thing I’ve learned in all these years it is that few students, or many among the greater public, know much of anything concrete and accurate about their nation’s past. What they have absorbed inevitably is the national mythology of exceptionalism that has been propagated from every source-school, religion, television, Hollywood, politics etc.- all their (our) lives.</p>
<p>Given the omnipresence and power of corporate controlled mass propaganda all citizens are constantly bombarded with messages about American exceptionalism, coupled with dishonesty, deceit and out right fabrications about current policies and the past. It is fortunate now that the alternative media exists in the electronic sphere and that universities, at least some, still adhere to free speech principles. If you think such rights are always safe examine the chronicle of censorship and vicious repression during World War I.</p>
<p>When leading discussion about “the American way of war” I sometimes get a version of the “killer ape” thesis popular back in the 1970s according to which humans are genetically aggressive and murderous toward the “other” like our close relatives the chimpanzees. To this assertion I always ask “how many people have you killed?” Of course the answer is always “none” (vets always remain silent here too). The fact is that murderousness in the general population, despite lurid and frightening headlines about violence, is confined to a small minority and consists most often of crimes of passion or pathology. It is not intrinsic to human behavior. I say this as someone who has been the victim of an anonymous street shooting that wounded me badly and killed two other people, all of us unknown to the shooter. Such outrages are on the increase but they signify growing social pathology and alienation owing to expanding poverty, economic insecurity, profound resentment and outright fear occasioned by the media. They do not prove the genetic aggression thesis. Given the all but effortless availability of guns, mass slaughter should be running rampantly every hour, if that proposition were true. Of course the media requirement that “if it bleeds it leads” falsely encourages this sense of widespread, omnipresent danger.</p>
<p>How then do we really account for our wars and the massive violence and casualties it visits on entire countries? How did the millions of Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians killed during that war really threaten American national security? In all the handwringing about the suffering of desperate Syrians who in the corporate media acknowledges the fact that Washington encouraged the revolt against the Assad regime, and armed its “moderate” rebels who promptly shared them with Al Qaeda and ISIL? Iraq and Libya are in chaos as a direct result of American military actions, their populations living in misery. Yemen is being disassembled by Saudi bombing with U.S. aircraft. In all these cases the claim is made that the U.S. wished to liberate these nations from cruel dictatorships but given the slaughter that has followed from American military actions can anyone really take seriously the claim of “responsibility to protect”? Though all officials know that the U.S. is invulnerable to invasion in order to gain public acceptance some threat to our security must be invoked. When the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s the “permanent war economy” was in trouble but the void was filled quickly by the threat of Islamic terrorism though a citizen has a better chance of being struck by lightning than being killed by al Qaeda or ISIL. But the fear mongering works to frazzle whole segments of the population who thus condone the dispatch of troops.</p>
<p>Does the American military recruit only those who do show signs of homicidal intent? Such dangerous personalities do squeeze into the armed forces but preparing and motivating most soldiers to kill other human beings requires an intensive program of abusive psychological indoctrination and conditioning. Much of it centers on the constant drumbeat that the armed forces are the indispensable shield against all threats to American “freedom and democracy,” the firewall against the “evil doers.” But a good deal more than that is required to send troops thousands of miles away in search of monsters to destroy. Patriotism is rigorously defined and enforced as standing at attention and following orders unquestioningly. For those in the “military occupational specialties” focused on direct combat the training regime is brutal to civilian eyes and focused on a longstanding very specific cult of “manhood” in which physical prowess and nerve is esteemed and weakness and cowardice are the cardinal sins. Shame at failing to measure up is to be dreaded. Facing death for one’s country is the ultimate test of manhood. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. Is it symptomatic of our metastasizing militarization that women are now trying to break into the deadly mystique of the “warrior” with the avowal that this corresponds to “equality.”</p>
<p>Yet the vast majority of soldiers never do kill. Even those in combat units do not usually kill “up close and personal” but from a distance using their weaponized machines and many never even see those whom their firepower has snuffed. And, despite all the operant conditioning, being exposed to the imminence of violent death and mass killing incurs profound spiritual and psychological consequences that will haunt many for life.</p>
<p>And let us stop ignoring the fact that with few exceptions those who initiate wars and send others off to kill or die have never themselves served in combat, or otherwise endangered their lives or fortunes on behalf of the republic, nor would they dream of putting their progeny at risk. That task belongs to the lower orders, the “expendables” as World War II soldiers often referred to themselves, or as “snuffies,” in the parlance of my generation.</p>
<p>So what are the real motivations of those who send our posterity off to kill and die? Since our present era is often labelled a new “Gilded age” and likened to similar circumstances more than a century ago the words of the barons of yesteryear illuminate that question just as readily for today. &#160;The Gilded age was not golden for most Americans. Beneath the glitter severe depressions, unemployment, immiseration and social upheaval were the order of the day. To meet the dangers emanating from below the American ruling elites turned the public’s attention outward and leapt onto the stage of global competition with the other great and emerging powers.</p>
<p>The rapid evolution of finance and industrial capitalism and the emergence of steam power and electricity and the ascendance of mass production all but erased the previous lifestyles and occupations of millions of Americans. With farmwork formerly done by hand and draft animals now replaced by machines millions were cast into poverty and into burgeoning city slums. At the same time demand for poorly paid labor to service the machines increased exponentially and led to the admission of millions of immigrants and thereby exacerbated social tensions. In the willy-nilly scramble to profit in the new industrial order inevitable overproduction led to massive layoffs and depressions. Demands for a greater share of the wealth produced by the rapidly accelerating system inspired strikes and calls for unionization. Even the dreaded word “Socialism” filled the air. Faced with unparalleled upheaval the new barons and their political allies’ responded to the crisis from every quarter of the nation’s power and cultural institutions. To protect the imperative of profit and simultaneously meet the demands of the agitated population they determined only one solution-expansion.</p>
<p>The historian Frederick Jackson Turner argued in The Significance of the Frontier in American History that the widespread availability of land in the West had conferred substantial independence upon many Americans. The “dominant fact of American life has been expansion” Turner declared. For centuries the ever present frontier in the west had served as the “safety valve” to vent pent up social pressures. Dissatisfied Americans could pack up and go west to acquire land to then enter the marketplace in cattle, crops, timber and minerals and profit. But industrial expansion, railroads, telegraph and mushrooming population had brought the country to a “watershed moment.” By the late 19th Century, the continental limit had been reached. The nation faced a choice: either alter American social and economic conditions radically or expand. Therefore a new frontier beckoned, said Turner, the Pacific Ocean and beyond.</p>
<p>Jealous of British naval supremacy the navy soon added its voice. Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, in his enormously influential tract, The Influence of Seapower Upon History (still taught at the U.S. Naval Academy), urged political leaders to leap beyond the landed frontier to the oceans and establish “colonies” as markets for the surplus, sources for cheaper labor, and bases from which to protect and administer them. Mahan’s gaze fell upon China whose population he considered “sheep without a shepherd.” Seeing the vast land as “inefficient” he contended that its people were not entitled to control their own country, and even proposed that its capital Peking (Beijing) be moved southward out of Russian influence to become “the core around which to develop a new China.” The Chinese had other ideas though so in 1900 the U.S., along with other imperial powers, landed troops to quash the so-called Boxer Rebellion that arose in opposition to just such foreign intrusion. While most Americans have long since forgotten this episode the Chinese have not.</p>
<p>Such reveries would require the expansion of naval power, a proposition the emerging steel and ship building trusts and their Washington confederates, especially Theodore Roosevelt, leapt to initiate. As the U.S. provoked tensions with doddering Spain Teddy gushed that “I should say that I would welcome a foreign war. It is very difficult for me not to wish war with Spain for that would result at once in getting a proper navy. In strict confidence I should welcome almost any war.” Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, scion of Boston “Brahmins,” boasted that “We have a record of conquest, colonization and expansion unequalled by any people in the 19th century …for the sake of our commercial prosperity we ought to seize the Hawaiian Islands now.” Roosevelt added that it “would be a crime against white civilization not to annex Hawaii.” Teddy then ginned up his war with Spain. Close advisers like historian Brooks Adams, descendant of John and John Quincy, thrilled that “this war is the first gun in the battle for ownership of the world.” In the Senate Albert Beveridge proclaimed that “The power that rules the Pacific rules the world.”</p>
<p>Spain was routed easily with aid from the “yellow press” and the U.S took over the Philippines, Guam, Cuba and Puerto Rico claiming to have liberated the island peoples from Spanish tyranny. Washington had also promised their independence yet when Filipinos actually tried to exercise their sovereignty the U.S. immediately launched a vicious campaign to stifle any hope of autonomy in pursuit of its own dishonestly disguised imperial ambitions. Though proponents of war condemned the atrocities Spain committed against it subjects they were silent when American troops behaved with savagery toward Filipinos whom they openly called “niggers.” What is today called “waterboarding,” was exercised widely by American forces against Filipino insurgents. Numerous massacres of civilians took place. One general ordered troops to kill “anyone over the age of ten.” Mark Twain stoked opposition to the campaign against Philippine independence in his widely read “On the Slaughter of 400 Moros” (there were actually more than 1,000). Responding sardonically to the U.S. Army’s report of a great victory against Filipino insurrectionaries, Twain noted that in fact there was no “battle.” American troops had forced about 1200 Moro men, women and children, into a ravine where most of them were slaughtered in cold blood. In disgust he also reviled the blood-soaked hypocrisy of Theodore Roosevelt who cabled the commander of U.S. forces saying “I congratulate you and the officers and men of your command upon the brilliant feat of arms wherein you and they so well upheld the honor of the American flag.”</p>
<p>Some religious leaders condemned such atrocities and the new imperial thrust but most mainstream clergy rushed to bless the new empire. Josiah Strong, a leading and highly influential &#160;Protestant figure, declared that “we are the chosen people” insisting “Anglo-Saxon” values had shaped America. In response to the urban and economic crisis he avowed that the world would “enter upon a new stage of its history, the final competition of races, for which the Anglo-Saxon is being schooled…the representative of the purest Christianity, the highest civilization…and can anyone doubt that the results of this competition of the races will be the ‘survival of the fittest.” In sardonic mockery of such Puritan fundamentalism the journalist and social critic Ambrose Bierce wrote in contrast &#160;that “Mammon (the ancient god of money) is the god of the world’s leading religion. The chief temples are on Wall Street in the holy city of New York.”</p>
<p>Remarkably, “Christian Imperialism” dovetailed with new secular ideas supposedly based upon religion’s nemesis, science. No sooner had Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution gained traction among the “educated” classes than it was deformed into Social Darwinism to validate imperial conquest by Europeans and Americans alike. As white imperialists annexed or otherwise dominated non-white societies in Asia, Africa, and the Americas, the very fact of their dominance was asserted&#160; to “prove” that natural law imposed the rule of the “fittest.” Historians like Brooks Adams, a descendant of two presidents and advisor to Theodore Roosevelt even argued that the new economy had arisen in the natural order of evolution writing that … “Masses take the form of corporations and the men who rise to the control of these corporations rise because they are fittest. The process is natural selection.” A corollary of this theory, of course, insisted that those who toiled as mere wage slaves or as colonial subjects were the least fit and deserved the place they occupied in society.</p>
<p>While Social Darwinian suppositions were developed at Yale and Cambridge universities, and therefore had the halo of “science” around them, the more gruesome applications like the massacre of Lakota Sioux at Wounded Knee in 1890 employed a long established racism.</p>
<p>In the Senate, at the moment the U.S. took its place among the imperial powers of the planet, Albert Beveridge of Indiana defended the brutal war against Philippine independence and its atrocities when he encapsulated and conflated all of the prevailing ideological strands of his day in a speech remarkable for its sanction of naked imperialism.</p>
<p>God has not been preparing the English-speaking and Teutonic peoples for nothing but vain and idle self-admiration. No he has made us master organizers of the world…that we may administer government among savages and senile peoples…The Philippines are ours forever…and just beyond the Philippines lie China’s illimitable markets. We will not renounce our part in the mission of our race, trustee under God, of the civilization of the world…the Philippines give us a base at the door of the East…it has been charged that our conduct of the war has been cruel. Senators, it has been the reverse. Senators, remember that we are not dealing with Americans or Europeans. We are dealing with Orientals.</p>
<p>Forgotten today, Brooks Adams’s books had enormous influence and clearly the ideas he expounded yesteryear still remain the bedrock of American foreign policy today. In America’s Economic Supremacy he argued that the nation’s elites should centralize the economic and political life of the nation, acquire and safeguard key sources of energy, gain control of Asia and its markets and elevate someone “brimming with martial spirit” to lead the American people on what he saw as a “crusade” to fulfill the nation’s destiny.</p>
<p>What fundamentally has changed?</p>
<p>But wait! There is one major difference. In 1900 the U.S., as its rulers planned, stood ready to contend for global dominance. In 2000 the Project For a New American Century took ever U.S. foreign policy, noting that the collapse of the Soviet Union presented a virtual carte blanche ticket to American global supremacy. Today that fantasy lies in ruins but the masters have yet to realize this fact. Nor, as usual, have they shown any inclination to learn from history. Many now nominated or vying for position in the Trump Administration show every evidence of hostility toward all of Islam, with little distinction between Sunni ISIL or Shia Iran, bitter enemies both. Even before taking office Trump is trumping traditional diplomatic behavior toward China and deliberately ratcheting up friction, and despite Trump’s attitude toward Russia, the military itself sees that nation as the U.S.’s “existential threat.” The truly existential threat to our national security lies in the supremacist policies pursued since 1945 which have led to war after war and the slaughter literally of millions and which have led other nations, in fear of our own, to acquire nuclear weapons. As the Great Game of empire plays out and the consequences of the industrial age ravage the climate and ecology of the planet the trajectory of history more than implies all out nuclear war. Are we really going to let this end game play out?</p>
<p>Paul Lewis Atwood is a member of Veterans for Peace and is semi-retired from the University of Massachusetts Boston. His book War and Empire: The American Way of Life was published in 2010. He can be reached at&#160; [email protected].</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | War Has Been, is, and Will be the American Way of Life…Unless? | true | https://counterpunch.org/2016/12/09/war-has-been-is-and-will-be-the-american-way-of-lifeunless/ | 2016-12-09 | 4 |
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