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<p>A Nederland detective found a backpack outside the building when he began his shift Tuesday morning and brought it inside, believing it was lost property, police Marshal Paul Carrill said. He opened it and noticed “suspicious articles” that investigators later determined to be an improvised explosive device, Carrill said. He would not elaborate.</p>
<p>Two robots searched the backpack, and multiple pieces were removed from the device.</p>
<p>Carrill would not say whether police have identified the backpack’s owner. Investigators have not determined a motive.</p>
<p>“It’s difficult to interpret why someone would do this,” Carrill said. “It is my hope and intent, for the health and safety of the community to get to the bottom of why.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The FBI, which assumed control of the investigation by Wednesday afternoon, said the improvised explosive device was active but failed to detonate.</p>
<p>The police department is in the mountain town’s main retail complex, which includes a grocery store and multiple shops. Those businesses were evacuated. Carrill urged the public to come forward with information because “the individual or individuals who may have assembled this could be a risk to their neighbors.”</p>
<p>Nederland is about 15 miles southwest of Boulder.</p> | Suspicious device prompts evacuations in Colorado town | false | https://abqjournal.com/866374/suspicious-device-prompts-evacuations-in-colorado-town.html | 2 |
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<p>Occupy Wall Street movement protestors were arrested in the hundreds in Chicago, Denver, and other cities in addition to New York on Saturday night and early Sunday morning, <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/16/us/occupy-wall-street/?hpt=us_c1" type="external">CNN</a> reports.</p>
<p>Most of the arrests occurred after protestors refused to leave when permits to demonstrate expired or public spaces closed for the evening.</p>
<p>In Chicago at 11:30 p.m. Saturday night, police told the 500 or so protestors who had erected tents in Congress Plaza that they had to leave since the park closed at 11 p.m., the <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-occupy-chicago-protesters-relocate-to-grant-park-20111015,0,3664663.story" type="external">Chicago Tribune</a> reports. Between 1 a.m. and 3:30 a.m., the police arrested about 175 Occupy Chicago protestors for violating municipal code.</p>
<p>"I'd like to ask why (New York Mayor Michael) Bloomberg let the people stay in the park peacefully and clean up their own mess, and (Chicago Mayor) Rahm Emanuel won't let us do the same, Joseph Eichler, 23, remarked to the Chicago Tribune.</p>
<p>In Denver, police arrested 24 people who pitched dining tents in a corner of Civic Center after the Occupy Denver march officially ended around 2 p.m., the <a href="http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_19120992" type="external">Denver Post</a> reports. The authorities began making arrests at 6:20 p.m., using pepper spray to disperse protestors as they knocked down the tents.</p>
<p>Other cities where Occupy protestors were arrested overnight include Phoenix, Ariz., where 40 protestors refused to leave a park, and Raleigh, N.C., where 19 people were arrested after their protesting permit expired, the <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/10/16/2011-10-16_hundreds_arrested_at_occupy_events_in_chicago_denver_arizona_as_movement_spreads.html?r=news" type="external">New York Daily News</a> reports.</p>
<p>In New York, police arrested 14 people at Washington Square Park for violating a midnight curfew, CNN reports. During the day on Saturday, 78 demonstrators had been arrested.</p>
<p>In many cases, the protestors didn't seem to mind their arrests. "It was a culmination of us pushing against the system and the system pushing back," Andrew Smith, 27, told the Chicago Tribune upon his <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-occupy-chicago-protesters-released-after-grant-park-arrests-20111016,0,389426.story" type="external">release</a> from Chicago's Central District police station on Sunday morning. "We took a stand and tonight and we're going to take a stand tomorrow."</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/italy/111015/protests-turn-violent-rome" type="external">Protests turn violent in Rome</a> &#160;</p> | Occupy protestors arrested nationwide | false | https://pri.org/stories/2011-10-16/occupy-protestors-arrested-nationwide | 2011-10-16 | 3 |
<p>Democrats must “exercise extreme caution” in making a deal with President Donald Trump on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Sunday.</p>
<p>“I don’t like the starting point of this negotiation. Democrats have to exercise extreme caution,” Cuomo told radio host <a href="https://soundcloud.com/the-answer-hosts/andrew-cuomo" type="external">John Catsimatidis on his Sunday radio show AM 970</a> in New York.</p>
<p>Trump held what was called a “working dinner” with Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday who later said they had reached an agreement with the president on DACA.</p>
<p>Sen. Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said the president agreed to extend protections for young undocumented immigrants. Also, the bipartisan plan would not include funding for a border wall with Mexico, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/13/us/politics/trump-dinner-schumer-pelosi-daca-obamacare.html?mcubz=1&amp;_r=0" type="external">The New York Times</a> reported Wednesday.</p>
<p>On Thursday, the White House said there had been no deal struck with Democrats over DACA.</p>
<p>“I [Trump] will give you DACA, and in exchange I will get money for border patrols with Mexico, which will turn into a wall… I don’t care what the bluster says,” Cuomo said.</p>
<p>Cuomo said he had “no doubt” the U.S. “would have another Civil War” if Trump struck down DACA, as he has indicated he wanted to do. For the country, DACA served as a “fundamental issue of principle” as to whether “we believe in immigration or not,” Cuomo maintained.</p>
<p>Cuomo warned that Trump would use funds from the suggested bipartisan immigration deal to create a “cyber wall” with Mexico, saying that showed he was delivering on the wall along the U.S. southern border that he promised when running for president.</p> | Cuomo: Dems Must 'Exercise Extreme Caution' With Trump on DACA | false | https://newsline.com/cuomo-dems-must-exercise-extreme-caution-with-trump-on-daca/ | 2017-09-17 | 1 |
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>The indefinite suspension of Phil Robertson has come to a definite end. It is being reported that the suspension will have no effect on the upcoming season since filming has not resumed. Evidently the <a href="" type="internal">intense pressure on A&amp;E</a> worked for Duck Dynasty fans because Friday afternoon the&#160;network released this statement to <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/a-e-welcomes-phil-robertson-667647" type="external">Hollywood Reporter</a>:</p>
<p>As a global media content company, A+E Networks’ core values are centered around creativity, inclusion and mutual respect. We believe it is a privilege for our brands to be invited into people’s homes, and we operate with a strong sense of integrity and deep commitment to these principles.</p>
<p>That is why we reacted so quickly and strongly to a recent interview with Phil Robertson. While Phil’s comments made in the interview reflect his personal views based on his own beliefs and his own personal journey, he and his family have publicly stated they regret the “coarse language” he used and the misinterpretation of his core beliefs based only on the article. He also made it clear he would “never incite or encourage hate.” We at A+E Networks expressed our disappointment with his statements in the article and reiterate that they are not views we hold.</p>
<p>But&#160;Duck Dynasty&#160;is not a show about one man’s views. It resonates with a large audience because it is a show about family … a family that America has come to love. As you might have seen in many episodes, they come together to reflect and pray for unity, tolerance and forgiveness. These are three values that we at A+E Networks also feel strongly about.</p>
<p>So after discussions with the Robertson family, as well as consulting with numerous advocacy groups, A&amp;E has decided to resume filming&#160;Duck Dynasty&#160;later this spring with the entire Robertson family.</p>
<p>We will also use this moment to launch a national public service campaign (PSA) promoting unity, tolerance and acceptance among all people, a message that supports our core values as a company and the values found in&#160;Duck Dynasty. These PSAs will air across our entire portfolio.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.inquisitr.com/1075835/glaad-blasts-ae-decision-to-reinstate-duck-dynasty-star-phil-robertson/" type="external">GLAAD issued a formal statement</a> on Friday evening:</p>
<p>“Phil Robertson should look African American and gay people in the eyes and hear about the hurtful impact of praising Jim Crow laws and comparing gay people to terrorists. If dialogue with Phil is not part of next steps then A+E has chosen profits over African American and gay people — especially its employees and viewers.”</p>
<p>Hurtful impact? What ever happened to “sticks and stones?” Whether you agree with Phil Robertson or not is not the biggest issue in my mind. The much bigger issue seems to be how thin-skinned the people of this country have become. &#160;When people getting their feelings hurt starts effecting free speech then we have a problem.</p>
<p>For those who might have missed the Jim Crow reference, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/19/phil-robertson-black-people_n_4473474.html" type="external">this is what Robertson said in that GQ interview</a>:</p>
<p>“I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person,” Robertson is quoted in GQ. “Not once. Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I’m with the blacks, because we’re white trash. We’re going across the field…. They’re singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, ‘I tell you what: These doggone white people’—not a word!… Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.”</p>
<p>I wouldn’t call that a ringing endorsement of Jim Crow laws. I think he could have worded it better but we are all guilty of that at times. I think it was meant to be more of an indictment of the welfare mentality that is rampant in this country and it’s not just black people who are part of that.</p>
<p>In the end this is just a television show and Phil Robertson is just an entertainer. He is a very popular entertainer but if you let his words negatively affect you then you should be ashamed. Be confident in who you are and ignore the naysayers. That’s what it takes to make it in this world.</p>
<p>What is your opinion?</p>
<p>Was this the right decision by A&amp;E?</p>
<p>Feel free to comment below.</p>
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<p /> | Phil’s Back and GLAAD is Not Happy, Happy, Happy | true | http://dcclothesline.com/2013/12/28/phils-back-glaad-happy-happy-happy/ | 2013-12-28 | 0 |
<p><a href="http://variety.com/t/jamie-lee-curtis/" type="external">Jamie Lee Curtis</a> is returning to play the iconic Laurie Strode in the “ <a href="http://variety.com/t/halloween/" type="external">Halloween</a>” franchise.</p>
<p>Universal Pictures also set Oct. 19, 2018, as the release for the final film in the “Halloween” series.</p>
<p>The horror movie is being produced by Trancas International Films, Blumhouse Productions, and Miramax.</p>
<p>Curtis’ character will have a final confrontation with Michael Myers, the masked figure who has haunted&#160;her&#160;since she narrowly escaped his killing spree on&#160;Halloween night four decades ago.</p>
<p>John&#160;Carpenter will executive produce and serve&#160;as&#160;creative consultant on this film,&#160;joining horror producer Jason Blum, who’s behind “Get&#160;Out,” “Split,” and “The Purge” and “Paranormal Activity” franchises.</p>
<p><a href="http://variety.com/2017/film/news/david-gordon-green-direct-halloween-for-miramax-1201983506/" type="external">David Gordon Green and Danny McBride have written the script</a>. Malek Akkad, whose Trancas&#160;International Films has produced the series since its inception, will produce. Green and McBride will executive produce under their Rough House Pictures banner.</p> | Jamie Lee Curtis Returning for ‘Halloween’ Reboot | false | https://newsline.com/jamie-lee-curtis-returning-for-halloween-reboot/ | 2017-09-15 | 1 |
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<p>These fishing boats at Riquelme Cove, in Iquique, northern Chile, were wrecked after a tsunami which followed Tuesday's earthquake. The quake struck at a depth of 10km (six miles), 83km from Iquique.&#160;The tsunami's ripple effects were felt as far away as Indonesia.</p>
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<p>Chilean locals seek shelter at Iquique's city stadium following a tsunami alert after the powerful 8.0-magnitude earthquake hit off Chile's Pacific coast.</p>
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<p>Firefighters in Iquique try to extinguish a fire in a seaside restaurant after the earthquake.</p>
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<p>People observe the "Costa Verde" bay from a hill following a tsunami alert in Lima on April 1.</p>
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<p>A pair of chairs in a flooded area of Iquique, northern Chile, float away in the aftermath of the quake.</p>
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<p>Residents stay on the top floor of their building during a vertical evacuation, after a tsunami alarm in Iquique.&#160;</p>
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<p>While thousands of people who evacuated Chile's low-lying coastal areas returned home on Wednesday morning, authorities in Iquique still had to clean up the wreckage, including transporting vehicles and boats damaged on the shore after the tsunami.</p>
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<p>A house in Arica was hit hard after the powerful 8.0-magnitude earthquake.</p>
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<p>An elderly person is evacuated from a shelter after a tsunami alarm at Antofagasta city, north of Santiago on the southern Pacific coast.</p>
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<p>In the calm following the earthquake, soldiers guard a supermarket in Iquique to prevent looting.</p>
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<p>In response to a tsunami alert, people flee Lima's "Costa Verde" bay area on April 1. A tsunami warning was issued for Chile, Peru and Ecuador.</p>
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<p>A diver walks between boats washed inland after the effects of the tsunami were felt in Iquique.</p>
<p /> | Tsunami Generated After Earthquake Strikes Off Northern Chilean Coast | true | https://thedailybeast.com/tsunami-generated-after-earthquake-strikes-off-northern-chilean-coast | 2018-10-02 | 4 |
<p>NEWPORT, R.I. (AP) — The U.S. Naval War College Museum has unveiled a new exhibit to teach people more about World War I.</p>
<p>It focuses on the Navy’s role in the war, using the career of Navy Adm. William S. Sims to tell the story. Sims commanded U.S. naval forces in Europe during the war, and his family donated artifacts.</p>
<p>The Rhode Island museum is displaying the exhibit for about three years.</p>
<p>Curator Rob Doane said people will be interested in the Navy’s role because many successful strategists in World War II learned how to coordinate complex operations and forge relationships with allies during World War I.</p>
<p>Sims went on to lead the war college. He changed the curriculum based on his experiences during the war and influenced a generation of naval leaders, Doane said.</p>
<p>“World War II gets a lot more attention,” he said. “Even within World War I, the Navy’s role is not that understood.”</p>
<p>Visits must be scheduled about a week beforehand so a background check can be done for entry to the Newport facility.</p>
<p>The exhibit opened this month. The family heirlooms include Sims’ death mask from 1936, swords, a ship model, family photos and gifts given to Sims in Europe to thank him for his service.</p>
<p>“This isn’t just another World War I exhibit,” said David Kohnen, director of the college’s John B. Hattendorf Center for Maritime Historical Research. “What you will see are things Adm. Sims himself kept for his family, and 100 years later, they’re now on display for the very first time outside of the Sims family. It offers a uniquely human perspective on a figure who really helped build the United States Navy of the 21st century.”</p>
<p>A three-star flag is on display that is believed to have flown over the base in Queenstown, Ireland, which is now Cobh, when Sims was in command. The British admiral in Queenstown went on leave for two weeks in 1917. That was the first time an American had ever held command over foreign naval forces, Doane said.</p>
<p>The Naval History and Heritage Command loaned artifacts for the exhibit. Retired Rear Adm. Samuel Cox, director of the command, said it’s a way to help people better understand the immense changes that occurred in the world because of the war.</p>
<p>Many of Sims’ early recommendations were controversial at the time, such as taking destroyers from the battle fleet and sending them to Europe to escort convoys, but in historic hindsight, were unerringly accurate and helped changed the course of the war, Cox added.</p>
<p>NEWPORT, R.I. (AP) — The U.S. Naval War College Museum has unveiled a new exhibit to teach people more about World War I.</p>
<p>It focuses on the Navy’s role in the war, using the career of Navy Adm. William S. Sims to tell the story. Sims commanded U.S. naval forces in Europe during the war, and his family donated artifacts.</p>
<p>The Rhode Island museum is displaying the exhibit for about three years.</p>
<p>Curator Rob Doane said people will be interested in the Navy’s role because many successful strategists in World War II learned how to coordinate complex operations and forge relationships with allies during World War I.</p>
<p>Sims went on to lead the war college. He changed the curriculum based on his experiences during the war and influenced a generation of naval leaders, Doane said.</p>
<p>“World War II gets a lot more attention,” he said. “Even within World War I, the Navy’s role is not that understood.”</p>
<p>Visits must be scheduled about a week beforehand so a background check can be done for entry to the Newport facility.</p>
<p>The exhibit opened this month. The family heirlooms include Sims’ death mask from 1936, swords, a ship model, family photos and gifts given to Sims in Europe to thank him for his service.</p>
<p>“This isn’t just another World War I exhibit,” said David Kohnen, director of the college’s John B. Hattendorf Center for Maritime Historical Research. “What you will see are things Adm. Sims himself kept for his family, and 100 years later, they’re now on display for the very first time outside of the Sims family. It offers a uniquely human perspective on a figure who really helped build the United States Navy of the 21st century.”</p>
<p>A three-star flag is on display that is believed to have flown over the base in Queenstown, Ireland, which is now Cobh, when Sims was in command. The British admiral in Queenstown went on leave for two weeks in 1917. That was the first time an American had ever held command over foreign naval forces, Doane said.</p>
<p>The Naval History and Heritage Command loaned artifacts for the exhibit. Retired Rear Adm. Samuel Cox, director of the command, said it’s a way to help people better understand the immense changes that occurred in the world because of the war.</p>
<p>Many of Sims’ early recommendations were controversial at the time, such as taking destroyers from the battle fleet and sending them to Europe to escort convoys, but in historic hindsight, were unerringly accurate and helped changed the course of the war, Cox added.</p> | Naval War College Museum unveils exhibit to teach about WWI | false | https://apnews.com/596f128b57064c78b46f39967f007c54 | 2017-12-29 | 2 |
<p>Israeli police detained billionaire Beny Steinmetz and four other men Monday, as part of an international fraud investigation spanning four continents.</p>
<p>The detainees allegedly “acted together and methodically with the prime suspect in order to create and present fictitious contracts and deals… on a foreign country in order to transfer funds and launder money,” an Israeli police spokesperson said as cited by Reuters.</p>
<p>לכל אחד מהמעורבים מיוחסות עבירות שונות, בהן הלבנת הון, זיוף מסמכים, רישום כוזב במסמכי תאגיד, מרמה והפרת אמונים, שיבוש הליכי משפט ושוחד</p>
<p>— משטרת ישראל (@IL_police) <a href="https://twitter.com/IL_police/status/896966033956888576" type="external">14 августа 2017 г.</a></p>
<p>The premises of the detainees were all searched as part of the investigation which involved the FBI, the Swiss police and the Israeli Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing Prohibition Authority according to the <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Israeli-billionaire-arrested-in-international-money-laundering-probe-502366" type="external">Jerusalem Post</a>.</p>
<p>Tal Silberstein, a former consultant to the Austrian chancellor and former Israeli premier Ehud Barak, and David Granot, acting chairman of the Bezeq telecoms group, were also arrested as part of the raids.</p>
<p>The Austrian chancellor terminated Silberstein’s employment Monday, reports Haaretz.</p>
<p>Steinmetz, 60, has a net worth of $1.02 billion thanks to his real estate, engineering and mining empires, reports <a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/beny-steinmetz/" type="external">Forbes</a>.</p>
<p>Both Steinmetz and Silberstein will be held in custody for four more days as authorities fear they might interfere with the investigation. &#160;</p>
<p>“The man has proved to us, with his capacities to interfere, that if he were to be released, he could take actions that would interfere with the investigation,” the officer in charge of the investigation Avshalom Ahrak testified in court, as cited by <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.806776" type="external">Haaretz</a>.</p>
<p>Steinmetz and his alleged accomplices are being held for questioning under caution “on suspicion of money laundering, fraudulent filing of corporate documents, fraud and corporate breach of trust, obstruction of justice and bribery.”</p>
<p>Read more</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/395911-soros-netanyahu-orban-billboard/" type="external" /></p>
<p>Steinmetz called the investigation a “political war” waged by George Soros, reports <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.806776" type="external">Haaretz</a>.</p>
<p>Steinmetz was previously placed under house arrest in December 2016 for a total of two weeks as part of a probe into allegations of bribery made against him and executives from his mining firm BSG Resources (BSGR).</p>
<p>At the time, police alleged he had paid top Guinean officials tens of millions of dollars in exchange for favorable contracts and licensing deals in the Simandou deposit, one of the world’s largest iron ore reserves in 2008.</p>
<p>The Guinean government launched its own retrospective investigation into how BSGR obtained the rights to the Simandou deposit.</p>
<p>At the time of the initial investigation, billionaire George Soros was reportedly advising the Guinean government. BSGR subsequently <a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Soros.pdf" type="external">sued</a> Soros for allegedly scuttling the iron ore deal with the Guinean government, claiming $10 billion in damages.</p>
<p>“Soros was motivated solely by malice, as there was no economic interest he had in Guinea,” BSGR alleged in the suit.</p>
<p>A spokesman for Soros described the claims as a “desperate PR stunt meant to deflect attention from BSGR’s mounting legal problems across multiple jurisdictions,” as cited by <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/04/22/bsg-resources-still-hopes-regain-guinea-mine-despite-legal-strife/" type="external">The Telegraph</a>.</p> | Israeli billionaire Steinmetz detained in intl. fraud, forgery & money laundering probe | false | https://newsline.com/israeli-billionaire-steinmetz-detained-in-intl-fraud-forgery-money-laundering-probe/ | 2017-08-14 | 1 |
<p>Photo: Wikimedia Commons</p>
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<p>Last week, the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) announced that gorillas in the Congo may be extinct by the mid-2020s, a drastic change from its 2002 projection which had 10 percent of the original range surviving in 2030. The culprits behind the demise of one of the world’s brightest primates: poaching, logging, mining, the Ebola virus, and…cell phones. Adam Hochschild’s <a href="" type="internal">piece</a> in the March/April <a href="" type="internal">issue</a> of Mother Jones, describes how the Congo’s vast natural resources are continuously pillaged to feed foreign interests to the detriment of locals, their environment, and now gorillas. <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/science/03/25/gorillas.threatened/?hpt=T1" type="external">CNN</a> reports:</p>
<p>Militias have seized large chunks of gorilla land and logged and mined it. They have done so because the illegal trade in timber and in metals such as gold and coltan — used in cell phones — generates between $14 million and $50 million a year for them.</p>
<p>Said Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Director of the UNEP:</p>
<p>This is a tragedy for the great apes and one also for countless other species being impacted by this intensifying and all too often illegal trade. Ultimately it is also a tragedy for the people living in the communities and countries concerned. These natural assets are their assets: ones underpinning lives and livelihoods for millions of people. In short it is environmental crime and theft by the few and the powerful at the expense of the poor and the vulnerable.</p>
<p>Read the full report, “ <a href="http://www.grida.no/publications/rr/gorilla" type="external">The Last Stand of the Gorilla – Environmental Crime and Conflict in the Congo Basin</a>.”&#160;&#160;</p>
<p>Follow Titania Kumeh of <a href="http://www.twitter.com/TitaniaUSA" type="external">Twitter</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
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<p /> | How Our Cell Phones Kill Gorillas | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2010/03/gorillas-extinct-mid-2020/ | 2010-03-29 | 4 |
<p><a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Aaron_Rodgers/" type="external">Aaron Rodgers</a> is on record as saying that he’d like to still be playing professional <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/John_Walker/" type="external">football</a> when he’s 40.</p>
<p>While that gives the current <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Green_Bay_Packers/" type="external">Green Bay Packers</a> quarterback plenty of time on the field, a certain long-time inhabitant of Lambeau Field has a question for Rodgers.</p>
<p>“Why stop at 40?” Hall of Fame quarterback <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Brett_Favre/" type="external">Brett Favre</a> asked of the 33-year-old Rodgers on Wednesday while speaking at the Lee Remmel Sports Awards Banquet in De Pere, Wis.</p>
<p>“He moves around as well as anyone in the game right now. That’s big,” Favre said. “… I would think that barring any injury — and he knows how to protect himself — six or seven years from now is a long time to think that far down the road, but there’s no reason to think he couldn’t play and play at a high level until — I’m not going to say 43, 44, it’s up to the individual — and I don’t see any decline in his game unless he doesn’t want to play anymore.”</p>
<p>A two-time NFL Most Valuable Player, Rodgers led the league in 2016 with 40 touchdown passes. He also ranked fourth in passing yards (4,428) and passer rating (104.2), and set a single-season franchise record with 401 completions.</p>
<p>Favre, who played until he was 41, was inducted into the Packers’ Hall of Fame in 2015 and had his No. 4 retired. He was named the NFL’s MVP in 1995, 1996 and 1997, and was selected to 11 Pro Bowls.</p> | Green Bay Packers: Brett Favre suggests Aaron Rodgers can play into 40s | false | https://newsline.com/green-bay-packers-brett-favre-suggests-aaron-rodgers-can-play-into-40s/ | 2017-08-10 | 1 |
<p>Austin Tice, an American freelance journalist who has been missing for more than two weeks in Syria, is believed to be in government custody according to sources, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/us-journalist-reportedly-in-syrian-custody/2012/08/30/bcf98ef8-f2d7-11e1-b74c-84ed55e0300b_story.html" type="external">The Washington Post reported</a>.</p>
<p>Recent statements from Czech diplomats, rebel supporters and reports from inside Syria suggest that 31-year-old Tice was detained by Syrian government forces near the Damascus suburb of Daraya, <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/08/30/2976960/mcclatchy-contributor-austin-tice.html" type="external">The Miami Herald reported</a>.</p>
<p>The US State Department said the Syrian government has not responded to official inquiries about Tice, but they are working with the Czech to obtain more information.</p>
<p>Tice, a Houston native and former Marine, has worked for The Washington Post, McClatchy Newspapers and other news outlets from Syria, <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57499768/u.s-journalist-falls-out-of-contact-in-syria/" type="external">according to The Associated Press</a>.</p>
<p>His father, Marc Tice, told the AP, "It's not uncommon for various journalists moving in and about Syria to be out of communication. We're very hopeful that that is what is happening."</p>
<p>More on GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/syria/120823/austin-tice-american-journalist-reported-missing-syri" type="external">Austin Tice, American journalist, reported missing in Syria</a></p>
<p>On Monday, Czech ambassador to Syria Eva Filipi said, "Our sources report that he is alive and that he was detained by government forces on the outskirts of Damascus, where the rebels were fighting government troops," according to The Post. The Czech embassy has been handling US interests in Syria since the American embassy closed in February.</p>
<p>The Miami Herald reported that Tice entered Syria without a visa in May, traveling with rebel forces and reaching Damascus in late July. He had planned to leave Syria around August 19 or 20 to meet friends in Lebanon.</p>
<p>More on GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/japan/120825/mika-yamamotos-body-flown-back-japan" type="external">Mika Yamamoto's body flown back to Japan</a></p>
<p>Tice's parents released a statement saying, "Austin is our precious son, and we beseech the Syrian government to treat him well and return him safely to us as soon as possible," according to The Post.</p>
<p>US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said, "We strongly urge all sides to ensure the safety of journalists in Syria," according to the AP.</p>
<p>The Post's executive editor Marcus Brauchli said in a statement, "We're focused intensively on trying to ascertain his whereabouts and ensure his safe return," while Anders Gyllenhaal, vice president for news at McClatchy, said, "Journalists like Austin from all over the world risk their lives every day to cover the news."</p> | Austin Tice, American journalist, reportedly held in Syria | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-08-30/austin-tice-american-journalist-reportedly-held-syria | 2012-08-30 | 3 |
<p>Thirteen years after 9/11, it seems like companies still haven't learned that it is really tacky to use the tragedy's anniversary as an opportunity for advertising.</p>
<p>Today, the people of the internet shook their heads at two very different companies — Fleshlight and Build-A-Bear — for their commemorating tweets. Build-A-Bear managed to draw more groans than Fleshlight <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/brands-dont-need-to-tweet-about-911?bftw&amp;utm_term=4ldqpfp#1ti71ah" type="external">with theirs</a> (which was quickly deleted):</p>
<p />
<p>Both of these attempts probably pale in comparison to AT&amp;T's gaffe <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/11/technology/social/att-9-11-tweet/" type="external">last year</a>, which looked a little something like this:&#160;</p>
<p />
<p>It's not the first time that companies have come under fire for attempting to use turmoil to shill their products. Fashion designer Kenneth Cole first sparked controversy back in 2011 during Egypt's revolution, when he <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2013/09/05/kenneth-cole-didnt-learn-from-cairo-posts-another-controversial-tweet/" type="external">tweeted</a> "millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now availbale online."&#160;</p>
<p>Cole trivialized political turmoil once more last year, when the United States was debating whether or not to strike Syria, when he tweeted this:&#160;</p>
<p>To paraphrase one of my favorite scholars, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pubd-spHN-0" type="external">Regina George</a>, stop trying to make tribute plugs happen. Just don't go there. If you absolutely must&#160;do it, then perhaps take <a href="http://www.google.com" type="external">Google's approach</a>:&#160;</p>
<p />
<p>But I have a feeling that companies are better off letting the Internet mourn in peace.</p> | This is how companies should commemorate the anniversary of 9/11 | false | https://pri.org/stories/2014-09-11/how-companies-should-commemorate-anniversary-911 | 2014-09-11 | 3 |
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<p>TEHRAN, Iran — Apple Inc. has removed all Iranian mobile apps from its App Store, authorities said Friday.</p>
<p>Ali Maleki, who works for Iran’s biggest e-commerce site Digikala, said the apps were shut down around 10 days ago. He said Digikala’s app was removed “based on the new type of sanctions which were imposed against Iran.”</p>
<p>In reaction to Apple’s decision, Telecommunication Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi said Apple should respect its Iranian consumers.</p>
<p>Apple, based in Cupertino, California, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.</p>
<p>Jahromi tweeted: “11% of Iran’s mobile phone market share is owned by Apple. Giving respect to consumer rights is a principle today which Apple has not followed. We will follow up the cutting of the apps legally.”</p>
<p>The move comes two years after the historic nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, in which Iran accepted curbs on its contested nuclear program in return for lifting sanctions. U.S. legislation passed earlier this month imposed mandatory penalties on people involved in Iran’s ballistic missile program and anyone who does business with them.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Apple does not officially do business in Iran or any other Gulf countries, but many Iranians purchase its products from stores inside Iran.</p>
<p>Many Iranians using social media criticized the Apple decision and have created #StopRemovingIranianApps to show their anger over the move.</p>
<p>Twitter user Mohammad Rasul who is a tech enthusiast tweeted: “All the apps deleted from the App Store, does not have any relation to Iranian government! US Sanctions targeting people.”</p>
<p>Jamal Abdi, policy director of the National Iranian American Council based in Washington, said in a statement that Apple’s move has the effect of punishing the Iranian people, not Iran’s government.</p>
<p>“We trust that Apple shares our interest in encouraging young Iranian tech entrepreneurs and promoting internet freedom around the world,” he said. “We hope they will respond and look forward to discussing these matters with them.”</p> | Authorities say Apple shuts down Iranian apps | false | https://abqjournal.com/1053478/iran-media-report-apple-shuts-down-iranian-apps.html | 2017-08-25 | 2 |
<p />
<p />
<p>A 16-year-old girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has been given a life sentence for the killing of 7-year-old Katie Rough in a park in York, UK.</p>
<p>The teen was jailed for a minimum of 5 years as her own lawyer admitted that there were no other clear means of protecting the public.</p>
<p>The killer appeared via a video link at the Leeds crown court. She didn't say a word and was identified by a youth worker when the judge, Mr. Soole, asked for her name.</p>
<p>Judge Poole proceeded to hand her a life sentence as she didn't show any remorse for the vicious act of slashing the child's throat with a Stanley knife in the park.</p>
<p>"The level of danger to the public is high. In the circumstances of your continuing silence, the critical question is whether there is any reliable estimate as to how long that danger will continue."</p>
<p>The judge took her continued silence very badly, stating that this means that what exactly happened in the park there "is now only known to you."</p>
<p>"Further and most disturbing evidence points to this being planned and based on delusional thoughts. In this truly exceptional case, I have concluded that it is necessary to impose a sentence of detention for life."</p>
<p>The teen's lawyer, Mr. Nicholas Johnson explained that the teen girl had posted a picture on Instagram two days before the murder showing self-harmed wounds to her arms made with pencil blades under which she had written the caption: "Mentally, seriously, not OK."</p>
<p>Mr. Johnson told the judge in her defense she was "clearly crying out for help and support."</p>
<p>Young Katie's parents wept their eyes as they left the court, saying: "Our story is about a loving home and family that was torn apart on a day when we lost our daughter."</p>
<p>"Our story goes on into a future where our home feels very empty, but we will keep going for sake of our other children and our grandson."</p>
<p />
<p>Source:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/katie-rough-latest-teenage-girl-life-sentence-york-park-killing-manslaughter-leeds-crown-court-a8073611.html" type="external">independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/katie-rough-latest-teenage-girl-life-sentence-york-park-killing-manslaughter-leeds-crown-court-a8073611.html</a></p> | Teen Girl Jailed For Killing 7-year-old | true | http://thegoldwater.com/news/12621-Teen-Girl-Jailed-For-Killing-7-year-old | 2017-11-25 | 0 |
<p>BERLIN (AP) — A German court says it will not proceed with the trial of a former SS sergeant who served as a medic in the Auschwitz death camp because the 94-year-old is suffering from dementia.</p>
<p>The Neubrandenburg state court said Monday that experts had determined that Hubert Z. was unfit for trial and that his condition was worsening.</p>
<p>He was accused of having served as a medic in an SS hospital in Auschwitz in 1944.</p>
<p>Schwerin prosecutors charged him with 3,681 counts of accessory to murder earlier this year, arguing that by serving in that role he helped the extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland function.</p>
<p>His attorney had argued there was no evidence that his client had participated in any concrete criminal act.</p>
<p>BERLIN (AP) — A German court says it will not proceed with the trial of a former SS sergeant who served as a medic in the Auschwitz death camp because the 94-year-old is suffering from dementia.</p>
<p>The Neubrandenburg state court said Monday that experts had determined that Hubert Z. was unfit for trial and that his condition was worsening.</p>
<p>He was accused of having served as a medic in an SS hospital in Auschwitz in 1944.</p>
<p>Schwerin prosecutors charged him with 3,681 counts of accessory to murder earlier this year, arguing that by serving in that role he helped the extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland function.</p>
<p>His attorney had argued there was no evidence that his client had participated in any concrete criminal act.</p> | German court says former Auschwitz SS medic unfit for trial | false | https://apnews.com/518617eaa8f743a8b4783cd8d48d02bb | 2015-06-22 | 2 |
<p>It was just last month that Sudan’s southern half voted to secede from its northern neighbor, but bloody clashes between south Sudan’s army and fighters loyal to a renegade soldier have reportedly left almost 140 people dead, most of them civilians.</p>
<p>Sudan’s southern population voted overwhelmingly for autonomy in January, with 99 percent of votes cast backing independence. –JCL</p>
<p>The Associated Press:</p>
<p>Two days of fighting in Southern Sudan between the region’s army and a rebel faction has killed nearly 140 people, mostly civilians, a southern army spokesman said Friday.</p>
<p />
<p>A former high-ranking southern army member who rebelled against the southern government following April elections broke a January cease-fire by attacking the towns of Fangak and Dor on Wednesday, said Col. Philip Aguer, the spokesman for the southern army.</p>
<p>Renegade commander George Athor’s troops captured Fangak on Wednesday, and the fighting continued through Thursday until the southern military retook it, Aguer said. No new fighting was reported on Friday.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hPU_wuAA8AEPfm52f4wyViME9x2g?docId=be0db1d5503b46a4884d141a351462ab" type="external">Read more</a></p> | Violence Dampens Southern Sudan's Celebration | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/violence-dampens-southern-sudans-celebration/ | 2011-02-11 | 4 |
<p>OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - The Oklahoma State Department of Health has proposed large budget cuts through layoffs and program cuts.</p>
<p>The proposal would cut the department's budget by about $17.8 million, twice the amount the Legislature demanded, <a href="http://newsok.com/oklahoma-health-department-plan-goes-farther-than-expected/article/5577990" type="external">The Oklahoman reported</a> . The plan would lay off nearly 200 employees and could end grants to child-abuse prevention programs and health centers.</p>
<p>Department officials acknowledged in October that the department was struggling to make payroll.</p>
<p>The Legislature gave the department $30 million to help stabilize the situation. But it also required the department to create a corrective plan and cut its budget by 15 percent, or $8 million, by July 2019.</p>
<p>The proposed layoffs would save the department about $10.1 million beginning in the budget year that starts in July.</p>
<p>The department will decide which programs to continue funding after learning how much money will be available in the upcoming budget year, said Jamie Dukes, spokeswoman for the health department.</p>
<p>The report also proposed reducing restaurant food-safety inspections, having one director oversee certain children's mental health and child-abuse prevention programs, creating a new information technology system to reduce the cost of processing health licenses, stopping the use of two rented office spaces, upgrading department buildings to be more energy efficient and selling unneeded computers.</p>
<p>The report also suggested making some organizational changes to the department, including the creation of a chief medical officer position that would oversee the department's health programs and allow the commissioner to focus on management issues.</p>
<p>The State Auditor's Office, a grand jury and federal officials are investigating the department for alleged overspending and shifting of money.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Oklahoman, <a href="http://www.newsok.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.newsok.com" type="external">http://www.newsok.com</a></p>
<p>OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - The Oklahoma State Department of Health has proposed large budget cuts through layoffs and program cuts.</p>
<p>The proposal would cut the department's budget by about $17.8 million, twice the amount the Legislature demanded, <a href="http://newsok.com/oklahoma-health-department-plan-goes-farther-than-expected/article/5577990" type="external">The Oklahoman reported</a> . The plan would lay off nearly 200 employees and could end grants to child-abuse prevention programs and health centers.</p>
<p>Department officials acknowledged in October that the department was struggling to make payroll.</p>
<p>The Legislature gave the department $30 million to help stabilize the situation. But it also required the department to create a corrective plan and cut its budget by 15 percent, or $8 million, by July 2019.</p>
<p>The proposed layoffs would save the department about $10.1 million beginning in the budget year that starts in July.</p>
<p>The department will decide which programs to continue funding after learning how much money will be available in the upcoming budget year, said Jamie Dukes, spokeswoman for the health department.</p>
<p>The report also proposed reducing restaurant food-safety inspections, having one director oversee certain children's mental health and child-abuse prevention programs, creating a new information technology system to reduce the cost of processing health licenses, stopping the use of two rented office spaces, upgrading department buildings to be more energy efficient and selling unneeded computers.</p>
<p>The report also suggested making some organizational changes to the department, including the creation of a chief medical officer position that would oversee the department's health programs and allow the commissioner to focus on management issues.</p>
<p>The State Auditor's Office, a grand jury and federal officials are investigating the department for alleged overspending and shifting of money.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Oklahoman, <a href="http://www.newsok.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.newsok.com" type="external">http://www.newsok.com</a></p> | Oklahoma health agency proposes hundreds of layoffs | false | https://apnews.com/676f0805ec0240b1bc1f997e395b6d07 | 2018-01-03 | 2 |
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<p>Three out of the four separated bedrooms are considered master rooms, featuring ensuite bathrooms with large walk-in closets and unique showers. Pella French doors open to a large enclosed patio covered in travertine flooring, taking you to a courtyard and an outdoor fireplace. Skylights, ceiling beams, walls adorned in stone and four fireplaces are just a few of the many great features this custom build, near Rio Rancho shops and restaurants, has to offer.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p> | About the cover: February 17, 2017 | false | https://abqjournal.com/952198/about-the-cover-february-17-2017.html | 2 |
|
<p>This is their second attack on the show. Via email from Monica Cole:</p>
<p>TNT’s new summer program, “Claws,” has an extremely graphic plot like none we have ever seen. “Claws” airs on Sunday evenings at 9:00 p.m. You can be assured with a MA – LSV rating, it is not appropriate for television.</p>
<p>Originally, this so called “comedy” was to air on HBO with thirty-minute episodes, but now airs on TNT for one hour on Sunday evenings when children and teens are still awake. This new program goes where no other show has gone.</p>
<p>This dark show can make viewers sick to their stomachs with the disgusting content so feel free to skip the bulleted points and go straight to the take action. If you need more details before taking action, continue reading details below.</p>
<p>This destructive and unsafe program will include content such as: Use of the Lord’s name in vain multiple times, launder drug money, prostitution ring discussed in front of Girl Scout troop, raw s-x that surpasses soft porn, violence with men punching women and women involved in fighting one another, strip club, strippers on pole at funeral in front of priest, n-dity, homos-xual and l-sbian oral s-x, murder, casual s-x – sometimes with multiple partners.</p>
<p>This program consists of so much exposed skin and erotic sexual content that it probably filled half of the one hour program. Take Action: Please use the information we have provided on our website to contact Harry’s and ask that they pull their financial support from “Claws.”&#160; TAKE ACTION NOW! Blessings, Monica Cole, Director, OneMillionMoms.com.</p>
<p />
<p /> | One Million Moms Vs TNT’s Claws | true | http://joemygod.com/2017/06/15/one-million-moms-vs-tnts-claws/ | 2017-06-15 | 4 |
<p>Ninety-three percent of Chicagoans believe summer school should be available to all students in the Chicago Public Schools.</p>
<p>Eighty-four percent believe that CPS should provide before- and after-school learning programs.</p>
<p>Seventy-four percent believe the Chicago Public Schools should offer tuition-based preschool to families whose income disqualifies them for free preschool.</p>
<p>These are among the findings of a telephone survey conducted in mid-October for schools CEO Paul Vallas and the Board of Education. The survey was the fourth in a series that began in April 1999. With an authorization to spend $150,000 on the series, the board has joined a trend among school systems nationwide.</p>
<p>Mike Casserly, executive director of the Council of Great City Schools, says polling is especially on the rise in urban districts, with Minneapolis and Seattle among the most recent additions.</p>
<p>“They usually do it around issues that they are about to take to the voters: school bonds, increases in operating levies, and other new things,” he says. “We’re starting to see it more commonly around just customer support issues. One reason is to get a better handle on what the public expects of its schools, to try to respond to its needs and concerns.”</p>
<p>In the Chicago area alone, Joliet-based McKeon &amp; Associates, which conducted the surveys for Vallas, have sampled public opinion for school districts in Buffalo Grove, Mount Prospect, Joliet and Woodstock.</p>
<p>While market research firms are getting more business from school districts, polling experts urge caution in the interpretation and use of the results. Questions on any survey can contain hints that push respondents toward a particular response. The sequence of questions can have the same affect. And the size and composition of the sample can have an impact.</p>
<p>Further, respondents may not be in a position to know much about the topics being explored or may have nuanced views that cannot be captured in a simple response.</p>
<p>“I think there’s times when people read into answers what they want to read in,” says Andy Plattner, chairman of KSA-Plus Communications, whose clients include school districts in Cleveland, San Jose, Kansas City, the District of Columbia, Baltimore and Pittsburgh. “If you ask people, ‘Should standards be more rigorous?’ you’re going to get 8 in 10 saying ‘yes.'”</p>
<p>Caution is especially warranted in contentious situations, according to Carol Malach, director of the education research division of Harris Interactive, a national polling firm that has worked with well over 200 districts. “If you know it’s going to be a very contentious issue, be sure you have people from all sides of the issue involved in the conversation [about wording],” she advises.</p>
<p>The questions in the four CPS surveys conducted between April 1999 and October 2000 dealt mainly with initiatives of Vallas and the School Board.</p>
<p>“I read [these surveys] as the board wanting to get a fix about how the public would respond to their initiatives,” says James Lewis, director of the Institute of Metropolitan Affairs at Roosevelt University, who reviewed the questions for Catalyst. “If that’s their purpose, it behooves them to get the best information they can.”</p>
<p>However, he adds that the people interviewed are “responding based on their very broad, casual impressions of things they couldn’t possibly know. Because the knowledge isn’t deeply held, people are susceptible to changes of opinion based on news spin and the like.”</p>
<p>Several contradictions in the results underscore Lewis’s observation. Asked about the factors they would consider most in deciding whether a student should be promoted, respondents strongly favored grades (52 percent) over “passing an exam at the end of the school year to determine if a student is prepared for the next grade” (25 percent).Yet in the very next question, 64 percent said that students should not be promoted “if they fail to achieve a minimum score on an examination at the end of the school year.”</p>
<p>In a survey conducted a year ago, a majority said they believed that CPS “is heading in the right direction,” and a plurality of those cited the CPS administration as “most responsible.” However, in an open-ended question posed in October, better teaching and parental involvement far outdistanced CPS administrators as “the main reason” respondents believed test scores have improved in recent years.</p>
<p>One of the strongest areas of consistency involved class size, which has not been prominent in the news. In an open-ended question about what can be done to improve CPS, reducing class size came in first with 19 percent. It also came in first when respondents were presented a list of things CPS “should work hardest to improve on.” Those questions were asked in mid-October. A year ago, “reduce class size” tied with “security for schools” as the area CPS should work hardest on. In the view of several pollsters who reviewed the CPS surveys, the phrasing of the questions, with a few exceptions, was neutral.</p>
<p>One exception noted by Malach was a question, asked in October, about whether parents should attend the first day of school with their children “so the parents or guardian’s [sic] can become acquainted with the school and the school’s administration.” Nearly 70 percent agreed with that statement, but the question is phrased in a way that “makes it very hard for people to say ‘no,'” she notes. “It’s sort of like asking someone, ‘Do you support strong schools?'”</p>
<p>Over all, Vallas believes the results support his vision for CPS. “We learned that there’s a lot of support for tougher standards laid down by the central office,” he says. “We learned that there is very strong support for raising standards for the selection of principals. We learned that there is strong voter support for retention, and strong support for the use of standardized tests.”</p>
<p>Vallas also got a quick thumbs-up for the novel idea of mounting preschool programs for middle- class families and charging them tuition, a plan he announced in September.</p>
<p>In at least one area, survey results prompted a change in plans. Initially, Vallas planned to limit transportation costs in a revamped magnet school program. However, the poll results showed him that taxpayers and parents expect the district to bus students to schools of their choice. “I really slowed down the busing changes,” says Vallas.</p>
<p>Because of the polling, Vallas also is considering a later start to the school year, which this year was the third week in August. In the poll, “the first week after Labor Day” was the winner by far. And he intends to use results from the next survey, which will be of teachers, to hone the district’s teacher recruitment and retention programs.</p>
<p>Critics of Vallas say the polling is, at best, mere public relations and, at worst, a bad way to set policy.</p>
<p>“In general, it’s a part of an emphasis on good PR for the school system and its chief executive office in particular,” says Bernard Lacour, policy director of the research and advocacy group Designs for Change. “It seems a waste, given all the other kinds of needs there are out there.”</p>
<p>“There’s clearly a sort of crass relationship between popularity and policy, as opposed to what’s looking out for children,” says Julie Woestehoff, executive director of Parents United for Responsible Education. “You wouldn’t ask your doctor to treat you based on the poll of what people’s favorite treatments are.”</p>
<p>Told to ‘prove it’</p>
<p>Vallas says he started the surveys to substantiate his claim to the Legislature that the public wanted stricter standards for local school council (LSC) members and some of their key decisions, such as whether to renew a principal’s contract. “The legislature said, ‘Prove it,'” he says.</p>
<p>In the first survey, Chicagoans were asked whether an LSC’s decision to renew a principal’s contract “should be based on specific academic standards … or no set standards.” Overwhelmingly, the public said, “Set standards.”</p>
<p>However, in the face of strong lobbying by LSCs and their supporters, the legislature allowed only for a rejected principal to appeal to an independent arbitrator.</p>
<p>Vallas’ surveys came to public attention by a Sun-Times columnist last year. Mark Brown, another Sun-Times columnist who recently wrote about it, was tipped to the practice by someone who suspected Vallas was doing political polling with the public’s money—the CEO’s name keeps popping up in speculation about the next Democratic candidate for governor. Brown saw no political intrigue.</p>
<p /> | CPS joins national trend in polling the public | false | http://chicagoreporter.com/cps-joins-national-trend-in-polling-public-2/ | 2005-12-29 | 3 |
<p>In just another display of hypocrisy from The Fraudster, aka Donald Trump, The Fraudster is now celebrating about the huge donation he will receive from Israel-supporting Sheldon Adelson, who will reputedly give Trump $100 million for his presidential campaign.</p>
<p>" <a href="https://twitter.com/stranahan" type="external">@stranahan</a>: Sheldon Adelson Pledges $100 Million to Elect Trump President - Breitbart <a href="https://t.co/aRXPHAlCLC" type="external">https://t.co/aRXPHAlCLC</a>"</p>
<p>But what was that Trump said last October when it looked as though Adelson might support Marco Rubio? Oh, this:</p>
<p>Sheldon Adelson is looking to give big dollars to Rubio because he feels he can mold him into his perfect little puppet. I agree!</p>
<p>It should be amusing to see the bloviating blowhard who is Trump try to fold his ample girth into a puppet. On the other hand, Trump has taken so many positions that he is practically a contortionist by this time, so anything’s possible.</p>
<p>But what will he say to his supporters who had targeted Adelson before?</p>
<p>Rubio is OWNED by Zionist Sheldon Adelson.. Trump staying neutral with israel, Palestine <a href="https://t.co/LdYJGlYbK2" type="external">https://t.co/LdYJGlYbK2</a> <a href="https://t.co/RhKCtQs3S3" type="external">pic.twitter.com/RhKCtQs3S3</a></p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/thehill" type="external">@thehill</a> The GOP power brokers are Zionist Jews who are against Trump because he will shut the borders for illegals. Sheldon Adelson, etc.</p>
<p>- <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/trump?src=hash" type="external">#trump</a> ALREADY met with TRUE <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ISRAEL?src=hash" type="external">#ISRAEL</a> leader - ZIONIST Adelson + rejected his Commie $$$$ <a href="https://t.co/84K3VkKq4C" type="external">https://t.co/84K3VkKq4C</a></p>
<p>The Fraudster’s hypocrisy is drawn from a bottomless well filled to the brim with deceit; there’s always more where that came from.</p>
<p>Endorsing Trump in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/sheldon-adelson-i-endorse-donald-trump-for-president/2016/05/12/ea89d7f0-17a0-11e6-aa55-670cabef46e0_story.html" type="external">The Washington Post</a>, Adelson wrote:</p>
<p>In my view, a governor of a state is ideally qualified to be president. A governor is a state’s final decision maker — its chief executive and steward of the public’s money. I felt strongly that someone with that level of CEO experience would be well-trained for the job of president. It turns out that is exactly what we are getting in Trump. He is a candidate with actual CEO experience, shaped and molded by the commitment and risk of his own money rather than the public’s. He is a CEO success story that exemplifies the American spirit of determination, commitment to cause and business stewardship.</p>
<p>The fact that Trump has gone bankrupt <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/what-trump-didnt-say-about-his-four-big-business-bankruptcies/2015/08/07/bc054e64-3d12-11e5-9c2d-ed991d848c48_story.html" type="external">four times</a> and may very likely have consistently <a href="https://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/" type="external">lied about his wealth</a> does not seem to perturb Adelson, and explaining Adelson’s support to his supporters should be no problem for Trump. The supporters will be glad to see Trump take Adelson’s money, (that cuck!) then if Trump is elected, return to bashing Adelson again.</p>
<p>The Fraudster’s hypocrisy is drawn from a bottomless well filled to the brim with deceit; there’s always more where that came from.</p>
<p>H/T <a href="http://therightscoop.com/trump-now-doing-what-he-mocked-marco-rubio-for/" type="external">The Right Scoop</a></p> | Remember That Time Trump Called Sheldon Adelson A Puppetmaster? Now He’s Getting Ready To Take His Cash. | true | https://dailywire.com/news/5755/remember-time-trump-called-sheldon-adelson-hank-berrien | 2016-05-16 | 0 |
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<p>DakhaBrakha.</p>
<p>SANTA FE, N.M. — The Christmas concerts will be going full force soon enough.</p>
<p>Why not take advantage of some outside-the-envelope offerings this coming week for a change of pace?</p>
<p>After all, how many times have you heard Ukrainian folk music translated into younger, more modern world music rhythms?</p>
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<p>That’s what you can expect from DakhaBrakha, but you’ll have to drive up to Taos to hear this eclectic quartet.</p>
<p>Roots and Wires is presenting the group Tuesday at Taos Mesa Brewing, 20 ABC Mesa in El Prado, with the doors opening at 7 p.m.; Mighty Royalty and the Accidental Harpist open the show.</p>
<p>Tickets are $12 in advance and are available at Que Pasa Music, the venue itself, or online at <a href="http://taosmesabrewing.com" type="external">taosmesabrewing.com</a>.</p>
<p>DakhaBrakha (the name means “give/take”) has toured internationally, and incorporates Indian, Arabic, African, Russian and Australian instrumentation in its repertoire.</p>
<p>Blackalicious.</p>
<p>HIP-HOP: These contagious rhythms will be coming from Blackalicious, a Sacramento, Calif., duo made up of Gift of Gab (Tim Parker) and Chief Xcel (Xavier Mosley).</p>
<p>And, unlike some performers in the genre, this group is known for lyrics that have been “spiritual and uplifting, rather than violent or misogynous.”</p>
<p>That’s something to be thankful for when they appear at 8 p.m. Saturday at Skylight, 130 W. San Francisco St., with Daniel Bambaata Marley opening.</p>
<p>Still, this is a 21+ show (unless accompanied by a parent or guardian). Tickets are $19 and available through <a href="http://holdmyticket.com" type="external">holdmyticket.com</a> or the <a href="http://skylightsantafe.com" type="external">skylightsantafe.com</a> website.</p>
<p>GARDEN GLOW: If last year was any example, you can expect some tasty hot chocolate if you stop by the festive “Glow – a Winter Lights Event” in the Santa Fe Botanical Garden at Museum Hill. The show, which opens Thursday at 5 p.m., features Christmas lights twinkling from trees and constructions through the garden.</p>
<p>New this year are three geodesic domes with audio and projected special effects. Santa also will stop by on Friday nights for this event, which runs through Jan. 3 (check <a href="http://www.santafebotanicalgarden.org" type="external">santafebotanicalgarden.org</a> for the actual days it will be open), 5-8 p.m. on weekdays and 5-9 p.m. on Saturdays. Live entertainment and a cash bar will be offered on the red bridge on Saturdays.</p>
<p>You also will be able to see some of the constructions from “Morphing Nature: Site Specific Sculpture from Recovered Plant Materials” that have been created by students at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design and Institute of American Indian Arts.</p>
<p>Admission to “Glow” is $8 or $5 for members and free for children under 12. You can buy tickets through the garden’s website or at the door.</p>
<p /> | Our picks for the week | false | https://abqjournal.com/502600/our-picks-for-the-week-40.html | 2 |
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<p>Sometimes it takes more than fire and brimstone and diplomacy to overthrow evil. Which is where the Bigh Daddy Show comes in. Created by a group of activists who say they've used humor, satire, and animation to promote liberal causes in the Arab world since before the Arab Spring, online cartoon the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Peace.lovers.land/" type="external">Bigh Daddy Show</a> depicts the terror group as a gaggle of slapstick fools unable to do anything quite right. With more that 111,000 likes and 700,000 views, it's a method that may be resonating.</p>
<p>Learn more by watching the video above.</p> | Fighting ISIS with Cartoons & Humor | true | https://thedailybeast.com/fighting-isis-with-cartoons-and-humor | 2018-10-02 | 4 |
<p>Many great and fine Americans have willfully given charity to help those affected by Hurricane Harvey. However, an unholy charity has arisen in the hurricane's wake, as crazed abortion advocates use the tragedy as an opportunity to kill as many unborn children as possible.</p>
<p>Last week, a feminist on social media <a href="" type="internal">began pushing donations</a> for hurricane victims to have abortions, this week an actual clinic is just giving them out for free.</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://www.lifenews.com/2017/09/05/abortion-clinic-offers-free-abortions-to-victims-of-hurricane-harvey/" type="external">LifeNews</a>, the Texas-based abortion chain Whole Woman’s Health has been advertising an abortion giveaway on Facebook since last Friday.</p>
<p>“We’re providing no-cost abortions for patients affected by Hurricane Harvey for the month of September,” the abortion chain wrote. “We want to help. Call us.”</p>
<p>Whole Women's Health vows to cover travel and lodging costs for women to access their Texas clinics. Women be warned that their clinics have <a href="http://www.lifenews.com/2017/03/16/dangerous-abortion-clinic-reopening-in-texas-after-supreme-court-struck-down-pro-life-law/" type="external">failed health inspections</a>.</p>
<p>Former Planned Parenthood employee and pro-lifer Abby Johnson, noted that abortion conglomerate Planned Parenthood did the same thing for refugees stuck in Houston in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.</p>
<p>“So many Louisiana residents were being sheltered in Houston, we thought that ‘free abortions’ would be a fantastic idea,” <a href="https://www.facebook.com/abbyjohnsonprolife/photos/a.125398620803553.21467.114382035238545/1662435130433220/?type=3&amp;theater" type="external">Johnson wrote on Facebook</a>. “I remember thinking that we were really doing something so heroic…doing something to help these women who had lost everything."</p>
<p>“I now realize that we were preying on these families in their most desperate time of need. We didn’t offer to help them find housing, food, clothing, or anything else…just a way to kill their unborn child at ‘no cost.’ Sick,” she continued.</p> | Unholy Charity: Clinic Offering Free Abortions To Hurricane Victims | true | https://dailywire.com/news/20683/unholy-charity-clinic-offering-free-abortions-paul-bois | 2017-09-06 | 0 |
<p>Your voice has been heard!&#160;&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Last week</a>, we sent the National Forest Service our letter defending the Jesus war memorial statue on a Montana mountain - with more than 70,000 names - concerned individuals who stood with us in urging the Forest Service to renew a long-standing lease that would permit this historic memorial to stay atop Big Mountain, where it was placed nearly 60 years ago.&#160;The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), an atheist, anti-Christian group, is <a href="http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&amp;pageId=373873" type="external">opposing</a> the lease renewal, calling this display "a ruse and a sham."</p>
<p>We sent our <a href="http://c0391070.cdn2.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/pdf/letter-forest-service-support-montana-jesus-statue-war-memorial.pdf" type="external">legal analysis</a> explaining why this memorial should remain in place - a constitutionally-permissible expression to mark the sacrifice and honor World War II veterans who gave their lives defending liberty.&#160;We included the names of individuals who signed on to our letter. The names of 70,148 concerned individuals were printed and sent along with our letter.&#160;I knew it would make an impact. But I had no idea how much. A Forest Service spokesperson says a little more than <a href="http://www.dailyinterlake.com/news/local_montana/article_5090632e-2071-11e1-832a-0019bb2963f4.html" type="external">90,000 comments have been submitted</a> about the war memorial. Our submission - that included the names of 70,148 concerned individuals - represents nearly 80% of the total comments received. That's right, without a doubt - your voice has been heard.&#160;Another 10,000 comments backing the statue and the lease renewal came from Montana Rep. Denny Rehberg's congressional website.&#160;The deadline for public comment is tomorrow. The <a href="http://www.dailyinterlake.com/news/local_montana/article_5090632e-2071-11e1-832a-0019bb2963f4.html" type="external">Forest Service</a> says it will "review" the comments and prepare "a decision memo" on whether to renew the lease permitting the statue to remain in place. The federal agency says that's expected to occur in late January or early February.&#160;We're hopeful the Forest Service rejects the flawed logic of the FFRF and takes the appropriate action by renewing the lease - clearing the way for the Jesus war memorial statue to remain in place.&#160;Thanks to all of you who have stood with us on this issue. We will keep you posted.</p> | UPDATE: ACLJ Support for MT Jesus Statue Dominates Comments to Feds | true | http://aclj.org/american-heritage/update-aclj-support-for-mt-jesus-statue-dominates-comments-to-feds | 2011-12-07 | 0 |
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<p>I won't keep you in suspense -- Warren Buffett-led Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A) (NYSE: BRK-B) owns 400,000,000 shares of Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO), worth a total of $16.7 billion as of this writing. This translates to a 9.4% stake in the beverage giant, and makes Coca-Cola Buffett's third-largest stock investment.</p>
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<p>The investment has served Buffett and Berkshire's shareholders well. Of the Coca-Cola stake's market value, more than $15.4 billion represents profit. The $560 million in dividends it will receive this year from Coca-Cola represents nearly half of what Buffett paid for the shares in the first place. Here's why Buffett likes Coca-Cola so much, and whether you should consider joining him in the investment.</p>
<p>Image Source: The Motley Fool.</p>
<p>Coca-Cola is a longtime favorite stock of the Oracle of Omaha. Not only is Coca-Cola one of only two major stock positions Berkshire has held for more than 25 years (the other is Wells Fargo), but it's consistently been among Berkshire's top holdings. In fact, <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/02/15/heres-what-warren-buffetts-portfolio-looked-like-2.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">25 years ago Opens a New Window.</a>, Coca-Cola was the largest stock holding in Berkshire's portfolio.</p>
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<p>It's easy to understand why Buffett likes Coca-Cola so much. For starters, Buffett is a loyal customer and by his own estimates, consumes about one-fourth of his calories from Coca-Cola every day.</p>
<p>From an investment perspective, the company has one of the world's strongest brand names, which allows it to charge more than rivals for essentially the same product, and to sell even more of its products all over the world. In fact, Coca-Cola has 20 different brands that generate more than a billion dollars in sales per year -- each. Buffett's feelings on Coca-Cola's brand power are summed up in one of my favorite Buffett quotes of all time:</p>
<p>"If you gave me $100 billion and said to take away the soft drink leadership of Coca-Cola in the world, I'd give it back to you and say it can't be done."</p>
<p>Efficiency is another factor Buffett likely loves about Coca-Cola. The company has a massive and efficient distribution network. And, the company has an excellent balance sheet and ample cash flow to grow and diversify its product lines as management sees fit.</p>
<p>Finally, Buffett likes Coca-Cola for one of the same reasons he thinks investors should like Berkshire Hathaway -- the company is so well-organized and efficient that it doesn't matter who is running the business, the company should do just fine over the long run. In fact, Buffett once remarked that a "ham sandwich" could run Coca-Cola.</p>
<p>It's never a good idea to invest in a stock simply because a billionaire owns it -- even if that billionaire is Warren Buffett. Even the best investors are wrong from time to time, and Buffett is certainly no exception.</p>
<p>Personally, I'm a big fan of Coca-Cola as a company. Management has done a fantastic job of growing and diversifying its products in recent years to adapt to changing consumer tastes. In fact, nearly one-third of Coca-Cola's revenue comes from non-carbonated drinks, and it is now the number one still beverage company in the world. Adaptability is one of my favorite traits in a company, especially one as big and successful as Coca-Cola.</p>
<p>Having said that, my personal preference is to invest in Coca-Cola indirectly by owning shares of Berkshire Hathaway, which is a cornerstone of my portfolio. Not only does this give me a piece of Berkshire's Coca-Cola stake, but I get the rest of the company's stock portfolio as well as all of its subsidiary businesses. <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/03/23/if-i-could-only-buy-1-stock-this-would-be-it.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">I've said before Opens a New Window.</a> that Berkshire Hathaway is like buying a well-diversified portfolio in just one stock. And about 4% of that "portfolio" is Coca-Cola.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Berkshire HathawayWhen 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=d18a1fae-cabf-453d-827f-854a51a67c94&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 Berkshire Hathaway wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.</p>
<p><a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-dyn%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=d18a1fae-cabf-453d-827f-854a51a67c94&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Click here Opens a New Window.</a> to learn about these picks!</p>
<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of February 6, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/KWMatt82/info.aspx" type="external">Matthew Frankel Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Berkshire Hathaway (B shares). The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Berkshire Hathaway (B shares). The Motley Fool recommends Coca-Cola. 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> | What Percentage of Coca-Cola Does Warren Buffett Own? | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/03/10/what-percentage-coca-cola-does-warren-buffett-own.html | 2017-03-17 | 0 |
<p>My husband is a musician but he rarely sends me music to listen to. He is well versed and discerning of the catalog of rock/indie/pop/techno/industrial music in the world. I, on the other hand, never bought CDs as a teenager and mainly listened to whatever came on the radio.</p>
<p>Despite my ignorance, he prefers to let me explore for myself rather than guide me to what I “should” be listening to. So I was surprised and pleased when he sent me a link to a 2004 Sufjan Stevens song titled “All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands.” I read the lyrics first to see if I could discern what prompted this musical gift, then as the light plucking of the banjo strings began, I knew he had found the perfect song to conclude this year’s Easter service — the perfect response to the Resurrection.</p>
<p />
<p>In the first verse the singer ponders a decision to make a deeper commitment and leave doubt behind. He asks, “Will I be a part of what you’ve made?” Not just, “Will I decide to accept what you’ve said and mentally ascent to belief in your tenants?” Rather, he questions, “Will I be invited to the sound?”</p>
<p>In a chorus of “da,da,das,”&#160; the second verse begins and the trees and hills sing. For the first time the singer notices this chorus of the natural world making a band, a parade, worshipping God with their very being. They have no doubt, no questioning, no time when worship starts or ends. It is why they were created. Their very existence is a testimony to God’s glory. There is no ambivalence. Simply to exist is to worship God.</p>
<p>And the singer is wooed by this way of being, by the desire to let go of his own doubt and fear and surrender every part to God. The joy of the simple chorus singing behind him builds and then, after the words of the song are over, the singer’s voice faintly joins the chorus. He “joins the sound.”</p>
<p>I think this simple song is deceptively brilliant. (Sufjan Stevens is brilliant, by the way. He is both a Christian and a true artist and I highly recommend him.) Hidden in the childlike melody and simple lyrics is a profound call to Christians to worship God with our whole being. The fact that we designate only a particular time on Sunday (or even worse, a particular 15 minutes within that time) as “worship” indicates that we are not always aware of what that word means or what God requires of us.</p>
<p>Worshipping God is giving adoration, reverence, devotion. The Scriptures indicate that rocks and trees do this by existing and that we are commanded to do it, too — not just once a week when we sing but with every breath we take.</p>
<p>We Christians believe that God is worthy of worship, but I wonder how many of us are secretly uncomfortable with the idea that it is our sole reason for existence. I often find myself preferring to believe that God exists in order to help me with my life, to make it easier or make me feel better. God exists because I need someone to call on in times of need. Yet if this is the case, the atheists are right. That kind of faith is a fantasy of sorts. In that faith, I am fashioning a God to fill my needs rather than worshipping a God who fashioned me.</p>
<p>Instead, this Lent, I am thinking of worship as “joining the sound.” I am going to add my voice to the chorus of song already sung by every form of life that is in perfect harmony with God. Like the trees and rocks and birds who worship God simply by being — just as intended — I am surrendering my being to worship of God. I’m going to try to imagine what my life might be like if I was fully as God intended and embrace an idea of whole-life worship, learning to see my everyday common world through the lens of the transcendent, submitting myself to making every act an act of worship.</p>
<p>And I heard from the trees a great parade. And I heard from the hills a band was made. And will I be invited to the sound? And will I be a part of what you've made? And I am throwing all my thoughts away. And I'm destroying every bet I've made. And I am joining all my thoughts to you. And I'm preparing every part for you. From “All the Trees of the Field Will Clap their Hands,” Sufjan Stevens, 2004.</p>
<p>Lisa Cole Smith ( <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>) is pastor of Convergence: A Creative Community of Faith in Alexandria, Va.</p> | OPINION: Invited to the sound | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/opinioninvitedtothesound/ | 3 |
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<p>WASHINGTON (RNS) — As evangelicals and other social conservatives gather here June 3-4 to take the measure of a number of Republican presidential candidates, Newt Gingrich will be conspicuously absent.</p>
<p>Gingrich’s campaign cited scheduling conflicts in not speaking to Ralph Reed’s Faith &amp; Freedom Coalition, but his absence will nonetheless prompt questions about his ability to woo politically minded religious voters, and leave some voters’ concerns unanswered.</p>
<p>To be sure, the former House speaker has made the rounds in trying to line up early support, especially in Iowa, where religious conservatives are a major force in the state’s first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses.</p>
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<p>He’s paid a courtesy call to San Antonio megachurch pastor John Hagee and also stopped by the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University and a gathering of Hispanic evangelicals, always trying to reaffirm his commitment to God and country.</p>
<p>Even so, some political observers expect his marital past — three marriages, two divorces and an admitted affair with the woman who became his current wife — to be too much for some conservative voters.</p>
<p>“There are some who will look over that because Newt is a political genius,” said Tamara Scott, the Iowa director of Concerned Women for America. “There are others who have concerns that this man couldn’t keep his marriage together and how can you run the White House and the country if you can’t keep your own home in order? I’ve heard all of it.”</p>
<p>But Gingrich, who has talked openly about his past failings, has a compelling narrative for religiously minded voters who appreciate a good conversion story.</p>
<p>“People are not, by and large, going to be sidetracked by somebody’s past behavior,” said Steve Scheffler, president of the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition. “We’re all sinners and people make mistakes.”</p>
<p>Indeed, Iowa pastor Jeff Mullen, who has hosted Gingrich at his church in Waukee, cited ancient Israel’s King David, who was a murderer and an adulterer and yet is described in the Bible as a “man after God’s own heart.”</p>
<p>“I personally don’t think [Gingrich] needs to ask my forgiveness for anything,” Mullen said.</p>
<p>Gingrich’s nascent campaign is already off to a rocky start. After savaging the House GOP plan to overhaul Medicare, and racking up a bill at Tiffany &amp; Co. of up to $500,000, Gingrich’s “Positive Intensity Score” now trails all other GOP candidates, according to Gallup’s most recent analysis.</p>
<p>His political baggage isn’t new: a March poll by the Pew Research Center found Gingrich was the first choice of 11 percent of white evangelicals, lower than Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney and significantly lower than Mike Huckabee, who has since withdrawn from the race.</p>
<p>As he attempts to both launch and repair his bid for the White House, Gingrich has held get-to-know-you meetings with evangelical activists. California pastor Jim Garlow, who became chairman of Gingrich’s “Renewing American Leadership” nonprofit, left his session with a better impression.</p>
<p>“I found him to be very transparent,” said Garlow, pastor of Skyline Wesleyan Church in La Mesa, Calif., of his discussion of Gingrich’s “moral and marital failures” in a private meeting. “There was no defensiveness at all.”</p>
<p>But some evangelical leaders say Gingrich still has work to do.</p>
<p>“Men are much more willing to cut him some slack than women are,” said Southern Baptist ethicist Richard Land, who said he’s asked hundreds of Southern Baptists what they think of Gingrich and his past. “I find that women don’t trust him and it doesn’t help that he’s married to the ‘other woman.’ “</p>
<p>Gingrich, who was a Southern Baptist until he joined the Roman Catholic Church in 2009, is married to his third wife, Callista, a lifelong Catholic who sings in the choir at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.</p>
<p>Land, for one, thinks Gingrich needs to give an honest address about his past failings, similar to John F. Kennedy’s Houston speech about his Catholic beliefs, or Mitt Romney’s 2007 defense of his Mormonism.</p>
<p>“Don't try to explain it,” Land said he’s advised Gingrich, who he said would think about it. “Just confess it and ask for forgiveness.”</p>
<p>Reed, who will host this weekend’s Washington gathering as he attempts to revive his old Christian Coalition kingmaker role, predicted evangelicals will consider Gingrich as long as he speaks about his past mistakes and his current faith in God.</p>
<p>“I think there’s a misconception that evangelicals engage in identity voting,” Reed said, citing as evidence divorced Ronald Reagan’s win over evangelical Jimmy Carter.</p>
<p>Gingrich spokesman Rick Tyler said the candidate has not shied away from the topic, discussing it “courageously and honestly” whenever asked.</p>
<p>In a March interview on Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network, Gingrich spoke frankly about his marital past.</p>
<p>“I was doing things that were wrong and yet I was doing them. I found that I felt compelled to seek God’s forgiveness. … I do believe in a forgiving God.”</p>
<p>During the 2008 campaign season, he confessed on James Dobson’s “Focus on the Family” program that he was having an affair while calling for President Bill Clinton’s impeachment in the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal.</p>
<p>Even so, Tyler acknowledged that some evangelicals may not be able to consider Gingrich.</p>
<p>“Newt has made peace with God over his failings and people can determine for themselves if it’s a disqualifier or not,” Tyler said. “The people that I’m talking to are more concerned about finding someone who could beat Obama because he is so antithetical to their values, as opposed to picking someone who is perfect.”</p> | Gingrich and evangelical voters | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/gingrichandevangelicalvoters/ | 3 |
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<p>An influential member of the Federal Reserve on Thursday floated a proposal in which top executives at big U.S. banks would receive deferred payment in debt rather than stock.</p>
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<p>New York Federal Reserve President William Dudley said in a speech that paying banking executives in debt rather than equity would likely “affect management’s risk tolerance.”</p>
<p>Dudley said changing how executives are paid in deferred compensation is a tool that could be used to create incentives more in line with the Fed’s goal of preventing banks from becoming “too big to fail.”</p>
<p>Specifically, top banking executives would be more inclined to safeguard the quality of their bonds and less likely to deeply leverage their banks’ investments with debt -- like many of them did a decade ago -- if a significant portion of their compensation was being paid with that debt.</p>
<p>“If most of the deferred compensation were in the form of debt rather than equity, I suspect this would also affect management’s risk tolerance and the appetite to cut dividend payments, reduce share repurchases or raise more capital more promptly when the firm began to become stressed,” Dudley said in a speech at the Global Economic Policy Forum.</p>
<p>Dudley’s speech was titled “Ending Too Big To Fail.”</p>
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<p>The New York Fed has oversight over many of the big Wall Street banks with headquarters in New York.</p>
<p>It’s uncertain whether Dudley’s proposal has been discussed by a broader group of Fed policy makers. But the fact that Dudley floated the idea in a public speech makes it likely that Dudley’s not the only Fed member who’s thinking about it.</p>
<p>In other comments, Dudley said he agrees with criticism that the biggest U.S. banks have a funding advantage over smaller banks because lenders believe the bigger banks pose less risk since they are more likely to be bailed out by the government if another financial crisis emerges.</p> | Fed's Dudley: Pay Top Bankers With Debt | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2013/11/07/fed-dudley-pay-top-bankers-with-debt.html | 2016-03-05 | 0 |
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<p>SANTA FE, N.M. - A proposal to fund detox and substance abuse treatment centers for the homeless with money from the state's liquor excise tax is scheduled to go before the state Senate Corporations and Transportation Committee on Monday.</p>
<p>The proposal from Sen. George Munoz, a Gallup Democrat, could appropriate about $40,000 every month to McKinley County if it passes. The allocations for substance abuse services for the homeless would begin in July.</p>
<p>Gallup, which is part of McKinley County, has seen a high rate of hypothermia deaths linked to alcohol each year, and the city has struggled to keep open a detox center during the coldest month of the year to hold those on the streets deemed intoxicated.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Gallup senator's detox center proposal goes before committee | false | https://abqjournal.com/720153/gallup-senators-detox-center-proposal-goes-before-committee.html | 2 |
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<p>Home-price growth in China decelerated in September from a year earlier, deepening the gradual slowdown in the property market.</p>
<p>The average price of new homes in 70 cities rose 0.2% in September from August, excluding government-subsidized housing, according to calculations from The Wall Street Journal based on data released Monday by the National Bureau of Statistics. That compared with a 0.2% on-month gain in August.</p>
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<p>Compared with the same period a year earlier, average new home prices rose 6.5% in September after a 8.2% increase in August.</p>
<p>Tighter mortgage lending rules and home-buying controls in large- and mid-sized cities dampened home-price growth.</p>
<p>The month-over-month rise in prices continued to slow in second- and third-tier cities, according to a National Bureau of Statistics statement posted on the government website.</p>
<p>Home prices rose in smaller cities in September from the month before, with prices in Anqing up 0.9%, Changchun up 0.8%, and Harbin up 0.8%.</p>
<p>Growth continued to remain stagnant in China's biggest cities. Home prices were flat in Shenzhen when compared with August. They fell 0.1% in Shanghai, 0.2% in Beijing and 0.5% in Guangzhou over the same period.</p>
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<p>New home prices rose in 44 of 70 cities in September from a month earlier, compared with 46 cities in August. Prices of new homes increased in 67 of 70 cities in September from a year earlier, compared with 68 in August.</p>
<p>-- Write to Dominique Fong at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>October 22, 2017 22:18 ET (02:18 GMT)</p> | Chinese Home-Price Growth Continues to Decelerate in September | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/10/22/chinese-home-price-growth-continues-to-decelerate-in-september.html | 2017-10-22 | 0 |
<p>For two years I have served at the University of Texas at Austin on the faculty committee on “academic freedom and responsibility,” a pairing of concepts that is common in higher education. While there is a fairly broad consensus on what “freedom” means, competing conceptions of “responsibility” lead to two very different ideas about the appropriate role for professors in public life.</p>
<p>On one side is the conventional (which tends to be cowardly), and on the other is the principled (which tends to be progressive). Norman Finkelstein, the controversial DePaul University political scientist, is in trouble because he not only believes in, but puts into practice, this principled interpretation. The conventional view is that professors should be free to investigate any question and go in any direction the truth, as they see it, takes them. But in speaking and writing publicly about their conclusions, faculty should be responsible — which in practice usually means not upsetting people with real power. Faculty who pursue esoteric, self-indulgent, and/or irrelevant research generally will not be bothered (because no one really cares what they are doing), nor will those whose conclusions about relevant subjects are in line with views of the powerful (because their work helps reinforce the structures of power).</p>
<p>The principled view is that faculty members — who have an extraordinarily privileged position in society, being paid to learn and convey that learning to others, with considerable autonomy that is rare in this corporate-capitalist economy, at a more-than-livable wage — have a responsibility to pursue research addressing relevant questions that are meaningful in the lives of real people, especially the most vulnerable struggling for justice. That kind of research is likely to lead to trouble (because it challenges the prerogatives of the powerful to rule as they please).</p>
<p>In other words, academics pursuing their work in responsible fashion (in the principled sense) are the most likely to be labeled irresponsible (in the conventional sense).</p>
<p>Such is Finkelstein’s fate.</p>
<p>The controversy over Finkelstein’s tenure case at DePaul puts on public display the clash of those conflicting definitions of responsibility. He is an accomplished scholar (many who disagree with his Finkelstein’s conclusions acknowledge the quality of his research) and a superb teacher (even his detractors acknowledge his classroom skills). The political science department voted 9-3 and the college committee 5-0 in favor of tenure. But the College of Liberal Arts dean then wrote a letter undermining those endorsements, which suggests that the strong support for Finkelstein among his peers may be ignored by the university’s top administrators, who are expected to decide in June.</p>
<p>By the promotion standards of universities such as DePaul, Finkelstein clearly deserves the job security that comes with tenure. But we all have a stake in his fate — if we want universities to be a place where critical thinking is encouraged.</p>
<p>Finkelstein has been a provocative scholar since graduate school, when he dared to critique Joan Peters’ 1984 book From Time Immemorial, a fraudulent attempt to discredit Palestinian claims to their land occupied by Israel. Displaying considerable courage in the face of those happy to use Peters’ book to justify undermining the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people, Finkelstein challenged the bogus factual claims of the book and embarrassed those in the political and academic establishment who had praised the book.</p>
<p>&gt;From there, Finkelstein has pursued research not only about the Israel/Palestine conflict but the Holocaust and the politics of reparations. His recent books and public comments have only increased the numbers who would like to silence him and the intensity of those campaigns. Finkelstein’s critique of the work of Alan Dershowitz has upped the ante; the media-savvy Harvard law professor has made it a point to torpedo Finkelstein’s career.</p>
<p>I have never met Finkelstein, though I did once interview him over the phone for a radio program I produced about Middle East issues. I have listened to, or read transcripts of, interviews with him, and I find him contentious but consistently insightful. I have read his well-researched and well-reasoned books on the Middle East and found them helpful in my work. I’ve concluded that Finkelstein is (1) probably not temperamentally suited for the role of a facilitator or mediator, and (2) unquestionably a first-rate intellectual doing important work to bring to light sometimes harsh truths about the way power is exercised in this world.</p>
<p>In short, Finkelstein is using his academic freedom responsibly.</p>
<p>Yes, he is polemical in public, sometimes harsh toward opponents, maybe even a bit cantankerous at times, which leaves me wishing Finkelstein were a colleague at my university. If I were a student at DePaul, I would sign up for any class he was teaching. We could use more like him in academic life.</p>
<p>When personnel decisions at DePaul are made next month, if Finkelstein’s name is not on the list of those granted tenure it will be no doubt a difficult day for him and a tragic one for anyone who cares about free and responsible intellectual inquiry.</p>
<p>In the United States there are fewer and fewer spaces where truth-telling is possible. Electoral politics has become a poll-driven, sound-bite enterprise. Mass media specialize in the superficial and shallow. Universities, though dominated by corporate money and the corporate mentality, still provide one of the few remaining spaces for open and honest engagement. Protecting that space is important not only for those of us in the privileged position of faculty, but for the society more generally.</p>
<p>If Norman Finkelstein is denied tenure by DePaul, it won’t be because he was irresponsible but because he took his responsibility too seriously. If he is denied tenure, the loss will be not only Finkelstein’s and DePaul’s but also the larger project of real academic freedom and responsibility.</p>
<p>ROBERT JENSEN is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and a member of the board of the <a href="http://thirdcoastactivist.org/" type="external">Third Coast Activist Resource Center</a>. He is the author of <a href="" type="internal">The Heart of Whiteness: Race, Racism, and White Privilege</a> and <a href="" type="internal">Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity</a>. He can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | What the Finkelstein Tenure Fight Tells Us About the State of Academia | true | https://counterpunch.org/2007/05/25/what-the-finkelstein-tenure-fight-tells-us-about-the-state-of-academia/ | 2007-05-25 | 4 |
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<p>LAS VEGAS, Nev. — Basketball beauty, Steve Alford has said time and again this season as his team has struggled through poor-shooting games, is in the eye of the beholder.</p>
<p>Wednesday night, the Mountain West Conference coach of the year said he couldn’t think of anything prettier than a final scoreboard that read New Mexico 59, Wyoming 46 in the Mountain West tournament quarterfinals.</p>
<p>New Mexico’s Cameron Bairstow (41) shoots over Larry Nance Jr., during the Lobos’ 59-46 Mountain West Conference tournament victory on Wednesday in Las Vegas, Nev. The win advanced the top-seeded Lobos into Friday’s semifinal round. (isaac brekken/the associated press)</p>
<p>“In March, when you win by 13 points, to me it’s pretty,” Alford said. “We may not have shot the ball that well, but we’ve had a lot of games this year where we haven’t shot the ball well. The key and identity to this basketball team — I think things change from year to year — but our identity has always been on the defensive end.”</p>
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<p>The No. 15 Lobos (27-5) got 15 points from Tony Snell, 14 from forward Cameron Bairstow and never trailed Wednesday. But they also shot just 40.5 percent in the game (17-of-42 from the field) and had one stretch of 12 minutes, 1 second without making a basket. (They did hit six free throws in that stretch.)</p>
<p>The offense wasn’t pretty, but when you defend like the Lobos did on Wednesday night, it doesn’t have to be.</p>
<p>UNM held the Cowboys (18-13) to 32 percent shooting (16 of 50) and closed out the game on an 11-4 scoring run after Wyoming’s Josh Adams hit a basket to cut the UNM lead to 48-42 with 7:45 left in the second half.</p>
<p>Cowboys senior star Leonard Washington, a third team All-Mountain West selection, fouled out with just 6 points on 3-of-7 shooting in 23 minutes. In three games against the Lobos this season, Washington averaged just 5.7 points and 5.3 rebounds per game, down from his overall season averages of 13.2 points and 8.6 rebounds.</p>
<p>“We did a great job of getting him in foul trouble,” Bairstow said. “I think that really affected him.”</p>
<p>Wyoming got 14 points apiece from forward Larry Nance Jr. and guard Derrious Gilmore.</p>
<p>Wyoming head coach Larry Shyatt, the former UNM assistant coach from the 1980s, said he didn’t want to say what he was really thinking about a free throw disparity ithat saw his Cowboys take 16 fewer attempts from the charity stripe (13) than did the Lobos (29).</p>
<p>After saying how proud he was of his team playing hurt, he added, “The other things I can’t say because my wife would kill me and the commissioner (Mountain West Commissioner Craig Thompson) would be pissed, too.”</p>
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<p>When asked by the Journal if the free throw discrepancy was the byproduct of UNM playing more of an attacking style of offense while his Cowboys slowed the game down, often running a deliberate weave offense five feet beyond the three-point arc before settling for shots late in the shot clock, Shyatt paused before responding.</p>
<p>“I thought they created a lot by attacking,” he said, but would not address whether Wyoming’s offensive game plan was conducive to drawing fouls.</p>
<p>UNM closed the first half with as good a closing two minutes of defense as the Lobos have had all season.</p>
<p>Chad Adams blocked a Derek Cooke Jr. dunk attempt out of bounds with 2:05 remaining in the half. Two possessions later, Bairstow blocked a Josh Adams jumper out of bounds with 27.4 seconds remaining. After the ensuing Wyoming inbounds, Kendall Williams blocked a Derrious Gilmore jumper with 20 seconds left in the half.</p>
<p>UNM led 34-24 at halftime and Snell had scored 11 of his game-high 15 in the first 20 minutes.</p>
<p>An estimated 5,000 UNM fans in attendance stayed loud throughout the game — something Shyatt wasn’t pleased with.</p>
<p>“I will tell you this, I felt like I was in the Pit, and I was really disappointed,” Shyatt said.</p>
<p>Alford said he was as happy as ever with the fan base.</p>
<p>“I’ve said it so many times,” Alford said. “It’s a blessing and honor to be the head coach of New Mexico. There’s a lot of reasons for that. The top of that list has always been our fan base.”</p>
<p>With the UNM win, the Lobos advance to Friday night’s semifinal.</p>
<p>Wyoming, which was 14-0 in non-conference games but went just 5-13 against Mountain West teams this season, is hopeful for a postseason invitation to one of the secondary postseason events starting next week.</p>
<p>LOBOS LINKS: <a href="" type="internal">Roster</a> | <a href="" type="internal">Schedule/Results</a> | <a href="" type="internal">Geoff Grammer’s blog</a></p>
<p>— This article appeared on page D1 of the Albuquerque Journal</p> | Lobos drop Wyoming | false | https://abqjournal.com/239136/lobos-drop-wyoming-2.html | 2 |
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<p>One congressional official identified the pilot as Doug Hughes, a Florida Postal Service worker who took responsibility for the stunt on a website where he said he was delivering letters to all 535 members of Congress to draw attention to campaign finance corruption. Public records showed that Hughes is 61 and lives in Ruskin, Florida.</p>
<p>"As I have informed the authorities, I have no violent inclinations or intent," Hughes wrote on his website, thedemocracyclub.org. "An ultralight aircraft poses no major physical threat - it may present a political threat to graft. I hope so. There's no need to worry - I'm just delivering the mail."</p>
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<p>The Senate aide said Capitol Police knew of the plan shortly before Hughes took off, and said he had previously been interviewed by the U.S. Secret Service. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of the investigation. Capitol Police declined to confirm the man's identity.</p>
<p>Capitol Police identified the open-air aircraft, which sported the U.S. Postal Service logo and landed about half a city block from the Capitol building, as a "gyrocopter with a single occupant." About two hours after the device had landed, police announced that a bomb squad had cleared it and nothing hazardous had been found. The authorities then moved it off the Capitol lawn to a secure location.</p>
<p>Hughes flew to Washington from the vicinity of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, which took about an hour, said Ben Montgomery, a reporter with the Tampa Bay Times. Montgomery said Hughes discussed his plan in advance with the newspaper, had meticulously plotted his flight and considered himself on a mission that was "sort of a mix of P.T. Barnum and Paul Revere."</p>
<p>House Homeland Security panel Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said the pilot landed on his own, but authorities were prepared to shoot him down if he had made it much closer to the Capitol. "Had it gotten any closer to the speaker's balcony they have long guns to take it down, but it didn't. It landed right in front," McCaul said.</p>
<p>The Federal Aviation Administration said the pilot had not been in contact with air traffic controllers and the FAA didn't authorize him to enter restricted airspace.</p>
<p>Airspace security rules that cover the Capitol and the District of Columbia prohibit private aircraft flights without prior coordination and permission. Violators can face civil and criminal penalties.</p>
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<p>The White House said President Barack Obama had been briefed on the situation.</p>
<p>Witnesses said the craft approached the Capitol from the west, flying low over the National Mall and the Capitol reflecting pool across the street from the building. It barely cleared a row of trees and a statue of Gen. Ulysses Grant.</p>
<p>John Jewell, 72, a tourist from Statesville, North Carolina, said the craft landed hard and bounced. An officer was already there with a gun drawn. "He didn't get out until police officers told him to get out. He had his hands up" and was quickly led away by the police, Jewell said. "They snatched him pretty fast."</p>
<p>Elizabeth Bevins, a tourist from Atlanta, said she was standing across the street from the Capitol when the little gyrocopter flew in around 20 or 30 feet high, and it "just sort of plopped down on the lawn."</p>
<p>Police with rifles yelled at the pilot not to move and told bystanders to run with their heads down, said Nora Neus, 21, a junior at the University of Virginia who was in town for a job interview. "I thought it was a joke at first. My next thought was this is something really bad," she said.</p>
<p>Amid the initial commotion, the small craft presented a strange sight sitting on the green lawn of the Capitol, its rotors slowly spinning.</p>
<p>The gyrocopter might qualify as what the Federal Aviation Administration calls an "ultralight" aircraft. These aircraft weigh under 254 pounds empty, have a fuel capacity of 5 gallons or less and aren't capable of flying faster than 55 knots. The FAA doesn't certify the safety of these aircraft and their pilots are not required to have a license.</p>
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<p>Associated Press writers David Espo, Joan Lowy, Andrew Taylor and Erica Werner contributed to this report.</p> | Small aircraft lands on Capitol lawn; pilot in custody | false | https://abqjournal.com/569945/small-aircraft-lands-on-capitol-lawn-pilot-in-custody.html | 2015-04-15 | 2 |
<p>According to the latest economic <a href="http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/story/2440527.html" type="external">forecast</a>, California has exited the worst of the Great Recession, but faces another two years of a long, slow, and painful recovery. &#160;Jeff Michael, of the University of Pacific, has officially declared the recession to be over, based on certain economic metrics, but stated, "It's going to feel like a recession for awhile longer." &#160;LA economist, Chris Thornberg added, "In the long run, recovery in California is going to be solid..In the short run, it's going to be weak."</p>
<p>While job losses appear to have bottomed out, home prices appear to have ended their skid, and the manufacturing base appears to have rebounded a bit, high unemployment, an extremely weak residential housing market, a continuing crisis in commercial real estate, and $20 billion budget deficits will likely plague the golden state for another two years. &#160;Some economists are even warning of a "double dip" recession, similar to that of the second, major downturn during the Great Depression in 1937.</p>
<p>It's far too early to assess whether or not California, or the United States for that matter, is entering a genuine recovery. &#160;Brief turnarounds and powerful bear market rallies occurred during the Great Depression and the early 1980s recession, only to falter months or years later. 2010 is a make or break year for the state, national, and global economy. &#160;As massive government stimulus programs run their course by mid-year, a fragile economy will face its most daunting challenge yet. &#160;</p> | false | https://ivn.us/2010/01/06/long-road-toward-recovery/ | 2010-01-06 | 2 |
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<p>Russia has announced it will spend half a billion dollars upgrading its military presence — reinforcing bases, strengthening borders — in Abkhazia, the breakaway region of Georgia that, along with South Ossetia, was a focal point in last year’s war between the two countries.</p>
<p>The BBC:</p>
<p>Russia is to spend almost $500m (£300m) next year reinforcing its military bases in Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia, the prime minister says.</p>
<p>Vladimir Putin’s announcement came as he arrived in Abkhazia for talks.</p>
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<p>He said Russia was committed to defending and financing the small strip of land in Georgia’s north-west corner.</p>
<p>Moscow officially recognised the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia following the war a year ago between Russia and Georgia.</p>
<p><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8196974.stm" type="external">Read more</a></p> | Russia to Strengthen Presence In Abkhazia | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/russia-to-strengthen-presence-in-abkhazia/ | 2009-08-12 | 4 |
<p>BERLIN, Germany —&#160;The Berlin Wall might be long gone, but Germany is still a divided nation — at least between the sheets.</p>
<p>In the communist era, East Germans would famously strip naked on beaches and in public parks with anti-bourgeois gusto. Today, their penchant for bodily exposure has crept into the bedroom and is available for the world to access, stream and share at the click of a button.</p>
<p>According to a survey by one of Germany's biggest market research institutes, TNS Emnid, amateur internet porn is the provocative new frontier between the eastern and western sides of the country.</p>
<p>Commissioned by amateur porn site, mydirtyhobby.de — which boasts a database of 356,000 homespun porn videos and 3.7 million explicit photos — the survey found that 14 percent of East Germans film their own sex tapes.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, in the West, modesty reigns. Not a single Bavarian respondent owned up to filming a sex tape, while just 1 percent from the über-conservative Baden-Wurttemberg region in Germany's southwest confessed to taping themselves in flagrante delicto, the survey found.</p>
<p>Although born in western Germany, "Peter,"&#160;a 32-year-old who asked to be identified by a pseudonym, is now firmly in the eastern camp when it comes to sex and exhibitionism. He savors his "exciting" affairs in trendy Berlin, where he has lived for the past six years, and is determined to catch his next escapade on camera.</p>
<p>"I don’t have a problem being naked in front of people, I like it," he said, adding that he occasionally works as a nude life model for artists. "So, I thought, 'Hey, I could do a porn.' I wouldn’t have a problem with people watching me have sex. I just imagine a wild kick to it. Some people want to go skydiving or bungee jumping before they're 35. But I just want to act in my own porn one time.”</p>
<p>The divide between East and West likely stems from the communist state encouraging openness among East German family members on topics that their more religious counterparts in the West might demur from discussing, including intimacy, explained sex therapist, Maya Dufner.</p>
<p>A study from 1988, published in a German research journal, "Newspaper for Sex Research," indicated that the East’s policy of decoupling taboo from sexuality had succeeded in unshackling inhibitions and increasing satisfaction. According to the poll of East and West German students, East German women reached orgasm twice as often as their sisters in the West.</p>
<p>Twenty-five years since the poll, the sexual preferences between East and West appear to remain — a sexually uninhibited and satisfied East versus a tightlipped, frustrated West.</p>
<p>"I have the impression that people who grew up in the East simply have a much more natural relationship to their sexuality, that having sex is just like eating," said Dufner, who hails originally from southern Germany but has lived in the former East German Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg since 1996.</p>
<p>In contrast, Western-bred men and women are often self-conscious even in the throes of passion.</p>
<p>"Most people who come to my practice are very often occupied by performance — of being good,” said Dufner. “They have very clear ideas about how things should go or must go. East Germans, I find, don’t feel this external gaze as strongly."</p>
<p>A sex researcher and blogger for the online erotic shop, Orion.de, Anja Drews, said West German resistance to all things erotic harkens back to Germany’s Catholic Church and austere Protestant faith. Neither encourages sexual experimentation. East Germany, meanwhile, is one of the least religious places in the world today.</p>
<p>But Drews called into question whether the survey really captured the sexual habits of puritanical West Germans who were likely disinclined to share their sexual peccadillos.</p>
<p>"I definitely think that there are people in Bavaria and Baden-Wurttemberg who film themselves having sex," Drews said. “They just won't admit to it.”</p>
<p>Statistics suggest Drews is right. Germany was crowned the world's porno king in 2014. Around 12.5 percent of the country's total website traffic goes to porn sites, according to website traffic tool, SimilarWeb, and German hunger for X-rated stimuli outstrips Americans’ traffic, at 8.3 percent, and the global average of 7.7 percent.</p>
<p>Peter was dating a woman casually when the urge to capture their sexual encounters first gripped him. He read an advert online enlisting couples to feature in an amateur porn film.</p>
<p>“It wasn’t a relationship, but I was seeing her and we had this kind of sex affair,” he said, describing a typical love connection in the youthful Berlin capital. "Sex with her was really, really good. I started wondering, 'What would that look like on camera?' But she didn’t want to."</p>
<p>Undeterred, her rejection has only hardened his determination. While that relationship is now over for "non-porn reasons," Peter regularly posts advertisements on Craigslist waiting for the right woman to respond.</p>
<p>“It is kind of a fantasy for me, but it isn’t just for me. I want someone to share it with,” he said, adding that he had only one rule that would bar a partner. “Definitely not a porn actress.”</p> | In Germany, DIY porn is the difference between East and West | false | https://pri.org/stories/germany-diy-porn-difference-between-east-and-west | 3 |
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<p>As millennials become parents, traditional gender roles have been flipflopped. Fewer Dads are their family's breadwinner, and more men are answering the question about work-life balance.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>One area where men are stepping up their game is the grocery store, according to new data from <a href="https://ibotta.com/" type="external">Ibotta Opens a New Window.</a>, a cash back app.</p>
<p>Over the past three years, dad's trips to the grocery stores has increased by almost 5%. Specifically, young dads (18-24) hit the grocery store more than any other age groups of dads. Ibotta's research shows that the most growth in brocery shopping is millennial dads (25-34), a 62% increase over the last three years.</p>
<p>But what are dads picking up at the grocery store? According to Ibotta, eight out of the ten top products are milk related items. And when it comes to snacks, dad is more likely than mom to buy yogurt, cereal and watermelon slices.</p> | Brocery Shopping With Dad This Father's Day | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2016/06/17/brocery-shopping-with-dad-this-fathers-day.html | 2016-06-17 | 0 |
<p>The Stormy Daniels affair is turning into one of the most persistent scandals of Donald Trump’s presidency. And given the sheer volume of scandals, that’s really saying something. It doesn’t help that this incident involves Trump’s own personal attorney, Michael Cohen, who arranged the $130,000 in hush money to keep Trump’s infidelity out of the news. Cohen is a long-time Trump toady who can always be relied on to prop up his pal, no matter how repulsive his behavior.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/NewsCorpse/posts/2068659326482185" type="external" /></p>
<p>Having made himself the subject of the Stormy affair by asserting that he paid her from his own funds, Cohen is now as much an accomplice as he is an attorney. And his story that he ponied up the cash out of the kindness of his heart is <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/michael-cohen-used-trump-org-email-stormy-daniels-arrangements-n855021" type="external">falling apart</a>. Consequently, he is adopting the tactics of his boss in order to deflect attention from his own potential criminal liability. On Saturday morning he tweeted this:</p>
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<p>Cohen has somehow gotten the impression that the media is obsessed with his email account. In fact, they are just being responsible journalists by reporting that his contacts with Stormy were made using his Trump Organization email address. That’s relevant due to his prior insistence that the arrangements he made with Stormy had nothing to do with Trump and Trump knew nothing about them. By the way, that would be a violation of the New York Bar Association’s standards of conduct. An attorney may not take actions on behalf of a client without full disclosure and permission.</p>
<p>Having no other defense, Cohen is resorting to attacking the media on a completely different topic. And, much like Trump, his attack is rooted in deliberate falsification of reality. Cohen saying that he didn’t see reporting about the jobs numbers anywhere except for Fox News is really just a confession that he doesn’t watch anything but Fox News. Every other major news organization reported these numbers, as they do every time they are released. Just a few obvious examples:</p>
<p>So Cohen didn’t see or hear any of this? Is he blind and deaf? Or is he just a lying, propaganda sewer who parrots the anti-media bullshit of Donald Trump? If nothing else, he’s exposing his fear about the legal walls that are closing in around him. This painfully desperate tweet is evidence of his knowledge that he and his favorite client are going down fast. And there’s nothing he an do about it.</p>
<p>How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00QSSMOES/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B00QSSMOES&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=newscorpsecom-20&amp;linkId=TLI6JC2OYE22MUTS" type="external">Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.</a> Available now at Amazon.</p> | Trump’s Lawyer Tries to Deflect Crimes with Desperate and Obviously False Attacks on the Media | true | http://newscorpse.com/ncWP/?p%3D35115 | 4 |
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<p>&lt;a href="http://www.shutterstock.com"&gt;smereka&lt;/a&gt;/Shutterstock ; &lt;a href="http://www.shutterstock.com"&gt;dedMazay &lt;/a&gt;/Shutterstock</p>
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<p>You vaguely know how DNA works, right? You get it from your parents. Well, hold onto your britches, because scientists from down under are about to turn your world upside down.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-03/snake-genes-27hitchhike27-into-cow-dna/4451308" type="external">study by Australia’s Adelaide and Flinders Universities and the South Australian Museum</a> has found that in complex organisms, DNA is not only transferred from a parent to its offspring like your science book told you, but can also be “laterally” transferred between species. The research, published in the peer-reviewed <a href="http://www.pnas.org" type="external">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a> in the US, involved comparing dozens of DNA sequences from different species. It found that cows inherited up to a quarter their genes from reptiles.</p>
<p>“[I]n higher organisms, vertebrates, mammals and so on we tend to believe that later or horizontal transfer of genetic material just doesn’t really happen,” Prof. David Adelson, study lead and head of Molecular and Biomedical Science at the University of Adeliade told <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-03/snake-genes-27hitchhike27-into-cow-dna/4451308" type="external">Australian ABC News</a>. “But what we’ve shown is that there are DNA segments…called jumping genes…which are able to jump between species.”</p>
<p>The similar DNA sequence that the two species share is able to “cut and paste itself within the genome,” and thus replicate itself and jump to another species, Adelson explains. In that way, it’s similar to how a retrovirus like HIV works, except it has “no way of making an infectious particle, so it’s a bit of a mystery how it gets from [one] species to another,” Adelson concedes.</p>
<p>He speculates that the DNA sequence could have “hitchhike[ed] as part of another virus,” or could have been carried from snakes to cows by ticks, but that remains to be seen, as does how much mixing and matching there is among other species. “There’s potential to see there’s a lot more room for horizontal transfer than we previously supposed,” Adelson says.</p>
<p>His next project will involve looking at whether human DNA sequences may also have jumped from other species. Who knows, maybe we’re 32 percent shrimp.</p>
<p /> | Study: Cows Are 25 Percent Snake | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/dna-cows-snakes-adelaide-flinders-study/ | 2013-01-03 | 4 |
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<p>Image source: Suncor Energy.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Suncor Energy (NYSE: SU) has made several acquisitions over the past year to boost its positions in Canadian oil sands, taking majority interests in the Syncrude and Fort Hills oil ventures. The company hopes oil sands production will make up nearly 90% of its expected 800,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (BOE/D) of total production in 2019. Being a well-diversified, integrated oil company, Suncor will receive a large portion of its cash flow during this time frame from its refining and marketing businesses. In terms of production, though, this is practically the definition of putting all of its eggs in one basket.</p>
<p>Here's why Suncor's bet on oil sandswill likely boost future production but remains a risky play in the constantly evolving oil market.</p>
<p>Suncor's decision to invest $6 billion to expand its Canadian oil sands positions over the past year really comes down to the concept of strengthening a strength. Prior to its recent acquisitions, Suncor was already one of the biggest operators in the region, producing over 400,000 BOE/D from its "Base Oil Sands" operations. The majority stakes in the Syncrude and Fort Hills ventures should add nearly 300,000 BOE/D to that total by 2019.</p>
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<p>These investments in this region aren't without merits. Canadian oil sands have some of the largest proven reservoirs in the world, with about 166 billion barrels of recoverable reserves. Because of the quantities and the methods of extraction -- either via steam injection into underground wells or strip mining the top 100 feet or so of land -- oil sands positions have exceptionally long lives. The Fort Hills mine, for example, is expected to last for 50 years.</p>
<p>On top of that, oil sands mines require a good deal of upfront costs, but once complete, they can run for long periods with greatly reduced capital expenditures. This is one reason Suncor seems so intent on expanding its current positions. While some analysts say the breakeven point for established oil sands positions is about $25 per barrel, the consensus is that $40 is the minimum price to begin seeing profits. New operations, though, such as Fort Hills, might be as high as $90 per barrel. On average, Suncor expects oil sands operating costs per barrel at $27 to $30 in for the remainder of 2016, and Syncrude operating costs to be $41 to $44 per barrel..</p>
<p>Compare this to the shale oil regions such as the Permian Basin and Eagle Ford in Texas, where breakeven prices at some locations can reach as low as $22 per barrel. Whileshale can potentially be a cheaper option. However, shale wells have much shorter lives than oil sands wells and require constant investment. Oil sands require most of the investment upfront. That investment, though, means Suncor can have proven production for decades to come.</p>
<p>Despite the large amounts of reserves and the long life of the fields, Suncor's heavy bet on oil sands comes with plenty of risks. Perhaps the most challenging of these risks is the basic disadvantage of location. A large portion of Suncor's oil is shipped to Gulf Coast refineries, and it's much cheaper to get product to those refineries from oil fields in Texas or Mexico. It can cost anywhere from $10 to $20 per barrel to ship from Alberta to the Gulf. That means it requires Canadian oil sands producers to discount their oil by $10 to $20.</p>
<p>Further hurting Suncor's oil production in Canada is the fact that oil sands primarily produce a synthetic crude blend or a highly viscous, tar-like crude. In order to transport the latter option, producers have to mix it with an ultra-light oil. The product creates what is referred to as Western Canadian Select (WCS). Because WCS remains a heavy oil and is more difficult to refine into petroleum products, it can be more expensive for refineries that aren't specifically designed for that purpose. This further discounts crude from oil sands producers because refineries prefer to use the cheapest option to earn the highest margins.</p>
<p>The higher transportation costs and heavy oil contribute to average oil sands production requiring much higher average operating costs per barrel. In the first quarter, for example, EOG Resources (NYSE: EOG), with large positions in Texas, averaged $11.96 per barrel, while Suncor is expecting average 2016 oil sands costs to be $27 to $30 per barrel.</p>
<p>This also means WCS sells at a significant discount to West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude -- the U.S. benchmark -- which is one reason breakeven in the oil sands is higher than breakeven at other North American locations.</p>
<p>Whether or not these investments pay off in the future will ultimately come down to oil prices and if Suncor can continue to incorporate efficiencies to bring production costs down. The company has managed to reduce oil sands costs by as much as 35% over the past three years. Suncor has made further improvements and efficiencies a key aspect of its operations.</p>
<p>If oil prices stay depressed, though, as they did in the first quarter -- which contributed to $400 million in net losses from Suncor's oil sands operations -- the company could struggle to return to profitability. Further, its main focus in oil sands opens it up to unforeseen events such as the Canadian wildfires that crushed second quarter production and made operating costs skyrocket.</p>
<p>There is a lot to like about Suncor's strong oil sands positions, but low oil prices, high operating costs, and the difficulty of getting production to refineries make the latest investments a high risk endeavor.</p>
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<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/davidlettis/info.aspx" type="external">David Lettis Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of EOG Resources. 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://wiki.fool.com/Motley" 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> | Suncor Energy's Huge Bet on Oil Sands Might Be a Bad Gamble | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/08/03/suncor-energy-huge-bet-on-oil-sands-might-be-bad-gamble.html | 2016-08-03 | 0 |
<p>"To boost the economy, why not pay interns?" Why not? MoJo does it.Photo by Tim Murphy</p>
<p>As <a href="" type="internal">Andy Kroll reported</a> this morning, the three-week-old #OccupyWallStreet movement has risen out of many of the same grievances that sparked massive protests <a href="" type="internal">at the Wisconsin state capitol</a>. In some cases, as I discovered on&#160;Thursday at a satellite demonstration in DC, it even includes the same group of people.</p>
<p>Chad Bucholtz drove to&#160;DC (“crammed in like sardine cans”) along with 14 others from Wisconsin to attend the rally. A veteran of the union demonstrations in&#160;Madison last February, he sees the 99-percent movement as a direct continuation of those efforts. “I&#160;see a lot of similarities; in Madison it wasn’t just Democrats, it was Democrats and Republicans—maybe former Republicans,” said Bucholtz, a student at UW–Milwaukee. “It was both the left- and right-wing people that recognized that the corporate influence of Koch Industries was pretty much buying policies.” He politely disagrees with skeptics who say the movement hasn’t articulated any specific goals:&#160;“We need a constitutional amendment to clarify that money is not free speech,”&#160;he says. “My opinion is that the root [of the problem] is money buying politics.”</p>
<p>Carrie Scherpeltz of Madison, another veteran of the Wisconsin demonstrations, said she expected about 100 Wisconsinites were on there way to show their support. “We were a spark; I personally want to fan it.” Her message:&#160;“De-rig our economy. They’ve been rigged in favor of corporatocracy and against the people.”</p>
<p>About 200 protesters—a mix of peace activists, union members, college students, and Wisconsin vets—descended on Freedom Plaza, a stone’s throw from the White House, for a joint demonstration held by Occupy K Street (camping out for last week in McPherson Square) and the anti-war, anti-austerity group&#160;Stop the Machine. The protesters I spoke with were coherent in their ideas, if not necessarily in agreement. Wendy Penn had attended five #OccupyWallStreet protests in the last two weeks, including the march across the Brooklyn&#160;Bridge last Sunday when more than 700 protesters were arrested. She came to DC&#160;from&#160;Queens on&#160;Thursday to spread a message that’s decidedly different from what you find on the “ <a href="http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/" type="external">We Are the 99 Percent</a>” Tumblr:</p>
<p>“People:&#160;Take responsibility for your own lives,” Penn said. “Figure out with each other and on your own how to take care of your food, your health, and your education. Because these people that are in power right now, they might be throwing you a few bones to keep you happy for a little while, but in the end it’s destroying everything.”&#160;Unlike her parents’ or grandparents’ generations, Penn doesn’t have any faith in the ability of government to fix itself; in her view, we might as well cut our losses.</p>
<p>On a whim, Lourdes Barallobre flew up from&#160;Miami for the rally with a friend, and plans to camp out at MacPherson square for the next three days.&#160;A senior at Florida International&#160;University, she’s swamped in student loan debt and wants to do something about it. “I would like for Americans to see what’s really going on.&#160;I would love to hear the President acknowledge what’s going on, which we have yet to see.”&#160;(On&#160;Thursday, President Obama commented on the movement for the first time, stating that it stems from “ <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20116707-503544.html" type="external">broad-based frustration</a>.”)</p>
<p>As with any large gathering, there was no shortage of dissonant groups:&#160;Code Pink had a large enclosure in the center of the square, meshing its notorious anti-war message with a call for a halt on foreclosures.&#160;Towards the back, a band of LaRouchies had gathered to hand out literature explaining why President Obama is a lot like Hitler. If most of the attendees I spoke with were polite and articulate, the same couldn’t be said for everyone on stage. One speaker expressed his contempt for corporate America thusly:&#160;“Go fuck yourselves” (see below).</p>
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<p>Asked about the comparison, <a href="http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2011/10/jon-stewart-compares-occupy-wall-street-tea-party/43387/" type="external">raised by Jon&#160;Stewart</a> and others, to the first tea party rallies in 2009, most of the attendees I spoke with demurred.&#160;“This is not a left or right issue,”&#160;said Ashley Lowe of DC, who took a day off from her job at a nonprofit to attend the rally. “I really want to keep the political warfare out of it, as much as possible.” But while the content—stray Ron&#160;Paul placards notwithstanding—couldn’t be any more different than the <a href="" type="internal">Showdown in Searchlight</a>, it was tough not to notice the backdrop the two movements shared: A 30-foot-wide image of the preamble to the Constitution that may as well have been borrowed, just for the day, from a Tea Party Patriots tax-day rally.</p>
<p>Video by <a href="" type="internal">Asawin Suebsaeng</a>.</p> | #OccupyWallStreet—and Madison—Comes to Washington | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-wisconsin-comes-washington/ | 2011-10-06 | 4 |
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<p>The chief executive of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries has stepped down, leaving new management to overhaul the world's biggest maker of generic drugs and restore confidence after a series of missteps sent its shares plummeting.</p>
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<p>Teva, Israel's largest company, said late on Monday Chief Executive Erez Vigodman was departing immediately and would be replaced on an interim basis by Chairman Yitzhak Peterburg.</p>
<p>A string of questionable and costly acquisitions, along with delayed drug launches, has led to calls for management and structural changes, including a possible split of the business into separate generic and branded medicine units.</p>
<p>Investors say Teva, which faces pricing pressure in its core generics business and recently lost patent protection on its key branded drug Copaxone for multiple sclerosis, must choose a new CEO with extensive pharmaceutical experience.</p>
<p>The new boss needs to set a clear strategy, said Eldad Tamir, head of investment house Tamir Fishman, whose funds have slashed holdings in Teva by 90 percent in the past two years.</p>
<p>"Is it the biggest generics company or is there an understanding that generics is hitting a glass ceiling and it should do other stuff," such as investing more in branded drugs, he told Reuters.</p>
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<p>Compounding the challenge for Teva, U.S. President Donald Trump has pledged to crack down on drug prices.</p>
<p>Veteran Israeli activist investor Benny Landa echoed previous calls from U.S. institutional shareholders for Teva to be split into separate branded and generic companies, telling the Globes website there was little benefit from keeping the two different activities combined.</p>
<p>Teva shares fell around 2 percent in Tel Aviv on Tuesday following Vigodman's departure, which comes after the head of Teva's generics business, Siggi Olafsson, left. At 1435 GMT, its New York-listed stock was down 2.9 percent at $33.35.</p>
<p>STUMBLES</p>
<p>Tal Levi, buyside analyst for Israeli investment house Halman-Aldubi, said Teva needed to manage cash flow better and deliver the hoped-for synergies from its acquisition last year of the Actavis generics business.</p>
<p>Teva's New York-listed shares, which hit $72 in July 2015, tumbled to around 10-year lows last week after a U.S. court found Copaxone patents to be invalid. The drug accounted for almost a fifth of Teva's revenue last year.</p>
<p>Investors and analysts have raised concerns Teva might have to cut its dividend if Copaxone faces generic competition in the near term.</p>
<p>Vigodman joined Teva in 2014 after his success at rejuvenating an ailing Israeli agrochemicals firm earned him a reputation as a turnaround specialist and dealmaker.</p>
<p>But a series of stumbles has dismayed investors.</p>
<p>Vigodman embarked on a costly buying spree that culminated in the acquisition of Actavis for $40.5 billion, a price many investors believe was too high.</p>
<p>Teva is now saddled with nearly $36 billion in debt, similar to its market value, making it very difficult to raise new equity, Tamir said.</p>
<p>A $2.3 billion deal for Mexican drugmaker Rimsa has led to both sides suing each other. And in December Teva agreed to pay more than $519 million to settle U.S. criminal and civil allegations that it bribed overseas officials to gain business.</p>
<p>Last month, Teva provided a 2017 revenue and profit forecast below Wall Street's estimates.</p>
<p>THOROUGH REVIEW</p>
<p>Interim leader Peterburg, who will work alongside Teva's new chairman, former Celgene CEO Sol Barer, said he would conduct a "thorough review" of Teva's business while the company searches for a permanent CEO.</p>
<p>RBC Capital Markets analyst Randall Stanicky said it was unclear what this entailed and whether asset sales could be on the agenda.</p>
<p>"We find it interesting that Teva would pursue a review before naming a permanent CEO, which may be suggestive of further close involvement of the board and broader management team," Stanicky said.</p>
<p>Some investors have told Reuters they would like to see Teva spin off its speciality drug business.</p>
<p>This might please U.S. activist investors as it could give a short-term boost to the stock, said Levi, whose firm Halman-Aldubi has been slowly raising its Teva stake in the past month.</p>
<p>"But Israeli institutions are long-term investors. I'm not sure making a short-term profit is a good idea for the Israeli market and Teva," he said.</p>
<p>Bernstein analyst Ronny Gal, in a video to clients, called Peterburg "a good caretaker CEO, but clearly not a candidate to run the company long term".</p>
<p>Prior to rejoining Teva's board of directors in 2012, Peterburg led the company's research and development efforts as head of global branded products, from 2010 until October 2011.</p>
<p>(Additional reporting by Bill Berkrot in New York; Editing by Louise Heavens, Ben Hirschler and Mark Potter)</p> | Teva CEO exits amid crisis of confidence at drugmaker | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/02/07/teva-ceo-exits-amid-crisis-confidence-at-drugmaker.html | 2017-02-07 | 0 |
<p>Former presidential candidate and former Gov. Michael Dukakis, (D-MA), Michael Dukakis on the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Hillary Clinton’s bid for the White House.</p>
<p>Former Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis weighed in on Donald Trump’s criticisms of the media’s coverage of Hillary Clinton’s campaign and his claims she is avoiding answering questions.</p>
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<p>“She responds to the press all the time, I mean she’s out on the campaign trail, the press asks her questions all the time, she’s not hiding.&#160;Maybe Trump ought to tell us where his tax returns are, and why he won’t release them,” the one-time Democratic presidential nominee told the FOX Business Network’s Charles Payne.</p>
<p>On calls for Hillary Clinton to hold a formal press conference to answer media questions, Dukakis responded, “I’ve got to tell you, during my entire campaign, I was out there for 18 months, I don’t remember doing a formal stand up press conference, presidential style, you just don’t do that in a campaign.&#160;You’re moving around, the press is with you, they’re asking a lot of questions, you’re responding as best you can.”</p>
<p>He also reacted to complaints that Hillary Clinton flip-flopped on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and questions over whether she would actually support it if elected, after opposing it.</p>
<p>“I think all of us are having increasing questions about the value of these trade agreements,” but, Dukakis continued, “If you take a look at this agreement, its actual benefit to the American economy is relatively small.&#160;I don’t consider it a major issue in this campaign.”</p>
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<p>Dukakis then questioned the potential impact of Donald Trump’s economic agenda.</p>
<p>“This country, when Barack Obama took over, was an economic basket case.&#160;And it was an economic basket case because of Republican economic policies that practically killed us.&#160;General Motors was going bankrupt, Wall Street was hysterical.&#160;We’re a very different country today.&#160;And we’ve got a Republican nominee who basically wants to go back to the same policies that practically destroyed us in the first place.&#160;Those are the kind of issues we should be debating these days,” he said.</p>
<p>Then Payne questioned the economic recovery following the Great Recession, and whether it could even be called a recovery.</p>
<p>“One thing that you cannot debate is that even though we were in those dire economic times, this has been a very flat-footed recovery, it’s hard to even call it a recovery.&#160; We haven’t even had one single year of 3 percent growth,” said Payne.</p>
<p>To which Dukakis responded, “Hold it, you can’t be serious, we’ve come from economic disaster to relative economic health, particularly if you compare us with places like Europe.”</p>
<p>Dukakis then pointed to the jobs created under the Obama Administration.</p>
<p>“It’s 15 million who are now working and earning and supporting themselves and their families who weren’t doing so eight years ago under Republican policies, that’s what this issue, this election is all about,” he said.</p>
<p>But, Payne argued back, “It’s also going to be about the millions of people that have dropped out of the jobs market, it’s also going to be about people who yeah, they’re lucky enough to get a job but they’re not making what they were making.&#160; And I think more importantly it’s about the hopelessness that hangs over the air like a thick cloud.”</p>
<p>According to Dukakis, a Trump presidency would lead to policies that won’t work for the U.S. economy.</p>
<p>“The idea that we aren’t far better off thanks to the Obama Administration and its policies over the past eight years, and we ought to go back to the very same policies, tax cuts for the rich, all that kind of stuff we’re hearing from Trump doesn’t make much sense to me,” Dukakis continued, “I’ll tell you, Donald Trump is not the answer to our problems.”</p> | Fmr. Gov. Mike Dukakis: Trump is Not the Answer to Our Problems | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2016/07/27/fmr-gov-mike-dukakis-trump-is-not-answer-to-our-problems.html | 2016-07-27 | 0 |
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<p>Even if that change meant moving from Minnesota to New Mexico.</p>
<p>That’s because not only were the Coopers getting a change of address, he was getting the opportunity to take over ownership of the Chevrolet Cadillac of Santa Fe dealership that had been struggling for some time.</p>
<p>“They were fine with it,” Cooper said of the move he made several years ago. “It’s been different because I had never lived anywhere but Minnesota but it’s worked out great for us.”</p>
<p>Since taking over Chevrolet Cadillac of Santa Fe, Daniel Cooper has revitalized the dealership. (Glen Rosales/For the Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>It’s worked out great for the dealership, as well, because it’s undergone a transformation since Cooper took the reins.</p>
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<p>The reputation of the dealership was something he immediately had to combat.</p>
<p>“A lot of the struggling has been with trying to change the reputation of the dealership,” Cooper said. “It did not have a very good reputation in Santa Fe so it’s been a challenge to get out to people that we’re different and that we do things differently.”</p>
<p>One thing the dealership has done is become more involved in the community by helping with different activities and events with financial support and participation.</p>
<p>That, Cooper said, has been making a big difference.</p>
<p>And it’s been about treating customers with respect and consideration when they come to the dealership.</p>
<p>“It’s not about selling a car for the most you can,” he said. “It’s about giving people an honest fair price. We sell the car, not the person. We put our best price up front.”</p>
<p>What that means, Cooper said, is not trying to squeeze the last dollar out of a deal or trying to take advantage of somebody that may not possess a lot of car knowledge.</p>
<p>Instead, cars are priced according to their value, he said, eliminating the price haggling that customers so frequently dislike.</p>
<p>Because Cooper comes from the large metropolitan area of Minneapolis-St. Paul and from a dealership that was frequently ranked No. 1 among Chevrolet dealerships in the Midwest, it’s been a transformation coming to Santa Fe.</p>
<p>“It’s more like a small town,” he said. “I like that.”</p>
<p /> | Move to Santa Fe good for dealer, buyers | false | https://abqjournal.com/279953/move-to-santa-fe-good-for-dealer-buyers.html | 2013-10-12 | 2 |
<p>OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The third quarter has often been a problem for the Oklahoma City Thunder this season, but that's when they made their move Monday night against the Sacramento Kings.</p>
<p>Russell Westbrook had 19 points, 16 rebounds and nine assists before being ejected, and Oklahoma City rallied from a 15-point first-half deficit to beat Sacramento 95-88.</p>
<p>Carmelo Anthony added 20 points, Paul George scored 18 and Steven Adams had 13 points and 13 rebounds for the Thunder, who avoided what would have been a fourth straight home loss thanks in large part to a dominant third quarter in which they outscored the Kings 31-16.</p>
<p>"We were definitely more focused," George said. "We've been in this position where we played a sub-.500 team and for whatever reason, we tried to turn it on and win the ballgame late in the fourth. Tonight we took it at them early, got that cushion and that carried us through the finish."</p>
<p>Buddy Hield scored 16 points and Willie Cauley-Stein added 15 for Sacramento, which scored only 36 second-half points and is 1-16 on the road against Oklahoma City since the Thunder franchise moved from Seattle.</p>
<p>Oklahoma City was up 91-77 with 2:51 left before official Matt Boland called two quick technical fouls on Westbrook after he complained about being called for traveling on a play on which he thought he'd been fouled.</p>
<p>Another official, Gediminas Petraitis, then called a technical foul on Thunder coach Billy Donovan for protesting Westbrook's ejection. Hield made all three technical free throws and Cauley-Stein went 1 of 2 from the line with 2:35 left, pulling Sacramento to 91-84. But the Kings made only one field goal the rest of the way, and George blocked a shot and came up with a steal in the final two minutes.</p>
<p>"Melo, he was able to score about 15 points that (third) quarter," Hield said. "He was helping open up the gap for him. (Westbrook) started making plays for everybody else. We got it back under 10, but we've got to be a little more experienced and a little more controlled. We've got to do better at executing late. We have to do a better job at helping each other out and make plays down the stretch."</p>
<p>The Kings led 24-20 after the first quarter and stretched their advantage to 48-33 after two free throws by Bogdan Bogdanovic with 3:03 left in the half. The Thunder closed the half on an 11-3 spurt to pull to 52-46.</p>
<p>The Thunder seized control with an 11-0 run in the third quarter, highlighted by consecutive alley-oop passes from Westbrook for dunks — first to Anthony, then to Adams. Anthony's two free throws put Oklahoma City ahead 75-66 with 1:39 left in the quarter.</p>
<p>"We just had to decide that we wanted to play (and) pick it up, take it up another level," Anthony said. "Once we decided we wanted to do that in the second half, we changed the outcome of the game."</p>
<p>After the teams went scoreless for the first three-plus minutes of the fourth, Sacramento pulled within seven on a basket by Cauley-Stein, but Patrick Patterson hit two 3-pointers in a 17-second span and Alex Abrines followed with another to extend the Thunder's lead to 86-70.</p>
<p>TIP-INS</p>
<p>Kings: Hield traveled back to Norman on Sunday to visit practice at No. 4 Oklahoma. Hield led the Sooners to the 2016 Final Four. ... The Kings, who beat the Thunder on Nov. 7 in Sacramento, haven't won two straight over the Oklahoma City franchise since the 2007-08 season, when the team was in Seattle. ... The Kings made 15 of 25 free throws, while the Thunder went 14 of 29 from the line.</p>
<p>Thunder: Ace defender Andre Roberson sat out for the eighth straight game with patellar tendinitis in his left knee. ... For the 14th straight game, Westbrook recorded a double-double with at least 20 points. The only guard in NBA history to have a longer such streak was Michael Jordan, with 15 straight in 1989. ... George, the NBA steals leader, had five. ... Westbrook's 16 rebounds were three off his career high. ... At halftime, the team showed a video with Thunder players reciting excerpts from Martin Luther King Jr.'s famed "I Have A Dream" speech.</p>
<p>THE EJECTION</p>
<p>With Oklahoma City up by 14 and the game seemingly under control, Westbrook looked to finish it off with a driving layup, but collided with Cauley-Stein as De'Aaron Fox appeared to hit Westbrook in the face. Boland ruled that Westbrook had traveled, setting off the slew of technical fouls.</p>
<p>Westbrook didn't stick around to answer questions after the game, but Donovan said Petraitis later apologized to him for calling the technical foul on the coach.</p>
<p>"The official made a terrible mistake and he acknowledged it," Donovan said. "I was yelling to the other official across the floor to get his attention and (Petraitis) just T'd me up. He came by and apologized to me. I definitely didn't deserve a T. . I've been doing this long enough, I know when I'm close to getting a T and when I deserve a T. That was totally undeserved and should not have been called."</p>
<p>UP NEXT</p>
<p>Kings: Host the Utah Jazz on Wednesday before embarking on a six-game road trip.</p>
<p>Thunder: Host the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>For more NBA coverage: <a href="" type="internal">https://apnews.com/tag/NBAbasketball</a></p>
<p>OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The third quarter has often been a problem for the Oklahoma City Thunder this season, but that's when they made their move Monday night against the Sacramento Kings.</p>
<p>Russell Westbrook had 19 points, 16 rebounds and nine assists before being ejected, and Oklahoma City rallied from a 15-point first-half deficit to beat Sacramento 95-88.</p>
<p>Carmelo Anthony added 20 points, Paul George scored 18 and Steven Adams had 13 points and 13 rebounds for the Thunder, who avoided what would have been a fourth straight home loss thanks in large part to a dominant third quarter in which they outscored the Kings 31-16.</p>
<p>"We were definitely more focused," George said. "We've been in this position where we played a sub-.500 team and for whatever reason, we tried to turn it on and win the ballgame late in the fourth. Tonight we took it at them early, got that cushion and that carried us through the finish."</p>
<p>Buddy Hield scored 16 points and Willie Cauley-Stein added 15 for Sacramento, which scored only 36 second-half points and is 1-16 on the road against Oklahoma City since the Thunder franchise moved from Seattle.</p>
<p>Oklahoma City was up 91-77 with 2:51 left before official Matt Boland called two quick technical fouls on Westbrook after he complained about being called for traveling on a play on which he thought he'd been fouled.</p>
<p>Another official, Gediminas Petraitis, then called a technical foul on Thunder coach Billy Donovan for protesting Westbrook's ejection. Hield made all three technical free throws and Cauley-Stein went 1 of 2 from the line with 2:35 left, pulling Sacramento to 91-84. But the Kings made only one field goal the rest of the way, and George blocked a shot and came up with a steal in the final two minutes.</p>
<p>"Melo, he was able to score about 15 points that (third) quarter," Hield said. "He was helping open up the gap for him. (Westbrook) started making plays for everybody else. We got it back under 10, but we've got to be a little more experienced and a little more controlled. We've got to do better at executing late. We have to do a better job at helping each other out and make plays down the stretch."</p>
<p>The Kings led 24-20 after the first quarter and stretched their advantage to 48-33 after two free throws by Bogdan Bogdanovic with 3:03 left in the half. The Thunder closed the half on an 11-3 spurt to pull to 52-46.</p>
<p>The Thunder seized control with an 11-0 run in the third quarter, highlighted by consecutive alley-oop passes from Westbrook for dunks — first to Anthony, then to Adams. Anthony's two free throws put Oklahoma City ahead 75-66 with 1:39 left in the quarter.</p>
<p>"We just had to decide that we wanted to play (and) pick it up, take it up another level," Anthony said. "Once we decided we wanted to do that in the second half, we changed the outcome of the game."</p>
<p>After the teams went scoreless for the first three-plus minutes of the fourth, Sacramento pulled within seven on a basket by Cauley-Stein, but Patrick Patterson hit two 3-pointers in a 17-second span and Alex Abrines followed with another to extend the Thunder's lead to 86-70.</p>
<p>TIP-INS</p>
<p>Kings: Hield traveled back to Norman on Sunday to visit practice at No. 4 Oklahoma. Hield led the Sooners to the 2016 Final Four. ... The Kings, who beat the Thunder on Nov. 7 in Sacramento, haven't won two straight over the Oklahoma City franchise since the 2007-08 season, when the team was in Seattle. ... The Kings made 15 of 25 free throws, while the Thunder went 14 of 29 from the line.</p>
<p>Thunder: Ace defender Andre Roberson sat out for the eighth straight game with patellar tendinitis in his left knee. ... For the 14th straight game, Westbrook recorded a double-double with at least 20 points. The only guard in NBA history to have a longer such streak was Michael Jordan, with 15 straight in 1989. ... George, the NBA steals leader, had five. ... Westbrook's 16 rebounds were three off his career high. ... At halftime, the team showed a video with Thunder players reciting excerpts from Martin Luther King Jr.'s famed "I Have A Dream" speech.</p>
<p>THE EJECTION</p>
<p>With Oklahoma City up by 14 and the game seemingly under control, Westbrook looked to finish it off with a driving layup, but collided with Cauley-Stein as De'Aaron Fox appeared to hit Westbrook in the face. Boland ruled that Westbrook had traveled, setting off the slew of technical fouls.</p>
<p>Westbrook didn't stick around to answer questions after the game, but Donovan said Petraitis later apologized to him for calling the technical foul on the coach.</p>
<p>"The official made a terrible mistake and he acknowledged it," Donovan said. "I was yelling to the other official across the floor to get his attention and (Petraitis) just T'd me up. He came by and apologized to me. I definitely didn't deserve a T. . I've been doing this long enough, I know when I'm close to getting a T and when I deserve a T. That was totally undeserved and should not have been called."</p>
<p>UP NEXT</p>
<p>Kings: Host the Utah Jazz on Wednesday before embarking on a six-game road trip.</p>
<p>Thunder: Host the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>For more NBA coverage: <a href="" type="internal">https://apnews.com/tag/NBAbasketball</a></p> | Westbrook, Anthony help Thunder rally past Kings 95-88 | false | https://apnews.com/amp/b01119b416464af2be9f86682207fb26 | 2018-01-16 | 2 |
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<p>MADRID — Political parties in Catalonia, including candidates either in jail or out of the country to avoid arrest, started campaigning at midnight Monday for the early regional elections called by Spain’s government seeking to quash the Catalan independence movement.</p>
<p>The highly polarized Catalan parliament elections set for Dec. 21 is shaping up as a close fight between Catalans who support secession and those who favor remaining in Spain. Voters are choosing regional lawmakers and top government officials to replace the pro-independence officials removed by the national government in late October.</p>
<p>Hours before pro-secession parties held evening rallies to launch their campaigns, a Supreme Court judge in Madrid ruled that four prominent members of the region’s independence movement must remain jailed without bail. They include former regional Vice President Oriol Junqueras, who heads the slate of the left-republican ERC party. Junqueras was unseated in late October along with former President Carles Puigdemont and the rest of Puigdemont’s Cabinet after regional lawmakers passed a declaration of independence that Spanish authorities deemed illegal.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Six other Catalan politicians who had been jailed with Junqueras since early November were released late Monday after the posting of 100,000-euro ($118,000) bail set earlier for them by a Supreme Court judge.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Puigdemont and four of his separatist allies learned Monday that a decision on Spain’s request for their extraditions from Belgium will be made Dec. 14. That is one week before the elections, in which Puigdemont is leading his pro-independence party’s ticket as its presidential candidate.</p>
<p>However, a final decision may not come until well after the election because of appeals.</p>
<p>The five Catalan officials fled to Belgium and are refusing to return to Spain to face possible charges of rebellion, sedition and embezzlement over the push for independence. The charges carry maximum penalties of decades in prison.</p>
<p>Puigdemont’s Belgian defense lawyer, Paul Bekaert, insisted there are no grounds for extradition because the Spanish charges were not punishable in Belgium.</p>
<p>“We also highlighted the danger for the impediment of their human rights in Spain,” Bekaert said.</p>
<p>Hours after the judge postponed deciding his fate, Puigdemont addressed a political rally in Catalonia via video conference at the official midnight kickoff of the campaign.</p>
<p>Puigdemont told the other candidates running for his Together for Catalonia list that the vote should be “the second part” of the referendum that his government held on secession Oct. 1 despite it being banned by Spain’s highest court.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“The results of Oct. 1 are still valid,” Puigdemont told Catalan public television TV3. “There are many of us who don’t give the Spanish government the authority to dissolve a legitimate legislature.”</p>
<p>The Spanish government has said the early election is an attempt to find a democratic way out of the nation’s worst crisis in nearly four decades. Polls predict a close race between the pro- and anti-independence camps.</p>
<p>A government-run poll published Monday indicated that pro-independence parties would lose their slim majority in Catalonia’s parliament. It had ERC, Together for Catalonia and the far-left anti-establishment CUP party winning 66 or 67 of the parliament’s 135 seats.</p>
<p>The poll forecast a boost for the anti-independence Citizens party, which could dispute the victory with the pro-secession ERC.</p>
<p>“The secession movement is a black hole that has swallowed everything up in recent years,” Ines Arrimadas, Citizens’ leading candidate, told TV3. “We have it in our hands to end the independence movement and start a new era for Catalonia.”</p>
<p>The CIS survey said the poll had a margin of error of two percentage points. The poll of 3,000 people was conducted by telephone Nov. 23-27.</p>
<p>Before campaigning officially started, Catalan pro-independence groups held protests in front of town halls to oppose the Supreme Court’s decision to keep some of the independence movement’s leaders in custody.</p>
<p>Pilar Gonzalez, 76, said while walking her dog in Barcelona that the jailed Catalan political leaders were “political prisoners.” But 53-year-old contractor Jose Luis Aguirre said the attempt to unilaterally break away from Spain “is an act that cannot be allowed.”</p>
<p>In the hope of being freed, Junqueras and the other jailed politicians pledged last week to give up on efforts to seek unilateral independence for the wealthy northeastern region. But Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena said Monday that it remains to be seen if Junqueras’ pledge was “truthful and real.”</p>
<p>ERC spokeswoman Marta Rovira described the jailing as “a covert attempt” by Spain’s central authorities in Madrid to get ERC out of the picture before this month’s voting.</p>
<p>“This is a very clear attempt to win these elections without political adversaries,” she said.</p>
<p>Spanish Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido was unmoved by the arguments of Junqueras’ supporters.</p>
<p>“Those who commit criminal acts must place themselves at the mercy of legal rulings,” Zoido said.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court judge also upheld custody orders without bail for the former regional interior minister, Joaquim Forn, and the leaders of Assemblea Nacional Catalan and Omnium Cultural, two grassroots groups that have been the main drivers of the separatist bid.</p>
<p>Puigdemont and the other separatist leaders claim a mandate for independence from the Oct. 1 referendum, which was boycotted by parties against secession. The vote drew 43 percent of the electorate, failed to meet international standards, and was marred by police raids.</p>
<p>Spain’s constitution says that the nation is “indivisible” and that matters of national sovereignty pertain to its national parliament in Madrid, where Catalan secessionists are represented.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writer Aritz Parra reported this story in Madrid and AP writer Raf Casert reported from Brussels. AP writer Joseph Wilson in Barcelona contributed to this report.</p> | 4 Catalan separatists kept in jail as campaigning begins | false | https://abqjournal.com/1101689/catalonia-4-kept-in-jail-brussels-extradition-hearing-set.html | 2017-12-04 | 2 |
<p>Is it possible to cope with the immense dangers posed by the rapid consumption of the world’s resources? In <a href="" type="internal">The Race for What’s Left</a>, Michael Klare claims that it is — but only through a significant change in behavior.</p>
<p>Klare is the author of fourteen books, the most recent of which focus on resources and international conflict. He is also the defense correspondent for The Nation and the director of the Five College Program in Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts.</p>
<p>In The Race for What’s Left — a book displaying his stunning knowledge of drilling and mining techniques, obscure minerals, geology, and remote regions of the world — Klare argues that “the world is entering an era of pervasive, unprecedented resource scarcity.” Both government and corporate officials “recognize that existing reserves are being depleted at a terrifying pace and will be largely exhausted in the not-too-distant future.” In their view, “the only way for countries to ensure an adequate supply of these materials, and thereby keep their economies humming, is to acquire new, undeveloped reservoirs in those few locations that have not already been completely drained. This has produced a global drive to find and exploit the world’s final resource reserves” — not only energy and mineral resources, but arable land. Thus, a great scramble by private corporations and government entities is now underway to own or control resources in the Arctic, in northern Siberia, in the deep waters of the Atlantic, in remote regions of Africa, and in other previously inaccessible, largely undeveloped regions of the world.</p>
<p>Of course, there has long been a competition for resources among nations. But, as Klare shows, the current struggle is becoming fiercer. “Whereas previous centuries generally witnessed conflict between just a few dominant powers,” he notes, “today many more countries are industrialized or on the path to industrialization — so the number of major contenders for resources is greater than ever before.” Moreover, “these new challengers also often harbor large and <a href="" type="internal" />growing populations, whose desire for consumer goods of all sorts cannot be long denied. At the same time, many existing sources of supply are in decline while few new reservoirs are waiting on the horizon.” Consequently, “with more nations in the resource race and fewer prizes to be divided among them, the competition is heating up and governments are being pressed to assume a more active role.”</p>
<p>A skeptic might ask: What is wrong with this competition? The obvious answer, implicitly accepted by corporate and government officials alike, is that there are not enough resources to go around. In this situation, prices will rise and the living standards of many people throughout the world will fall. In the midst of growing scarcity, some will emerge winners and others losers, with the poorest among them starving and dying.</p>
<p>But, as Klare demonstrates, there are other great drawbacks, as well. One is that corporations and governments, in their determination to reach previously inaccessible resources, are employing extractive technologies that are destroying the environment. BP’s deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, corporate hydrofracking in the northeast United States, and the massive Canadian tar sands operation are three well-known examples of this phenomenon. Also, the rising consumption of fossil fuels will accelerate climate change.</p>
<p>Furthermore, wealthy investors, hedge funds, and a growing number of governments (including those of Saudi Arabia, other Persian Gulf nations, China, India, and South Korea) are busy buying up farmland in other nations — in 2009 alone, an estimated 110 million acres, an area the size of Sweden. According to Susan Payne’s Emergent fund, “Africa is the final frontier,” with land that is “very, very inexpensive.” Thus, Emergent promises to achieve a very high rate of return on such agricultural investment — exceeding 25 percent a year. The return to African peasants, forced off their ancestral lands to make way for overseas agribusiness and profits, will almost certainly be much less.</p>
<p>Of course, intensive resource extraction will also lead to foreign support for exploitative, dictatorial regimes, as it has in many African nations. Certainly, the average citizens of these countries have experienced little benefit from their resource wealth. Klare observes: “Ever since the early Cold War period, when Niger was still under French rule, uranium extraction has been a significant industry in the country, but it has mostly enriched only a few well-connected government officials and the companies that own the mines. Few of Niger’s sixteen million people have ever seen any benefits from the mining, and two-thirds of them still live on less than $1 per day, making Niger one of the poorest nations on earth.”</p>
<p>Finally, the scramble for global resources provides the potential for heightened military conflict. Klare remarks: “In all probability, countries with major resource deposits will receive more weapons, military training, technical assistance, and intelligence support from states that wish to curry favor or establish closer ties. At the same time, combat forces will be deployed abroad to defend friendly regimes and protect key ports, pipelines, refineries, and other critical installations.” Amid competing resource claims, the Arctic, Africa, and the East and South China Seas have recently experienced new tensions and military buildups.</p>
<p>Fortunately, as Klare points out, there is an alternative to the “race for what’s left” — a “race to adapt.” This would entail a contest among the “major political and corporate powers … to become among the first to adopt new materials, methods, and devices that will free the world from its dependence on finite resource supplies.” It would “reward the governments, companies, and communities that take the lead in developing efficient, environmentally friendly industrial processes and transportation systems.” Replacing “finite natural resources with renewables” and focusing “on increasing efficiency” would not only allow the global economy “to escape from the trap of diminishing resource supplies,” but would “allow many nations to free themselves from military pacts and other diplomatic arrangements currently employed to cement ties with foreign resource providers.”</p>
<p>Although Klare does not suggest running this “race to adapt” as a cooperative one, it could proceed much like the women’s races of some years ago, when participants joined hands while crossing the finish line. Wouldn’t it be a grand moment in human history if people of every nation collaborated in facing the challenge of dwindling resources that confronts us all? But, whether cooperatively or competitively, we must begin adapting to the limits of our resources, and Michael Klare’s outstanding book — exhaustively-researched, beautifully-written, and convincingly-argued — helps move this vital project forward.</p>
<p><a href="http://lawrenceswittner.com/" type="external">Lawrence S. Wittner</a>&#160;is professor of history emeritus at SUNY/Albany. His latest book is “ <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1572338571/counterpunchmaga" type="external">Working for Peace and Justice: Memoirs of an Activist Intellectual</a>” (University of Tennessee Press).</p> | The Race for What’s Left | true | https://counterpunch.org/2012/04/02/the-race-for-whats-left/ | 2012-04-02 | 4 |
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<p>But New Mexico residents who already have registered for the Sept. 27 race in Edgewood may not be feeling so enthused now that the Utah-based organization running the event has gone out of business. <a href="" type="internal" />Especially if they want to get their entry fee back, which in some cases can run as high as $100.</p>
<p>On Monday, the Albuquerque-based <a href="http://www.bbb.org/new-mexico-southwest-colorado/" type="external">Better Business Bureau</a> issued a news&#160; release announcing that <a href="http://5kfoamfest.com/" type="external">Round House Racing</a> of Spanish Fork, Utah, had shut down, thereby canceling all future events, including two planned this week and next in Portland, Ore., and Reno, Nev.</p>
<p>The BBB became involved after registered participants in two other cities contacted a different bureau when they were unable to reach anyone at Round House after being notified by email that the races would not take place.</p>
<p>“The BBB is encouraging consumers that have paid registration fees for the 5k Foam Fest event to dispute the charge with their credit card company or bank,” the <a href="http://www.bbb.org/new-mexico-southwest-colorado/" type="external">Better Business Bureau Serving New Mexico and Southwest Colorado</a> advised in its release.</p>
<p>And they should do that quickly, Connie Quillen, executive assistant at the local BBB, told the Journal.</p>
<p>That’s because credit- and debit-card issuers may only consider such requests for a specified period of time.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“If it’s debit or credit, check with the card issuer as to what your rights are for recourse on that,” Quillen said Monday, suggesting those seeking a refund submit a copy of Round House’s going-out-of-business announcement posted on its website. “Hopefully, people can get their money back.”</p>
<p>Quillen said they also should check periodically to see if the company files for bankruptcy protection in its home state of Utah. If it does, they could file for a refund with the bankruptcy court.</p>
<p>On Thursday, Round House posted on its <a href="http://5kfoamfest.com/" type="external">website</a>and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/RoundHouseRacing?ref=ts&amp;fref=ts" type="external">Facebook</a>page that all future events had been canceled and that it was going out of business. It made no mention of refunds, other than to say Red Frog Events, another company, would offer free registration to one of its upcoming events and 25 percent off the entry fee for a second person.</p>
<p>“Our organization has spent years and an incredible amount of money perfecting this great event for the runners we admire so much,” the company wrote. “However, due to limited resources we are sad to announce that the 5k Foam Fest is cancelling all future events and will no longer be in business as of July 17th, 2014.”</p>
<p>The company also said it doesn’t have the staff or funds to respond to emails or phone calls, but it promised to provide email updates “as information becomes available.”</p> | 5K Foam Fest is off, refunds in limbo | false | https://abqjournal.com/433065/5k-foam-fest-is-off-refunds-in-limbo.html | 2 |
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<p>Matt Chase</p>
<p>On March 4, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in King v. Burwell, a lawsuit designed by conservative advocates to destroy Obamacare. If the plaintiffs prevail, <a href="" type="internal">about 8 million people could lose their health insurance</a>. Premiums are likely to skyrocket by 35 percent or more, threatening coverage for millions of others. Health policy experts have <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/02/03/1362073/-Public-health-experts-estimate-nearly-10-000-deaths-if-court-strikes-down-Obamacare-nbsp-subsidies#" type="external">estimated that nearly 10,000 people a year could die</a> prematurely if they lose their coverage. Obamacare itself could collapse.</p>
<p>The King case started out as a legal theory hatched by a group of conservative lawyers in 2010 at a <a href="https://www.aei.org/press/whos-in-charge-more-legal-challenges-to-the-patient-protection-and-affordable-care-act/" type="external">conference sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute</a>, the right-leaning think tank. Attendees were urged to devise a litigation strategy to bring down the Affordable Care Act, which months earlier had been signed into law. The libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/06/20/anatomy-of-a-washington-dinner-who-funds-the-competitive-enterprise-institute/" type="external">a think tank funded</a> by big pharmaceutical firms, oil and gas outfits, the Koch brothers, Google, tobacco companies, and conservative foundations, answered the call. (“This bastard has to be killed as a matter of political hygiene,” Michael Greve, then CEI chairman, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/21/opinion/linda-greenhouse-by-any-means-necessary.html?_r=0" type="external">said</a> at the conference.) But CEI had to recruit plaintiffs—actual people who could claim they had been harmed by the Affordable Care Act in a particular way—to launch its lawsuit.</p>
<p>So who are the two men and two women that CEI handpicked to front its assault on Obamacare? What harm had they suffered as a result of the health care law? And why are they willing to put their names on a suit that could jeopardize the health coverage of millions of fellow Americans?</p>
<p>I set out to track down the plaintiffs to hear in their own words why they had decided to take part in the case, and it soon became evident that CEI had struggled to find suitable candidates. Three of the four plaintiffs are nearly eligible for Medicare, meaning their objections to Obamacare will soon be moot. Two of them appear to qualify for hardship exemptions—that is, they are not forced to acquire insurance or pay fines because even with a subsidy insurance would eat up too much of their incomes—so it’s unclear how Obamacare had burdened them. These two plaintiffs seemed driven by their political opposition to President Obama; one has called him the “anti-Christ” and said he won election by getting “his Muslim people to vote for him.” Yet most curious of all, one of the plaintiffs did not recall exactly how she’d been recruited for the case and seemed unaware of the possible consequences if she wins. Told that millions could lose their health coverage if the Supreme Court rules in her favor, she said that she didn’t want this to happen.</p>
<p>The case is legally complex. It <a href="" type="internal">centers on the claim</a> that the Internal Revenue Service has illegally interpreted the Affordable Care Act to provide subsidies to people who live in states that have not established online health insurance exchanges and use the federal exchange to obtain insurance. The lawsuit asserts that Congress intended for Americans to receive insurance subsidies only through state exchanges—an argument that the bill’s congressional drafters have vehemently denied. In a complicated legal maneuver, the plaintiffs argue that if the IRS hadn’t illegally made subsidies available to them, they would have the right to the hardship exemption provided by the law that would free them from paying a fine for going uninsured. (Exemptions are available to Americans whose health insurance costs would be more than 8 percent of their incomes.)</p>
<p>At its core, this convoluted case is an ideological vehicle driven by well-funded conservative interest groups bent on demolishing Obamacare. But it wouldn’t exist without these four average Americans CEI signed up as plaintiffs. Public interest litigation, as this case purports to be, generally has some obvious benefits for plaintiffs. But this case is different. For the King plaintiffs a victory will mean they will end up with the right either to pay more for their health coverage or to go uninsured—and Americans receiving subsidized insurance in 34 states could lose their premium subsidies and, likely, their insurance coverage</p>
<p>Meet the people behind the case:</p>
<p>Brenda Levy Levy, 64, lives outside of Richmond. She will qualify for Medicare in June, around the same time the Supreme Court is likely to issue a decision in this case. A substitute teacher with wild, frizzy gray hair and earthy clothes—she lives in a house that resembles a log cabin—Levy looks like an aging hippie. When I met her in January, she mentioned that she’d once belonged to the Sierra Club and that she used to read Mother Jones. She seemed an unusual candidate for a libertarian-tinged lawsuit designed to eviscerate Obamacare.</p>
<p>What was more surprising, though, was that she said she didn’t recall exactly how she had been selected as a plaintiff in the case to begin with. “I don’t know how I got on this case. I haven’t done a single thing legally. I’m gonna have to ask them how they found me,” she told me. She thought lawyers involved with the case may have contacted her at some point and she had decided to “help ’em out.”</p>
<p>How did they track her down? I asked if she was involved in GOP or conservative politics. Was she a tea party member who had registered her opposition to Obamacare on a petition or at a rally? Levy insisted she leads “a quiet life.” But she is politically active. A prolific writer of letters to the editor denouncing gay rights activists, Levy was also a donor to California’s anti-gay-marriage ballot amendment Proposition 8. In 2013, she helped to organize a rally outside the headquarters of the local Boy Scouts council in Richmond to protest the organization’s plan to consider allowing gay kids to join (which eventually was adopted). <a href="http://wtvr.com/2013/05/17/protest-of-proposal-to-allow-openly-gay-boy-scouts/" type="external">You can see her here</a>:</p>
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<p>Levy has yet to attend any of the court proceedings in King v. Burwell, because she “didn’t think the case was going anywhere.” At the time we spoke, Levy said that she had never met the lawyers handling the case in person, despite the fact that it had been pending for more than a year. But she said she planned to travel to Washington for the Supreme Court oral arguments in March: “It’s an adventure. Like going to Paris!”</p>
<p>When I asked her if she realized that her lawsuit could potentially wipe out health coverage for millions, she looked befuddled. “I don’t want things to be more difficult for people,” she said. “I don’t like the idea of throwing people off their health insurance.”</p>
<p>Levy was under the impression that if the case prevailed, someone would surely fix the insurance situation, probably at the local level. “I think [Virginia’s Democratic Gov.] Terry McAuliffe wants to expand Medicaid,” she remarked. She didn’t know that the Medicaid expansion was part of Obamacare, or that the same forces backing her lawsuit have opposed this expansion in her state. She was also unaware that there is no Plan B in the works to rescue the people who could lose their insurance if her case is successful.</p>
<p>Still, she’s no fan of Obamacare. She claimed it gives the government control over Americans’ medical treatment and that the law has spurred the IRS to expand. And she said she doesn’t like the idea of young people subsidizing her insurance. Levy contended that Obamacare had caused many Americans to lose their insurance and for premiums to rise.</p>
<p>In fact, the percentage of uninsured Americans has <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/178100/uninsured-rate-holds.aspx" type="external">fallen from 18 percent to 13.4 percent</a> since the law took effect last year. And Obamacare has made health care more affordable than ever before. This especially holds true for Levy. She told me she faced monthly health care premiums of $1,500, which she attributed to health woes that have included two craniotomies and two hip replacements. “I’ve had some holes drilled in my head,” she quipped. Levy hasn’t checked out the plans she qualifies for under Obamacare, but a October 2013 affidavit filed by the government in King v. Burwell indicates that at that time she could have purchased a low-cost bronze plan on the federal exchange for $148 a month. Given this, it’s unclear how Obamacare has caused her any real harm.</p>
<p>David King The lead plaintiff in the case, King is a burly Vietnam vet whose large frame filled the doorway of his modest Fredericksburg, Virginia, home when I knocked on his door in January. The mustachioed 64-year-old wore a dark suit and was preparing for his gig later that day as a self-employed limo driver. When I asked him about the lawsuit, he brought up Benghazi. He despises Obama (“He’s a joke!”), and loathes the president’s signature achievement. His Facebook page features posts <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/face-of-supreme-court-case-hates-obamacare-and-obama-too-114953.html" type="external">slamming the president</a> (“the idiot in the White House”) and Obamacare.</p>
<p>According to legal filings in his case, he’s married and a smoker. When the lawsuit was filed in September 2013, King’s projected 2014 income was $39,000, entitling him to a premium subsidy for health insurance that would allow him to purchase a bronze plan for $275 a month—a price that would be lower if he didn’t smoke. (The ACA allows insurance companies to charge smokers up to 50 percent more for premiums.) Without the subsidy, the same plan would cost $648 a month. King wouldn’t say whether he’s currently covered, but he was adamant that he would never utilize Obamacare, no matter what.</p>
<p>But King isn’t compelled to use Obamacare. Because the cost of his subsidized premium would be more than 8 percent of his income, he should qualify for a hardship exemption. Obamacare doesn’t require him to buy insurance or force him to pay a penalty if he decides to forgo it.&#160;So as with Levy, it’s not clear what real harm he is seeking to remedy.</p>
<p>I asked King what he got out of the case. He replied that the only benefit he would receive from the case was the satisfaction of smashing Obamacare, which he believes bilks hardworking taxpayers to support welfare recipients. He said he doesn’t care if millions of Americans lose their health coverage, because “they’re probably not paying for it anyway.”</p>
<p>But according to <a href="" type="internal">a new analysis by the Urban Institute</a>, of the 8 million people most at risk of losing their health insurance if King prevails, 80 percent are employed. Moreover, 70 percent are high school graduates or have some college education, more than 60 percent are white and live in the South, and 82 percent of them are not poor but low- and middle-income. More than a million of the Americans whose health coverage this lawsuit puts at risk are over 55. In short, many of them are David King.</p>
<p>Unlike most of the people who could suffer if his lawsuit succeeds, King may soon have his insurance problems relieved by a different government health care plan. He’ll be eligible for Medicare in October.</p>
<p>Rose Luck I wasn’t able to knock on Luck’s door because the home address she provided in legal filings turned out to be a $200-a-week extended-stay motel on a commercial strip in Petersburg, Virginia, a last refuge for people who’ve fallen on hard times. She had long since moved on by the time I tried to contact her there. In 2012, the bank foreclosed on the house Luck and her husband had purchased only a year earlier. Luck hung up on me when I finally reached her by phone. Contacted via Facebook with a detailed list of questions, she responded, “Please leave me alone.”</p>
<p>But public records provide a snapshot of her life and hardships. Since the late 1990s, legal judgments have been entered against her and her husband in Virginia courts for nearly $5,000 in unpaid medical bills (they have since been paid off). Such judgments are the hallmark of people who lack insurance or who are underinsured.</p>
<p>At 56, Luck is the youngest of the plaintiffs. Like King, she doesn’t care much for Obama. On her Facebook page, she has called him the “anti-Christ,” voiced her belief that Obama came to power because “he got his Muslim people to vote for him,” and noted her refusal to acknowledge his legitimacy as president. “Ohhhhh hell no i wouldn’t admit he was our president,” she wrote in one Facebook comment. She has warned her Facebook followers that Obamacare will cost people “77,000 dollars a year.” &#160;</p>
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<p>Along with her anti-Obama sentiments, Luck’s Facebook page makes clear that she has experienced some serious health problems—she’s reported several trips to the hospital—and suggests she badly needs health coverage. Obamacare offers her a good deal in that department. Luck’s estimated household income for 2014 was $45,000. According to government filings, the cheapest plan available to her on the exchange cost $332 per month—not cheap because she’s a smoker, but also a better deal than the $428 catastrophic coverage available to her (at the time the lawsuit was filed) without the subsidy. Even so, the Affordable Care Act does not force her to buy a plan or pay a fine, for the same reason that King is exempt—the cost of subsidized insurance is more than 8 percent of her income.</p>
<p>Doug Hurst Hurst, 63, and his wife, Pam Trainor Hurst, owned a Virginia Beach remodeling company that went bankrupt at the peak of the financial crisis. According to their 2010 bankruptcy filings, which included their 2009 tax return, health care costs were a considerable expense for the Hursts. Their 2009 tax return lists more than $8,500 in out-of-pocket medical expenses.</p>
<p>Of the four plaintiffs, Doug Hurst is eligible for the most savings under Obamacare. According to legal filings, his projected income for 2014 was $39,000. Under Obamacare, he could have purchased a bronze health plan for $62.49 a month, a fraction of the $655 a month the bankruptcy filings show he paid in late 2010.&#160;</p>
<p>The Hursts no doubt understand the vagaries of the health care system—and the importance of insurance coverage. In 2009, not long before they filed for bankruptcy, Pam’s 37-year-old daughter was hospitalized and died, following a long struggle with schizoaffective disorder. The ACA requires insurers to cease discriminating against mentally ill consumers and to cover mental health treatment as they would any physical ailment, without limits, higher co-pays, or deductibles. I wondered how the Hursts felt about the fact that other families with loved ones contending with mental illness could lose access to health care if the King lawsuit succeeds.</p>
<p>I never spoke with Doug Hurst, but I reached his wife on the phone in late January. Her social-media footprint offers a glimpse into her politics, with Facebook posts displaying a fondness for tea party favorite Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). She declined to talk about the case or the couple’s health care expenses, referring me to the lawyers handling the case. But she told me angrily: “I’m very well aware of my situation. You are not. You are not aware of extenuating circumstances. I don’t have to justify my life, the loss of my child, which included the loss of a business, to anyone, do you understand?” &#160;</p>
<p>The King case has had a strange trip to the Supreme Court. The four plaintiffs lost at both the district and the federal appellate courts. But the lawsuit remained alive thanks to a similar case, also spearheaded by CEI, that was heard by a three-judge panel of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals and had a different outcome—one that the full appeals court was expected to reverse after hearing the case. A reversal in the DC court would have <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/21/opinion/linda-greenhouse-by-any-means-necessary.html" type="external">meant there was no conflict among the circuit courts</a> over the legal issue at the heart of these cases—and less reason for the Supreme Court to take the case. But the Supreme Court made the unusual move of accepting the King case before the DC Circuit could finish its work.</p>
<p>The oral arguments before the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals highlighted many of the weaknesses of King, particularly with regard to the plaintiffs. Judge Andre Davis repeatedly expressed skepticism about the plaintiffs and quizzed the lead lawyer on the case, <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/michael-carvin-halbig-supreme-court" type="external">Michael Carvin</a>, on why he hadn’t brought the suit as a class action—the traditional vehicle for public interest litigation. Davis suggested that the reason was that “nobody wants what you’re after here!” The appellate court ruled unanimously against the plaintiffs, with Davis writing in a concurring opinion that Carvin’s case turned on “a tortured, nonsensical construction of a federal statute whose manifest purpose…could not be more clear.”</p>
<p>Carvin, an attorney at the law firm of Jones Day, bristled when I asked him whether the difficulty in securing solid plaintiffs suggested that there are not many Americans interested in wiping out health coverage for millions of their fellow citizens. “Linda Brown was the only plaintiff in Brown v. Board of Education,” he retorted, invoking the famous Supreme Court case that led to school desegregation. “Does that suggest there weren’t a lot of people who supported her point of view?” (In fact, Linda Brown was one of 13 plaintiffs in that case, which was filed as a class action. The Supreme Court decision in Brown also included four other cases dealing with public school segregation that had been consolidated. The combined cases in Brown involved dozens of plaintiffs.) <a href="#update" type="external">*</a></p>
<p>Carvin told me that he’d had little interaction with the King plaintiffs and that CEI had been in charge of their recruitment. “My particular role was not a lot of direct involvement with the plaintiffs,” he said. (CEI’s general counsel, Sam Kazman, whom King and Levy consider their attorney, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.)</p>
<p>By the government’s math, which he disputes, Carvin acknowledged that two of the plaintiffs (Luck and King) don’t have much of a case because they would not be penalized for forgoing health coverage. But he says that doesn’t matter. All he needs is a single plaintiff who fits the bill to bring down the subsidy scheme, and both Hurst and Levy, he insists, qualify.</p>
<p>Though two lower courts have ruled against him, Carvin is confident that the Supreme Court’s conservative justices will tip the balance in his favor. If his case does result in wiping out health coverage for millions of Obamacare recipients, he said, it won’t be his fault. Nor will Luck, King, Levy, or Hurst be to blame. “If there is any complaint,” he claims, “it would be with the people who wrote the Affordable Care Act, not with my plaintiffs.”</p>
<p>*The story has been updated to reflect that Brown v. Board of Education was in fact a class action involving numerous plaintiffs, contrary to lawyer Michael Carvin’s statement.</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | The Supreme Court Is About to Hear the Case That Could Destroy Obamacare | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/king-burwell-supreme-court-obamacare/ | 2015-02-09 | 4 |
<p>Nicolas Sarkozy, allegedly the most Anglophile (or rather Americanophile) president of the 5th Republic failed his Science Po degree in the late 70s because his English was so poor that he was barred from sitting the politics exams. In the run up to the war in Iraq, the allegedly “Anti-American” Chirac was able to explain the French position in English before the US media, a small feat totally out of reach for the monolingual Sarkozy.</p>
<p>Sarkozy did not have to make small talk in English when he recently met the Queen in Windsor Castle since the British Monarch is fluent in French. On this occasion, some may have warned the Queen that Sarkozy’s French is generally most unceremonial: his crude crack at a person who refused to shake hands with him at a Paris farm show or the derogatory use of the “tu” form to address strangers (in the French context, not a cool way to behave, but rather a condescending or bossy one) have become Internet hits. Meeting youngsters from the banlieues a few months before his election, Sarko boasted to the kids: “I speak like you, I could be one of you”. “Bling-Bling Sarko” confuses familiarity with vulgarity. As one of his critics in the French media cruelly put it: Sarkozy is not small, but low.</p>
<p>Before Sarko, the Gaullist right was not quintessentially vulgar and anti-intellectual. Charles de Gaulle was a well-read man who had the good taste to choose André Malraux as Minister of Culture. Georges Pompidou was an Agrégé de lettres and a student at the Ecole Normale Supérieure. The apparently less highbrow Jacques Chirac is a great connoisseur of Japanese civilization (and, some cynics might like to add, of his banking system) [and leaves the splendid Branly museum as a monument, Editors]. Sarkozy breaks with the Gaullist tradition on that count: he is a self-professed idiot. To one of his advisers who suggested that he visit a museum during a trip in Madrid, Sarko replied: “The idiot thanks you!” (Le con te dit merci!). The ironic jibe fails to conceal Sarkozy’s deep insecurity with regard to the world of knowledge in general and to intellectuals in particular. Sarkozy admitted hating school and underachieved as a student. Recently, he was heard fuming in public against “those researchers who find nothing”.</p>
<p>Sarkozy does not read and does not even pretend that he is in the least interested in literature or arts, which constitutes yet another break with the tradition of French presidents. He is the son of an immigrant from Central Europe who made it to the top of French politics without studying in the elitist Grandes Ecoles. These features should have earned him the sympathy of the French people as they like to back the underdog. However, Sarko has squandered this opportunity: his ostentatious nouveau riche profile and his courtship of the mega-rich have put off the whole nation.</p>
<p>In the end, Sarkozy may fail to substantially Americanize France if the French people find the political resources to defeat his neoliberal rampages through the economy. In the meantime, the country is run by a president who, like George W. Bush, thinks that the world is divided between “good” and “bad people”, that intellectuals are sissies and, last but not least, that it is alright to be not so educated, filthy rich and brag about it.</p>
<p>Philippe Marlière teaches French and EU politics at University College London (UK) since 1994. He is also an activist on the left-wing of the French Socialist Party. He can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | Sarkozy’s Cultivated Anti-Intellectualism | true | https://counterpunch.org/2008/04/02/sarkozy-s-cultivated-anti-intellectualism/ | 2008-04-02 | 4 |
<p>At last week’s UN General Assembly in New York, most of the world’s attention was focussed on the dramatic statements made by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Iranian President Mamoud Ahmadinejad, who not only exhorted the other delegates to oppose the American war on terrorism, but also went on mini-speaking tours within the permitted radius of the UN Headquarters. Emboldened by their success with the Non-aligned movement the week before, these socialist oil-producing presidents went on to dominate the UN meeting, or at least the media’s coverage of it.</p>
<p>Whatever the results of these performances may be, a subtler, and more serious rebuke was to come from Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. Taken at face value, Musharraf used his trip to the United States to promote his new book and get himself re-elected next year. On a deeper level, however, Musharraf’s autobiography, “ <a href="" type="internal">In the Line of Fire</a>,” and his media strategy signal a sea change in Pakistan’s foreign policy, and the balance of power in Central Asia may follow.</p>
<p>Musharraf began his tour with an interview on CBS “60 Minutes,” where he dramatically revealed that the day after the attacks of September 11, 2001, then Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) chief Mahmoud Ahmed that Pakistan would be bombed back into the stone age if it did not cooperate with the U.S. in its campaign against the Taliban. Then off to the White House. At a joint press conference, George Bush denied the charge and barely let the Pakistani leader speak. Musharraf, looking a bit intimidated, coyly suggested that anyone interested in the subject should buy his book, which would be released in a few days. And so it was, with dramatic effect.</p>
<p>The autobiography instantly became a best seller in India, where it was “rubbished” by persons ranging from former US Ambassador to India Robert Blackwill (1) to K Subrahmanyam, who headed the Kargil Review Committee appointed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). (2) Indeed, no issue strikes at the heart of Indo-Pak relations more than the status of Kashmir and the details of the Kargil campaign in 1999, which nearly led to nuclear war. (3) Musharraf also wrote in his book that the Indians obtained their nuclear centrifuge plans from the notorious proliferation network of A .Q. Khan. In a part of the world where nuclear weapons are considered a benchmark of technological achievement, this could only be meant to offend the Indians. A semi-official reaction came from the Indian police, who took the opportunity to announce that the ISI and the outlawed pro-Pakistan group Lashkar-e-Taiba were responsible for the July 11th bomb attacks in Mumbai that killed 186 people and injured more than 800. (4)</p>
<p>Perhaps the highlight of Musharraf’s tour was his appearance on the Daily Show, an American TV comedy about politics which is normally critical of the Bush administration. Musharraf was served Twinkies and jasmine tea, imported from Pakistan, and immediately asked “Where is Osama bin Laden?” Musharraf didn’t know, but came across as charismatic and likeable, in counterpoint to the defensive stance he’d taken in talks at Georgetown University and the Council on Foreign Relations. At Georgetown, the General was pressed to declare his opposition to the “Talibanization of Pakistan,” to condemn hudad laws, and proclaim his determination to win the war on terrorism. Perhaps it was the change of venue, or perhaps Pakistan’s foreign policy has actually changed in the last week. In more recent interviews, Musharraf appears far more confident and independent.</p>
<p>This became evident when the President General crossed the pond to meet privately with Tony Blair. In an interview with BBC radio afterwards, Musharraf announced that “[y]ou will be brought down to your knees if Pakistan doesn’t co-operate with you. That is all that I would like to say. … Remember my words: if the ISI is not with you and Pakistan is not with you will lose in Afghanistan.” (4) One can assume the meeting with Blair did not go well.</p>
<p>Musharraf’s book release coincides with war of words that has erupted between himself and Hamid Karzai, the President of Afghanistan. The main subject of debate has been the rather nonsensical one of whether Osama bin Laden is hiding in Afghainstan or Pakistan. Another point of contention is the wisdom of the agreement the Pakistani government has reached with tribal elders, which Musharraf says will enlist their aid against foreign insurgents sheltering in Pakistan’s tribal belt, and Karzai says will provide for a safe haven for them. The two leaders were invited for a special dinner and fondue at the White House in order to make amends, with George Bush acting as peacemaker. But whatever political effect this bizarre event was intended to achieve was overshadowed by Musharraf’s other engagements. And it’s hard to imagine that Afghanistan is truly the master of its foreign policy, particularly watching Hamid Karzai and George Bush share the podium. Not looking intimidated at all, Karzai clearly plays a supporting role, the lone member of a chorus in a tragic Greek play.</p>
<p>Whether Musharraf himself has any choice is also hard to say. The Pakistani President has been pushed to the wall by an endless series of demands and threats. On September 20th, when asked on CNN whether he would send ground troops into Pakistan to capture bin Laden, Bush replied “absolutely.” This fell on the heels of the accusation by NATO commander James L. Jones that the Taliban had openly set up their headquarters in the Pakistani city of Quetta, prompting calls to bomb the city. Yet those promoting the idea of taking direct action in Pakistan seem unaware of the instability in Baluchistan, a province that has always had some degree of autonomy from the central government. And unable to comprehend the likely reaction by the Pakistani people should the U.S. attack. A recent Pew survey showed that only 30% of Pakistanis have a favorable view of the US.</p>
<p>It appears that the staged battle of personalities between Karzai and Musharraf is really an expression of Musharraf’s rebellion against Washington. It’s being done with humor and tact, but the subject is deadly serious. A direct confrontation between Musharraf and Bush could quickly get out of hand, and could lead to irreversable changes in the relationship between the two states.</p>
<p>In the last weeks the President General has done an about face, realizing that the appeasement of Washington has its limits. Casually-made threats to bomb Quetta or send in ground troops to capture Osama bin Laden are in fact threats to the stability of the government of Pakistan. Pakistan has made dramatic economic progress in recent years, which could easily be ruined by involvement in the Afghan insurgency. Aside from conspiracy theories about the ISI, there is no reason to believe that Pakistan has any interest in destabilizing its western border.</p>
<p>If Pakistan is pushed to take further measures against the tribals in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, it will have little choice but defiance. Pakistan may have little choice but to take shelter in the long term relationships it has built with China and Iran. This would greatly complicate American efforts to pacify Afghanistan. No doubt Musharraf would prefer to avoid a confrontation, but it’s far from clear that appeasement of Washington’s demands, and accepting the blame for the disaster caused by the hated occupation of Afghanistan, will accomplish that.</p>
<p>PAUL WOLF is an attorney in private practice in Washington DC, working in international law, humanitarian law, and human rights. He is creating an online history of Pakistan based on declassified US government documents on file at the US National Archives. See <a href="http://www.paulwolf.org/" type="external">www.paulwolf.org</a> and <a href="http://www.international-lawyers.org/" type="external">www.international-lawyers.org</a> for more information.</p>
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<p>Notes:</p>
<p>1. Blackwill rubbishes Mush’s claims, CNN, September 27, 2006 http://www.ibnlive.com/news/blackwill-rubbishes-musharraf-claims/22583-2.html</p>
<p>2. Musharraf on fire, by Manish Chand, Hindustan Times, Sept 27, 2006 http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/7598_1807357,000500020009.htm</p>
<p>3. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargil_War</p>
<p>4. Musharraf Blasts “Ungrateful” West, Islamonline.net, Sept 30, 2006 http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2006-09/30/06.shtml</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | The Mushy Rebellion | true | https://counterpunch.org/2006/10/04/the-mushy-rebellion/ | 2006-10-04 | 4 |
<p>British broadcaster ITV is looking to build on the summer success of surf-and-sex show “Love Island” with “Celebrity Showmance”, in which pairs of celebrities use social media to try to fool the public into believing they are an item.</p>
<p>The show features six celebrities who form three unlikely couples and then set out to get as much attention as possible from unwitting members of the public on Twitter, Instagram, and other social media. The faux couple that gets the most “likes” wins the show. <a href="http://variety.com/t/keshet/" type="external">Keshet</a> U.K. is making “Celebrity Showmance,” and ITV will launch the show in a primetime slot on its <a href="http://variety.com/t/itv2/" type="external">ITV2</a> channel next month.</p>
<p>Pop-star-turned-eco-warrior Abz and Chloe Sims, one of the stars of reality series “The Only Way Is Essex,” form one couple; socialite Lady Victoria Hervey and footballer Jamie O’Hara form another. The third pairing is of Hayley Hasselhoff, the daughter of “Baywatch” star David Hasselhoff, and Kyle Christie of “Geordie Shore,” the British version of MTV’s “Jersey Shore.”</p>
<p>The fake relationships took place earlier this year and ITV2 viewers will see how they played out. The celebrity match-ups successfully stoked stories in U.K. tabloids and gossip magazines, and speculation that the relationships are fake.</p>
<p>Rapper, comedian, and actor Doc Brown narrates the series and gives the couples humorous challenges in each installment that result in a photo or video that the celebs then put out on social media. The tasks cover the classic stages of a celebrity romance, from an initial “we’re not dating” phase, through a honeymoon period, and, finally, an explosive breakup, all played out in public and on social media. The celebrities must pull off fake photo-ops and other stunts to maximize their exposure.</p>
<p>While the show is part of the “fake news” zeitgeist, it will be played for laughs and is not intended as serious social commentary.</p>
<p>ITV had the surprise success of the summer on ITV2 with “Love Island.” A reality dating series, the show found a summer audience seeking an alternative to heavy drama and world events. ITV’s bosses are now pushing to <a href="http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/love-island-itv2-1202505749/" type="external">launch the series in other territories</a>.</p>
<p>Keshet International is expected to launch “Celebrity Showmance” internationally at Mipcom, by which time the first episode will have aired on ITV2.</p> | Celebrities Dupe Public on Social Media in New ITV Series ‘Celebrity Showmance’ (EXCLUSIVE) | false | https://newsline.com/celebrities-dupe-public-on-social-media-in-new-itv-series-celebrity-showmance-exclusive/ | 2017-09-15 | 1 |
<p>Before Phillip Daniel began student teaching at Mather High School in West Ridge last, he was open to the idea of taking a job in the Chicago Public Schools. After a semester at Mather, CPS was where this recent DePaul University graduate wanted to be.</p>
<p>“My view of teaching in Chicago has been enhanced,” he said last summer. “Until I actually did it, there’s a level of intimidation about city schools—coming from the suburbs. City schools absolutely do not have the resources that the suburbs do, so the challenges are different and greater, but the rewards are also greater.”</p>
<p>Daniel’s experience is far from unique. In a survey of recent graduates from three Midwest teacher colleges, 84 percent of the respondents who did their student teaching in CPS said that the experience contributed to their willingness to teach in CPS.</p>
<p>“Student teaching is very, very important,” concurs Zalman Usiskin, director of the mathematics MAT (master of arts in teaching) program at the University of Chicago. “It is the most important thing a prospective teacher does.”</p>
<p>The Chicago Public Schools has come to see that, too, and has added student teachers as a recruitment target. Xiomara Metcalfe, director of the Bureau of Recruitment and Staffing, says CPS no longer will be a “passive participant” in the process, which involves some 800 teachers-in- training this year alone. For one, recruiters will visit teacher prep programs in the metropolitan area to give them information about teaching in the city. In addition, two job fairs are planned for January and April so that student teachers can meet principals who are looking for teachers.</p>
<p>“We want to go beyond merely facilitating the process by which student teachers find out about schools that need them,” Metcalfe says. “We want to get the process moving along.”</p>
<p>Down the road, CPS plans to establish a satellite training camp for teacher colleges outside the metropolitan area; it would offer lodging and specially trained mentors to oversee student teachers’ work. The program would be similar to the Urban Education Program, a 33-year-old program that allows 14 Midwestern colleges to send about 30 student teachers a year into Chicago schools. (See story.)</p>
<p>Chicago often comes up short on student teacher placements because colleges’ supervising teachers don’t live in the city.</p>
<p>“We put most of our students in the suburbs because that’s where the person who supervises them lives,” says John McIntyre, an associate education dean at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. “It’s much more convenient for him than to come to the city.”</p>
<p>On occasion, SIU and others have made arrangements with Chicago colleges to provide supervising teachers for students who wanted to student teach in Chicago.</p>
<p>Another obstacle CPS faces in its bid to increase the student teacher corps is the lack—or perceived lack—of well-run host schools, college officials say.</p>
<p>The largest teaching colleges in the city—University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), Northeastern Illinois, Chicago State, Columbia, Roosevelt, Loyola and DePaul—quickly fill up the desirable student teaching slots.</p>
<p>“What are their favorite schools?” Usiskin asks. “Those that are operating well. And there are only so many of them. Those are also the ones that tend not to have shortages of teachers either. They want to put their student teachers in places that are working, and working well, where they’ll get good supervision.”</p>
<p>Usiskin recalls that last year, he had a student who very much wanted to student teacher in CPS but the only acceptable school already had four student teachers in mathematics. “We and the school agreed that it would not be best for them to have a fifth student teacher. So this person wound up not student teaching in the city. And it’s not because this person didn’t want to do it.”</p>
<p>Mather High School is one of the sought-after schools. Last year, it took 40, the most that space would allow, and turned away 10.</p>
<p>Lee Elementary School in West Lawn is another. “The first thing that I notice at a school is if the teachers want to be there,” says Becky Jaracz, a St. Xavier College student who student taught at Lee during the summer. “At other schools I’ve worked at, teachers are always gossiping, and the stress level is high. Here at Lee, everybody seems to like their job. My cooperating teacher has been so generous with teaching magazines and supplies. It’s just been great.”</p>
<p>Student teachers stress the importance of their cooperating teachers, the ones with whom they teach.</p>
<p>“A lot of students, including myself, don’t think we got the observation we needed,” ways Omar Gonzalez, a UIC student who student taught in CPS. “My mentor teacher had only two years of experience as a teacher. That’s not enough time for me to get any meaningful ideas and information about what it’s like to be a teacher.</p>
<p>“A lot of times, colleges just want to fill places,” he adds. “As a result, not all of us get placed with good mentor teachers.”</p>
<p>At Lee School, Principal Marjorie Joy does the selecting, looking for teachers with at least three to five years of experience. “I always look for my best teachers, the ones who have a good understanding of the whole process,” she says.</p>
<p>For her efforts, Joy has been rewarded with student teachers who want to work at Lee after they graduate. In 15 years, she has hired five. “[Student teaching] is a wonderful opportunity to see how [potential teachers] react in a classroom,” she notes. “You get to see them in action. But definitely the best part about having them is what they bring to us. I don’t know how anyone would not want to have a student teacher in their building.”</p>
<p>Recruitment director Metcalfe notes that student teaching also allows both sides to determine whether they make a good pair. “Not everyone is cut out to be a teacher in the Chicago public schools,” she notes. “Student teaching is a good way to weed these people out.”</p>
<p>“We had one student teacher last year, who, after doing her student teaching, decided she was going to go to a very rural area,” says Joe Kallas, Mather’s assistant principal. “She saw what an urban area was like and decided that was not what she wanted to do.”</p>
<p>The University of Chicago’s Usiskin says that suburban schools have a leg up on Chicago because they have the time to recruit student teachers. “The department chairs in the suburbs are quasi- administrators,” he explains. “They have more time than those in the city. Recruiting and hiring is a big responsibility for them. That is not the case in Chicago.”</p>
<p>In the suburbs, he continues, department chairs know what kind of teachers they will need and often will try to recruit in student teachers in those areas. His advice to Chicago: “First of all, I think they have to free up some time. The department chairs have to have the time to take care of the student teaching arrangements. Secondly, it doesn’t hurt to actually train people to supervise. They would help themselves a lot by training people in what is expected of a good cooperating teacher.”</p>
<p>While Phillip Daniel’s positive experience at Mather High turned him on to CPS, the system didn’t land him. In the end, he took a job as a business teacher at St. Gregory High School, a Catholic school on the Northwest Side, because it made him the first offer of a permanent position.</p> | CPS recruiters eye student teachers | false | http://chicagoreporter.com/cps-recruiters-eye-student-teachers/ | 2005-07-27 | 3 |
<p>DETROIT (AP) _ The winning numbers in Wednesday evening's drawing of the Michigan Lottery's "Classic Lotto 47" game were:</p>
<p>01-13-14-17-25-26</p>
<p>(one, thirteen, fourteen, seventeen, twenty-five, twenty-six)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $1.3 million</p>
<p>DETROIT (AP) _ The winning numbers in Wednesday evening's drawing of the Michigan Lottery's "Classic Lotto 47" game were:</p>
<p>01-13-14-17-25-26</p>
<p>(one, thirteen, fourteen, seventeen, twenty-five, twenty-six)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $1.3 million</p> | Winning numbers drawn in 'Classic Lotto 47' game | false | https://apnews.com/96338a69d59248f08c6676515a5b5421 | 2018-01-04 | 2 |
<p>The demand to lease Texas' publicly held land for energy exploration has increased since last summer, despite low oil prices — but it generated lower average prices.</p>
<p>Land Commissioner George P. Bush announced Tuesday that his office had auctioned leases for about 14,000 acres.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>That yielded around $84 million, or an average of less than $5,900 per acre, for the Permanent School Fund, which helps cover some public education costs.</p>
<p>During the last offering in July, Bush's office auctioned leases for 13,000-plus acres but generated $98 million, a per-acre average of nearly $7,400.</p>
<p>In 2015, Bush began letting private oil companies submit online their bids to explore for oil and gas on Texas state land.</p>
<p>In a statement Tuesday, Bush said: "We've taken an antiquated paper-based auction and transformed it."</p> | Texas leases more land, but gets lower prices amid oil slump | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/01/17/texas-leases-more-land-but-gets-lower-prices-amid-oil-slump.html | 2017-01-17 | 0 |
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<p />
<p>While offering a shoulder for a friend or helping around the house is one thing, Thompson is taking her helpfulness to the next level thanks to a trip over the summer to Boston to attend the Congress of Future Medical Leaders.</p>
<p>"It was definitely an eye-opening experience," she said. "It made me want to do more."</p>
<p>The Moriarty High School junior said she plans to become a doctor studying neurological diseases.</p>
<p>Moriarty High School junior Paige Thompson, who plans to become a doctor studying neurological diseases, will participate in the upcoming Walk to End Alzheimer's.</p>
<p>First, though, she plans on walking three kilometers as part of the annual Alzheimer's Association Walk to End Alzheimer's in Albuquerque on Sept. 26.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Thompson said her path into medicine is being guided by personal experience - her grandmother died of Alzheimer's three years ago.</p>
<p>"I saw how much it affected everyone in my family and how powerless I felt," she said.</p>
<p>Her experience at the Congress of Future Medical Leaders, though, inspired her to believe that she isn't powerless.</p>
<p>The summer congress is an honors-only program for high-school students who want to become physicians or go into medical research fields.</p>
<p>The purpose of this event is to honor, inspire, motivate and direct the top students in the country who aspire to be physicians or medical scientists, to stay true to their dream and, after the event, to provide a path, plan and resources to help them reach their goal.</p>
<p>During the three-day congress, Thompson joined students from across the country and heard Nobel laureates and National Medal of Science winners talk about leading medical research and was given advice from Ivy League and top medical-school deans on what is to expect in medical school.</p>
<p>The students also witnessed stories told by patients who are living medical miracles; and learned about cutting-edge advances and the future in medicine and medical technology.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>In preparation for the Walk to End Alzheimer's, the Moriarty Lions Club and Harris-Hanlon Mortuary hosted a fundraiser in Moriarty that raised $4,000.</p>
<p>Jaime Kurz of Harris-Hanlon said helping out with the event was a no-brainer.</p>
<p>"You don't see a lot of 16-year-olds making this kind of effort," Kurz said.</p>
<p>The Alzheimer's Association Walk to End Alzheimer's will take place at Civic Plaza in Albuquerque. Of the seven official Walk to End Alzheimer's events in New Mexico, this will be by far the largest, with as many as 2,000 residents from Albuquerque and surrounding communities expected to participate.</p>
<p>Those who want to participate still can by signing up online at <a href="http://www.alz.org" type="external">alz.org</a>.</p>
<p>Thompson's 20-member team, The Dream Team, will participate at the walk, but members acknowledge that it is the teenager leading them.</p>
<p /> | Future doctor steps out toward goal | false | https://abqjournal.com/646437/future-doctor-steps-out-toward-goal.html | 2 |
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<p>Introduction by Tom Engelhardt</p>
<p>Murder, torture, abuse… and photos of the same. We’ve <a href="http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=8560" type="external">seen</a> some of them, of course. Now, <a href="http://news.antiwar.com/2009/05/13/generals-pressed-obama-to-block-photo-%20release/" type="external">evidently under pressure</a> from his top generals, President Obama has decided to <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/13/AR2009051301751_pf.html" type="external">fight the release</a> of other grim photos from the dark side of the Bush years of offshore injustice—on the grounds that their publication might inflame opinion in the Middle East and our various war zones (as if fighting to suppress their publication won’t). In this way, just as the president is in the process of making Bush’s wars his own, so he seems to be making much of the nightmare legacy of those years of crime, torture, and cover-up his, too.</p>
<p>The photos his Justice Department will fight to suppress (for how long or how successfully we don’t yet know) are now officially “his”; next, assumedly, come those military commissions, suspended as Obama took office, which are evidently about to be <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gxy556BRGHjpxwA2iLBQ8y6abh9g" type="external">reborn</a> as Obama era tools of injustice. (This brings to mind, in grimmer form, the old saw about how military justice is to justice as military music is to music.) And with those commissions comes that wonderfully un-Constitutional idea of <a href="http://news.antiwar.com/2009/05/14/obama-mulls-indefinite-detention-without-trial-for-detainees/" type="external">detaining</a> chosen prisoners indefinitely either entirely <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124223286506515765.html" type="external">without trial</a> or with trials that will be mockeries. And with that, evidently, goes the idea of possibly setting up some sort of new <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2008/04/09/what-to-do-with-gitmo-detainees-profs-propose-national-security-court/" type="external">“national security court”</a> to try some detainees. (Keep in mind that the Obama administration is already <a href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/05/13/cheney/" type="external">hanging on tightly</a> to Dick Cheney’s “state secrets” privilege to block various lawsuits by those wronged in all sorts of ways in the Bush years.)</p>
<p>In other words, if you can’t go to court and get the punishments you want, the solution is simply to create courts jiggered in such a way (and surrounded by enough secrecy) that you’ll get the decisions you desire. If that isn’t a striking definition of American justice, I don’t know what is.</p>
<p>Obama’s national security world is now coming into view—and it’s not a pretty picture, but then, as Noam Chomsky points out, in a tour de force piece below, it hasn’t been a pretty picture for a long, long time. Tom</p>
<p>The Torture Memos and Historical Amnesia</p>
<p>By Noam Chomsky</p>
<p>The torture memos released by the White House elicited shock, indignation, and surprise. The shock and indignation are understandable. The surprise, less so.</p>
<p>For one thing, even without inquiry, it was reasonable to suppose that Guantanamo was a torture chamber. Why else send prisoners where they would be beyond the reach of the law—a place, incidentally, that Washington is using in violation of a treaty forced on Cuba at the point of a gun? Security reasons were, of course, alleged, but they remain hard to take seriously. The same expectations held for the Bush administration’s <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/13/070813fa_fact_mayer" type="external">“black sites,”</a> or secret prisons, and for <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/7789/the_cia_s_la_dolce_vita_war_on_terror" type="external">extraordinary rendition</a>, and they were fulfilled.</p>
<p>More importantly, torture has been routinely practiced from the early days of the conquest of the national territory, and continued to be used as the imperial ventures of the “infant empire”—as George Washington called the new republic—extended to the Philippines, Haiti, and elsewhere. Keep in mind as well that torture was the least of the many crimes of aggression, terror, subversion, and economic strangulation that have darkened U.S. history, much as in the case of other great powers.</p>
<p>Accordingly, what’s surprising is to see the reactions to the release of those Justice Department memos, even by some of the most eloquent and forthright critics of Bush malfeasance: Paul Krugman, for example, writing that we used to be “a nation of moral ideals” and never before Bush “have our leaders so utterly betrayed everything our nation stands for.” To say the least, that common view reflects a rather slanted version of American history.</p>
<p>Occasionally the conflict between “what we stand for” and “what we do” has been forthrightly addressed. One distinguished scholar who undertook the task at hand was Hans Morgenthau, a founder of realist international relations theory. In a classic study published in 1964 in the glow of Camelot, Morgenthau developed the standard view that the U.S. has a “transcendent purpose”: establishing peace and freedom at home and indeed everywhere, since “the arena within which the United States must defend and promote its purpose has become world-wide.” But as a scrupulous scholar, he also recognized that the historical record was radically inconsistent with that “transcendent purpose.”</p>
<p>We should not be misled by that discrepancy, advised Morgenthau; we should not “confound the abuse of reality with reality itself.” Reality is the unachieved “national purpose” revealed by “the evidence of history as our minds reflect it.” What actually happened was merely the “abuse of reality.”</p>
<p>The release of the torture memos led others to recognize the problem. In the New York Times, columnist Roger Cohen <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/books/review/Cohen-t.html" type="external">reviewed</a> a new book, The Myth of American Exceptionalism, by British journalist Geoffrey Hodgson, who concludes that the U.S. is “just one great, but imperfect, country among others.” Cohen agrees that the evidence supports Hodgson’s judgment, but nonetheless regards as fundamentally mistaken Hodgson’s failure to understand that “America was born as an idea, and so it has to carry that idea forward.” The American idea is revealed in the country’s birth as a “city on a hill,” an “inspirational notion” that resides “deep in the American psyche,” and by “the distinctive spirit of American individualism and enterprise” demonstrated in the Western expansion. Hodgson’s error, it seems, is that he is keeping to “the distortions of the American idea,” “the abuse of reality.”</p>
<p>Let us then turn to “reality itself”: the “idea” of America from its earliest days.</p>
<p>“Come Over and Help Us”</p>
<p>The inspirational phrase “city on a hill” was coined by John Winthrop in 1630, borrowing from the Gospels, and outlining the glorious future of a new nation “ordained by God.” One year earlier his Massachusetts Bay Colony created its <a href="http://www.sec.state.ma.us/pre/presea/sealhis.htm" type="external">Great Seal</a>. It depicted an Indian with a scroll coming out of his mouth. On that scroll are the words “Come over and help us.” The British colonists were thus pictured as benevolent humanists, responding to the pleas of the miserable natives to be rescued from their bitter pagan fate.</p>
<p>The Great Seal is, in fact, a graphic representation of “the idea of America,” from its birth. It should be exhumed from the depths of the psyche and displayed on the walls of every classroom. It should certainly appear in the background of all of the Kim Il-Sung-style worship of that savage murderer and torturer Ronald Reagan, who blissfully described himself as the leader of a “shining city on the hill,” while orchestrating some of the more ghastly crimes of his years in office, notoriously in Central America but elsewhere as well.</p>
<p>The Great Seal was an early proclamation of “humanitarian intervention,” to use the currently fashionable phrase. As has commonly been the case since, the “humanitarian intervention” led to a catastrophe for the alleged beneficiaries. The first Secretary of War, General Henry Knox, described “the utter extirpation of all the Indians in most populous parts of the Union” by means “more destructive to the Indian natives than the conduct of the conquerors of Mexico and Peru.”</p>
<p>Long after his own significant contributions to the process were past, John Quincy Adams deplored the fate of “that hapless race of native Americans, which we are exterminating with such merciless and perfidious cruelty… among the heinous sins of this nation, for which I believe God will one day bring [it] to judgement.” The “merciless and perfidious cruelty” continued until “the West was won.” Instead of God’s judgment, the heinous sins today bring only praise for the fulfillment of the American “idea.”</p>
<p>The conquest and settling of the West indeed showed that “individualism and enterprise,” so praised by Roger Cohen. Settler-colonialist enterprises, the cruelest form of imperialism, commonly do. The results were hailed by the respected and influential Senator Henry Cabot Lodge in 1898. Calling for intervention in Cuba, Lodge lauded our record “of conquest, colonization, and territorial expansion unequalled by any people in the 19th century,” and urged that it is “not to be curbed now,” as the Cubans too were pleading, in the Great Seal’s words, “come over and help us.”</p>
<p>Their plea was answered. The U.S. sent troops, thereby preventing Cuba’s liberation from Spain and turning it into a virtual colony, as it remained until 1959.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805082840/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external" />The “American idea” was illustrated further by the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/1027/noam_chomsky_on_terrorizing_cuba" type="external">remarkable campaign</a>, initiated by the Eisenhower administration virtually at once to restore Cuba to its proper place, after Fidel Castro entered Havana in January 1959, finally liberating the island from foreign domination, with enormous popular support, as Washington ruefully conceded. What followed was economic warfare with the clearly articulated aim of punishing the Cuban population so that they would overthrow the disobedient Castro government, invasion, the dedication of the Kennedy brothers to bringing “the terrors of the earth” to Cuba (the phrase of historian Arthur Schlesinger in his biography of Robert Kennedy, who considered that task one of his highest priorities), and other crimes continuing to the present, in defiance of virtually unanimous world opinion.</p>
<p>American imperialism is often traced to the takeover of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii in 1898. But that is to succumb to what historian of imperialism Bernard Porter calls “the saltwater fallacy,” the idea that conquest only becomes imperialism when it crosses saltwater. Thus, if the Mississippi had resembled the Irish Sea, Western expansion would have been imperialism. From George Washington to Henry Cabot Lodge, those engaged in the enterprise had a clearer grasp of just what they were doing.</p>
<p>After the success of humanitarian intervention in Cuba in 1898, the next step in the mission assigned by Providence was to confer “the blessings of liberty and civilization upon all the rescued peoples” of the Philippines (in the words of the platform of Lodge’s Republican party)—at least those who survived the murderous onslaught and widespread use of torture and other atrocities that accompanied it. These fortunate souls were left to the mercies of the U.S.-established Philippine constabulary within a newly devised model of colonial domination, relying on security forces trained and equipped for sophisticated modes of surveillance, intimidation, and violence. Similar models would be adopted in many other areas where the U.S. imposed brutal National Guards and other client forces.</p>
<p>The Torture Paradigm</p>
<p>Over the past 60 years, victims worldwide have endured the CIA’s “torture paradigm,” developed at a cost that reached $1 billion annually, according to historian Alfred McCoy in his book A Question of Torture. He <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/1795/alfred_mccoy_on_the_cia_s_road_to_abu_ghraib" type="external">shows</a> how torture methods the CIA developed from the 1950s surfaced with little change in the infamous photos at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison. There is no hyperbole in the title of Jennifer Harbury’s penetrating study of the U.S. torture record: Truth, Torture, and the American Way. So it is highly misleading, to say the least, when investigators of the Bush gang’s descent into the global sewers <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21716" type="external">lament</a> that “in waging the war against terrorism, America had lost its way.”</p>
<p>None of this is to say that Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld et al. did not introduce important innovations. In ordinary American practice, torture was largely farmed out to subsidiaries, not carried out by Americans directly in their own government-established torture chambers. As <a href="http://www.allannairn.com/" type="external">Allan Nairn</a>, who has carried out some of the most revealing and courageous investigations of torture, points out: “What the Obama [ban on torture] ostensibly knocks off is that small percentage of torture now done by Americans while retaining the overwhelming bulk of the system’s torture, which is done by foreigners under U.S. patronage. Obama could stop backing foreign forces that torture, but he has chosen not to do so.”</p>
<p>Obama did not shut down the practice of torture, Nairn observes, but “merely repositioned it,” restoring it to the American norm, a matter of indifference to the victims. “[H]is is a return to the status quo ante,” writes Nairn, “the torture regime of Ford through Clinton, which, year by year, often produced more U.S.-backed strapped-down agony than was produced during the Bush/Cheney years.”</p>
<p>Sometimes the American engagement in torture was even more indirect. In a 1980 study, Latin Americanist Lars Schoultz found that U.S. aid “has tended to flow disproportionately to Latin American governments which torture their citizens,… to the hemisphere’s relatively egregious violators of fundamental human rights.” Broader studies by Edward Herman found the same correlation, and also suggested an explanation. Not surprisingly, U.S. aid tends to correlate with a favorable climate for business operations, commonly improved by the murder of labor and peasant organizers and human rights activists and other such actions, yielding a secondary correlation between aid and egregious violation of human rights.</p>
<p>These studies took place before the Reagan years, when the topic was not worth studying because the correlations were so clear.</p>
<p>Small wonder that President Obama advises us to look forward, not backward—a convenient doctrine for those who hold the clubs. Those who are beaten by them tend to see the world differently, much to our annoyance.</p>
<p>Adopting Bush’s Positions</p>
<p>An argument can be made that implementation of the CIA’s “torture paradigm” never violated the 1984 Torture Convention, at least as Washington interpreted it. McCoy points out that the highly sophisticated CIA paradigm developed at enormous cost in the 1950s and 1960s, based on the “KGB’s most devastating torture technique,” kept primarily to mental torture, not crude physical torture, which was considered less effective in turning people into pliant vegetables.</p>
<p>McCoy writes that the Reagan administration then carefully revised the International Torture Convention “with four detailed diplomatic ‘reservations’ focused on just one word in the convention’s 26-printed pages,” the word “mental.” He continues: “These intricately-constructed diplomatic reservations re-defined torture, as interpreted by the United States, to exclude sensory deprivation and self-inflicted pain—the very techniques the CIA had refined at such great cost.”</p>
<p>When Clinton sent the UN Convention to Congress for ratification in 1994, he included the Reagan reservations. The president and Congress therefore exempted the core of the CIA torture paradigm from the U.S. interpretation of the Torture Convention; and those reservations, McCoy observes, were “reproduced verbatim in domestic legislation enacted to give legal force to the UN Convention.” That is the “political land mine” that “detonated with such phenomenal force” in the Abu Ghraib scandal and in the shameful Military Commissions Act that was passed with bipartisan support in 2006.</p>
<p>Bush, of course, went beyond his predecessors in authorizing prima facie violations of international law, and several of his extremist innovations were struck down by the Courts. While Obama, like Bush, eloquently affirms our unwavering commitment to international law, he seems intent on substantially reinstating the extremist Bush measures. In the important case of Boumediene v. Bush in June 2008, the Supreme Court rejected as unconstitutional the Bush administration claim that prisoners in Guantanamo are not entitled to the right of habeas corpus.</p>
<p>Salon.com columnist Glenn Greenwald <a href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/11/bagram/index.html?source=newsletter" type="external">reviews the aftermath</a>. Seeking to “preserve the power to abduct people from around the world” and imprison them without due process, the Bush administration decided to ship them to the U.S. prison at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, treating “the Boumediene ruling, grounded in our most basic constitutional guarantees, as though it was some sort of a silly game—fly your abducted prisoners to Guantanamo and they have constitutional rights, but fly them instead to Bagram and you can disappear them forever with no judicial process.”</p>
<p>Obama adopted the Bush position, “filing a brief in federal court that, in two sentences, declared that it embraced the most extremist Bush theory on this issue,” arguing that prisoners flown to Bagram from anywhere in the world (in the case in question, Yemenis and Tunisians captured in Thailand and the United Arab Emirates) “can be imprisoned indefinitely with no rights of any kind—as long as they are kept in Bagram rather than Guantanamo.”</p>
<p>In March, however, a Bush-appointed federal judge “rejected the Bush/Obama position and held that the rationale of Boumediene applies every bit as much to Bagram as it does to Guantanamo.” The Obama administration announced that it would appeal the ruling, thus placing Obama’s Department of Justice, Greenwald concludes, “squarely to the Right of an extremely conservative, pro-executive-power, Bush 43-appointed judge on issues of executive power and due-process-less detentions,” in radical violation of Obama’s campaign promises and earlier stands.</p>
<p>The case of Rasul v. Rumsfeld appears to be following a similar trajectory. The plaintiffs charged that Rumsfeld and other high officials were responsible for their torture in Guantanamo, where they were sent after being captured by Uzbeki warlord Rashid Dostum. The plaintiffs claimed that they had traveled to Afghanistan to offer humanitarian relief. Dostum, a notorious thug, was then a leader of the Northern Alliance, the Afghan faction supported by Russia, Iran, India, Turkey, and the Central Asian states, and the U.S. as it attacked Afghanistan in October 2001.</p>
<p>Dostum turned them over to U.S. custody, allegedly for bounty money. The Bush administration sought to have the case dismissed. Recently, Obama’s Department of Justice <a href="http://washingtonindependent.com/33679/obama-justice-department-urges-dismissal-of-another-torture-case" type="external">filed a brief</a> supporting the Bush position that government officials are not liable for torture and other violations of due process, on the grounds that the Courts had not yet clearly established the rights that prisoners enjoy.</p>
<p>It is also reported that the Obama administration intends to <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/08/AR2009050804228.html" type="external">revive military commissions</a>, one of the more severe violations of the rule of law during the Bush years. There is a reason, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/us/politics/02gitmo.html" type="external">according to William Glaberson</a> of the New York Times: “Officials who work on the Guantanamo issue say administration lawyers have become concerned that they would face significant obstacles to trying some terrorism suspects in federal courts. Judges might make it difficult to prosecute detainees who were subjected to brutal treatment or for prosecutors to use hearsay evidence gathered by intelligence agencies.” A serious flaw in the criminal justice system, it appears.</p>
<p>Creating Terrorists</p>
<p>There is still much debate about whether torture has been effective in eliciting information—the assumption being, apparently, that if it is effective, then it may be justified. By the same argument, when Nicaragua captured U.S. pilot Eugene Hasenfuss in 1986, after shooting down his plane delivering aid to U.S.-supported Contra forces, they should not have tried him, found him guilty, and then sent him back to the U.S., as they did. Instead, they should have applied the CIA torture paradigm to try to extract information about other terrorist atrocities being planned and implemented in Washington, no small matter for a tiny, impoverished country under terrorist attack by the global superpower.</p>
<p>By the same standards, if the Nicaraguans had been able to capture the chief terrorism coordinator, John Negroponte, then U.S. ambassador in Honduras (later appointed as the first Director of National Intelligence, essentially counterterrorism czar, without eliciting a murmur), they should have done the same. Cuba would have been justified in acting similarly, had the Castro government been able to lay hands on the Kennedy brothers. There is no need to bring up what their victims should have done to Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan, and other leading terrorist commanders, whose exploits leave al-Qaeda in the dust, and who doubtless had ample information that could have prevented further “ticking bomb” attacks.</p>
<p>Such considerations never seem to arise in public discussion.</p>
<p>There is, to be sure, a response: our terrorism, even if surely terrorism, is benign, deriving as it does from the city on the hill.</p>
<p>Perhaps culpability would be greater, by prevailing moral standards, if it were discovered that Bush administration torture had cost American lives. That is, in fact, the conclusion drawn by Major Matthew Alexander [a pseudonym], one of the most seasoned U.S. interrogators in Iraq, who elicited “the information that led to the US military being able to locate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Qa’ida in Iraq,” correspondent Patrick Cockburn <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/patrick04272009.html" type="external">reports</a>.</p>
<p>Alexander expresses only contempt for the Bush administration’s harsh interrogation methods: “The use of torture by the U.S.,” he believes, not only elicits no useful information but “has proved so counter-productive that it may have led to the death of as many U.S. soldiers as civilians killed in 9/11.” From hundreds of interrogations, Alexander discovered that foreign fighters came to Iraq in reaction to the abuses at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, and that they and their domestic allies turned to suicide bombing and other terrorist acts for the same reasons.</p>
<p>There is also mounting evidence that the torture methods Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld encouraged created terrorists. One carefully studied case is that of <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/21/AR2009022101234.html" type="external">Abdallah al-Ajmi</a>, who was locked up in Guantanamo on the charge of “engaging in two or three fire fights with the Northern Alliance.” He ended up in Afghanistan after having failed to reach Chechnya to fight against the Russians.</p>
<p>After four years of brutal treatment in Guantanamo, he was returned to Kuwait. He later found his way to Iraq and, in March 2008, drove a bomb-laden truck into an Iraqi military compound, killing himself and 13 soldiers—”the single most heinous act of violence committed by a former Guantanamo detainee,” according to the Washington Post, and according to his lawyer, the direct result of his abusive imprisonment.</p>
<p>All much as a reasonable person would expect.</p>
<p>Unexceptional Americans</p>
<p>Another standard pretext for torture is the context: the “war on terror” that Bush declared after 9/11. A crime that rendered traditional international law “quaint” and “obsolete”—so George W. Bush was advised by his legal counsel Alberto Gonzales, later appointed Attorney General. The doctrine has been widely reiterated in one form or another in commentary and analysis.</p>
<p>The 9/11 attack was doubtless unique in many respects. One is where the guns were pointing: typically it is in the opposite direction. In fact, it was the first attack of any consequence on the national territory of the United States since the British burned down Washington in 1814.</p>
<p>Another unique feature was the scale of terror perpetrated by a non-state actor.</p>
<p>Horrifying as it was, however, it could have been worse. Suppose that the perpetrators had bombed the White House, killed the president, and established a vicious military dictatorship that killed 50,000 to 100,000 people and tortured 700,000, set up a huge international terror center that carried out assassinations and helped impose comparable military dictatorships elsewhere, and implemented economic doctrines that so radically dismantled the economy that the state had to virtually take it over a few years later.</p>
<p>That would indeed have been far worse than September 11, 2001. And it happened in Salvador Allende’s Chile in what Latin Americans often call “the first 9/11” in 1973. (The numbers above were changed to per-capita U.S. equivalents, a realistic way of measuring crimes.) Responsibility for the military coup against Allende can be traced straight back to Washington. Accordingly, the otherwise quite appropriate analogy is out of consciousness here in the U.S., while the facts are consigned to the “abuse of reality” that the naïve call “history.”</p>
<p>It should also be recalled that Bush did not declare the “war on terror,” he re-declared it. Twenty years earlier, President Reagan’s administration came into office declaring that a centerpiece of its foreign policy would be a war on terror, “the plague of the modern age” and “a return to barbarism in our time”—to sample the fevered rhetoric of the day.</p>
<p>That first U.S. war on terror has also been deleted from historical consciousness, because the outcome cannot readily be incorporated into the canon: hundreds of thousands slaughtered in the ruined countries of Central America and many more elsewhere, among them an estimated 1.5 million dead in the terrorist wars sponsored in neighboring countries by Reagan’s favored ally, apartheid South Africa, which had to defend itself from Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC), one of the world’s “more notorious terrorist groups,” as Washington determined in 1988. In fairness, it should be added that, 20 years later, Congress voted to remove the ANC from the list of terrorist organizations, so that Mandela is now, at last, able to enter the U.S. without obtaining a waiver from the government.</p>
<p>The reigning doctrine of the country is sometimes called “American exceptionalism.” It is nothing of the sort. It is probably close to a universal habit among imperial powers. France was hailing its “civilizing mission” in its colonies, while the French Minister of War called for “exterminating the indigenous population” of Algeria. Britain’s nobility was a “novelty in the world,” John Stuart Mill declared, while urging that this angelic power delay no longer in completing its liberation of India.</p>
<p>Similarly, there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of Japanese militarists in the 1930s, who were bringing an “earthly paradise” to China under benign Japanese tutelage, as they carried out the rape of Nanking and their “burn all, loot all, kill all” campaigns in rural North China. History is replete with similar glorious episodes.</p>
<p>As long as such “exceptionalist” theses remain firmly implanted, however, the occasional revelations of the “abuse of history” often backfire, serving only to efface terrible crimes. The My Lai massacre was a mere footnote to the vastly greater atrocities of the post-Tet pacification programs, ignored while indignation in this country was largely focused on this single crime.</p>
<p>Watergate was doubtless criminal, but the furor over it displaced incomparably worse crimes at home and abroad, including the FBI-organized assassination of black organizer Fred Hampton as part of the infamous COINTELPRO repression, or the bombing of Cambodia, to mention just two egregious examples. Torture is hideous enough; the invasion of Iraq was a far worse crime. Quite commonly, selective atrocities have this function.</p>
<p>Historical amnesia is a dangerous phenomenon, not only because it undermines moral and intellectual integrity, but also because it lays the groundwork for crimes that still lie ahead.</p>
<p>Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor (retired) at MIT. He is the author of many books and articles on international affairs and social-political issues, and a long-time participant in activist movements.</p>
<p>[Note: A slightly longer version of this piece, fully footnoted, will be posted at <a href="http://www.chomsky.info/" type="external">Chomsky.info</a> within 48 hours.]</p> | Unexceptional Americans | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2009/05/noam-chomsky-unexceptional-americans/ | 2009-05-19 | 4 |
<p>Photo: Wikimedia Commons</p>
<p />
<p>It’s been four decades since Martin Luther King, Jr., was shot and killed. On the occasion of this anniversary, there’s much media coverage of his life and his death. In all the years that have passed since that tragic moment, a flood of commentary has flowed. Yet it remains hard to improve upon what Bobby Kennedy said on the night of that assassination in Indianapolis, where he was campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination. He spoke extemporaneously and had the hard task of informing the crowd of King’s violent death. Here is the audio of Kennedy’s remarks accompanied by a photo montage:</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>As many commentators have noted, there were riots in cities across America when people learned of the news of King’s murder, but there was calm in Indianapolis that horrible night.</p>
<p>Two months later, RFK would be shot and killed. If you want to see actual footage of Kennedy speaking to the crowd in Indianapolis (with Italian subtitles superimposed), you’ll find it after the jump:</p>
<p />
<p />
<p /> | The Death of MLK Jr.: RFK Said It Best | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2008/04/death-mlk-jr-rfk-said-it-best/ | 2008-04-04 | 4 |
<p><a href="" type="internal">Chick-Fil-A</a> has reportedly stated it will no longer donate to anti-gay organizations or groups that actively oppose same-sex marriage. The $4 billion fast food chicken restaurant also reportedly has sent a company-wide memo stating the organization respects all people, including gay people, and supports equal treatment for all, according to a Chicago lawmaker, and local Chicago LGBT organization, who claim&#160;Chick-Fil-A will no longer funnel millions of dollars, via its <a href="" type="internal">Winshape Foundation</a>, to anti-gay hate groups, like the <a href="" type="internal">Family Research Council</a>, or anti-gay organizations like <a href="" type="internal">Focus On The Family</a>.</p>
<p>READ:&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Five Reasons Chick-Fil-A Isn’t What You Think</a></p>
<p>The changes come as the result of a ten-month long negotiation headed by Chicago Alderman Joe Moreno, who came under intense fire for stating he would not allow Chick-Fil-A to open a restaurant in Chicago until they instituted policies disallowing discrimination.</p>
<p>READ:&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Chick-Fil-A: From NYC To San Francisco, Mayors Weigh In On Banning The Bird</a></p>
<p>“The company outlined its shift in policy and practice in a letter addressed to Moreno, who in July&#160;declared that he would block the popular fast food chain&#160;from opening a new location in his ward unless they adopted gay-friendly policies,” the <a href="http://chicagophoenix.com/2012/09/18/chick-fil-a-agrees-to-end-anti-gay-donations-mandates-equal-treatment-of-gays/" type="external">Chicago Phoenix</a> reported overnight.</p>
<p>The letter, signed by Chick-fil-A’s Senior Director of Real Estate reads, “The WinShape Foundations is now taking a much closer look at the organizations it considers helping, and in that process will remain true to its stated philosophy of not supporting organizations with political agendas.”</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>In an internal memo titled “Chick-fil-A: Who We Are” issued to franchisees and stakeholders, the company said that as a whole it would, “treat every person with honor, dignity and respect-regardless of their beliefs, race, creed, sexual orientation and gender,” and that its “intent is not to engage in political or social debates.”</p>
<p>“Chick-fil-A has provided a way to ensure that their employees know that discrimination will not be tolerated,” Moreno said. “It sends an important message and is a very positive step for Chick-fil-A as it looks to expand into urban markets. It is also a positive step forward for the&#160;LGBT community.”</p>
<p>“Moreno first made national headlines in July when he said he would block construction of a Chick-fil-A in the 2500 block of North Elston Avenue because of comments [Chick-Fil-A COO Dan]&#160;Cathy made during an interview published in the Baptist Press, the <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-chick-fil-a-chicago-0919-20120919,0,3725045.story?dssReturn" type="external">Chicago Tribune</a> is reporting:</p>
<p>Cathy said he was “guilty as charged” for supporting “the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.”</p>
<p>Critics questioned Moreno’s commitment to free speech and whether he could legally block construction of the restaurant over the company owner’s political views. Moreno insisted it was a civil rights issue.</p>
<p>Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a supporter of gay marriage, also entered the debate, saying, “Chick-fil-A’s values are not Chicago’s values.”</p>
<p>Anthony Martinez, executive director of The Civil Rights Agenda, said the “Who We Are” statement is “a step forward” but “not the endgame.”</p>
<p>“We would still like to see Chick-fil-A adopt … (an) anti-discrimination policy that specifically states they won’t discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender identity,” Martinez said.</p>
<p>He said his group was more pleased with the pledge not to fund groups that oppose gay marriage, adding that it will monitor donations by WinShape, a company-affiliated nonprofit group that has made contributions to groups opposing gay marriage.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Illinois Family Institute Executive Director David Smith said the pledge to respect all people was simply in keeping with the Cathy family’s values.</p>
<p>“That’s just consistent with their Christian beliefs — that’s consistent with orthodox Christian values,” Smith said.</p>
<p>But there is valid cause for skepticism. First,&#160;Chick-Fil-A has not announced publicly — aside from their vaguely-worded letter signed by their real estate director — they will stop all donations to groups who oppose same-sex marriage or equality for LGBT people, so, technically, the Winshape Foundation could donate to the Boy Scouts. And&#160;Chick-Fil-A could set up another foundation, or funnel donations elsewhere. Of course, the Cathy family can donate whatever and to whomever they please,</p>
<p>But it’s a start. Stay tuned.</p>
<p>Related:</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Attention, Members Of The Media: Here’s Why FRC Is Labeled A ‘Hate Group’</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">BREAKING: Chick-Fil-A Gets Multiple Human Rights Act Complaints Filed Against Them</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Chick-Fil-A Profits Are Supporting Uganda’s ‘Kill The Gays’ Bill?</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Tagged as: <a href="" type="internal">Chicago</a>, <a href="" type="internal">chick fil</a>, <a href="" type="internal">chick fil a</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Family Research Council</a>, <a href="" type="internal">fil</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Gay</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Gay Marriage</a>, <a href="" type="internal">gay organizations</a>, <a href="" type="internal">georgia</a>, <a href="" type="internal">hapeville</a>, <a href="" type="internal">joe moreno</a>, <a href="" type="internal">lawmaker</a>, <a href="" type="internal">lgbt organizations</a>, <a href="" type="internal">oppose</a>, <a href="" type="internal">opposing gay marriage</a>, <a href="" type="internal">s. truett cathy</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Same-Sex Marriage</a>, <a href="" type="internal">sex marriage</a>, <a href="" type="internal">social issues</a>, <a href="" type="internal">winshape</a>, <a href="" type="internal">winshape foundation</a></p>
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<p />
<p>Image source: Dow Jones.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average is one of the most-followed stock market benchmarks in the world. Even those who don't pay much attention to the investing world generally have a vague idea of the level of the Dow. Yet there are many things that even experienced investors don't know about the Dow Jones averages and their history. Let's take a look at three of them.</p>
<p>The Dow used to be a true average of a smaller number of stocksDow Jones first launched its Industrial Average in 1896. At the time, the Dow Industrials included just a dozen companies, and calculating the Dow was as simple as adding up all the share prices of the 12 stocks and then dividing the sum by 12. Of those 12 Dow stocks, only General Electric has survived as a component of the Industrials to the present day.</p>
<p>Now, 120 years later, calculating the Dow is a bit more complicated. You can still add up the 30 share prices of the Dow's components, but you then have to adjust the result to reflect the stock splits and other corporate reorganizations that have affected the Dow's value over the decades. As of now, the Dow's divisor is approximately 0.14602, meaning that for every $1 change in the price of a stock in the Dow, the average moves 6.85 points.</p>
<p>The Dow is more volatile than recent history would suggestMany investors have been blindsided by the sizable volatility that the Dow Jones Industrial Average has undergone since last summer. Yet at least in terms of annual returns, substantial upward and downward moves are a norm for the average.</p>
<p>Over its history since 1897, the Dow has gained or lost more than 10% in 78 years. That leaves just 40 years in which the average has moved less than 10% within a year. That's contrary to recent experience, in which four of the past five years have seen the Dow rise or fall by less than 10%, but it puts current turbulence in perspective.</p>
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<p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average isn't the most comprehensive Dow measureSome investors are aware that the Dow isn't the only average that Dow Jones tracks. In addition to the industrials -- which include not only companies that most would consider to be true industrial stocks but also members of a wide range of other sectors of the business economy as well -- separate Dow Jones Transportation and Dow Jones Utility averages follow the moves in those sectors.</p>
<p>What few people know is that there's a fourth Dow Jones average that combines these three averages into a broader measure of the overall market. The Dow Jones Composite consists of the 30 Dow Industrials stocks, the 20 Dow Jones Transportation average stocks, and the 15 Dow Jones Utility average stocks. These 65 stocks are all added together in one composite clump, and a separate average is calculated using the Composite average's own divisor.</p>
<p>The Dow Jones Composite average currently trades at about 5,800, having peaked above 6,500 in late 2014. Putting the three averages together in this way arguably gives the transportation and utility sectors more weight than they deserve, but it nevertheless provides an interesting new perspective on the health of the broader stock market.</p>
<p>Just about everyone knows about the Dow Jones as a measure of the stock market's strength. By knowing some of these lesser-known facts about the Dow, you can add some historical perspective to your investing strategies and be better able to handle the surprises that you'll inevitably experience in your career as an investor.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/02/20/3-facts-you-didnt-know-about-the-dow-jones.aspx" type="external">3 Facts You Didn't Know About the Dow Jones Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFGalagan/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Dan Caplinger Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of General Electric Company. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/help/index.htm?display=about02" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | 3 Facts You Didn't Know About the Dow Jones | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/02/20/3-facts-didnt-know-about-dow-jones.html | 2016-03-27 | 0 |
<p>By Tom Miles</p>
<p>GENEVA (Reuters) – The United States has kept trade friction with Canada simmering by filing a new version of a trade complaint over Canadian wine retailing, a document published by the World Trade Organization showed on Monday.</p>
<p>Trade relations, already frayed by U.S. President Donald Trump’s plans to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), took a nosedive last week when the U.S. Commerce Department slapped anti-subsidy duties on Bombardier Inc’s (TO:) CSeries jets.</p>
<p>The new WTO complaint reheats a dispute that the United States launched in January, days before Trump took office, challenging Canada over rules for wine retailing in grocery stores in the province of British Columbia.</p>
<p>The text of the new complaint, dated Sept. 28 and circulated among WTO members on Monday, was unchanged from the version in January except for some changes to reflect updates of Canadian regulations.</p>
<p>The United States never pursued the January complaint at the WTO. By submitting a fresh version, it has effectively restarted the clock on the dispute process, giving Canada 60 days to settle out of court or face litigation.</p>
<p>The complaint accuses Canada of breaking WTO rules by giving unfair advantage to wine from British Columbia (BC) because the province’s wine gets exclusive access to a retail channel on grocery store shelves, cutting out U.S. competitors.</p>
<p>“The BC measures appear to discriminate on their face against imported wine by allowing only BC wine to be sold on regular grocery store shelves while imported wine may be sold in grocery stores only through a so-called ‘store within a store’,” the U.S. complaint said.</p>
<p />
<p>Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.</p> | United States renews WTO complaint over Canadian wine retailing | false | https://newsline.com/united-states-renews-wto-complaint-over-canadian-wine-retailing/ | 2017-10-02 | 1 |
<p>Investors looking to get in on some of the latest tech trends would be wise to consider NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) and CalAmp (NASDAQ: CAMP). NVIDIA makes most of its money from selling graphics processors in the gaming market (mainly for PCs), but it's also using its chips to lead the way in artificial intelligence and driverless cars. Meanwhile, CalAmp is a pure-play on the burgeoning Internet of Things market and its hardware and software connect industrial equipment to the internet like never before.</p>
<p>While both companies are betting on growing tech trends, it's worth looking at each company's financial situation, competitive advantage, and valuation to figure out which is the better stock right now.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>First, let's look at a few key financial metrics to see which company looks in better shape. Here's how CalAmp and NVIDIA stack up:</p>
<p>NVIDIA is in much better financial shape than CalAmp right now with less debt (relative to its cash), higher free cash flow and, of course, its positive net income. NVIDIA has built-up its strong financial position after years of being the top-dog in the <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/03/17/gaming-is-the-story-now-but-data-centers-are-the-f.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=b4bb7206-8738-11e7-87bd-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">graphics processing Opens a New Window.</a> space. The company's sales in the gaming segment account for 53% of its revenue, and the profits from that are helping to fuel growth into new markets.</p>
<p>CalAmp is a much smaller company that's still carving out its niche in the nascent Internet of Things market, so it's not all that surprising that it's not profitable at the moment. The company is reinvesting its revenues into building out new products that will, hopefully, be profitable over the long term. Alas, NVIDIA gets the win here, for now.</p>
<p>Winner: NVIDIA.</p>
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<p>I've already mentioned how much money NVIDIA makes from its graphics processing units (GPUs) in the gaming space, but how much of an advantage over the competition does the company really have? In short, a ton.</p>
<p>NVIDIA holds more than 72% of the discrete desktop GPU market right now, with its closest competitor Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD) owning less than 30%.</p>
<p>But NVIDIA is also a key player in the driverless car and artificial intelligence markets, and it's leaving its competition far behind. The company has partnered with <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/06/29/nvidia-just-partnered-with-another-automaker-for-d.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=b4bb7206-8738-11e7-87bd-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">at least five automakers Opens a New Window.</a> to use its semi-autonomous Drive PX supercomputer in their vehicles and recently announced a partnership with China-based internet tech giant Baidu to do the same for Chinese vehicles. Rival AMD doesn't offer a competitive system to Drive PX, making NVIDIA's GPUs the go-to source for graphics processors in semi-autonomous vehicles.</p>
<p>Additionally, NVIDIA's GPUs are used in an increasing amount of AI servers (including for Facebook, Google, and others) and the company's new partnership with Baidu includes supplying its Volta processors for Baidu's cloud services. AMD recently unveiled a new AI chip in its lineup, but NVIDIA still outpaces AMD in both technology and partnerships.</p>
<p>CalAmp's business is <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/04/12/how-calamp-corp-makes-most-of-its-money.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=b4bb7206-8738-11e7-87bd-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">mainly focused on machine-to-machine Opens a New Window.</a> (M2M) telematics hardware and services. This includes technologies for usage-based insurance, industrial equipment tracking, cold chain supply management, and vehicle tracking and recovery.</p>
<p>CalAmp may be a small company, but it has a huge reach. It currently has more than five million devices that are under the company's management on its platform and boasts more than 653,000 unique software application subscribers.</p>
<p>One of CalAmp's <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/03/03/better-buy-calamp-corp-vs-sierra-wireless.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=b4bb7206-8738-11e7-87bd-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">key competitors Opens a New Window.</a> is Sierra Wireless, which makes some similar hardware and software for tracking vehicles and equipment. Sierra earns about 33% of all the global wireless module revenue right now, which makes it the leader in this connectivity technologies.</p>
<p>CalAmp does have its own advantages though, particularly in the industrial equipment market. Caterpillar is a key customer for CalAmp and is spending about $6 million on CalAmp tech this year, and $7 million to $8 million <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/02/27/what-is-calamp.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=b4bb7206-8738-11e7-87bd-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">next year Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>But compared to NVIDIA's competitive advantages, CalAmp can't quite keep up. Sierra Wireless and other competitors are more than capable of creating similar hardware and software to CalAmp, which means the company can't secure a significant economic moat around its products or services. NVIDIA, on the other hand, is far ahead of its competitors in several key markets, which gives the company the win in this category as well.</p>
<p>Winner: NVIDIA.</p>
<p>Finally, let's compare the valuations of both companies by looking at their <a href="https://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/the-relationship-between-pe-ratio-and-stock-price.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=b4bb7206-8738-11e7-87bd-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">price-to-earnings Opens a New Window.</a> (P/E) ratio and their price-to-sales ratio. The P/E ratio helps give us some perspective on how much investors are willing to spend for every dollar of company earnings, and the <a href="https://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/using-the-price-to-sales-ratio-to-value-stocks.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=b4bb7206-8738-11e7-87bd-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">price-to-sales Opens a New Window.</a> (which is found by&#160;dividing a company's market capitalization by its revenue) will help us better evaluate CalAmp because the company doesn't have any positive earnings right now.</p>
<p>Since CalAmp doesn't have any positive earnings we can't exactly compare NVIDIA's P/E ratio to CalAmp's, or CalAmp's price-to-sales to NVIDIA's. So instead we'll look at them separately and compare them to a relevant industry average.</p>
<p>NVIDIA's P/E is a hefty 53.4, making it relatively expensive compared to the technology industry's average of about 26. That would make the company's stock technically "expensive," though investors should factor in the company's growth prospects that I mentioned above before dismissing the company as overpriced.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, CalAmp's price-to-sales of 1.81 is lower than the tech industry's average of 3.77, making it relatively less expensive than other companies in the technology industry.</p>
<p>Valuation metrics can be tricky because you never want to invest in a stock solely based on just one metric. So while NVIDIA is technically overvalued compared to other technology stocks, and CalAmp looks more undervalued, you still need to factor in financial fortitude and competitive advantage into your decision-making process.</p>
<p>Winner: CalAmp.</p>
<p>I've got to give NVIDIA the win for this match-up based on its stellar competitive advantage, its overall financial fortitude, and its opportunities in new markets like AI and driverless cars. CalAmp certainly has lots of potential -- and both companies are recommended on some Motley Fool premium services -- but NVIDIA's strong earnings and solid position against its rivals make it the better bet right now.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than NvidiaWhen 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=46d78711-b917-49e5-84d0-41602b1acae3&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=b4bb7206-8738-11e7-87bd-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and Nvidia 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=46d78711-b917-49e5-84d0-41602b1acae3&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=b4bb7206-8738-11e7-87bd-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Click here Opens a New Window.</a> to learn about these picks!</p>
<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of August 1, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFNewsie/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=b4bb7206-8738-11e7-87bd-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Chris Neiger Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Baidu, Facebook, Nvidia, and Sierra Wireless. The Motley Fool recommends CalAmp. 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=b4bb7206-8738-11e7-87bd-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Better Buy: CalAmp Corp. vs. NVIDIA | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/04/06/better-buy-calamp-corp-vs-nvidia.html | 2017-08-27 | 0 |
<p>The Supreme Court has decided to review President Barack Obama's lawless executive amnesty, but those in favor of upholding the rule of law and preserving the sovereignty of the country should be wary.</p>
<p>Politico <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/supreme-court-to-rule-on-obama-immigration-orders-217860?cmpid=sf" type="external">reports</a> that the lawsuit—filed by 26 states, including Texas—will be heard by the Supreme Court in April, and a ruling will be announced at the end of June. The questions the justices will be considering include "whether states have legal standing to challenge the deferred actions grants by providing benefits to such immigrants, whether the actions Obama ordered in 2014 were arbitrary and capricious under federal law, and whether the administration was obliged to go through a formal notice-and-comment period before proceeding with its plan."</p>
<p>Obama's executive amnesty, Deferred Action of Parents of Americans (DAPA), would prevent <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-administration-ceases-preparation-for-immigration-program/2015/06/07/12a142e6-0ba4-11e5-95fd-d580f1c5d44e_story.html" type="external">5 million illegals</a> from being deported.</p>
<p>While many on the right are buzzing about the Supreme Court hearing the case, Conservative Review's Daniel Horowitz <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/01/beware-of-court-involvement-in-immigration" type="external">cautions</a> that the Court may rule in favor of DAPA.</p>
<p>Horowitz argues that opponents of Obama's executive amnesty are "playing defense" on this issue since the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the executive amnesty.</p>
<p>"Had the court not taken up the case, the Obama administration would have lost," Horowitz writes. "Now there is a chance they could win and actually implement DAPA before Obama leaves office."</p>
<p>Horowitz points out that the courts threw out any lawsuits challenging the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which protected <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/25/policy-to-allow-undocumented-immigrants-in-military/16225135/" type="external">1.2 to 2.1 million illegal alien children</a> from deportation in 2012, because the courts viewed them as "speculative."</p>
<p>"We are dealing with four justices who believe the Democratic Party’s agenda is the Constitution and five justices who believe there is a constitutional right to a gay marriage," Horowtiz writes, and continues:</p>
<p>Moreover, on the merits of the case, DOJ will make a compelling argument that Roberts and Kennedy have already staked out their position in their pathetic opinion on Arizona’s immigration law. In that case, six of the justices signed onto an opinion invalidating three sections of Arizona’s law, even though Arizona was merely upholding congressional statutes. Their entire rationale was built upon the notion that Obama has discretionary authority to not uphold congressional statutes, thereby preempting the states from upholding them! If this sounds like an argument straight from Sodom and Gomorrah, it’s because it is. Nonetheless, these are the justices we are dealing with.</p>
<p>In other words, there's an increased likelihood for Obama's executive amnesty to be kept in place by the Supreme Court due to the activist justices.</p>
<p>Horowitz argues that long-term, conservatives should look to the president and Congress to uphold immigration laws rather than the courts:</p>
<p>We will want the next president to use his executive authority to clamp down on illegal immigration. While Congress has not granted the president authority to ignore federal law, it has granted presidents robust authority to be stricter on immigration. However, the courts, if left unchecked, will toss out one action after another. They will even invalidate congressional statutes on “constitutional” grounds.</p>
<p>How do I know this? They are already doing it by mandating the release of criminal aliens and granting all sorts of contrived fundamental rights to those here illegally. They are creating a right to immigration for all homosexuals from third world countries (where they claim a credible fear of persecution). And most of the circuits are much worse than the 5th Circuit. They are to the left of Anthony Kennedy.</p> | Will The Supreme Court Stop Obama’s Executive Amnesty? | true | https://dailywire.com/news/2727/will-supreme-court-stop-obamas-executive-amnesty-aaron-bandler | 2016-01-20 | 0 |
<p><a href="http://blog.pegasusnews.com/" type="external">Pegasus News</a> looks like a potentially interesting local-news model. Steve Rubel <a href="http://www.micropersuasion.com/2004/11/stealth_hyperlo.html" type="external">examines</a> what little is known of this start-up, which aims to go up against monopoly newspapers in 25 metro U.S. markets with a combination of micro-local news, open-source journalism (a.k.a., citizen journalism) augmented by professional editing, and pay-for-performance advertising (a la <a href="http://adwords.google.com" type="external">Google AdWords</a>).One idea that struck me as really innovative is Pegasus' paid-subscription model. The rate will vary, with those contributing local-news content paying less or getting access to content for free. That's a great idea for a citizen-journalism-oriented site; it gives people a little incentive to contribute.</p> | Pay Up or Write | false | https://poynter.org/news/pay-or-write | 2004-11-30 | 2 |
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<p>“The United States Marshals Service sincerely thanks the Grant County Sheriff’s Department for helping make New Mexico a safer place to live,” the Marshals Service said in a press release.</p>
<p>According to a police report, Tovar was on patrol in the Rio De Arenas Trailer Park. While he was patrolling he noticed a male subject quickly take off running behind a trailer.</p>
<p>“I saw a young Hispanic male standing next to a black pickup with his small children,” Tovar said in the report. “I asked him if he saw a guy take off running or did he go into the trailer. He gave me a weird look and said he took off, looking at the ground.”</p>
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<p>Tovar then walked to the rear of the trailer where he noticed a white older model sport utility vehicle parked behind the trailer. As he looked at the rear of the vehicle he noticed a male subject laying on his stomach face down, hiding and wearing a black ball cap and dark colored shirt and blue jeans.</p>
<p>“I commanded the person to let me see their hands,” Tovar said in a report. “The subject lifted his head and I identified him as Frankie Rivera.”</p>
<p>Rivera was placed under arrest without incident and transported to the Grant County Detention Center.</p>
<p>Rivera was featured in April with another violent fugitive David Valverde, who is still wanted for Failure to Appear on kidnapping, criminal sexual penetration, criminal sexual contact and tampering with evidence.</p>
<p>——</p>
<p>©2017 the Silver City Sun-News (Silver City, N.M.)</p>
<p>Visit the Silver City Sun-News (Silver City, N.M.) at <a href="http://www.scsun-news.com" type="external">www.scsun-news.com</a></p>
<p>Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.</p>
<p>_____</p> | Grant County officials take Most Wanted fugitive off the streets | false | https://abqjournal.com/1011487/grant-county-officials-take-most-wanted-fugitive-off-the-streets.html | 2 |
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<p><a href="" type="internal" />This morning &#160;Sinclair Broadcast Group, the conservative media behemoth that <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/story/14099789/1/sinclair-leads-media-stocks-in-trump-s-first-100-days-fox-trails-the-pack.html" type="external">owns more local news stations</a> than any other company in the country, just got even bigger. &#160;It announced it was buying Tribune Media for $3.9 billion, creating what Bloomberg ( <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-07/sinclair-said-close-to-buying-tribune-for-about-45-a-share" type="external">5/8/17</a>) calls a “TV goliath.”</p>
<p>The purchase, which gives Sinclair a staggering reach of &#160;nearly 69 percent &#160;of the US population (Free Press, <a href="https://www.freepress.net/press-release/108051/sinclairs-takeover-tribune-stations-brought-you-trumps-fcc-chairman" type="external">5/8/17</a>), would’ve been in &#160;violation of ownership restrictions just weeks ago. &#160;But last month, the Trump-appointed FCC chair, <a href="" type="internal">Ajit Pai</a>, reinstated the “ <a href="https://www.freepress.net/press-release/107986/trumps-fcc-chair-continues-shaft-public-offer-major-handouts-big-media" type="external">UHF discount</a>,” an outdated loophole that allowed media conglomerates to exceed the nation’s 39 percent cap on ownership (New York Post, <a href="http://nypost.com/2017/04/20/fcc-restores-refund-that-could-lead-to-sinclair-tribune-merger/" type="external">4/20/17</a>). Sinclair made a $420 million deal to buy Bonten Media Group (Baltimore Sun, <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bs-bz-sinclair-acquires-bonten-media-20170421-story.html" type="external">4/21/17</a>) the very next day.</p>
<p>This sequence of events “sure looks like a quid pro quo,” as Craig Aaron of the media advocacy group Free Press has noted &#160;( <a href="https://www.freepress.net/press-release/108051/sinclairs-takeover-tribune-stations-brought-you-trumps-fcc-chairman" type="external">5/8/17</a>). Months ago, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner told business executives, according to Politico ( <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/trump-campaign-sinclair-broadcasting-jared-kushner-232764" type="external">12/16/16</a>), that “Trump’s campaign struck a deal with Sinclair Broadcast Group during the campaign to try and secure better coverage.” The deal, Politico reported, was that Sinclair would give Trump more (uncritical) coverage (Washington Post, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/how-that-nations-largest-owner-of-tv-stations-helped-donald-trumps-campaign/2016/12/22/02924864-c7af-11e6-8bee-54e800ef2a63_story.html?utm_term=.d0310fc726fc" type="external">12/22/16</a>) in exchange for more “access to Trump and the campaign.”</p>
<p>Now, Trump appears to be using the considerable power of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as his own personal ATM for political currency—and his Big Media allies at Sinclair are now seeing the return on their investment.</p>
<p>Free Press’ Aaron said in a statement this morning ( <a href="https://www.freepress.net/press-release/108051/sinclairs-takeover-tribune-stations-brought-you-trumps-fcc-chairman" type="external">5/8/17</a>):</p>
<p>It’s a scandal. Sinclair—the Trump-favoring broadcast mega-chain—gets some FCC rules changed and expects others to be erased. All so that Sinclair can air its cookie-cutter newscasts to nearly 70 percent of the country’s population in local markets across the country.</p>
<p>Pai had been meeting with Sinclair executives at Baltimore’s Four Season Hotel in the months preceding these FCC-enabled media buys (Bloomberg, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-03-27/possible-tribune-suitor-sinclair-woos-fcc-s-pai-on-regulations" type="external">3/27/17</a>). “The gleaming harbor-front hotel, home to <a href="http://www.witandwisdombaltimore.com/menus/lunch/" type="external">fare</a> including a $32 crab cake sandwich and a $15 ‘Ulterior Motive’ cocktail, offered a memorable perch for impressing Pai,” Bloomberg reported. Sinclair also recently hired a former Trump spokesperson (CNN, <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/17/media/boris-epshteyn-sinclair/" type="external">4/17/17</a>), adding to the cozy relationship between company and president. In the <a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sinclair-announces-the-addition-of-boris-epshteyn-300440164.html" type="external">press release</a>, they touted the new hire’s former role as &#160;“a surrogate and senior advisor to the Trump campaign.”</p>
<p>A Bloomberg News chart ( <a href="https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/2017/03/27/possible-tribune-suitor-sinclair-woos-fcc-s-pai-on-regulations" type="external">3/27/17</a>)&#160; illustrates how broadcasting stocks climbed in the wake of Trump’s election.</p>
<p>Shareholders for Sinclair, and other broadcasters, had already been profiting from the Trump presidency. “Despite President Donald Trump’s numerous gripes about media coverage of his campaign and presidency, the sector has been on a roll since the New York real estate baron was inaugurated on January 20,” reported The Street ( <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/story/14099789/1/sinclair-leads-media-stocks-in-trump-s-first-100-days-fox-trails-the-pack.html" type="external">4/26/17</a>):</p>
<p>TV station owners have led the way with Tribune Media, the subject of takeover speculation at the very top with a 27 percent gain. Next in line was Sinclair Broadcasting, known as much for its conservative pro-Republican politics as for owning for more local TV stations than any other US company, having added 25 percent.</p>
<p>The profits are not slowing. Sinclair’s first-quarter profits, released May 3, increased 137 percent compared to a year earlier (Baltimore Business Journal, <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/news/2017/05/03/sinclairs-first-quarter-profit-soars-tops-wall.html" type="external">5/3/17</a>).</p>
<p>Media consolidation has long been a detriment to media and democracy with fewer, and increasingly powerful, conglomerates—with vested interests that have nothing to do with the public good— <a href="https://www.freepress.net/ownership/chart" type="external">owning the large majority</a> of mass media outlets (FAIR Action Alert, <a href="" type="internal">3/9/03</a>; Truthout, <a href="http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/34789-democracy-in-peril-twenty-years-of-media-consolidation-under-the-telecommunications-act" type="external">2/11/16</a>). In recent years, Sinclair has been “emerging as a major broadcasting player,” according to USA Today ( <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/09/19/sinclair-broadcast/2819599/" type="external">9/19/13</a>). In 2003, the station owned 62 television stations (FAIR Action Alert, <a href="" type="internal">10/12/04</a>); today the number of Sinclair-owned channels has escalated rapidly, as the company “owns or helps operate 173 stations” (Bloomberg, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-03-30/fcc-said-to-move-toward-easing-rule-that-discourages-tv-deals" type="external">3/29/17</a>).</p>
<p>In some ways, Sinclair offers a unique threat, both in its right-wing bias and its increasing share of the market. Unlike Fox News, which has a brand well-known for its conservative tilt, Sinclair has a more subtle influence. The average person watching a &#160;local Sinclair affiliate probably does not think of it as a haven for pro-Trump/right-wing content, but just another local station.</p>
<p>But local news is extremely influential. “Local TV news still manages to reach <a href="http://www.journalism.org/files/2013/10/topline_facebook_news_10-2013.pdf" type="external">9 in 10 American adults</a>, 46 percent of whom watch it ‘often,’” noted a Mother Jones article ( <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/media/2014/04/fcc-pew-local-tv-news-consolidation" type="external">4/04/14</a>) about the increasing consolidation of local broadcasting:</p>
<p>Broadcast television still serves as Americans’ <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/163412/americans-main-source-news.aspx?utm_source=alert&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=syndication&amp;utm_content=morelink&amp;utm_term=All%20Gallup%20Headlines%20-%20Politics" type="external">main source</a> of news and information. Which is why it matters that hundreds of local TV news stations have been swept up in a massive new wave of media consolidation.</p>
<p>Sinclair is even legally allowed to own numerous channels in the same market, Mother Jones noted, “which is why you’ll see a story on your local station about some awful crime you didn’t need to know about that took place far away.” It’s a textbook illustration of the perils of media concentration at the local level, and it is about to get worse—thanks to the militant opposition to ownership restrictions of the new leaders at the FCC (Truthout, <a href="http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/39440-the-first-amendment-may-not-protect-us-trump-s-fcc-intensifies-war-on-press" type="external">2/10/17</a>; New York Times, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/19/technology/ajit-pai-fcc-telecom-deregulation.html?_r=0" type="external">4/19/17</a>).</p>
<p>Bad enough that viewers of local news increasingly have to rely on the same companies for media content. It gets worse when that conglomerate, as The Street ( <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/story/14099789/1/sinclair-leads-media-stocks-in-trump-s-first-100-days-fox-trails-the-pack.html" type="external">4/26/17</a>) noted, is widely known for peddling a right-wing agenda.</p>
<p>Promotional image for Stolen Honor.</p>
<p>This has been the case for years. In 2004, as a FAIR Action Alert ( <a href="" type="internal">10/12/04</a>) documented, Sinclair “ordered its 62 television stations to preempt regular prime-time broadcasting to air the anti-John Kerry documentary Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal just two weeks before the election.” This movie was a clear political advertisement and a piece of (dubiously sourced) opposition research (New York Times, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/21/arts/television/an-outpouring-of-pain-channeled-via-politics.html" type="external">10/21/04</a>) clearly designed to help tilt the 2004 election to George W. Bush—the same election cycle where, FAIR noted, “97 percent of contributions made by Sinclair executives went to Republicans.”</p>
<p>The Washington Post ( <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62667-2004Oct25.html" type="external">10/26/04</a>), citing Sinclair’s ownership of 67 local channels at the time (a fraction of their current reach), described the controversy as having “stoked debate about the ability of large media companies to influence public affairs.”</p>
<p>The reputation has persisted long past the 2004 election. When the company purchased several channels in Washington state, the Seattle Times ( <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/business/sinclair-known-for-conservative-political-tilt/" type="external">4/12/13)</a> wrote an article warning of its “conservative tilt.”</p>
<p>“The track record of Sinclair suggests that Seattle is about to get a Fox News equivalent in a local television channel,” David Domke, chair of the University of Washington’s Department of Communication, told the paper.</p>
<p>This reaction was mirrored closely in Washington, DC, when the Sinclair empire reached that market. “Under the direction of its ambitious corporate parent, the station’s [WJLA-TV] news operations have taken a subtle but noticeable turn to the right,” the Post reported ( <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/under-new-ownership-wjla-tv-takes-a-slight-turn-to-the-right/2014/09/16/a21ffa6e-3ac8-11e4-9c9f-ebb47272e40e_story.html?utm_term=.24e8d5da36c2" type="external">9/16/17</a>):</p>
<p>Critiques—which range from <a href="http://www.behindtheheadlines.net/sections/videos/vid_313.shtml" type="external">warning about the cost</a> of Obamacare to advocating the <a href="http://www.behindtheheadlines.net/sections/videos/vid_316.shtml" type="external">abolition of the Transportation Security Administration</a>—will be a regular feature on WJLA, just as they are on dozens of stations owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, the new owner of ABC 7.</p>
<p>Sinclair’s history of right-wing bias makes its alliance with Trump a natural development: Sinclair just had to advance the right-wing agenda it had promoted for years. Among other rewards, Sinclair got an exclusive interview with the candidate ( <a href="http://wjla.com/news/nation-world/donald-trump-on-obama-hes-concerned-im-going-to-win" type="external">9/2/16)</a>, during an election when Trump coverage <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/jeff-zucker-talks-trump-tv-cnns-ratings-hot-streak-weve-shined-everybody-941575" type="external">caused ratings</a> to skyrocket.</p>
<p>The relationship, it seems, continues to this day. While the Trump administration avoids more traditional media outlets in favor of “friendly” ones (Politico, <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/donald-trump-reporters-234972" type="external">2/13/17</a> ; FAIR.org, <a href="" type="internal">3/31/17</a>), Sinclair has been given plum opportunities for questions. When the president held a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, only the second presser of his presidency, a Sinclair affiliate was <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/donald-trump-reporters-234972" type="external">one of three outlet</a>s—all conservative—that got a chance to ask a question.</p>
<p>It is a win/win: Trump and Sinclair both benefited from the deal they made. The only losers are the American public, who depend on a free, diverse and adversarial press for a functioning democracy.</p>
<p>Subscribe: <a href="" type="internal">Android</a> | <a href="" type="internal">RSS</a></p> | Trump Uses Power of FCC to Pay Back Friends at Sinclair Broadcasting | true | http://fair.org/home/trump-uses-power-of-fcc-to-pay-back-friends-at-sinclair-broadcasting/ | 2017-05-08 | 4 |
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<p>“It’s incredibly traumatic what happened to her, but our family is super close and great and we’ll get through it together, and we do appreciate all your guys’ love and support and it will take time,” Khloe said.</p>
<p>The interview, set to air on “Ellen” Tuesday, makes Khloe the first member of her family to directly address the Oct. 2 robbery. Kim has not made any public statements. Her spokeswoman told CNN that the reality star was “badly shaken, but physically unarmed” after thieves stole more than $10 million worth of jewelry. Police officials said Kim was tied up and locked in a bathroom in her discreet luxury apartment during the ordeal.</p>
<p>Family matriarch Kris Jenner declared in an Instagram post Monday that she is “grateful for my family, who I love more than words can explain.”</p>
<p>Kim has been uncharacteristically silent on social media, which experts have estimated could cause her to lose more than $1 million a month in revenue from Instagram ads and personal, branded apps including her personalized emoji (Kimoji) and her wildly popular game, “Kim Kardashian: Hollywood.”</p>
<p>DeGeneres asked Khloe if the family was collectively scaling back on social media.</p>
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<p>“Well, I think it’s just a wake-up call to make a lot of life adjustments. But this is a really serious matter, and for Kim, I think that’s really personal as to when that emotional terror — you could move on from that,” Khloe said. “I think for us it’s all a wake-up call for all of us, but definitely just to make sure our sister’s OK.”</p>
<p>“We’re a family and we’ll do this together and I think it is important to maybe make those adjustments and — to pull back a little bit I think is always smart,” she added.</p>
<p>Kevin Hart, a guest host on Tuesday’s episode, also chimed in: “I think that’s the dope thing about the Kardashian family is that you guys do stick together. So in a situation like this is something that’s gonna bring you guys closer and you’ll be able to make adjustments accordingly and move on,” the comedian said.</p>
<p>Khloe also discussed the ongoing drama between her brother Rob and his fiancée Blac Chyna, who currently star in their own E! reality show.</p>
<p>kardashian</p> | Khloe Kardashian on ‘Ellen’: Kim is ‘not doing that well’ after Paris robbery | false | https://abqjournal.com/864915/khloe-kardashian-on-ellen-kim-is-not-doing-that-well-after-paris-robbery.html | 2 |
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<p>With big business tightening the screws on our political representation to rid ourselves of the encumbrance that many seem to think Nebraska’s Initiative 300 is, it is time for Nebraskans to re-examine our agricultural paradigm.</p>
<p>A recent Nebraska Environmental Action Coalition (NEAC) meeting revealed the appropriate way of the future. NEAC was formed to assess the effectiveness of our evolving agribusiness way of life. The organization is concerned about the denuded condition of our state and believes a move away from the reigning agribusiness model would be beneficial.</p>
<p>The Alliance for the Future of Agriculture in Nebraska (A-FAN), consisting of the usual agribusiness contingency, was there, too, assuring the NEAC membership that A-FAN’s intentions were not at cross-purposes. NEAC didn’t buy it; it already had observed the A-FAN alliance in action for several generations and recognized little mission overlap.</p>
<p>Where A-FAN touts bigness, NEAC touts smallness. Where A-FAN promotes a corporate approach, NEAC promotes a family approach. Where A-FAN promotes extractive production, NEAC promotes stewardship. The two could hardly be more opposite.</p>
<p>During the course of their joust, I was reminded of the work of Walter Goldschmidt. His 1940s study of two California Central Valley towns reveals much about the probable outcomes of the alternative NEAC and A-FAN approaches to agricultural leadership. His conclusions provide a foundation for motivating groups like NEAC in their opposition to modern corporate agribusiness.</p>
<p>Goldschmidt demonstrated how each approach affected the quality of life for those operating under one paradigm against the other – the A-FAN approach as opposed to the NEAC.</p>
<p>Goldschmidt contrasted two agricultural centers differing in only one aspect: the surrounding number of family-owned farms. Arvin and Dinuba had similar volumes of crop production and similar soils and climates. Each was the same distance from a city and similarly connected via roads and rails.</p>
<p>But Dinuba was the center for many small family farms, while Arvin was surrounded by just a few big agribusiness firms. Goldschmidt’s findings were astounding, and the difference between these two communities was dramatic.</p>
<p>Dinuba residents were investing more time and money in their community. Dinuba had twice as many civic associations and several local government bodies for direct public decision-making. Dinuba had 62 businesses to 35 for Arvin. Dinuba generated three times more in household supplies and building equipment trade. Dinuba produced greater value in agricultural production and had two newspapers to Arvin’s one.</p>
<p>Even institutional quality was affected. Dinuba’s paved streets, garbage and sewage disposal systems, for example, were superior. Arvin had no high school and only one elementary school to Dinuba’s one high school and four elementary schools. Dinuba had three public parks to Arvin’s single corporate-leased playground.</p>
<p>Goldschmidt concluded that a preponderance of large-scale farm operations created “a community made up of a few persons of high economic position and a mass of individuals whose economic status and whose security and stability are low and who are economically dependent directly on the few.”</p>
<p>Now it’s true that Arvin and Dinuba are nowhere close to the Great Plains, but Goldschmidt’s findings have since been corroborated in nearly 100 other agricultural counties. So perhaps they apply in Nebraska as well.</p>
<p>Smaller family-farm holdings in and around Dinuba supported five schools to corporate Arvin’s one. In Nebraska, as farms keep getting bigger all the time, the trend is toward fewer schools as well. Does it follow that Nebraska’s rural cultural richness — like Arvin’s — is an inevitable casualty of this trend toward “agribigness”? I think it might.</p>
<p>So in which direction are Nebraskans headed? Are we Arvin, or are we Dinuba? Those of us who grew up in pre-large farm Nebraska can notice the difference. Rural Nebraska has changed from Dinuba to Arvin.</p>
<p>But which one do we want to be? When we answer that question for each other as Nebraskans who truly want to live here, then it becomes clear which type of leadership offers the better way: the Dinuba way.</p>
<p>The A-FAN membership has been around a long time, and under its leadership we’ve become more solidly colonized and dependent on outside interests. Goldschmidt has shown us that the leadership choice is clear: It’s NEAC over A-FAN in a landslide.</p>
<p>JAMES KNOTWELL is an assistant professor at Wayne State College. Agricultural geography is among his teaching interests.</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | The Future of Nebraska’s Family Farms | true | https://counterpunch.org/2006/10/10/the-future-of-nebraska-s-family-farms/ | 2006-10-10 | 4 |
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<p>A Chinese electronics maker has issued a recall for millions of products sold in the U.S. following a devastating cyberattack, but is pushing back against criticism that its devices played a role in the massive disruption.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Hangzhou Xiongmai Technology said in a statement that customers failing to change their default passwords resulted in millions of Web-connected cameras and digital recorders becoming compromised.</p>
<p>Security experts say unidentified hackers seized control of gadgets including Xiongmai's on Friday and directed them to launch an attack that temporarily crippled websites including Twitter and Netflix.</p>
<p>Xiongmai said Monday that it would recall products sold before April 2015 to demonstrate "social responsibility," but added that its devices did not make up the majority used in the attack.</p>
<p>Xiongmai also makes dashboard cameras and computer chips.</p> | Chinese firm issues webcam recall after massive cyberattack | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2016/10/25/chinese-firm-issues-webcam-recall-after-massive-cyberattack.html | 2016-10-26 | 0 |
<p>Actor and Director Scott Baio on why he is supporting the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump.</p>
<p>Despite Donald Trump being the presumptive Republican nominee in the 2016 presidential race, there are some in the GOP establishment who seem skeptical and hesitant to embrace his candidacy.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>“You mean like Paul Ryan?&#160;I don’t think it’s skepticism at all, I think it’s self-indulgent, ‘how can this benefit me?’ play.&#160;I think he’s trying to be a power player.&#160;And for me, it tells me everything that’s sort of wrong with the Republican Party.&#160;I’m sort of done with them, they shoot themselves in the foot every other minute, Trump is the nominee, period,” actor Scott Baio told the FOX Business Network’s Neil Cavuto.</p>
<p>“It was the way [Trump] was talking that attracted me to him, because when I hear politicians talking it sounds like the parents in Charlie Brown, ‘whah, whah, whah, whah….,’ and then when I heard Trump speaking,&#160; I actually heard words and sentences and phrases that I understood,” said Baio.</p>
<p>On how Trump would hold up in the general election, Baio said, “I knew that he would take Hillary Clinton, or whomever their nominee is to task and beat them pillar to post.&#160;I think he can win huge because he will go at them the way they’ve gone at the Republican side forever -- and we’ve never ever had a guy go on the attack like this and that’s what you need nowadays,” Baio said.</p>
<p>On Mitt Romney’s criticisms of Donald Trump, Baio said, “I don’t get it, I’m so disappointed in it.&#160;I think part of it is [because] he is a businessman and Trump is a businessman, he is a little jealous that a businessman is going to beat him to the presidency.&#160;[Trump] is the nominee, suck it up, be a man and let’s go.”</p>
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<p>Baio then made an offer to his colleagues in Hollywood who have threatened to go to Canada if Trump is elected.</p>
<p>“I’ve already worked this out, my friend Bob Shapiro and I, we’re going to charter a plane for them and they can go wherever they’d like.&#160;I will put drinks on the plane, I’ll put some nice lobster, see ya later,” Baio said.</p> | Scott Baio to Romney: Trump is the Nominee, Suck it Up | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2016/05/12/scott-baio-to-romney-trump-is-nominee-suck-it-up.html | 2016-05-12 | 0 |
<p>My Abuela (grandmother) was buried this weekend and I drove down to Florida from Virginia to attend the family gathering. As we left Virginia and entered North Carolina, I started to see billboards with biblical quotes and American flags on them. Just a few at first but then it became a steady stream that kept up all the way through South Carolina and into Georgia. Lots of billboards with Bald Eagles, American flags and a whole lot of Jesus.</p>
<p>I was in the Bible Belt for sure.</p>
<p>Now, we stopped several times and no one ran up to me and screamed “Have you found Jesus, you godless liberal scum?!”&#160;Still, as a recently transplanted New Yorker living in deep blue Northern Virginia, I couldn’t help but feel that I was in enemy territory.&#160;“Aha!” the few right wing readers I have are saying. “Proof that liberals hate Jesus and America!”</p>
<p>That might be true if I considered the Bible Belt to be representative of either Jesus or America. They are not and have not been for quite some time. The Bible Belt abandoned any pretense of patriotism or devotion to embrace the seductive succor of hatred. At every chance they’ve doubled down on rage instead of pulling away from its grasp.</p>
<p>After the Civil War, they spent decades terrorizing black communities. Actually, they spent the next 150 years doing it because they’ve never really stopped. Sure, the Bible Belt gave lip service to equality and freedom but they never forgave blacks for gaining their freedom. And they&#160;definitely&#160;never forgave the “liberal” North for forcing them to stop practicing slavery, something universally recognized as one of the most immoral institutions known to man. The way they cope with this barely concealed anger is to declare themselves the “real” America and the most devout Christians, thereby placing themselves on a pedestal looking down on the rest of us.</p>
<p>The result is what you see today. The entire region is awash in flag waving and Bible thumping. Giant billboards proclaim that lust will send you to hell and that only the fool denies the existence of Christ. Every roadside store has hats and shirts and key chains with the American flag and tough looking American symbolism.</p>
<p>The further along I went, the more distinct the impression became that this was a group of bitter people trying desperately to convince, not the rest of us, but&#160;themselves,&#160;that they are not who they actually are: People who absolutely despise America and willfully ignore Jesus’ message of peace, tolerance and brotherhood.</p>
<p>“I love America and Jesus more than you do!” is not all that persuasive when the person screaming it from the top of their lungs votes for laws that attack the constitutional freedoms of others or punishes the poor and sick. Actions, as always, speak louder than words. But in their need to justify their hatred of America and the poor/gays/blacks/women/etc., Bible Belt conservatives overcompensate exactly the same way a Chihuahua barks and growls at dogs 10 times their size. And they’re just as unconvincing.</p>
<p>The sad thing is that some of these people really do believe on some level that they are the true and pious patriots that America needs even as they curse and spit on everything America and Jesus stand for. For the rest of the not-so-delusional? Well, they can always put up more billboards.</p>
<p>‘Murica.</p> | Driving Through Jesusland | true | http://addictinginfo.org/2015/05/19/driving-through-jesusland/ | 2015-05-19 | 4 |
<p>A teacher strike that's shut down the third-largest school district in the US may be coming to a close.</p>
<p>The Chicago Teachers Union and the city's school board reached a tentative deal in the five-day dispute late Friday afternoon, a source familiar with negotiations <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/14/us/illinois-chicago-teachers-strike/index.html" type="external">told CNN</a>.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/120910/chicago-teachers-strike-first-time-quarter-centu" type="external">Chicago teachers strike for first time in quarter century</a></p>
<p>Talks are expected to continue Saturday morning, and an attorney for the teachers union said both sides hope to have a deal drafted by Sunday.</p>
<p>Students could be back in the classroom as soon as Monday,&#160;school board President Dave Vitale <a href="http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/14/13853337-framework-of-strike-deal-in-place-chicago-schools-official-says?lite" type="external">told NBC News</a>.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/rights/chicago-teachers-strike-mayor-rahm-emanuel" type="external">Chicago teachers strike: Let's break it down</a></p>
<p>Tens of thousands of Chicago teachers <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/120910/chicago-teachers-strike-first-time-quarter-centu" type="external">walked off the job</a>&#160;for the first time in 25 years this past Monday after months of negotiations failed to product a new contract.</p>
<p>At issue are pay, benefits and a controversial set of reforms demanded by Mayor Rahm Emanuel that evaluates teachers based on their students' standardized test scores, the <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-chicago-teachers-strike-0914-20120914,0,5804860.story" type="external">Chicago Tribune reported</a>.</p>
<p>The union worries that more than a quarter of its teachers could be fired because they work in poor neighborhoods where students perform badly on standardized tests, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/14/us-usa-chicago-schools-idUSBRE8870DL20120914" type="external">according to Reuters</a>.</p> | Tentative deal reached in Chicago teacher strike | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-09-14/tentative-deal-reached-chicago-teacher-strike | 2012-09-14 | 3 |
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<p>As one who has been extremely cynical and suspicious about the candidacy of Howard Dean for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, I have to confess that the more I hear the other candidates criticize him, and the more I hear him respond to their vapid and treacherous charges, the better he looks.</p>
<p>Take the recent criticism of Dean’s comment concerning Osama Bin Laden. At the nationally televised debate last weekend sponsored by the Des Moines Register newspaper, John Kerry, supposedly one of the more liberal of the Democratic presidential wannabes, tried to make Dean look like a limp-wristed liberal criminal coddler by recalling Dean’s recent observation that Bin Laden, if captured, would have the presumption of innocence.</p>
<p>Well, wouldn’t he? Or was Kerry suggesting that such legal niceties as a fair trial could be dispensed with in this particular instance in favor of a good old fashioned public lynching?</p>
<p>Dean, who could have given the yahoos in the television audience the red meat some are looking for, instead said simply that as president he would be bound to protect the rule of law, and that while he assumed Bin Laden would be convicted and sentenced to death for his alleged crime of masterminding the attack on the World Trade Center towers, he would also have to be tried in accordance with the law, which includes giving him the presumption of innocence.</p>
<p>That solid defense of the Constitutional right to a fair trial stands at once in stark contrast with the position of the current occupant of the White House, who has locked several American citizens up indefinitely without charges, without trial, and without access to a lawyer or even contact with family members. It stands in equally stark contrast to Kerry and the other candidates, none of whom jumped to Dean’s defense.</p>
<p>Dean got the same kind of unprincipled criticism from Kerry and Lieberman a few weeks ago when he made the rather obvious observation that the much ballyhooed capture of Saddam Hussein had done nothing to make the U.S. safer or more secure–a point that was underlined readily by the continued slaughter of U.S. soldiers in Iraq and by the elevation of the Homeland Security Department’s risk index, as well as by a series of high-level threats to U.S. bound airliners, necessitating, in some cases, F-16 escorts to some flights and cancellations of others.</p>
<p>Dean’s earlier comment about wanting to be the candidate of the guys who drive pickups decked out with confederate flags prompted a similar attack from his rivals. For saying that he does not want to write off the South in the election, and wants to challenge the Republicans’ so-called “Southern Strategy” of using racial code words to pry Southern working class whites away from their traditional support of the Democratic New Deal coalition, Dean was attacked by candidates Lieberman, Kerry, John Edwards and even by Al Sharpton, all of whom accused him both of racial insensititivy to the supposed hurt feelings of blacks and of paternalism towards whites.</p>
<p>Excuse me, but just how does it hurt black feelings to say that working class people –black and white–are being screwed by a Republican strategy of tricking whites into voting against their own class interest by appealing to their racial fears? And how is it paternalistic to point out to the guys who put confederate flags on their pickup trucks–and there certainly are a lot of them in the Southland, most of them really decent folks at heart, who do exactly that–that they have been duped and used by the Republican Party? It’s a fact, and it’s high time that someone among the Democrats had the huevos to point it out. Dean has been taken to task by his Democratic rivals too for calling for a repeal of the entire Bush tax cut package, with Kerry in the lead saying that he would preserve the portion of the tax cuts that went to the middle class.</p>
<p>Has anyone looked at those alleged middle-class tax cuts Kerry and Lieberman want to save? They are so small as to be insulting. Few would miss them if they were gone, and they weren’t across the board in any case. Dean is right. It would be far better to wipe them off the boards and start from scratch. Far fairer, and far better for the economy, would be a one-time cut in the social security FICA tax, which would go disproportionately to those at the lower end of the economic scale, and which would be spent immediately back into the economy.</p>
<p>While Dean hasn’t had the guts to join Congressman Dennis Kucinich in calling for a slashing of the military budget–the only way the U.S. government will ever truly be able to fund all the real needs of the American public–or for making the tax code more progressive, it was still bracing to hear him tell Kerry, and by inference most of the other candidates at a debate hosted Tuesday by National Public Radio, that Kerry’s call for keeping much of the Bush tax cut in place while proposing a host of new funding initiatives was “hogwash,” as indeed most of the human services spending promises made by Democratic presidential candidates in the past several decades have been. Further, Dean gets points for explaining that any benefits middle class families may have thought they were receiving from the Bush tax cuts have long since been gobbled up by higher property taxes and state sales and income taxes necessitated by Bush cuts in federal aid for schools, police, roads, etc. Not to mention the higher energy prices and interest rates that have been the result of Bush administration policies. Senator Lieberman blasted Dean saying that no Democrat has been elected president who ran on a call for higher taxes, but this criticism coming from a guy who, with Al Gore, blew the 2000 election while shamelessly promising program after program to every wedge group a pollster could identify didn’t carry much weight.</p>
<p>Dean is far from perfect, and he shows a worrying tendency to back away from some good statements and positions when confronted (especially when compared to candidate Dennis Kucinich, who has stood solidly by all his positions and who is helping to keep Dean honest with regard to his opposition to the Iraq war). But not always. It was refreshing to see him stand firm for the Constitutional right to a presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial. It has been refreshing to hear him call the Republicans’ Southern Strategy for what it is–a racist gambit that has hoodwinked a generation of white stars-and-bars waving Southerners (as well as a large cohort of northern white suburbanites, who keep their own confederate flags neatly hidden away in their racially frightened hearts).</p>
<p>Dean may not be a progressive candidate. His position on the death penalty is indefensible, his record as governor could hardly be called liberal, and his position on globalization and trade agreements, not to mention the military, is pretty wishy-washy.</p>
<p>But I have to confess, listening to the treacherous and petty Republican-style attacks of his weasily rivals for the nomination, and watching him stand his ground for (the most part), with humor and dignity, is exhilarating, after years of the likes of Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton and Gore.</p>
<p>If nothing else, a Bush-Dean match-up would, for the first time in a generation, offer us the spectacle of a genuine political street fight, with real punches thrown and real blood on the pavement.</p>
<p>DAVE LINDORFF is the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567512283/counterpunchmaga" type="external">Killing Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal</a>. A collection of Lindorff’s stories can be found here: <a href="http://www.nwuphilly.org/dave.html" type="external">http://www.nwuphilly.org/dave.html</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | Dean and His Democratic Detractors | true | https://counterpunch.org/2004/01/07/dean-and-his-democratic-detractors/ | 2004-01-07 | 4 |
<p>Senator Jeff Sessions delivered the Republicans’ radio address this morning. He took the opportunity to excoriate President Obama for lying about his budget plan, and Senate Democrats for ignoring their legal duty to adopt a budget. He addressed his listeners as though Americans, preparing to vote in November, were a jury:</p>
<p>Hello. I’m Jeff Sessions, United States Senator from Alabama. I’m also the Ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee.</p>
<p>Before entering politics, I was a federal prosecutor. I tried many cases and spoke to many juries. The brilliance of our legal system is that it places judgment in the hands of everyday citizens. Twelve complete strangers, from all walks of life, sit in a jury box, carefully weigh the evidence, and then reach an impartial verdict.</p>
<p>Our democracy works much the same. Voters hear the arguments, weigh the evidence, and then go to the ballot box and render a verdict.</p>
<p>As a prosecutor, I learned to trust the wisdom of these everyday citizens. I also learned, more than anything else, jurors want the facts. Today my goal is to present to you the facts as honestly and directly as I can.</p>
<p>Americans feel right now like the world has been turned upside down. They sacrifice to pay their bills and then watch federal workers throw lavish parties on their dime. They hear warnings of a debt crisis and yet learn that we still borrow nearly $4 billion a day. They send their tax dollars to Washington on the hope those dollars will be wisely guarded and then discover that those dollars have been lost and wasted and abused. They balance their family budgets only to find out that the United States Senate, under Democrat control, will not even bring a budget plan to the Senate floor.</p>
<p>The American people see the financial chaos. They know it must stop. They know their families are at risk. And that their country is in danger. Yet the President does not rally the country to action. Instead, he says our debt course is nothing to worry about. He continues to insist that his budget plan will pay down the debt.</p>
<p>This is the pivotal question of our time. This is a question on which our future depends. Does the President’s plan pay down our debt? Or does it leave our nation on a certain path to financial disaster?</p>
<p>Let’s review the facts.</p>
<p>To pay down the debt requires a surplus. Under the President’s 10-year budget, there is never a surplus. The single lowest annual deficit is $543 billion. The annual deficit in the 10th year grows to $652 billion. Despite $1.8 trillion in new taxes, his budget increases our spending and debt every year, adding $11 trillion to the debt overall. Just the interest alone on our debt would exceed defense spending in seven years. These are not my numbers; they come from the tables in the President’s own budget document that he printed and sent to Congress.</p>
<p>For the President to say his plan will pay down the debt is one of the greatest financial misrepresentations ever made to the American people.</p>
<p>Adding to the chaos, the Senate Democrat Majority has decided to adjourn through November having utterly failed to meet its most basic obligations. For the last three years, in a time of national crisis, Senate Democrats have deliberately violated the legal requirement to produce a budget plan. How can they ask the American people to send them one more dime in new taxes when they won’t even meet their legal duty to write a financial plan and tell how that money will be spent?</p>
<p>They also failed to pass a single annual appropriations bill—not once, but twice—the first time a single spending bill wasn’t passed in Senate history. They would not even bring up the crucial national defense authorization bill—for the first time in 50 years. And they presented no plan to prevent the huge tax hikes and steep cuts to defense known as the fiscal cliff.</p>
<p>All these failures create uncertainty and weaken the economy.</p>
<p>People should know that the Republican-led House on the other hand, met its obligations. Most significantly, it passed a budget to rescue America from a debt crisis. Compared to the President’s plan, the House budget achieved $3.3 trillion in greater deficit reduction while fostering economic growth.</p>
<p>If given the chance, Republicans will get this government under control. A Republican Senate will pass a budget. Failure is not an option.</p>
<p>We believe in a better way forward. A way that brings us closer to—not further from—our heritage as a nation.</p>
<p>We believe in growing the economy, not the bureaucracy. We believe in helping more people live good and prosperous lives. We believe in preventing the safety net from becoming a restraint. We believe in lifting people onto the employment rolls instead of leaving them on the welfare rolls. And we believe that compassion should not be defined by much money the government spends on poverty but how many people we can help rise out of poverty.</p>
<p>And we believe in the good, decent, hardworking citizens of this Republic.</p>
<p>These are the facts. The case is in your hands. God bless you, God bless our troops, and God bless America.</p> | Sessions Blasts Democrats’ Irresponsibility | true | http://powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/09/sessions-blasts-democrats-irresponsibility.php | 2012-09-22 | 0 |
<p>Does this sound familiar? One branch of government refuses to make a decision, and another branch of government makes a decision. Another branch of government says that the second branch of government is not allowed to make that decision.</p>
<p>That’s what passes for American democracy today.</p>
<p>Take the Patriot Act, voting rights, the environment, abortion, healthcare reform, the minimum wage, gay marriage, and <a href="http://www.thetakeaway.org/story/president-obamas-immigration-action-blocked/" type="external">&#160;last week’s ruling on immigration reform</a>. All of these issues end up in the courts because of the peculiar way our divided government “works” — by showcasing its divisions and then permitting the political adversaries to fight it out in the courts.</p>
<p>A court may decide that Congress or the White House has no standing in making a unilateral decision. A court may object to definitions of federal authority or state’s rights. An actual issue put to the test of a democratic majority? That never happens.</p>
<p>The left and right are both at fault in this little charade. Districts are gerrymandered to preserve incumbents. This preserves divided government. The Electoral College permits money to flood the margins in places like Iowa and New Hampshire, and the results are amplified into national trends.</p>
<p>This way of gaming the system impedes decision making because it only rewards people who can’t make up their minds — the so-called “swing voters” get all the attention. All of this has the effect of skewing the results away from problem solving, compromise, and solutions. Instead, what we get are tepid and extremely nuanced statements about leadership and very general talk of “American Needs Change” or “Vote for Better Times Ahead.”</p>
<p>What this all actually shows is that change is actually impossible in the United States today, which may mean that the better times ahead are also out of reach. In the American electoral system, conservatives resemble liberals to a greater degree than ever before, and the outcomes are more and more inconclusive.</p>
<p>No significant legislation is proposed, and anything that is proposed is either vetoed or affirmed if, once again, the discussion is who is allowed to make such a decision. Does the president have the authority to enforce Obamacare, or immigration reform? Somehow these questions are filled with Talmudic riddles, but the idea of holding people with no charge indefinitely at Guantanamo, or violating a sovereign nation’s borders and carrying out a drone strike that kills civilians — well, those appear to be no-brainers.</p>
<p>I’m not a constitutional scholar, but surely there must be a provision somewhere for some branch of government to actually make a decision that might help Americans. But alas, it’s back to court — that’s where immigration reform languishes, in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.</p>
<p>Will it ever get out? Don’t hold your breath.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.thetakeaway.org/story/hockenberry-under-americas-current-system-better-times-will-remain-reach/" type="external">This article</a> was adapted from a commentary on PRI's <a href="http://www.thetakeaway.org/" type="external">The Takeaway</a>, a daily news show that explores the American conversation.</p> | Why America needs a fix for its messed-up government | false | https://pri.org/stories/2015-05-31/why-america-needs-fix-its-messed-government | 2015-05-31 | 3 |
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<p>Recently relocated to a shared space just south of the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History and headed by Chef Christopher James Cordova, the restaurant makes up for what it lacks in excitement with earnestness and flavor.</p>
<p>Among the restaurant’s immediate selling points are accessibility – the waiter twice mentioned to customers that parking is free because “we own the parking lot” – and a feeling of familiarity; Native American rugs and historical photos of Albuquerque line the walls, and a lean menu features a handful of New Mexican standards like green chile cheeseburgers and street tacos.</p>
<p>Or mini-chimichangas, on the appetizer menu, but easily a meal for one person. Three flour tortillas are stuffed with a mixture of tender shredded beef, diced tomatoes, onions, peppers and, unnecessarily, a mozzarella cheese mix, then deep-fried and halved.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>A pale and mild queso is served on the side to dip the chimichangas in, a nice complement to the bite of the spicy beef.</p>
<p>They’ve got a kick, but for a local it’s more of a nudge.</p>
<p>Another selling point: local beers on tap. On a recent weekend, eight New Mexico brews from four breweries (Bosque, Boese Brothers, La Cumbre and Marble) were on the menu. The beers are $4.50 apiece, so a better bet is the flight of your choice of three beers for $7.</p>
<p>To keep with the beef theme, try the three steak tacos. Small chunks of perfectly grilled tenderloin steak rest on a huge scoop of fresh guacamole, too much guacamole, if that’s possible, and are finished with roasted poblano peppers, cheese, and pine nuts dusted with red chile. The beef is tender and flavorful, if not plentiful, and the whole thing is plated like an entree at an airport cantina. The faint hint of cilantro, though, shows a restraint absent from most airport-cantina fare.</p>
<p>The menu promises a fire-roasted salsa but, unless it’s hidden in the guacamole, the kitchen might forget to add it. The whole thing is wrapped in two small corn tortillas. Served beside the tacos, inexplicably, were waffle-cut sweet potato fries that somehow worked. And good luck resisting the temptation to dip the fries into the queso dip from the chimichangas, also an unexpectedly good combination.</p>
<p>Service was good but sporadic on a Sunday afternoon, with random groups and large parties shuffling in. The wait staff itself seems uniformly friendly. Seating is most plentiful in the open patio, a perfect gathering spot for locals.</p>
<p>A final selling point: Even a well-behaved dog was welcomed outside to enjoy the sun with its owners.</p>
<p>After a meal at Backstreet, walk next door to the Albuquerque Museum to take in a bit of New Mexico history. For just $3, a steal for a museum of this quality, take a quick detour to see one of Peter Hurd’s most iconic paintings (albeit through an unfortunately placed vitrine) that celebrates the very terrain on which Backstreet’s beef was raised.</p>
<p>Street tacos and fine art, it turns out, make a uniquely New Mexican impression.</p>
<p>Now nearing 5 years old, Backstreet Grill is in full stride. Because of its location and consistent flavor, it’s a place you can take out-of-towners for a reliably good street taco without feeling like a sellout or a food snob. And the art museum is a nice bonus.</p>
<p>Backstreet Grill</p>
<p>LOCATION: 1919 Old Town Road NW #6, 842-5434, <a href="http://www.backstreetgrillot.com" type="external">backstreetgrillot.com</a> HOURS: 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Sunday-Thursday; 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday, Saturday BEER AND WINE</p>
<p /> | Familiar flavors: Backstreet Grill serves local favorites in convenient location | false | https://abqjournal.com/970978/dining-albuquerque-2.html | 2 |
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<p>The University of New Mexico football team arrived in Eugene, Ore., after 5 p.m. PDT on Friday with a fairly strong contingent of Lobo supporters. Former defensive lineman John Wingate, a member of the 1997 WAC Mountain Division championship team, was one of the faithful in town for the game.</p>
<p>The city isn’t quite as decked out in school colors as Texas A&amp;M was for the 2009 season opener against UNM, but I have a feeling by game time, the locals will be rarin’ to go.</p>
<p>The Lobos suffered a big blow this week when backup safety Carmeiris Stewart suffered what appears to be a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. UNM is still awaiting the official results from the MRI but are preparing as if Stewart will miss the season. Walk-on Brian Hill moves up in Stewart’s place as the backup to Bubba Forrest. True freshman Ravonne Carter may see more playing time Saturday as well.</p>
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<p>Two non-UNM observations: How on earth is the NCAA allowing former Oregon quarterback Jeremiah Masoli, who was dismissed from the team in the offseason, to play at Mississippi?</p>
<p>The NCAA has some rule that a player who has graduated (which Masoli did at Oregon) can transfer to another school and have the sit-out year rule waived if that school offers a program that his former school did not.</p>
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<p>Masoli has entered a Parks and Recreation program at Mississippi that is not offered at Oregon. But how is a player who admitted to burglary and later was found in possession of marijuana on a traffic stop allowed to use that transfer rule. Once Masoli broke the law, he should’ve been done this season. Period.</p>
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<p>It’s a scary time when a supposed media entity can help dictate what conference affiliation a school should or shouldn’t be in. That’s exactly what ESPN did when it signed an eight-year agreement to carry Brigham Young football games before BYU officially left the Mountain West Conference on Tuesday to become an independent in football and join the West Coast Conference in other sports.</p>
<p>ESPN should not have entered into any kind of negotiations with BYU until the school declared its independence. The MWC could be in huge trouble if ESPN decides it wants Boise State or TCU out of the conference so it can cover their games. The Worldwide Leader has no business influencing any school regarding confererence affiliation.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Lobo Football: Happy Season Eve | false | https://abqjournal.com/232609/lobo-football-happy-season-eve.html | 2 |
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<p>During Tuesday's <a href="" type="internal">weepfest</a>, President Barack Obama touted funding for the research of "smart guns." As it turns out, the president's promotion of smart guns has a history. According to a report, Obama's 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns received donations from the smart gun industry.</p>
<p>"We need to develop new technologies that make guns safer," Obama <a href="http://time.com/4168056/obama-gun-control-speech-transcript/" type="external">said</a> during his announcement of his executive orders Tuesday. "If we can set it up so you can’t unlock your phone unless you’ve got the right fingerprint, why can’t we do the same thing for our guns? If there’s an app that can help us find a missing tablet—which happens to me often the older I get—if we can do it for your iPad, there’s no reason we can’t do it with a stolen gun. If a child can’t open a bottle of aspirin, we should make sure that they can’t pull a trigger on a gun. Right? So we’re going to advance research. We’re going to work with the private sector to update firearms technology."</p>
<p>The <a href="http://freebeacon.com/politics/obama-top-recipient-smart-gun-cash/" type="external">Washington Free Beacon</a> found through OpenSecrets.org that the following from the smart gun industry donated to Obama's two presidential campaigns, including:</p>
<p>The problem with smart guns is that they don't work. As The Daily Wire editor-in-chief Ben Shapiro <a href="" type="internal">writes,</a> "There are no magical guns that read fingerprints, activate quickly, and work consistently. They do not exist. If they did exist, I would buy one. But President Obama, in his true 'government knows how to invest your money' fashion, thinks throwing money at smart guns will work."</p>
<p>Radio host and author Dana Loesch <a href="http://danaloeschradio.com/a-thorough-fisking-of-obamas-executive-orders-on-gun-control" type="external">explains</a> further:</p>
<p>Gun owners by and large roll their eyes at smart gun tech because it's completely errant, unsafe, unpredictable, and frankly a silly choice for defense. Here is one test where the heralded first choice for smart guns failed miserably. Sorry, but if I'm defending myself against a rapist in a parking garage, I don't think he's going to wait for my wristband to take 20 seconds to pair with my gun (that's if it does so successfully, whereas tests of Armatix iP1 struggled to do even this, to say nothing of the difficulties with the trigger). Read the full review. Additionally, smart gun advocates are championing pricing poor people out of their Second Amendment rights. Smart gun tech is as faulty as it is expensive and if the free market supported firearms with bulky tech that made usage impossible we wouldn't need the President executive ordering federal funds to pay for additional research to again prove the obvious. I suppose in keeping with progressive narrative building I have to ask why they are so against allowing poor people in high crime, urban areas to exercise their Second Amendment right? The poor would be the hardest hit.</p>
<p>The smart gun industry is now becoming the <a href="http://dailysignal.com/2011/11/14/report-80-of-doe-green-energy-loans-went-to-obama-backers/" type="external">green industry</a>–a supposedly noble cause that really is nothing more than Obama paying off his crony campaign bundlers through government funding. Crony capitalism at its finest.</p>
<p>This article has been corrected to reflect the number of smart gun companies donating to Obama's campaigns, the source of the dollar amounts and that some of the donors were employees from Sandia National Laboratories and the New Jersey Institute for Technology.</p>
<p>Image (AP): "President Barack Obama reaches to wipe a tear from his eye as he talks about victims of the Sandy Hook shootings, as he speaks in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2016, about steps his administration is taking to reduce gun violence."</p> | Report: 'Smart Gun' Industry Invested Heavily Into Obama's Presidential Campaigns | true | https://dailywire.com/news/2478/report-smart-gun-industry-invested-heavily-obamas-aaron-bandler | 2016-01-09 | 0 |
<p>President Donald Trump&#160;invoked Chelsea Manning&#160;to defend his pardon of Joe Arpaio (Photos of Trump and Arpaio by Gage Skidmore, photo of Manning by Tim Travers Hawkins; courtesy Wikimedia Commons)</p>
<p>Amid criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike over his pardon of Joe Arpaio, President Trump on Monday invoked his predecessor’s clemency for Chelsea Manning to justify the decision.</p>
<p>Trump made the comparison at the White House during a joint news conference with Finland President Sauli Niinistö in response to a question about the criticism from Fox News’ John Roberts — deriding her as a “criminal leaker.”</p>
<p>“President Obama commuted the sentence of Chelsea Manning, who leaked countless sensitive and classified documents to Wikileaks, perhaps, and others, but horrible, horrible thing that he did,” Trump said. “Commuted the sentence and perhaps pardoned.”</p>
<p>Trump apparently misgendered Manning as male by referencing the “horrible, horrible thing that he did,” although arguably that pronoun could be a reference to Obama and the horrible thing was the pardon of Manning.</p>
<p>One difference between Arpaio and Manning, a transgender woman who served nearly seven years in a men’s prison before receiving commutation from Obama, is Manning served time in prison. Arpaio had yet to be sentenced when Trump pardoned him.</p>
<p>Arpaio, who served as Maricopa County Sheriff until last year before being voted out of office, was found guilty of criminal contempt of court for engaging in racial profiling despite an order instructing him to cease that activity. The U.S. Justice Department under the Obama administration found he unfairly targeted Latinos in conducting traffic stops — although Arpaio long before that had been accused of police misconduct.</p>
<p>Manning is also a controversial figure, but in a different way. Many consider her a whistleblower for leaking a video of a Baghdad airstrike that exposed U.S. activities during the Iraq war. Others point to a subsequent dump of 251,287 State Department cables as evidence she was indiscriminately leaking information and potentially jeopardized the lives of undercover operatives.</p>
<p>Trump also invoked to justify his Arpaio pardon former President Clinton’s pardon of Mark Rich, who received clemency after his wife donated to the Clinton Library, Susan Rosenberg and Carlos Vignali as well as Obama’s pardon of Oscar Lopez Rivera, a militant leader of the Puerto Rico independence movement.</p>
<p>Trump also had high praise for Arpaio, who supported the president in the 2016 election and stumped for him at the Republican National Convention.</p>
<p>“Sheriff Joe is a patriot, Sheriff Joe loves our country, Sheriff Joe protected our borders and Sheriff Joe was very unfairly treated by the Obama administration, especially right before an election, an election that he would have won, and he was elected many times,” Trump said.</p>
<p>In response to assertions from Republicans like Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and 2016 Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush&#160;the pardon was the wrong thing to do, Trump replied, “A lot of people think it was the right thing to do.”</p>
<p>Trump also acknowledged he issued the pardon at the same time Hurricane Harvey was striking Texas, referencing the high ratings he assumed TV would have at the time.</p>
<p>“And actually, in the middle of the hurricane, even though it was a Friday, I assumed the ratings would be far higher, and I put it out that I pardon, as we say, Sheriff Joe,” Trump said.</p>
<p>“He’s done a great job for the people of Arizona,” Trump continued. “He’s very strong on borders, very strong on illegal immigration. He is loved in Arizona. I thought he was treated unbelievably unfairly when they came down with their big decision to go get him right before the election voting started, as you know, and he lost in fairly close election.”</p>
<p>Referencing a rally he recently held in Phoenix in which he said relief for Arpaio was forthcoming, Trump said, “When I mentioned him the other night. You saw the massive crowd we had. The people went crazy when I said what do you think of Sheriff Joe, or something to that effect. The crazy went absolutely crazy when I was in Arizona last week.”</p>
<p>Manning, who didn’t respond on Twitter when Trump criticized her earlier this year, also has not responded as of the time of this posting to Trump comparing her to Arpaio.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Chelsea Manning</a> <a href="" type="internal">Donald Trump</a> <a href="" type="internal">Joe Arpaio</a></p> | Trump invokes Chelsea Manning to justify Arpaio pardon | false | http://washingtonblade.com/2017/08/28/trump-invokes-chelsea-manning-to-justify-arpaio-pardon/ | 3 |
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<p>Cardinal George Pell at a press conference at the Vatican Radio headquarters in Rome in 2015. (Andrew Medichini/The Associated Press)</p>
<p>Australian Cardinal George Pell was a priest in the 1970s in the town of Ballarat where he advised Bishop Ronald Mulkearns about the placement of priests within the diocese.</p>
<p>Pell, now the pope's top financial adviser, told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that he had no idea that priest Gerald Ridsdale was repeatedly transferred by the bishop for more than a decade because of pedophile accusations.</p>
<p>Pell rejected an accusation made by the lead counsel assisting the commission, Gail Furness, that his answers were designed to remove his own responsibility for Ridsdale's crimes.</p>
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<p>"My answers were designed to answer your questions accurately and completely," Pell told the Sydney inquiry via videolink from a Rome hotel.</p>
<p>Asked if he accepted any responsibility of Ridsdale's repeated transfers within the Ballarat diocese, Pell replied: "No, I don't."</p>
<p>The royal commission - which is Australia's highest form of investigation - is investigating how Pell dealt with abuse allegations as a priest, educator and adviser to Mulkearns, as well as how the Melbourne archdiocese responded to allegations of abuse, including when Pell served as a Melbourne auxiliary bishop.</p>
<p>From left, Dominic Ridsdale, Phil Nagle, Tony Waroley, Stephen Woods and Peter Blenkiron, survivors and relatives of priestly sex abuse, stand in front of the Quirinale hotel in Rome on Sunday. (Alessandra Tarantino/The Associated Press)</p>
<p>Tuesday was the second day of evidence for the 74-year-old cleric, who because of ill health could not travel to Australia to give evidence in person at the inquiry into decades of child abuse.</p>
<p>On Monday, Pell dubbed Mulkearns' handling of Ridsdale a "catastrophe for the church." He said Mulkearns was a prime candidate for the Vatican's proposed tribunal for negligent bishops, although there is no indication the elderly Mulkearns would stand trial by the time the tribunal is operational.</p>
<p>Commission chairman Peter McClellan asked Pell on Tuesday whether it was surprising that he hadn't heard rumors about the scandal Ridsdale had created in the diocese.</p>
<p>"Not necessarily, given the work I was doing," Pell said. "I wasn't working full-time in the diocese."</p>
<p>Furness said that as an adviser to the bishop - one of a group of Ballarat priests known as the College of Consultors - Pell should have questioned why Ridsdale was frequently transferred.</p>
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<p>"I was happy to take the bishop's word that it was appropriate for him to be shifted," Pell said.</p>
<p>"Gentle and euphemistic language - was regularly used by Bishop Mulkearns on these occasions, so that some of us were kept in the dark," he said.</p>
<p>Pell accompanied Ridsdale to court in 1993 when the pedophile faced his first child molesting charges. He was convicted in 1993, 2006 and 2013 with sexually abusing more than 50 children.</p>
<p>Pell told the royal commission said Mulkearns' refusal to act on the allegations against Ridsdale was extraordinary.</p>
<p>"Unfortunately, I would have to say that I can't nominate another bishop whose actions are so grave and inexplicable," Pell said.</p>
<p>Pell agreed with McClellan that even if a priest did not have a legal responsibility to stop Ridsdale's crimes, a priest would have a moral responsibility to do whatever he could to prevent such abuses.</p>
<p>"I think that is a reasonable proposition," Pell said.</p>
<p>Two dozen Australian abuse survivors and their companions traveled across the globe to witness Pell's testimony in a hotel conference room, a significant show of accountability in the church's long-running abuse saga.</p>
<p>Pell said priests didn't discuss with him the allegations against Ridsdale.</p>
<p>Pell's testimony was interrupted by jeers from the public gallery as he explained the moral framework in which priests live.</p>
<p>"We work within a framework of Christian moral teaching, or certainly we should, and discussion of the secret faults of others is not encouraged," Pell said.</p>
<p>Furness told Pell that Ridsdale's crimes were not "secret," since they were common knowledge in the towns of Apollo Bay and Inglewood where Ridsdale had been the parish priest and police had reported their suspicions to the church.</p>
<p>Pell said he had not known the sexual abuse was common knowledge in Inglewood.</p>
<p>"I didn't know whether it was common knowledge or whether it wasn't. It's a sad story and it wasn't of much interest to me," Pell said, bringing audible gasps and jeers from the public gallery.</p>
<p>Andrew Collins, a clergy abuse victim from Ballarat, said outside the Rome hotel that he found Pell's denials of any knowledge of pedophilia allegations against Ridsdale - absolutely unbelievable.?</p>
<p>"He's always been seen as an ambitious man and ambitious people have knowledge. They crave knowledge," Collins told reporters.</p>
<p>"They know everything that's going on and he wouldn't be in the position he was today if he was the sort of person who sat back and didn't pay attention to what was going on," he added.</p>
<p>Before Pell's testimony on Tuesday, he told reporters: "I've got the full backing of the pope."</p>
<p>The Vatican said a private audience Pell had with the pope on Monday was a long-scheduled appointment related to Pell's duties as Holy See finance minister, and had nothing to do with the abuse hearings.</p>
<p>Pell will testify for a third four-hour session late on Tuesday Rome time.</p> | Australian cardinal denies deflecting child sex abuse blame | false | https://abqjournal.com/732364/australian-cardinal-says-he-has-full-backing-of-pope.html | 2016-02-29 | 2 |
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<p>The man’s wife was also shot in the head, but she was able to call 911 and alert Valencia County Sheriff’s Office deputies to the shooting. She has since been released from the hospital.</p>
<p>The man who was killed is Wesley J. Hobbs. His daughter, Amanda, was airlifted to the University of New Mexico Hospital where she remains in critical condition. Patricia Hobbs, 49, Wesley’s wife, survived the gunshot wound.</p>
<p>Wesley Hobbs was shot twice in the head, and Amanda was shot once in the head, according to the Valencia County Sheriff. The three were found on the 400 block of Jarales Road in Belen.</p>
<p>Deputies are still trying to figure out what happened. There were no signs of forced entry; nothing appeared to be missing, and it didn’t look like there was a struggle, the sheriff said.</p>
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<p>Detectives are questioning Patricia and are pursuing a search warrant for the Hobbs’ home. The sheriff said he expects to have more information later today.</p>
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<p>Keep with ABQJournal.com for updates.</p> | Triple shooting leaves Belen father dead, daughter in critical condition | false | https://abqjournal.com/259310/triple-shooting-leaves-belen-father-dead-daughter-in-critical-condition.html | 2013-09-07 | 2 |
<p>VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — A copy of Lithuania’s 1918 Independence Act found in German archives has been returned to the Baltic country, but only on loan.</p>
<p>President Dalia Grybauskaite says “one of the most important national documents has reached us at the most appropriate time” ahead of the country’s centennial.</p>
<p>Grybauskaite received Wednesday the document — to be returned to Germany in 2023 — from German government archivist Elke von Boeselager.</p>
<p>A Lithuanian scholar last year discovered the missing document, which apparently was sent in 1918 to inform Germany that it could no longer control the territory that was occupied by German Empire troops. The original of the act was kept in the Lithuanian city of Kaunas but disappeared in 1940 when Soviet Russia occupied the country.</p>
<p>Lithuania was independent from 1918 to 1940, and regained its freedom in 1990.</p>
<p>VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — A copy of Lithuania’s 1918 Independence Act found in German archives has been returned to the Baltic country, but only on loan.</p>
<p>President Dalia Grybauskaite says “one of the most important national documents has reached us at the most appropriate time” ahead of the country’s centennial.</p>
<p>Grybauskaite received Wednesday the document — to be returned to Germany in 2023 — from German government archivist Elke von Boeselager.</p>
<p>A Lithuanian scholar last year discovered the missing document, which apparently was sent in 1918 to inform Germany that it could no longer control the territory that was occupied by German Empire troops. The original of the act was kept in the Lithuanian city of Kaunas but disappeared in 1940 when Soviet Russia occupied the country.</p>
<p>Lithuania was independent from 1918 to 1940, and regained its freedom in 1990.</p> | Germany hands over key independence document to Lithuania | false | https://apnews.com/3e5d505131434bdbb5ef6ce651ee8d52 | 2018-01-17 | 2 |
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<p>Leland Ayala-Doliente and Holland Sward, along with an apparently hungry dog, were carrying 20 pounds of marijuana from Las Vegas to Montana when they obviously consumed too much of their own product. Upon reaching Idaho, they believed they were being followed by police in civilian vehicles and rang 911 to confess their crime. Sadly for this hapless duo, no pursuit was actually taking place.</p>
<p>In their confused confession to the bemused dispatcher, the pair also reported that they were cold and the dog needed some food. When police arrived, the men had their hands behind their heads and the marijuana was sitting in a dog cage beside the vehicle.</p>
<p>Both ended up in court on charges of marijuana trafficking. Sward received a light sentence and five years probation. Unfortunately, Ayala-Doliente didn't learn his lesson about drugs and presented to court under the influence of marijuana, oxycodone and cocaine. He received a much tougher sentence.</p>
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<p /> | High Jinks: Paranoid Weed Smugglers Ring Police And Beg To Be Arrested (VIDEO) | true | http://offthemainpage.com/2016/01/28/high-jinks-paranoid-weed-smugglers-ring-police-and-beg-to-be-arrested-video/ | 2016-01-28 | 4 |
<p>“Stitchers” has been cancelled after three seasons on <a href="http://variety.com/t/freeform/" type="external">Freeform</a>,&#160;Variety has confirmed.</p>
<p>The series follows a young woman (Emma Ishta) who is recruited into a secret government agency to be “stitched” into the minds of the recently deceased, using their memories to investigate murders and help solve mysteries before they go to the grave.</p>
<p>Along with Ishta, the series starred Kyle Harris, Ritesh Rajan, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Allison Scagliotti and Damon Dayoub. Executive producers are Jeffrey Alan Schechter, Jonathan Baruch and Rob Wolken.</p>
<p>The series had slipped in the Live+Same Day ratings in its third season, averaging a&#160;0.13 rating in adults 18-49 and 365,000 viewers per episode, making it one of the lower-rated originals currently airing on Freeform.</p>
<p>Back in August, Freeform gave a Season 2 renewal to “Famous in Love,” which stars Bella Thorne as&#160;a college student named Paige as she gets her big break after auditioning for the starring role in a Hollywood blockbuster, and then must navigate her new star-studded life and the highs and lows that come&#160;fame. That series hails from&#160;Marlene King, creator of Freeform’s hit series “Pretty Little Liars,” which recently ended after seven seasons.</p>
<p>Other Freeform originals currently on the air include “The Fosters,” “Shadowhunters,” “The Bold Type,” “Young &amp; Hungry,” and “Beyond.” The Marvel series “Cloak &amp; Dagger” and the mermaid drama “Sirens” will launch on Freeform in 2018.</p> | ‘Stitchers’ Cancelled at Freeform After Three Seasons | false | https://newsline.com/stitchers-cancelled-at-freeform-after-three-seasons/ | 2017-09-15 | 1 |
<p>On Sept. 30, 1991, John Turturro and the late Jonathan Demme were the first of seven New Yorkers to garner a Gotham Award. Trophies were handed out at the Roseland Ballroom without much fanfare. The celebratory dinner, a fundraiser for the Independent Filmmaker Project, was a small, low-key, quirky event that didn’t draw mainstream media.</p>
<p>“It didn’t have that big huge red carpet thing that happens nowadays,” says former <a href="http://variety.com/t/ifp/" type="external">IFP</a> exec director Catherine Tait, who oversaw the creation of the <a href="http://variety.com/t/gotham-awards/" type="external">Gotham Awards</a>. “It was really intimate because the interest in indie filmmaking was not very heightened at the time.”</p>
<p>Cut to the same awards show at the same venue four years later. “Reservoir Dogs,” “Kids” and “Hoop Dreams” were officially part of the zeitgeist and Madonna was posing for photographers along with fellow Gotham Award guests Ted Turner and Jane Fonda. The <a href="http://variety.com/2017/film/in-contention/gotham-awards-nominations-oscar-possibilities-1202594194/" type="external">Gotham Awards</a> were officially a hot ticket.</p>
<p>“We were riding a wave of sudden consumer awareness around what an independent film was,” says Tait.</p>
<p>While the inaugural show netted approximately $125,000 for the <a href="http://variety.com/2017/film/news/gotham-awards-2017-dustin-hoffman-sofia-coppola-tributes-1202579707/" type="external">IFP</a>, a nonprofit dedicated to small-scale movies, by the time Tait exited the org in 1997 the event drew in over half a million annually. Nowadays the ceremony garners well over $1 million for the org and officially kicks off the film awards season. This year’s event will be Nov. 27 at Cipriani Wall Street.</p>
<p>“We like that we are at the beginning, because we believe that way we have the most impact,” says Joana Vicente, the executive director of IFP. “By calling attention to those films that we nominate, we are helping them become part of the conversation.”</p>
<p>The kudofest has become a credible Academy Award bellwether for independent films. For the past three years the Gothams have honored the same best picture winner as the Oscars — “Moonlight,” “Spotlight” and “Birdman” — and tipped “The Hurt Locker” before that. The Gotham Awards also honored Matthew McConaughey (“Dallas Buyers Club”) and Julianne Moore (“Still Alice”) months before both actors received their little gold men. In addition, the kudofest named eventual Oscar documentary winners “Citizenfour” and “O.J.: Made in America” in 2014 and 2016, respectively.</p>
<p>Yance Ford’s “Strong Island” is one of five docus nominated this year. Back in 2012, Ford, busy trying to finish the film, was accepted into the IFP Spotlight on Docs — essentially speed dating among filmmakers and potential financing and distribution partners. It was pivotal moment for the project.</p>
<p>“It feels like coming full circle,” Ford says about the nomination. “The Gothams elevate everyone who is nominated. And given the history of IFP in supporting the whole independent film community, that’s not only appropriate, but also a genuine pleasure.”</p>
<p>While the IFP’s support for such filmmakers as Ford, Debra Granik, Miranda July and Benh Zeitlin has never been questioned, the Gothams have experienced their share of criticism among the indie crowd. In 2004, the ceremony moved from September to November and broadened its scope to indie films made outside the tri-state area. A best feature category was added. This year, those nominees are “Call Me By Your Name,” “ <a href="http://variety.com/t/the-florida-project/" type="external">The Florida Project</a>,” “Get Out,” “Good Time” and “I, Tonya.”</p>
<p>And over time categories such as the Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You were eliminated in favor of more traditional awards including actor and actress, which dialed up the star power. This year’s acting categories include Willem Dafoe (“ <a href="http://variety.com/2017/film/awards/willem-dafoe-cinema-vanguard-santa-barbara-florida-project-1202610531/" type="external">The Florida Project</a>”), James Franco (“The Disaster Artist”) and Margot Robbie (“I, Tonya”).</p>
<p>However, true to the indie roots of the awards, there is the Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director Award, with Maggie Betts (“Novitiate”), Greta Gerwig (“Lady Bird”), Kogonada (“Columbus”), Jordan Peele (“Get Out”) and Joshua Z. Weinstein (“Menashe”) grabbing noms.</p>
<p>“The Gothams have become yet another qualifying lead-up to the awards season,” says sales agent John Sloss, founder of Cinetic Media. Along with Tait, Sloss helped to develop the inaugural Gotham Awards.</p>
<p>“The Gothams are now part of a mechanism that enhance interest in these movies and you have to support that.” Sloss says. “I may take issue with reducing all of these films to this kind of competition, it trivializes them, but I also think it unquestionably promotes them.”</p>
<p>According to Vicente, that’s the goal.</p>
<p>“Yes, in the past three years the films that won the best feature Gotham have gone on to win an Oscar, but for us the most important thing is not that fact,” she says. “It’s the fact that these amazing independent films and filmmakers were acknowledged in mainstream.”</p> | IFP’s Gotham Awards Give Indie Films a Boost | false | https://newsline.com/ifps-gotham-awards-give-indie-films-a-boost/ | 2017-11-22 | 1 |
<p>Community activists continued Monday to put pressure on the Noble Network of Charter Schools to withdraw a proposal to open a charter high school on the Southwest Side.</p>
<p>On Saturday, the Southwest Side Neighborhood Advisory Council (NAC) — one of several volunteer groups CPS created to evaluate proposals for new schools,&#160;decided, by a vote of 3 to 2, to oppose the proposal, according to one member of the council. On Monday, a couple&#160;dozen&#160;activists — organized by the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council —&#160;trooped to the downtown offices of a Noble board member with the intention of speaking at a&#160;monthly meeting that was scheduled to take place there.</p>
<p>Unbeknownst to them, Noble officials rescheduled the meeting two weeks ago because the date fell on the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah. (The new meeting information wasn’t posted online.)</p>
<p>“Basically I voted against because I thought there was a lack of community support for the proposal, and I don’t think Noble engaged enough with the community,” said Elena Rios, a NAC member who lives in Little Village and trains local school councils.</p>
<p>Rios complained that Noble officials declined to participate in a community forum that wasn’t an official part of the <a href="http://cps.edu/NewSchools/Pages/Process2014.aspx" type="external">charter authorization process.&#160;</a></p>
<p>Noble spokesman Matt McCabe declined to comment on the NAC vote, explaining that CPS has not notified the charter network of any decisions. CPS officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday to confirm the vote outcome.</p>
<p>Noble’s proposal is by far the most controversial of the remaining seven&#160;proposals to open new charter schools in CPS next year. Concerned that the proposed Noble school would siphon students from neighborhood high schools, principals, community activists and parents have <a href="http://catalyst-chicago.org/2015/07/southwest-side-principals-rally-against-noble-school/" type="external">banded together to protest</a></p>
<p>Meanwhile, officials from the charter network say there are hundreds of families in Southwest Side&#160;who already send their children to Noble campuses that are a long distance away. According to the <a href="http://schoolreports.cps.edu/NewSchools/RFPs/14-15_NobleNetworkOfCharterSchools/Tier%202%20Noble%20Proposal%20Narrative%20&amp;%20Appendices.pdf" type="external">network’s proposal documents</a>, there are currently 271 students from the Brighton Park area who attend Noble campuses.</p>
<p>McCabe noted that&#160;on Monday, parents of Noble students delivered more than 1,100 letters of support for the&#160;proposed campus to the offices of&#160;the neighborhood’s alderman, Edward Burke.</p>
<p>NAC process</p>
<p>Members of the Southwest Side NAC also voted against a separate proposal from a group that seeks to open a charter high school called STARS Project Engineering Academy, Rios says. That vote was unanimous, she says.</p>
<p>Rios says the NAC initially had about 20 members, but many stopped showing up for the weekly meetings, which on average lasted more than an hour.</p>
<p>There are currently seven active proposals from groups interested in opening traditional charter schools in the city, down from 14 when the process got underway earlier this year.</p>
<p>In addition, CPS is considering 17 proposals for new alternative schools managed by charter and contract operators. Originally there were 22 of these proposals.</p>
<p>CPS will hold a public hearing about all of the proposals for new schools on Sept. 30 and the Board of Education is expected to vote on new school authorizations at its October meeting.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Activists call for Noble to withdraw proposal | false | http://chicagoreporter.com/activists-call-for-noble-to-withdraw-proposal/ | 2015-09-14 | 3 |
<p>You've Missed The Rapture Of The Church, Now What? Millions Missing, Here's What You Need To Do Next</p>
<p>"And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe." <a href="javascript;;" type="external">John 14: 29</a> Well, we told you it was coming. Perhaps you were a casual reader of this site, but never got really involved, "too many religious nuts" you said. Maybe you had a family member who would plead with you night after night to "get right" with Jesus before His return. "Nah, never happen", you said, "people been saying that for ever. Nonsense!". But, it wasn't nonsense, was it? Turns out the religious nuts were right after all. The Rapture of the Church actually happened. Now we are gone, and you remain. Left behind. I can only imagine the shock - terror - panic - and questions that must be running through your head right now. My heart breaks for you, and that's why I made this page, to get you through what the Bible calls the time of Jacob's Trouble, the Great Tribulation, and it's moments away from starting. Are YOU ready? Let's begin at the beginning... <a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>Here's what just happened. It was the hope of every Jesus-follower, prior to the Rapture, that one day He would return and "catch away" those who loved and believed in Him. Why did we think this was going to occur? Because the Bible said so, listen - "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive [and] remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words" <a href="javascript:;" type="external">1 Thessalonians 4: 16-18</a> And that's exactly what just happened, and where we have now gone. Oh, knowing the media as I do, I am sure that there are many attempts to explain it - UFO's, alien abductions, a harmonic convergence, a government program, FEMA camps, cosmic shift, worm holes, and the list goes on and on. But none of those explainations really satisfy you, do they? I mean, it's hundreds upon hundreds of millions of people, right? Could any one government, no matter how corrupt, really process that many people in the "blink of an eye". No, they could not. You know better than that.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /> In the Book of the Revelation, what happened to John in chapter 4, verses 1 &amp; 2, is what has now happened to all of us who are gone. "After this I looked, and, behold, a door [was] opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard [was] as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter. Rev 4:2 And immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and [one] sat on the throne." <a href="javascript:;" type="external">Revelation 4</a> Wild, isn't it? We all heard the "sound of a trumpet", and were pulled up in to the clouds to be with the Lord Jesus, Yeshua Ha'Maschiac Himself. Look at the photo above, and reread 1 Thessalonians 4 again to yourself. That is what has happen, and that is where we are. With Jesus. Take a little moment and let that really, truly, actually, wonderfully sink into your mind. What God has declared will be so, will be so.</p>
<p>Why you and not me?? Now I know your next question, and you are wondering why, why...why that you got left behind and others did not. "It's not fair!", you exclaim. Maybe you were a church goer, maybe you are a "good, moral person" who likes to do good deeds. Maybe you were a Deacon in your church. All these things are good, but unfortunately, not nearly good enough. This is how God sees you, me, all of us humans here on this earth - "All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." <a href="javascript:;" type="external">Isaiah 53: 6</a> The Bible says that man, of and by himself, can never be and will never be "good enough" to get into the Father's presence in Heaven. We have all sinned against a just and holy, sinless God. So why, you ask again, if it's true that all of us are in this condition, did we go up and you stay behind? We are gone now because we put our trust and faith in the the One, the only One who has the true power to forgive sin, and that is Yeshua Ha'Maschiach - Jesus the Messiah - who shed His blood once and for all for the forgiveness of sins. What can wash away your sin? Nothing, nothing , nothing but the blood of Jesus. <a href="" type="internal" /> The road to Heaven starts at the old, rugged, bloody cross..."And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: Jhn 3:15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." <a href="javascript:;" type="external">Romans 5: 8-10</a> And that's why we are gone and you remain. We were not better than you in any way. You and I had equal sin that needed cleansing and forgiving. But the difference is that we repented, turned from our sins, and turned to the living Lord whose death and resurrection from the dead paid the sin debt we owed. You were left behind because your debt is still unpaid, but there is good news yet for you. Right now, right in front of the computer screen you are reading this on, you can have the debt for all your sins paid in full. Ready?</p>
<p>You Can Be Saved--Right Now. "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation" <a href="javascript:;" type="external">Romans 10: 9-10</a> Pray and ask the Lord, "Lord Jesus, be merciful to me a sinner, and save me. I now, with a repentant heart, receive you as my personal Saviour". "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved" <a href="javascript:;" type="external">Romans 10:13</a> If you meant it, if you were sincere, if you now know your desperate need for a Saviour and have called upon Him to pay your sin debt, according to the Scripture, then the Bible declares that your sin debt is now paid in full. Just remember that repentence is always the starting poiint. If you were doing things and living in a way that the Bible forbids, turn from those sins and be cleansed in His shed blood.</p>
<p>Word Of Warning: There is a verse that says because people rejected the truth of the gospel when it was offered them, that God would "send them a strong delusion" that they might "believe a lie."</p>
<p>"And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.&#160;And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." <a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=2Th&amp;c=2&amp;t=KJV" type="external">2 Thessalonians 2:10-12</a></p>
<p>Since we are no longer here, we have no idea how to adivse you other than to say this. God is very merciful to all those who call upon Him. David in <a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Psa&amp;c=51&amp;t=KJV" type="external">Psalm 51 recieved forgiveness</a> when he did not deserve it because he threw himself on God's mercy.</p>
<p>We would advise you to do the same thing. <a href="../freeGIFT.htm" type="external">Click here to read more</a> on having your sins paid for in full by the shed blood of Jesus the Messiah Now you know what has happend to us, here is what you can expect to happen on earth during the next 7 years...and it's not going to be pretty, so be prepared. But if you just received payment for your sins, you can take comfort that no matter how bad things get, your eternal destiny is now secure.</p>
<p>The Judgements of God are about to be poured out on all the earth Now read this exerpt by Dr. David Reagan on what you can expect to happen during your time left on earth for the rest of the 7 year Tribulation. "Amid all the chaos from the Rapture, the Bible teaches that the world will turn to a dynamic leader to bring order and peace ( <a href="http://bible.logos.com/passage/kjv/Revelation%206.1-2" type="external">Revelation 6:1-2</a>). He will succeed where no other person has been able in establishing a peace treaty for Israel ( <a href="http://bible.logos.com/passage/kjv/Daniel%209.27" type="external">Daniel 9:27</a>). That treaty marks the official beginning of the 7 years that the Tribulation will last.</p>
<p>But, the world leader, known to believers in Jesus as the Antichrist, is anything but peaceful. He will plunge the planet into nuclear world war, resulting in terrible famines, pestilence and mass death. Violence, disease and starvation will be a way of life. A quarter of the world population - almost 2 billion people - will die from this war (Revelation 6).</p>
<p>In Jerusalem, two men will appear and preach there for 3 1/2 years that Jesus is the Messiah the Jews have been looking for ( <a href="http://bible.logos.com/passage/kjv/Revelation%2011.3" type="external">Revelation 11:3</a>). 144,000 Jews will call Jesus their Messiah and also preach about Him throughout the whole world. Millions will accept Jesus as their Savior - hopefully you will be one of them. But, many of those millions of believers will be killed by the Antichrist for not pledging their loyalty to him by receiving his mark on either their right hand or forehead. The persecution of believers in Jesus will be awful in the Tribulation ( <a href="http://bible.logos.com/passage/kjv/Daniel%207.22" type="external">Daniel 7:22</a>; Revelation 7). <a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>Next, the greatest earthquake the world has yet experienced will devastate the planet ( <a href="http://bible.logos.com/passage/kjv/Revelation%206.12-14" type="external">Revelation 6:12-14</a>). Something falling from space will then burn up a third of all the world's vegetation. A second item from space, probably a meteor, will crash into the ocean and annihilate a third of the world's marine life and ships. A third object from space will taint the world's water supply, poisoning millions ( <a href="http://bible.logos.com/passage/kjv/Revelation%208.7-11" type="external">Revelation 8:7-11</a>).</p>
<p>The devastation to the atmosphere will block out most of the sun and moonlight so that the days appear shorter ( <a href="http://bible.logos.com/passage/kjv/Revelation%208.12" type="external">Revelation 8:12</a>).</p>
<p>Next, some supernatural "woes" will befall mankind. First, the holding place for a demonic hoard is opened and millions of locust-looking demons pour out and sting people like scorpions. The pain will last 5 whole months. Second, 200 million riders on horse-creatures will burn and impale, wiping out a remaining third of the people ( <a href="http://bible.logos.com/passage/kjv/Revelation%209.1-19" type="external">Revelation 9:1-19</a>).</p>
<p>Three and a half years into the Tribulation will see the 2 men witnessing in Jerusalem killed, but 3 1/2 days later come back to life ( <a href="http://bible.logos.com/passage/kjv/Revelation%2011.7-12" type="external">Revelation 11:7-12</a>). It will also see the Antichrist supposedly killed and appear to come back to life as well ( <a href="http://bible.logos.com/passage/kjv/Revelation%2013.3" type="external">Revelation 13:3</a>).</p>
<p>And that's just the first half of the Tribulation. As bad as the first half of the seven years is, the next half is even worse (Revelation 16).</p>
<p>Those who take the Antichrist's loyalty mark on their hand or forehead will suffer from painful boils. Those who don't take the mark will be cut off from commerce and hunted down, but the Bible assures ( <a href="http://bible.logos.com/passage/kjv/Revelation%2020.4-6" type="external">Revelation 20:4-6</a>) that those who take the mark have made a decision that will last forever - eternal damnation - so don't take it!</p>
<p>The oceans and everything in them are totally destroyed, as well as all the fresh water. The heat from the sun will become scorching. The Antichrist's kingdom will fall into pitch darkness." <a href="javascript:;" type="external">source - Dr. David Reagan</a></p>
<p>What now? Study the Bible every day, many times per day. PRAY to God, who gives wisdom liberally. Share the Gospel with as many as you can. Make sure no one you know, saved or unsaved, takes the Mark of the Beast. They will be doomed forever to Hell if they do. We are watching you from the balcony now, and just know that we are praying for you always during the time of the Great Tribulation. This verse speaks of us, the redeemed in Heaven, cheering you on during this time. May the Holy Spirit lead you and guide you all the Home. We will be waiting for you to arrive. In Jesus precious Name, amen...and amen.</p>
<p>"Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset [us], and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Hbr 12:2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of [our] faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." <a href="javascript:;" type="external">Hebrews 12: 1,2</a></p>
<p>Eternity</p>
<p>"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16 It's a gift...it's free...take it and live! Come Home soon...we're waiting for you upstairs.</p> Well, we told you it was coming Here's what just happened. You Can Be Saved--Right Now. Pray and ask the Lord Living for the Lord, Dying for the Truth Do NOT take the Mark of the Beast The Judgements of God are about to be poured out on all the earth What now? | You've Missed The Rapture Of The Church, Now What? Millions Missing, Here's What You Need To Do Next | true | http://nowtheendbegins.com/pages/rapture/you-missed-the-rapture-now-what.htm | 0 |
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<p>As the Maryland General Assembly under the leadership of Governor Martin O’Malley considers repealing the death penalty, hired guns from the pro-death penalty lobby are once again digging up the requisite psycho-killers, homicidal maniacs, and boogey men from the recesses of our imaginations to reinsert fear, panic, and visceral hatred into the debate.</p>
<p>Enter Sun columnist Gregory Kane and newly elected Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger. Kane’s never-say-live attitude when it comes to capital punishment met a new low when in a recent column he attempted to stoke public fears that without the death penalty, corrections officers will be “left to the tender mercies of leaders of prison gangs” like the “Black Guerilla Family.” The Black Guerilla Family? What is this, 1975? Even rapper Kool G Rap has given up trying to appear menacing by claiming association with the 70’s era militant group.</p>
<p>While Shellenberger’s approach while admittedly is more subtle, it doesn’t stray much from Kane’s central argument. Introduced to him outside last Wednesday’s Senate Judicary Committee hearings on the death penalty, I asked Shellenberger why he supported the sentence of death despite its clear failure as a deterrent to crime. He replied that he believed “in the deterrence of one.” Inside the committee room he went on to say, “When you’re dealing with the worst of the worst of criminals, sometimes you have to come down to the simplest equations.”</p>
<p>Shellenberger’s equations might be simple, but they don’t add up. Putting aside the obvious fact that we DO have the death penalty and prisoners and guards are STILL dying — no one can seriously suggest that executing violent prisoners will prevent further violence. This badly recycled deterrence argument is an argument based on fear.</p>
<p>Of course, Maryland politicians have been extremely susceptible to this kind of emotional manipulation. As over the past 30-years the legislature witnessed a massive transformation of the state economy. We have seen Baltimore change from an industrial and union powerhouse to a near hollow service-economy shell. During these painful changes it has been easier (and has made better headlines) to call for increased policing, incarceration, and executions than to invest, educate, and rehabilitate. As terrible crimes regularly erupt from Baltimore’s devastated communities — one good scapegoat is worth a thousand job training programs.</p>
<p>Making matters worse, these irrational ‘tough-on-crime’ policies have produced a prison system in total crisis. As tens of thousands of twenty-something men are warehoused in overcrowded facilities like the one in Jessup, without access to education, physical recreation, or drug treatment services the violence that erupts against prisoners and correction officers alike is both tragic and predictable. The straining system can’t handle the numbers, train the guards, or deal with the chaos that results from Maryland’s “lock-’em-up or kill ’em” policies.</p>
<p>If a mad scientist could ring elite John Hopkins University with walls and barbed wire, increased its population many times over, halted classes, degraded the services, and stopped all physical exercise — in short order you’d see the same unfortunate patterns.</p>
<p>Genuine, practical, and rational solutions to improving prison conditions are not controversial and have demonstrated proven results but they mean abandoning fear for reason. Remedies championed by academics and prison officials alike include restoring Pell grants, expanding educational and treatment services, and improving living conditions. Outside of our expanding prison walls, it is clear we need to heed the call of Governor O’Malley to move away from the simple minded logic of incarceration and executions and begin addressing anti-social behavior from a rational standpoint.</p>
<p>The politics of irrational fear have created both a broken death penalty system and a prison system in crisis. What is needed now is not more of the same, but a restoration of practical reason and hope.</p>
<p>MIKE STARK is a board member of the <a href="http://www.nodeathpenalty.org/" type="external">Campaign to End the Death Penalty</a> (CEDP). He is also a regular contributer to the CEDP’s newsletter, The New Abolitionist. He can be reached at <a href="" type="internal">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | "Tough on Crime" is the Problem, Not the Solution | true | https://counterpunch.org/2007/03/01/quot-tough-on-crime-quot-is-the-problem-not-the-solution/ | 2007-03-01 | 4 |
<p>Amman, Jordan.</p>
<p>An Iraqi friend whom I’ve known for ten years looked worn and very weary yesterday when he came to visit me in my apartment here in Amman, Jordan. He hadn’t slept the night before because he’d been on the phone with his wife who, throughout the night, was terrified by cross fire taking place over the Iraqi village where she stays with their four small children. My friend longs to soothe and protect his wife and kids. But now he lives apart from them, in another country.</p>
<p>His life was completely changed when a piece of paper was tossed into his kitchen in Baghdad. It read: “Leave now or you will die like a dog.” Many Iraqis have been receiving notes like this. This piece of paper was sent to him with a bit of extra emphasis. It was wrapped around a bullet.</p>
<p>Weeks later, assailants killed his younger brother who was returning home from University studies. My friend moved his family to a village outside Baghdad and then ran for his life.</p>
<p>Here in Amman, where the U.N. cites a figure of 700,000 Iraqis who’ve fled their country, he feels trapped. Like other Iraqis, he lives without legal protections: he is not allowed to work, he is unable to obtain proper documentation to settle here, and each Embassy to which he has applied for resettlement has given him the cold shoulder. He may walk the sunburst streets of Amman, ride in taxis, eat in kabob shops, but he lives a shadowy, underground existence. Everyday, Iraqis in Jordan are arrested (for working, for overstaying their visas, etc.) and deported. This, too, is a death threat of sorts. Meanwhile, in Iraq, his family lives in a battlefield, and who knows what tomorrow will bring?</p>
<p>Still, my friend’s case is hardly unique. Relative to other stories we’ve heard, he is somewhat fortunate. He was not captured and tortured before fleeing Iraq. His wife has not been raped. His children are still alive.</p>
<p>Anyone listening to my friend’s experience of loss and tragedy would surely understand his feelings of cynicism, even bitterness, when he thinks about how the Bush Administration has sold this ongoing war. Turn the page back to May of 2006, when sectarian violence had already begun to consume Iraq, and here is how President Bush depicted what the U.S. had done for Iraq, following Iraqi elections:</p>
<p>“For the people across the broader Middle East, a free Iraq will be an inspiration.(Iraqis) have proved that the desire for liberty in the heart of the Middle East is for real. They have shown diverse people can come together and work out their differencesYears from now, people will look back on the formation of a unity government in Iraq as a decisive moment in the story of liberty, a moment when freedom gained a firm foothold in the Middle East and the forces of terror began their long retreat.”</p>
<p>The speechwriter who equipped President Bush with these lines should be burning with shame. President Bush indulged in a fantasy at a time when thousands of Iraqi civilians were fleeing abroad, every month, to escape worsening violence and tens of thousands more were being displaced internally ­ nearly half a million in the last ten months, according to UNHCR.</p>
<p>In reality, there were no encouraging signs of the U.S. troop presence stabilizing the situation in Iraq. Today, even President Bush acknowledges that news from Iraq is “unsettling,” as daily headlines report battles, kidnappings, torture, and murder.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the President will likely ask the Congress to approve 97.7 billion dollars in supplemental spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which will be in addition to the Pentagon’s $560 billion dollar budget. According to some estimates, U.S. taxpayers will pay close to 2 trillion dollars for a doomed war in Iraq.</p>
<p>A New York Times article called “Heady Days for Makers of Weapons” notes that military contractors are profiting more than ever as Pentagon spending has reached record levels. Nobody expects the Democrats, now in charge of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, to interfere with the lucrative deal making. With an eye toward 2008 elections, Democrats want to establish their cooperation with the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill, the “defense” lobby. “I think the Democrats will be on good behavior,” commented an analyst with JSA Securities in Newport, R.I… “as long as the war continues and we have 150,000 troops in Iraq.” (NYT, December 26, 2006).</p>
<p>Ultimately, this means that U.S. taxpayers will have to be “on good behavior” and pouring billions more dollars into weapons making giants like Lockheed, Boeing, Raytheon, and General Dynamics. No one asks us to behave accountably on behalf of the 100,000 Iraqi refugees who, every month, according to U.N. estimates, flee from Iraq. We have yet to see a proposal for a generous package of reparations intended to help rebuild Iraq’s shattered infrastructure.</p>
<p>The U.S. should never cut and run away from our responsibility to pay very generously for reparations in Iraq. We should be committed to finding the most viable, practical means to help Iraqis rebuild their shattered infrastructure. We should seek negotiations with Iraq’s neighbors, not for purposes of being the “kingmaker” and deciding which country will emerge as the strongest, but rather for purposes of seeking an end to any foreign support for armed struggle within Iraq.</p>
<p>There are no simple solutions. Problems with corruption within Iraqi governing structures, retaliatory violence fueling a civil war, and the lack of protection for any non-governmental involvement in distributing support for reconstruction seem nearly insurmountable. But this doesn’t lessen the U.S. responsibility to direct U.S. wealth, ingenuity, and productivity toward just reparations for the enormous suffering our invasion and occupation has caused. Every effort should be made, within the U.S., to build public support for a U.S. financial commitment to help rebuild Iraq. Equivalent effort should be made to stop stuffing the portfolios of major weapons manufacturers.</p>
<p>Lawmakers should have at least enough integrity to acknowledge that current plans to support ongoing troop presence in Iraq at a cost of billions of dollars show very little promise for lessening the violence, displacement and signs of civil war that afflict Iraqis today.</p>
<p>Beginning in February 2007, when lawmakers will discuss the Administration’s proposed supplemental budget, Voices for Creative Nonviolence will launch “the Occupation Project.” (see www.vcnv.org)</p>
<p>Although we have paltry financial means compared to the weapons makers who wield so much influence on Capitol Hill, we do have resources. We have our bodies. We have our determination. We have our compassion for Iraqi people and for U.S. soldiers. We have our concern for future generations who will not only have to live with the consequences of this violence, but who will also live on a planet spoiled by global warming, in no small part because we spent our resources on war instead of on developing clean energy sources. These are the grains of sand that will stop the cogs of war from turning.</p>
<p>Now is the time for seriously strategizing about the best ways, in our hometowns, to engage in sustained civil disobedience at the offices of elected representatives, demanding that they vote against the supplemental spending bill.</p>
<p>A polite refusal to leave an elected representative’s office may entail some hours spent in jail. Some will receive minor misdemeanor charges from federal or local police, for “disorderly conduct,” or “trespass” or “failure to comply.” We’ll prepare for a day in court; we’ll discuss how to handle any fines imposed on us. These are slight inconveniences and discomforts when I think of Iraqi friends, so wearied by war, and of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and the thousands of Americans whose lives are forever altered by the cruelty and senselessness of war and of those who prolong it.</p>
<p>Much more grave is the risk of growing adjusted to a warlike culture that feeds the multi-billion dollar weapon industry.</p>
<p>I shudder still, thinking of the note that landed in my friend’s kitchen, ugly paper wrapping a tiny yet terrible weapon. Who pens such a letter? Who delivers it? Who authorizes these threats? What kind of organization thrives on sundering families, on death and torture, on driving whole societies into flight and chaos and despair? The answers are murky and unclear. .</p>
<p>But we should all shudder with disgust at the clear fact that U.S. budget priorities are more devoted to protecting the profits of arms peddlers and military contractors than to seeking a better future for Iraqis.</p>
<p>It’s hard to put your foot down over something called a “supplemental spending bill”–over a piece of paper, a bit of writing that you didn’t write yourself but are perhaps helping to deliver. My friend’s life was ruined by such a piece of paper. Iraqis are leaving their homes in Iraq by the thousands every day, and prolonging this war will cause more to flee.</p>
<p>That’s why many of us will be occupying our representatives’ offices this winter. We don’t want to help deliver a death threat to people all across Iraq. This bill, this message of continued U.S. commitment to spending for war, isn’t just a piece of paper to them.</p>
<p>It’s a death threat, and it’s wrapped around a bullet.</p>
<p>KATHY KELLY is co-coordinator of <a href="http://www.vcnv.org/" type="external">Voices for Creative Nonviolence</a> and author of <a href="http://www.easycartsecure.com/CounterPunch/CounterPunch_Books.html" type="external">Other Lands Have Dream</a>s. She can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Wrapped Around a Bullet | true | https://counterpunch.org/2007/01/03/wrapped-around-a-bullet/ | 2007-01-03 | 4 |
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<p>AUSTIN, Texas - Austin police have cited a Capital Metro bus driver for not yielding in an accident in which a pedestrian was struck and killed.</p>
<p>Police said Tuesday that the driver, whose name wasn't immediately released, failed to yield the right of way to the woman in a crosswalk.</p>
<p>The accident happened Monday night. The name of the victim wasn't immediately released.</p>
<p>Authorities say no passengers were board the bus at the time of the deadly accident.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Austin police cite Capital Metro driver in pedestrian death | false | https://abqjournal.com/645103/austin-police-cite-capital-metro-driver-in-pedestrian-death.html | 2 |
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<p>Donald Trump had the government shutdown that he wanted.&#160; No one should be confused about this.</p>
<p>The shutdown allowed Trump and Republicans to ply their poisonous politics of division.&#160; And the shutdown provided occasion for a shakedown of Democrats, with Trump willing to shut the government down until he got billions for the wall that he had preposterously promised the Mexicans would pay for.</p>
<p>The record here is quite clear.&#160; Long before the deadline, Trump tweeted that a “good shutdown” might be necessary to “fix mess!” His White House and the Republican Congress have utter scorn for federal employees, so treating these public servants shabbily is, to them, a feature, not a bug.&#160; When Americans find public services less available, Social Security claims delayed, water systems fouled, that’s a benefit too — because it just provides fuel for Trump’s attack on government.</p>
<p>The blowup was utterly unnecessary.&#160; Trump postured publicly as a supporter of the Dreamers, the hundreds of thousands of innocents, brought here as infants, who now — because of Trump’s executive order — face deportation to countries that they have never known.&#160; Trump claimed he was ready to support a bipartisan agreement.</p>
<p>Democrat Dick Durbin and Republican Lindsay Graham, representing a bipartisan group, brought him that agreement.&#160; That’s when Trump purposefully blew up the process, scorning immigrants from “s—hole countries.”&#160; Even when Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer agreed with Trump’s demand for billions for the wall, there was still no deal.&#160; He “couldn’t take yes for an answer,” Schumer concluded.</p>
<p>Why would Trump and Republicans force the shutdown?&#160; The Trump campaign made that clear, rolling out a vicious television ad calling Democrats “complicit” for slayings committed by undocumented immigrants.&#160; The White House and Republican legislators repeated endlessly scurrilous talking points that they knew were a lie: Democrats favor protecting illegal immigrants over funding our soldiers, supporting our veterans and providing services for Americans.</p>
<p>This is ugly, race-based politics at its worst. Republicans reveled in it, claiming they had the upper&#160; hand.</p>
<p>It’s worth remembering that many recent mass murders in America — in Newtown, Orlando, Las Vegas, Charleston and Sutherland Springs — involved U.S.-born assailants.&#160; Are Republicans, who in league with the National Rifle Association block any reform of our ridiculous gun laws, responsible for all of those murders?&#160; That’s the logic of the Trump campaign ad slurring Democrats on immigration.</p>
<p>Now a deal has been reached to reopen the government, at least until&#160;Feb. 8. In theory, Democrats will gain relief for the Dreamers that is favored by some 85 percent of Americans.&#160; Trump will probably shake out billions to waste on his wall.&#160; Government will reopen, with the same distorted priorities.</p>
<p>Whether the government will finally get a real budget for the remainder of this fiscal year (which ends on the last day of September) remains to be seen. Will Trump finally take yes for an answer?</p>
<p>Trump and his campaign aides clearly see the political gain from parading as tough on immigration over and over again.&#160; He said in the public meeting he held that he’d be willing to “take the heat” of a bipartisan immigration deal.&#160; But he has preferred constantly to sow division rather than solve problems.</p>
<p>The second obstacle is the House leadership and caucus.&#160; There’s a majority in the House for good immigration reform, but the Republican leadership refuses to take up a measure that would pass unless a majority of Republicans alone support it.&#160; That makes the leadership hostage to the most right-wing faction in the party.&#160; And a large number of them don’t want any deal, period.</p>
<p>Trump’s aides say he is the great dealmaker.&#160; There’s no question if he wants a deal, there is one available.&#160; The question remains is he prepared to make a deal.&#160; Now, he’ll have until&#160;Feb. 8&#160;to make up his mind.</p>
<p>The sad product of all this is that America’s politics will grow uglier and more divisive.&#160; The White House and Republicans see themselves as having profited by appealing to our fears, by playing race-bait politics, by peddling hate.&#160; They will surely keep doing what they think works.</p>
<p>Trump will continue to drive Americans apart — until we come together to call him and the Republicans who echo him to account.</p> | Shutdown as Shakedown | true | https://counterpunch.org/2018/01/25/shutdown-as-shakedown/ | 2018-01-25 | 4 |
<p />
<p>Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President John Williams said it still "makes sense" for the central bank to raise short-term interest rates two or three times this year given continued moderate U.S. economic growth and low unemployment.</p>
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<p>"I think that the data to my mind are lining up to make a good case for rate increases in the next few meetings, not just June, which means it's very live in terms of that," Mr. Williams said Tuesday in an interview with reporters and editors of The Wall Street Journal.</p>
<p>In Fed jargon, a "live" meeting is one at which officials could debate whether to move their benchmark short-term interest rate, which since December has been in a range between 0.25% and 0.50%.</p>
<p>If the central bank holds interest rates steady until inflation hits its 2% target, then it may have to raise them quickly, and that raises separate concerns, said Mr. Williams, who isn't currently a voting member of the interest-rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee.</p>
<p>In March, the median projection of 17 Fed officials indicated they expect to raise their benchmark federal-funds rate by a half percentage point this year. Weak global growth since then has diminished expectations the Fed will raise the rate in the near future.</p>
<p>Fed-funds futures contracts, which investors use to bet on the Fed's interest-rate policy, showed the chances of a rate increase at the central bank's June 14-15 meeting at just 11%, according to data from CME Group on Tuesday. The probability of the Fed pushing rates to 1% or higher by December is just 25%.</p>
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<p>Mr. Williams expressed optimism about the U.S. economy, and said many market participants are pricing in the possibilities of negative scenarios.</p>
<p>"If we stay on the good path which we're on, then if we were to raise two or three times this year it wouldn't be that much of a surprise," Mr. Williams said.</p>
<p>He said he is "not so worried about U.S. growth."</p>
<p>His focus is on the global economy, "where the risks are," since low inflation and monetary policy in the rest of the world could put downward pressure on U.S. inflation.</p>
<p>Inflation continues to run below the Fed's 2% inflation target due to the strong dollar and low oil prices, he said.</p>
<p>"We have to fight that by having this very strong economy," he said.</p>
<p>However, he noted potential uncertainty for markets and confidence in Europe in the run-up to the U.K.'s June 23 referendum on whether to leave the European Union.</p>
<p>By Harriet Torry</p> | Fed's Williams: Raising Rates 2 or 3 Times This Year 'Makes Sense' | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/05/17/feds-williams-raising-rates-2-or-3-times-this-year-makes-sense.html | 2016-07-06 | 0 |
<p>If anyone can solve the GOP’s struggles with female voters, Christine Toretti seems like the woman for the job. As the CEO of S.W. Jack Drilling, an oil-and-gas company she took over upon the death of her father, Toretti knows what it’s like to lead in a man’s world. In fact, she’s been at the business of bolstering the Republican’s female ranks for quite some time. In 1997, then Governor Tom Ridge tapped Toretti to lead an outreach effort.</p>
<p>“He said to me, ‘Look, I know you created this retreat for female CEO’s four years ago, and I know how passionate you are about supporting women. There’s no one that looks like you that’s at the table. If you believe in a two party system, I need you to step up.”</p>
<p>And step up she did, traveling across Pennsylvania meeting with women’s groups and Chambers of Commerce.</p>
<p>“What we found is that women feel they need to have a PhD in political science to vote, whereas a man thinks if he’s never voted but knows the word ‘President’ that he could be the next one. That’s not a criticism, it’s just an observation of how women are wired differently.”</p>
<p>To counter that problem, Torreti set up the Anne B. Anstine Excellence in Public Service Series, a program giving women the “soup-to-nuts-everything-they-need-to-know” tools to lead at both the local and national level.</p>
<p>“We’ve trained over 220 women and 117 of them have run for political office,” says Toretti. “85% of them have won. That’s just in the state of Pennsylvania.”</p>
<p>Now, Toretti, a GOP fundraising juggernaut, is continuing the work with her new PAC Women Lead. Here, she discusses the “War on Women” narrative, that “legitimate rape” comment, and explains why she will never run for office.</p>
<p>You’ve been extremely successful in the private sector. What was the moment you thought: I need to get involved in politics?</p>
<p>I’ve always been interested in it. When my father passed away, I became the go-to person in my community for fund-raising. When a candidate came in, I always seemed to be the person that would put it together. But as a mom, I just kept thinking about policies and how they effected my children, and if I was fortunate one day to have grandchildren, what the world was going to look like.</p>
<p>It was also coming from western Pennsylvania. In 1972 I think we had more corporate headquarters in the US with the exception of New York City, then by 1985, when the last steel mill was dismantled in Pittsburgh, it really became a very depressed area, and we lost a lot of the coal industry as well. Knowing that I wanted to stay in this region and have a viable option for my children to come back one day, I knew I had to get involved in economic development and in the political process.</p>
<p>You were very involved in efforts to elect Mitt Romney in 2012. What was your takeaway on that loss and the fact Democrats won women by 11%?</p>
<p>I wasn’t really surprised because I felt we had broken the cardinal rule of political campaigning which is to let your opponent identify you, and when we let the Obama campaign create this so-called “War on Women,” and really let it go unanswered, it was pretty much a fait accompli that we were done with women.</p>
<p>There were male Republicans and conservative commentators who got a lot of attention for their comments about rape and contraception, which became part of the “War on Women” narrative. Republicans are capable of rigorous consistency in their messaging; what was happening there?</p>
<p>I can think of two candidates in particular in the last cycle, Todd Akin and Richard Murdock, who said what I found were some really very bizarre things. The most notable one was the comment on “legitimate rape.” These candidates are told time and time again: stay away, let it go, do not address this. For some reason, they just can’t help themselves and they step in it. And I think part of my frustration is that in this last cycle no one called them out on it.</p>
<p>I think we’re afraid to a certain degree of the social conservatives. You don’t want to get into an argument you’re not going to win...</p>
<p>No one stood up and said, “Hey, I think you’re really off the mark. What are you talking about? Do you have any idea what you just said?” But no one was willing to call them out, and I think we’ve got to start standing up and saying, “You know, that might be that particular person’s point of view, but that doesn’t represent all Republicans and all members of our party.” And we just don’t do it. I think we’re afraid to a certain degree of the social conservatives. You don’t want to get into an argument you’re not going to win, but you are also trying to be respectful of other points of view.</p>
<p>What compelled you to launch your super PAC Women Lead?</p>
<p>I got recruited to be the finance co-chair for the RNC for 2011-2012...the thing that I found wherever we went when we were meeting with potential major donors, was there were very few if any women at any of these meetings... So, when everything was said and done I said “OK, we’re missing women as major donors, we’re not communicating with them, we’re not reaching out for them.”</p>
<p>Republican women who run in federal races have twice as much trouble getting out of primaries as Democratic women do.</p>
<p>Republican women who run in federal races have twice as much trouble getting out of primaries as Democratic women do. Let’s put it all together: take what I know, what I’ve learned in Pennsylvania from a political strategy point of view, plus the network we’ve developed through the RNC fundraising over the two years, and see if we can’t go out and create something that really has been missing. That’s how the Women Lead PAC came about.</p>
<p>You are a hugely successful fundraiser. Do you have any insight into why women find fundraising more difficult?</p>
<p>Well, you could go into a whole psychological analysis, but I think for me, why I’m not shy about doing it, is that my dad really raised me to be independent. They knew that I was going to be their only child, and I was fourth generation in a business that was really male dominated, so a lot of the traits that I carry I think are more male orientated.</p>
<p>If you’re going to ask someone for a million dollars, you better damn well have written a check for a million dollars.</p>
<p>So, number one, I really get along with the guys. Number two, I write checks and a lot of women don’t write checks, and if you’re out raising money, whether it’s for your hospital or the United Way, people give money to their peers. If you’re going to ask someone for a million dollars, you better damn well have written a check for a million dollars. There’s a whole different dynamic. So, I think the fact that I’m not shy about writing checks as well as asking is different.</p>
<p>There are women who support small government principles but find a disconnect between that and legislators talking about what goes on in their doctor’s office. Will Republicans need to review how they talk about social issues in order to grow female support?</p>
<p>I would like to say yes but I don’t think it’s going to happen. I think the reality is that -- and people say this all the time -- if you’re running for an elected office on the Republican side, in a primary you run to the right and then in the general you go to the middle.</p>
<p>I would love to say that we’ll shy away from the social issues, but I am afraid that that’s not in the cards in the near future.</p>
<p>Consistently, the people who come out and vote in primaries are social conservatives, so it takes a very unique individual who can not embrace a lot of those social issues. It takes a talent. It takes a very good, charismatic communicator and those aren’t that easy to find. So, I would love to say that we’ll shy away from the social issues, but I am afraid that that’s not in the cards in the near future.</p>
<p>You devote a lot of time supporting other women for office. When are you running for office?</p>
<p>Never! And I’ll tell you why. First, I think running for office is one of the most difficult things you can ever do in your life, and I’ve got the attention span of -- oh, I don’t know, someone said one day that I have the attention span of a gnat on crack!</p>
<p>What I like is that I can do what I do and help a tremendous amount of people and if I was just focused on me as a legislator it would just be about that. This way, I have the ability to bring a lot of people in and I think it maximizes my efforts and I find it really fulfilling.</p>
<p>What do you think your father would make of all this?</p>
<p>Oh, my gosh, I’ve often said wherever he is he’s just sitting there laughing his behind off because he used to always tell me I wasn’t tough enough. I think he would have been really shocked to see where I’ve come. I remember the first time I walked into the White House, I just started laughing and someone said, “What’s so funny?” and I said, “I was just thinking my dad would get such a kick out of the fact that I’m here.”</p>
<p>For more information and inspiration visit <a href="http://mariashriver.com/" type="external">MariaShriver.com</a></p> | A Woman Leads: Bringing Women To The GOP | false | http://nbcnews.com/feature/maria-shriver/woman-leads-bringing-women-gop-n87631 | 2014-04-23 | 3 |
<p>Senate Intel Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., right, and Vice-Chair Mark Warner, D-Va.Tom Williams/ZUMA</p>
<p>Every year, Congress has to reauthorize billions of dollars in spending by America’s 17 intelligence agencies. This year’s legislation, which recently passed the Senate Intelligence Committee, might contain some unpleasant surprises for President Donald Trump.</p>
<p>Along with funding for various intelligence-related operations and pay increases for certain cyber positions, the bill includes a half-dozen or so provisions related to Russian meddling in the 2016&#160;presidential election. Among other things, the bill mandates that the intel agencies take&#160;a thorough look at the 2016&#160;Russian operation, conduct&#160;an assessment of threats to state election systems, and formulate a “whole-of-government” strategy for countering Russian cyberattacks on electoral systems. The bill also contains&#160;a provision that would prevent the Trump administration from setting up a cyber working group with the Russian government without notifying Congress first. (There were signs&#160; <a href="" type="internal">earlier this year</a> that the administration might set up such a group, but the president promptly walked that back.)</p>
<p>From a policy perspective, the bill’s&#160;provisions would seem to make sense, given that the US intelligence community has concluded that Russia interfered with the election in order to help Trump. Special counsel Robert Mueller is currently investigating whether Trump associates cooperated with Kremlin efforts. But the legislation also appears to be a direct slap at Trump,&#160;who has routinely dismissed the Russia scandal as “ <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/835916511944523777?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&amp;ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.latimes.com%2Fpolitics%2Fwashington%2Fla-na-essential-washington-updates-white-house-again-bats-away-call-for-1488128811-htmlstory.html" type="external">fake news</a>” and “ <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/877889199353077760?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&amp;ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonexaminer.com%2Ftrump-calls-russian-election-meddling-a-big-dem-scam%2Farticle%2F2626761" type="external">all a big Dem HOAX</a>” designed to help the Democrats explain how they lost the presidential election.</p>
<p>The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the bill, and the office of Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who chairs the committee,&#160;did not return requests&#160;for comment.</p>
<p>“These provisions begin to respond to Russia’s ongoing threat to American democracy,” committee member Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) told Mother Jones. “The president has made clear that he won’t stand up to Russia’s aggression toward our democratic institution, so it’s encouraging that the Intelligence Committee is including common-sense provisions in the Intelligence Authorization act.”</p>
<p>The bill is still a long way from passage, but for now, observers say, its focus on Russia is hard to miss.&#160;“It is very Russia-heavy; there is no doubt about it,” says Michael Sulmeyer,&#160;project director of the Belfer Center Cyber Security Project at the Harvard Kennedy School and a former cyber policy official in the Defense Department. “It’s not like there’s a bunch of reports on Russia, and a bunch of reports on China, and a bunch of reports on North Korea.”</p>
<p>The committee, Sulmeyer adds,&#160;“may also be trying to send a message not just to the administration, but the intelligence community as a whole, that [Congress] for the year ahead [will have]&#160;a lot more focus and oversight on any and all issues related to Russia.”</p>
<p>Sulmeyer acknowledged that there are already multiple congressional investigations into possible connections between Trump associates and the Russian meddling efforts, not to mention Mueller’s probe. But by requiring a slew of additional reports from&#160;the intelligence community, Congress would be adding&#160;a layer of seriousness that can’t be ignored.</p>
<p>“There is nothing like a legal requirement to send a document, with a deadline in law, to focus the mind,” he says. “That is stuff you do not want to be late on.”</p>
<p>Here are some of the proposed&#160;requirements that are likely to get the president’s attention:&#160;</p>
<p>Read the full text of the bill below:</p>
<p>&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href=&amp;#8221;https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3954352/Text-S-1761-115th-Congress-2017-2018.pdf&amp;#8221;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Text S 1761 115th Congress (2017 2018) Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 Congress (PDF)&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href=&amp;#8221;https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3954352/Text-S-1761-115th-Congress-2017-2018.txt&amp;#8221;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Text S 1761 115th Congress (2017 2018) Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 Congress (Text)&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;</p> | The Senate Is Trolling Trump With Its Intelligence Bill | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2017/08/the-senate-is-trolling-trump-with-its-intelligence-bill-1/ | 2017-08-24 | 4 |
<p>There has been plenty of chatter regarding the technology sector’s June slump, but the Technology Select Sector SPDR (NYSEArca: XLK), the largest technology exchange traded fund by assets, along with rival, traditional technology ETFs are rebounding to start the third quarter. XLK is higher by almost 45 over the past week, helping cement technology’s status… <a href="https://www.etftrends.com/tech-etfs-more-good-news-than-bad/" type="external">Click to read more at ETFtrends.com. Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p> | Tech ETFs: More Good News Than Bad | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/07/17/tech-etfs-more-good-news-than-bad.html | 2017-07-17 | 0 |
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<p>Image source: Restoration Hardware.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>What: Shares of furniture retailer Restoration Hardware jumped on Wednesday following the company's fourth-quarter earnings report. While profits declined, sales grew slower than the company anticipated, and the outlook was negatively affected by issues with the RH Modern collection, investors pushed the stock higher regardless. Shares of Restoration Hardware were up as much as 11.5%, settling to a 5% gain by 11 a.m. ET.</p>
<p>So what: There was quite a bit of bad news in Restoration Hardware's earnings report, but the stock has been decimated over the past few months, down nearly 50% year to date, so the company's issues may have already been priced into the stock.</p>
<p><a href="http://ycharts.com/companies/RH" type="external">RH</a> data by <a href="http://ycharts.com" type="external">YCharts Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Restoration Hardware reported quarterly revenue of $647.2 million, up 11% year over year, but well short of its original guidance range of $708 million to $718 million. In February, the company pre-announced its disappointing results, causing the stock to take a dive. The company blamed production and shipping delays related to RH Modern, underperformance in markets affected by oil prices, and poor performance of increased promotional activity.</p>
<p>Non-GAAP EPS came in at $0.98, down from $1.02 during the prior-year period. On a GAAP basis, EPS of $0.79 was down 22.5% year over year. While non-GAAP operating income grew compared to the same period last year, higher interest expense drove down non-GAAP earnings.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Now what: Restoration Hardware expects issues with RH Modern to continue into fiscal 2016, reducing revenue by $15 million and non-GAAP EPS by $0.22 for the year. For the first quarter, the company expects revenue between $452 million and $456 million, with adjusted EPS in the range of $0.04 to $0.06. For the full year, low- to mid-single-digit revenue is expected, with non-GAAP EPS expected to be flat to slightly down.</p>
<p>Despite all of this bad news, the jump in the stock price following earnings may be a sign that the stock fell too far, too fast. Much of the bad news was pre-announced, and CEO Gary Friedman did provide some optimistic commentary. "While there is certainly a fair amount of bad news in the quarter, we believe the good news greatly outweighs the bad when you put it into the context of our long-term growth strategy. Despite the headwinds, our two key value driving strategies -- the expansion of our product offer and the transformation of our real estate -- are working exceptionally well. The strong response to RH Modern, both in retail and direct, indicates this can quickly become a billion-dollar-plus brand."</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/03/30/restoration-hardware-stock-jumps-despite-rough-qua.aspx" type="external">Restoration Hardware Stock Jumps Despite Rough Quarter Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFBargainBin/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Timothy Green Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Restoration Hardware. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/help/index.htm?display=about02" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Restoration Hardware Stock Jumps Despite Rough Quarter | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/03/30/restoration-hardware-stock-jumps-despite-rough-quarter.html | 2016-03-30 | 0 |
<p>Farris Wilks is a fairly new player on the right-wing stage, but one ignored at our own risk, particularly given his alliance with the larger right-wing cabal.</p>
<p>Ferociously anti-choice, Wilks and his brother Dan have been <a href="" type="internal">primary funding sources</a> behind anti-choice, anti-woman organizations. They've given nearly $2 million to <a href="http://www.theinterim.com/2005/apr/14qanda.html" type="external">Life Dynamics</a>, an organization that pioneered the "baby parts" lie David Daleiden imitated this year.</p>
<p>They're also religious zealots who have founded their own church, along with dropping a lot of money into David Lane's Pastors and Pews project. The <a href="http://www.halleluyah.org/AboutUs.html" type="external">Assembly of Yahweh, 7th Day</a> is their own personal church.</p>
<p>Members revere all 66 books of the Bible. They seek to follow the Messiah, Yahshua of Nazareth, by walking in his footsteps. Thus they keep the Sabbath, the Passover and other festivals of Lev. 23, choose to eat clean foods, and strive to please the Author of “the perfect law of liberty” (Jas. 1:25). Inherent in that goal is being good neighbors. “After all,” says one member, “the Messiah said all the law can be summed up in ‘Love Yahweh’ and ‘love your neighbor’ (Matt. 22:36-40). We're passionate about both, and we hope it shows.”</p>
<p>Well, it shows until they start thinking about gay people. Or women. Then the love doesn't flow quite as easily as it might for rich white guys.</p>
<p>Now Farris Wilks will be <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/religious-right-leaders-head-farris-wilks-ranch-plot-how-make-ted-cruz-president" type="external">hosting a confab</a> at his ranch to plan the way forward for the election of Rafael "Ted" Cruz.</p>
<p>Now, the Washington Post’s Tom Hamburger <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/cruz-consolidates-support-from-key-christian-conservatives/2015/12/20/d7951a76-a5b6-11e5-b53d-972e2751f433_story.html" type="external">reports</a> that the group will gather again a few days after Christmas “at a remote ranch in central Texas, where Cruz, his wife and several key financial backers will visit with some of the country’s most prominent evangelical leaders for private conversations and a public rally.”</p>
<p>The ranch is owned by <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/farris-wilks" type="external">Farris Wilks</a>, who with his brother made billions in the fracking business and has since become a <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/fracking-sugar-daddy-religious-right" type="external">major funder of far-right, anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-church-state separation organizations</a>. The <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/religious-right-billionaire-wilks-bros-give-millions-ted-cruz-super-pac" type="external">Wilks brothers have already given at least $15 million to the effort to elect Ted Cruz</a>. <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/fracking-sugar-daddy-religious-right" type="external">Farris Wilks is also a pastor</a> who portrays gays as child predators and mocks environmentalism. He preached after Barack Obama’s re-election, “I do believe that our country died that Tuesday night, to all that’s honorable, all that’s good, that’s ambitious, and that has justice.”</p>
<p>It's no secret that evangelicals didn't turn out for John McCain or Mitt Romney in the numbers Republicans needed to win the election. This year they've resolved it will be different. Of course, first they'll have to dispose of The Donald, but that's another matter entirely.</p>
<p>The only good news to come out of this? Mike Huckabee's base is being hijacked, so he should just drop out now. Along with Rick Santorum, for that matter.</p>
<p>Here's a taste of Farris Wilks and his attitudes toward people who aren't white and male. Watch the whole thing, but the featured part is about a minute and a half in.</p>
<p /> | Religious Right To Meet At Billionaire's Ranch To Plot Ted Cruz Victory | true | http://crooksandliars.com/2015/12/religious-right-meet-billionaires-ranch | 2015-12-22 | 4 |
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<p>That will change Monday night as eight of the top 12 teams in The Associated Press women’s college basketball poll will square off against each other in four tasty early season matchups.</p>
<p>The Irish won their first game by 60 points to remain the top choice in the poll released Monday, the first of the regular season. They received 14 first-place votes from a 33-member national media panel, holding on to their slim four-point lead over Baylor. Notre Dame hosts Fordham in the second round of the Preseason WNIT on Monday night.</p>
<p>The Lady Bears, who garnered 12 first-place ballots, have a much tougher game as they host No. 9 UCLA. Third-ranked UConn visits No. 12 Florida State.</p>
<p>In other games between top teams Monday, No. 4 South Carolina plays seventh-ranked Ohio State and eight-ranked Texas heads to 11th-ranked Stanford.</p>
<p>“There certainly are a lot of great games early on,” UCLA coach Cori Close said in early November at a national media day held at ESPN. “Teams are challenging themselves.”</p>
<p>The Huskies, who have won four straight national championships and 75 consecutive games, host Baylor on Thursday. Geno Auriemma’s team will play six of the other top eight teams in the country over the course of the regular season.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“Somebody said, what are you thinking making that kind of schedule in November?” Auriemma said last month. “Well, I’ve always been one that (doesn’t) want any surprises come March. I want to go into March feeling like we put ourselves through a lot of tests. We’re going to pass some and we’re going to fail some. How do you get tough? Sometimes you have to fail.”</p>
<p>Not many ranked teams failed in opening weekend as they went 28-1, with the loss coming when No. 19 Kentucky beat 14th-ranked Miami. The Wildcats moved up to 15 while the Hurricanes fell to 22.</p>
<p>Throw that game out, and Top 25 teams won by an average of nearly 37 points.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>The poll and the voters selections can be found online at: <a href="http://collegebasketball.ap.org/womens-ap-top-25-week-2" type="external">http://collegebasketball.ap.org/womens-ap-top-25-week-2</a></p> | Notre Dame, Baylor, UConn lead way in women’s basketball | false | https://abqjournal.com/888716/notre-dame-baylor-uconn-lead-way-in-womens-basketball.html | 2016-11-14 | 2 |
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<p>Seattle, Washington</p>
<p>“Things are almost back to normal here. We have teachers and books. Things are getting better.”</p>
<p>New York Times 3-26-05 “Vital Signs of a Ruined City Grow stronger in Falluja”</p>
<p>“I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today”my own government.”</p>
<p>Rev. Martin Luther King</p>
<p>Cameras aren’t allowed in Falluja; neither are journalists. If they were then we would have first-hand proof of America’s greatest war crime in the last 30 years; the Dresden-like bombardment of an entire city of 250,000. Instead, we have to rely on eyewitness accounts that appear on the internet or the spurious reports that sporadically surface in the New York Times and Associated Press. For the most part, the Times and AP have shown themselves to be undependable; limiting their coverage to the details that support the overall goals of the occupation. For example, in the last few weeks both the NYTs and the AP ran stories on the alleged progress being made in Falluja. The AP outrageously referred to the battered city as “the safest place in Iraq”; a cynical appraisal of what most independent journalists have called nearly total destruction. One can only wonder if the editors at the AP would approve of similar security measures if they were taken in their own neighborhoods.</p>
<p>The NYTs also ran a lengthy story, “Vital Signs of a Ruined City Grow stronger in Falluja”, which portrayed Falluja as a city on the mend’ after a healthy dose of imperial medicine: “Classes have started again two months ago and the cheerful shrieks of children can be heard in the hallways.” This was just one of the more contemptuous quotes lifted from the NYT’s story of “rebirth” from the epicenter of American devastation. The quote was accompanied by a picture of a Marine in full-combat gear bending over to tie the shoe of a seven or eight year old Iraqi boy; a threatening image used to convey the spirit of American generosity.</p>
<p>The truth about Falluja is far different than the bogus reports in the AP and Times. The fact that even now, a full 6 months after the siege, camera crews and journalists are banned from the city, tells us a great deal about the extent of America’s war crimes. Just two weeks ago, a photographer from Al Aribiyya news was arrested while leaving Falluja and his equipment and film were confiscated. To date, he is still being held without explanation and there is no indication when he will be released. This illustrates the fear among the military brass that the truth about Falluja will leech out and destroy whatever modest support still exists for the occupation. Journalists should realize that Falluja may turn out to be the administration’s Achilles heel; a My Lai-type atrocity that turns the public decisively against Bush’s war.</p>
<p>The fairytales in the Times and AP are typical wartime propaganda; no different from the fabrications about Jessica Lynch’s heroics or the Dear Leader larking-about in Baghdad with a plastic turkey in tow (Bush’s “surprise” Thanksgiving day visit) The articles suggest that the administration has settled on a strategy for concealing the unpleasant facts about the obliteration of the city. Along with an active disinformation campaign featured in the nation’s leading newspapers, the administration has put together a PR operation to shape public perceptions. This explains why the State Dept’s number two official, Robert Zoellick, popped up in Falluja last week for a photo-op at a bread-making factory and a water-pumping station. Zoellick’s visit was supposed to draw attention the progress being made in Falluja’s restoration. Instead, his plans were disrupted by threats to his personal safety and he was hustled-off to a fortified military compound in the center of town. There he was beset by the cities tribal leaders’ complaining about the dismal pace of reconstruction.</p>
<p>Zoellick’s appearance was intended to highlight the alleged return of 90,000 Fallujans to the city and the reparations that have been made to the city’s water system. In fact, there’s no way to verify the administration’s claims about the numbers of returning residents, and its doubtful that there have been any measurable improvements to the water-treatment plants, sewage facilities, electrical grid or hospital; all of which were intentionally bombed during the siege.</p>
<p>Zoellick’s “confidence-building” trip turned out to be just another in a long list of bungled public relations gambits. If anything, it only further proved that the US still has no control over the security situation on the ground, and that the majority of Iraqis were better off under Saddam.</p>
<p>The Bush administration claims that the military is slowly providing compensation to the people whose homes were destroyed during the Falluja offensive but, again, there’s no independent source that can verify those claims and it seems inconsistent with the existing policy. Zoellick summarized the Bush policy succinctly in his remarks to the Fallujan leaders, “I know it won’t be easy. There will be many days of frustration, even threats. We can help, but YOU have to make it happen.”</p>
<p>Zoellick’s comments are little more than a distillation of the Bush ethos, “You’re on your own;” the underlying theme of “compassionate conservatism”.</p>
<p>It’s doubtful that anyone in Falluja is so naïve that they believe the administration will actually help-out with the reconstruction. Two years have passed since the initial invasion and Baghdad is still limited to three or four hours of electricity per day. The problems with water and sewage systems are equally grave. Only one in five Iraqis has access to clean water and there are still many places in Baghdad where raw sewage can be seen on the city streets. As a result there have been reports of outbreaks of cholera, diarrhea and other more obscure water-borne illnesses.</p>
<p>Falluja is undoubtedly doomed to the same fate as Afghanistan. The media will create the illusion of improvement for the American public; celebrating the meaningless trappings of democracy (sham elections, claims of sovereignty, and the writing of a constitution) while the nation remains fractured and under the brutal rule of the regional war-lords. Afghanistan is a lawless, drug-colony run by gangsters and narco-smugglers. By any standard of measurement, our involvement there has been a complete failure. The real Afghanistan bears no resemblance to the flourishing democratic republic that graces the pages of American newspapers.</p>
<p>Falluja and the rest of Iraq can expect the very same treatment. There is no Plan B; the Bush strategy for toppling regimes and replacing them with the Neoliberal model is a cookie-cutter approach to governance; a one-size-fits-all formula for global rule.</p>
<p>In Naomi Klein’s article “The Rise of Disaster Capitalism”, Klein points out that there really is no intention on the part of the US to rebuild Iraq or anywhere else for that matter. When the State Dept gets involved, through its Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) “the mandate is not to rebuild any old states, but to create democratic and market-oriented’ ones”. That entails selling off “state owned enterprises that created a nonviable economy” and, thereby, “changing the very social fabric of a nation.”</p>
<p>There it is! Deregulation, privatization and control of resources; the same model applied over and over again. The real goal is a radical, fundamental change to the system; “shock therapy”, the all-purpose antidote prescribed by the global banking and financial establishment. These changes are facilitated through their political surrogates in the Bush administration, and executed by their own private security apparatus (aka; the US Military). After Iraq has passed through this vicious transition from semi-socialist government to deregulated capitalist colony, it will be entered into the new world order of American protectorates; stripped of its resources and subjected to the tyranny of foreign rule. All government properties and services will be controlled by multi-national corporations and all assets will be held by the foreign lending institutions that own the majority shares of the Iraqi National Bank.</p>
<p>The real story of Falluja will never appear in the pages of the New York Times; the banned weapons, the bloated corpses, the thousands of dead animals killed by illicit chemicals, the wasteland of rubble and ruined lives. The magnitude of the crime simply won’t fit within the paper’s glib account of benign intervention. Rather, the Times is focused on promoting a credible story of “rebirth amid the ruins”; of lives patched together by a kindhearted father in Washington and his heavily-armed disciples.</p>
<p>They’re wasting their time. The cruelty of the siege and the vastness of devastation will eventually be brought to light and the Time’s feeble apologetics will amount to nothing.</p>
<p>The Times remains the command center of the imperial chronicle; the indispensable shaper of the colonial digest. Its pages furnish the muddled logic for the invasion of defenseless nations, the rationale for continued repression, the requisite smokescreen for American war crimes, and the dubious justification for the ongoing occupation. Their work in Falluja is just one of many services they carry out as the information-annex of the defense establishment. They perform subtler assignments others as well. They continue to be an invaluable cog in the machinery of state-terror; executing their function with extraordinary skill.</p>
<p>MIKE WHITNEY can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | The New York Times in Fallujah | true | https://counterpunch.org/2005/04/18/the-new-york-times-in-fallujah/ | 2005-04-18 | 4 |
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