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<p>(Bloomberg) — Indecision is getting so pronounced it’s becoming predictable.</p>
<p>The same thing keeps happening. For five straight days, the has started its cash session by dropping below its last close, then bounced back — usually around 10 o’clock — to end the day in the upper band of its trading range. Same thing today: stocks, having fallen 0.8 percent earlier, clawed back half the decline.</p>
<p>Defined by those admittedly exotic parameters, it’s a streak of daily recoveries that’s only happened three times before, data compiled by Bloomberg show. While too few examples exist to form an investment thesis — one was in 2011 and two in 2007 — they’ve all come during epic clashes between bulls and bears.</p>
<p>That’s true today. By any measure, a meaningful pullback is overdue — the S&amp;P 500 has gone 12 months without a retreat of 3 percent from a peak, which is unprecedented. Yesterday was the 50th day in a row the index managed not to fall 0.5 percent or more, the longest streak since 1965.</p>
<p>On the other side of the argument are companies themselves, which eight years into the recovery just ran off one of the most impressive earnings seasons of the bull market. One fact is of particular note: U.S. chief executive officers are most optimistic about profits than they have been any time in seven years.</p>
<p>“How the market closes is far more important than how it opens,” said Tom Wirth, executive vice president and division manager for wealth management that helps oversee $1.9 billion at Chemung Canal Trust Co., in Elmira, New York. “It’s telling me that there is still strength in the market. Investors just focus on what’s actually going on with the economy and what’s going on with companies and earnings are pretty decent.”</p>
<p>Since the reporting season began a month ago, companies saying earnings will beat analyst estimates have outnumbered those predicting they will miss by a ratio of 1.2-to-1. That’s the highest for any similar stretch since 2010, data compiled by Bloomberg show.</p>
<p>Helped by a weaker dollar and a concerted global economic recovery, companies extended their earnings rebound from a yearlong downturn that lasted through mid 2016. While profit growth slowed to around 7 percent in the July-September period, mostly because of hurricanes, analysts expect it to bounce back to above 10 percent over the next three quarters.</p>
<p>Such optimism is common but is being echoed by chief executives, lending credibility to analysts who tend to lower their annual profit forecasts as the year progresses. Over the past month, almost 200 firms provided higher forecasts than analysts estimates, the first time since 2011 that upward guidance outstripped downward.</p>
<p>While concerns about China’s growth and corporate credit have been sowing angst, the list of reasons to stay invested is long, from a planned cut in the corporate tax rate to the pledge by the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates gradually. Increasing earnings and higher valuations will push the S&amp;P 500 to 2,900 by the end of next year, a 12 percent rally from its level now, according to Keith Parker, an equity strategist at UBS AG.</p>
<p>The dip-buying mentality has persisted all year, helping the S&amp;P 500 score a 15 percent gain with few pullbacks. But investor anxiety is growing. The Cobe Volatility index, a gauge of options cost to hedge against stock losses, rose five days in a row, jumping 11 percent toward its highest level since August.</p>
<p>“Traders have grown used to immediate gratification, being rewarded for their efforts in short order this year,” Frank Cappelleri, a technical analyst at Nomura Instinet LLC, wrote in a note. “How many more negative openings can they stomach before taking a break from this tried and true 2017 strategy?”</p> | Why They Can't Resist the Dip: Best Earnings Guidance Since 2010 | false | https://newsline.com/why-they-can039t-resist-the-dip-best-earnings-guidance-since-2010/ | 2017-11-15 | 1 |
<p />
<p>Image source: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/rosshuggett/8843421384/" type="external">Ross Huggett Opens a New Window.</a>, Flickr.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>It's hard to get through life without making a lot of mistakes, many of them financial. It's smart, though, to learn as much as possible from other people's mistakes, as that can help you avoid committing many common blunders. Here are three Fool contributors fessing up to some regrettable moves they've made.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFDirtyBird/info.aspx" type="external">Tyler Crowe: Opens a New Window.</a>I like to think that I'm still young enough that I haven't yet made an investing mistake that I can't recover from. I've made my fair share of dumb stock picks, but one thing I have really kicked myself for is not taking advantage of individual retirement accounts soon enough.</p>
<p>I'm a pretty boring investor. I love dividend stocks and watching those payments buy more and more shares on a regular basis. As long as I keep getting those cash payments coming in and they continue to grow at a modest clip, I'm much less concerned about the daily ups and downs of the underlying stock prices. While this buy-and-hold-a-cash-stream approach can be effective, it can make even more of an impact when done using IRAs.</p>
<p>Every dividend payment that you receive in a regular, taxable account is considered a capital gain, so you have to pay taxes on those gains regardless of whether they are paid out in cash or are used to repurchase shares. This may not be a huge payment in the first couple of years, but if you hold a position for 10, 15, or 20 years, those capital gains taxes can add up. In a traditional IRA, though, those gains will only be taxed when withdrawn -- and in a Roth IRA, contributions are made on a post-tax basis, and withdrawals made following the rules are completely tax-free. Traditional IRAs offer the added benefit of lowering your taxable income in a given year by the amount of your contributions.</p>
<p>If I had been smarter earlier, I would have better utilized these kinds of retirement accounts over the past few years. Still, I'm glad I'm doing so now, and I have enough time to make up for it in the future.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Making mistakes is inevitable. But if you're smart you'll learn from them and not repeat them. Photo: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/striatic/2192192956/" type="external">hobvias sudoneighm Opens a New Window.</a>, Flickr</p>
<p>: When you're young, you can afford to take on more risk, but just because you can take on more risk doesn't mean that you should. I learned that lesson the hard way.</p>
<p>During the Internet boom, I built a very nice nest egg for myself by buying out-of-the-money options on hot stocks and selling those options for big gains when they jumped higher. That strategy worked great -- until it didn't.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, rather than shifting my gains into something safer, I kept rolling the dice and betting bigger and bigger until the Internet bubble popped and my option portfolio got wiped out.</p>
<p>It was a very painful experience and it taught me a critical lesson: Never underestimate your risk, especially when everything is going in your favor!</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFSelena/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Selena Maranjian Opens a New Window.</a>: One money mistake I wish I'd never made over the many years that I've been investing is investing inefficiently. I didn't get my wake-up call about the importance of saving money for retirement until I was in my 30s. So in my 20s, although I wasn't wasting the modest income I earned at the time, I wasn't making the most of it, either. I recall thousands of dollars slowly accumulating in my bank account, while I pondered whether I should perhaps spend it on a fancy stereo.</p>
<p>If I'd instead known enough to park $5,000 in the stock market, it could have grown for about 30 years. Over long periods, the S&amp;P 500 has risen by an annual average of close to 10%. If my $5,000 had achieved that kind of growth rate over 30 years, I'd have an extra $87,000 in my nest egg today! (And, of course, had I added to it in those early years, I'd have far more.)</p>
<p>The mistake of investing inefficiently didn't end once I entered the stock market, though. In my early years, I made lots of poor choices (and still do, on occasion). I chased high-flying stocks, many of which were overvalued at the time and later fell back to earth. I was impatient with stocks that didn't perform as I expected in short order, so I would sell them and jump into something new. I ignored the power of dividends, fell for stocks with strong stories and weak financials, and owned more stocks than I could reasonably keep up with.</p>
<p>We all make regrettable financial moves. The key is to keep reading and learning, so that we might make far fewer of them as soon as possible.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/03/12/1-money-mistake-i-never-should-have-made.aspx" type="external">1 Money Mistake I Never Should Have Made Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p>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> | 1 Money Mistake I Never Should Have Made | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/03/12/1-money-mistake-never-should-have-made.html | 2016-03-12 | 0 |
<p>Published time: 12 Oct, 2017 22:29</p>
<p>Displaced families from Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province shared their stories of being caught in crossfire between Islamic State (IS, formerly known as ISIS/ISIL) terrorists and US airstrikes and having to suffer from both sides.</p>
<p>“We faced many kinds of issues there, war and air bombardments were the reasons why we left everything, for example our house, cows, chickens, and household items.</p>
<p>“Now we live here in a temporary shelter without any kind of household items,” a woman <a href="https://ruptly.tv/vod/20171011-083" type="external">told</a> Ruptly news agency.</p>
<p>[embedded content]</p>
<p>The locals say they suffered from heavy confrontations between Islamic State and US forces which were battling terrorists.</p>
<p>“The fight there is ongoing. Islamic State militants came and started the clashes. They wanted to cut our heads off. Then US troops bombarded the area so we left and came here,” a local man said.</p>
<p>Read more</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/401027-afghans-fear-us-airstrikes-nangarhar/" type="external" /></p>
<p>“Our houses have been destroyed under the bombardment, children and women were killed and wounded by fire,” another person added.</p>
<p>The clashes between US troops and militants are still ongoing in the area, according to the locals.</p>
<p>“There are no houses, they’re all destroyed. Some houses were burnt by Islamic State militants and others were destroyed by US drone attacks,” an Afghan man explained to the Ruptly crew.</p>
<p>The number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan reached a record high in 2017, with 436 children killed in the first six months of the year, representing a 9 percent increase on the same time period in 2016, according to a report by the United Nations.</p>
<p>The number of women killed grew to 174, representing a rise of 23 percent, the <a href="https://unama.unmissions.org/sites/default/files/protection_of_civilians_in_armed_conflict_midyear_report_2017_july_2017.pdf" type="external">report</a> added.</p>
<p>Nangarhar province was among the worst-affected, suffering from Islamic State, Taliban and US-coalition airstrikes.</p>
<p>In 2016 it experienced “the highest number of international military force aerial operations causing civilian casualties,” the report said.</p> | US strikes & ISIS rage: Displaced Afghan families share stories of suffering (VIDEO) | false | https://newsline.com/us-strikes-isis-rage-displaced-afghan-families-share-stories-of-suffering-video/ | 2017-10-12 | 1 |
<p>Within your own backyard lies adventure that will transport you to a place that feels miles from home. So leave your passport behind and start exploring <a href="/content/dailybeast/sponsored/the-nearest-faraway-place.html" type="external">The Nearest Faraway Place</a>.</p>
<p>Bulgarini Gelato in the Los Angeles area of Atladena, CA doesn't look like much from the outside. But one taste of Leo Bulgarini's famous gelato and you'll feel like you've tasted a bit of Italy, without the passport.</p>
<p>"If you've never had gelato, you should come here because you will never eat ice cream again," remarks Bulgarini as he mixes a batch of almond gelato. "A lot of people that come here they say, when they go to Rome, they can't find this gelato over there."</p>
<p>In this installment of The Nearest Faraway Place, presented by Land Rover Discovery, The Daily Beast brings you the story of what makes the much lauded Bulgarini Gelato so special.</p> | Traditional Italian Gelato in Los Angeles | true | https://thedailybeast.com/traditional-italian-gelato-in-los-angeles | 2018-10-02 | 4 |
<p>March 22, 2013</p>
<p>By Katy Grimes</p>
<p>The Employment Development Department used to be called the “Unemployment Department.” And state welfare recipients are now “clients.”</p>
<p>The majority party in the California Legislature appears determined on expanding social services in the state despite evidence demonstrating that the programs don’t necessarily improve lives, as the very mixed record of the 50-year federal <a href="http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/062612-616212-war-on-poverty-failed-but-spending-continues.htm" type="external">“War on Poverty”</a> confirms. While discussing the need for “safety net” programs for the poorest in the state, legislators always cast a wider net than necessary.</p>
<p>The Assembly held a committee hearing Wednesday about expanding mandatory universal government preschool in California.&#160;By Thursday, the Senate Health and Human Services Committee was focused on the CalWORKS program, and how to attract more “clients.” Expansion of the state’s Health and Human Services agency is an obvious goal.</p>
<p>This push to expand government aid programs has as a backdrop California’s poverty rate of&#160; <a href="http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/p60-244.pdf" type="external">23.5 percent</a> — the highest in the nation and much higher than the <a href="http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/p60-244.pdf" type="external">national average</a> of 16.1 percent. The&#160; <a href="http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/p60-244.pdf" type="external">U.S. Census Bureau</a> said the high poverty rate was&#160;driven in part by California’s high cost of living, which is never a focus of the Legislature.</p>
<p>The stated goal of Thursday’s Senate hearing was to get&#160; several questions answered, including “What does evidence indicate can help families avoid the negative consequences of poverty?”</p>
<p>The challenges of stress are made worse by poverty, according to Sarah Bohn of the Public Policy Institute of California and Ann Stevens, the director of UC Davis Center on Poverty Research.</p>
<p>Stevens said the well-known correlation between poverty in childhood and long-term effects mean poverty later in life, poor health and low educational achievement.</p>
<p>“Constant stress is worse in poor people,” said Stevens. “Unobserved things in families in poverty lead to other bad outcomes.”</p>
<p>“Persistent poverty creates chronic stress for children,” Stevens added.</p>
<p>Stevens and Bohn advocated for subsidies for the poor, and for longer periods of time.</p>
<p>“A strong case can be made for reducing material deprivation,” Stevens said. “There’s growing credible evidence to support this.”</p>
<p>But both Stevens and Bohn also advocated for universal mandatory preschool. “There’s growing evidence to support intervention in early childhood and preschool,” Stevens said. She added this is crucial to break the cycle of poverty. “It’s not a trade-off,” said Stevens.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the federal government is sending out mixed messages. Under President Obama, one form of welfare has exponentially increased since he first took office in 2009. His administration, however, is also pressuring California to limit another type of welfare.</p>
<p>“When Obama was inaugurated in January 2009, the number of <a href="http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap" type="external">Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program</a>(SNAP) recipients was <a href="http://www.fns.usda.gov/ora/MENU/Published/snap/FILES/Other/pai2009.pdf" type="external">31,939,110</a>. By October 2012, the latest month reported, they had jumped to <a href="http://www.fns.usda.gov/fns/key_data/october-2012.pdf" type="external">47,525,329</a>,” CNS News <a href="http://cnsnews.com/news/article/first-term-food-stamp-recipients-increased-11133-day-under-obama" type="external">reported</a>. “That means the food stamp program grew by approximately 11,133 recipients per day from January 2009 to October 2012.” SNAP used to be known as the Food Stamp program.</p>
<p>CNS News also reported, “ <a href="http://cnsnews.com/news/article/federal-food-stamp-program-spent-record-804b-fy-2012" type="external">[F]ederal spending on SNAP has increased</a> every fiscal year that Obama has been in office. In FY 2009 — when SNAP was still known as the ‘Food Stamp’ program — the government spent $55.6 billion. According to an <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43175" type="external">April 2012 report</a> from the Congressional Budget Office, SNAP enrollment increased by 70 percent between 2007 and 2011.”</p>
<p>In California, spending on such programs is going up. But the Brown administration is also trying to implement some of the welfare reforms seen in other states — because of federal pressure.</p>
<p>“The Governor’s budget proposes $20.3 billion from the General Fund for health programs—a 3.4 percent increase over 2012-13 estimated expenditures—and $8 billion from the General Fund for human services programs—a 7.9 percent increase over 2012-13 estimated expenditures,” the Legislative Analyst’s Office wrote in its 2013-14 <a href="http://www.lao.ca.gov/analysis/2013/ss/hhs/health-human-services-022713.pdf" type="external">“Analysis of the Health and Human Services Budget.”</a></p>
<p>Recent changes to the <a href="http://www.cdss.ca.gov/calworks/" type="external">CalWORKs</a> program include a phase-out of exemptions from welfare-to-work requirements, and the introduction of a new 24-month limit on adult eligibility in the program.</p>
<p>Existing law requires each California county to provide cash assistance and other social services to needy families through the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids program. <a href="http://www.cdss.ca.gov/calworks/" type="external">CalWORKs</a> uses funds from the federal Temporary Assistance to Needy Families block grant program, as well as state and county funds.</p>
<p>As a condition of the federal grant, the federal government requires states to meet work requirements. But California has <a href="http://www.lao.ca.gov/handouts/socservices/2013/CalWORKs-Background-032113.pdf" type="external">been in violation of this rule</a>, and was notified the state will be assessed penalties of $160 million by the federal government. This is just for 2008 and 2009. There is no word yet if California will be penalized for 2010, 2011 and 2012.</p>
<p>The state claims to have a plan to remedy this, but not by requiring <a href="http://www.cdss.ca.gov/calworks/" type="external">CalWORK</a>S&#160;recipients to get to work.</p>
<p>“Planned state actions are projected to increase the state’s work participation rate by (1) increasing the number of countable cases that meet the federal work requirement through the work Incentive Nutritional Suppliment program, and (2) removing from the work participation requirement calculation certain CalWORKS cases that do not meet the federal work requirement,” the LAO <a href="http://www.lao.ca.gov/handouts/socservices/2013/CalWORKs-Background-032113.pdf" type="external">reported</a>.</p>
<p>The LAO estimates that California “may be compliant with the requirement by 2015.”</p>
<p>CalWORKS&#160;recipients&#160;are required to work 20, 30, or 35 hours per week, depending on family composition. California allows CalWORKS recipients to substitute mental health and substance abuse programs for work.</p>
<p>California has made $700 million in reductions to the CalWORKS program since 2009. But now, the Legislature is actively pushing to expand the program.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.aroundthecapitol.com/billtrack/analysis.html?aid=246174" type="external">SB 1041</a>, passed in 2012, authorized the changes to the CalWORKS program, but only through 2012.</p> | CA welfare state wants more ‘clients’ | false | https://calwatchdog.com/2013/03/22/ready-ca-welfare-state-wants-more-clients/ | 2018-03-20 | 3 |
<p />
<p>Mother Jones has been covering the “fighting dems” story for quite <a href="/news/update/2006/11/swift_boat_dems.html" type="external">some</a> <a href="/news/update/2005/10/iraq_vets_running_for_congress.html" type="external">time</a>. Here’s an update on how some of them have done:</p>
<p>In PA-07, Fighting Dem Joe Sestak defeated powerful House member Curt Weldon, 57%-43%.</p>
<p>In PA-10, Fighting Dem Chris Carney defeated alleged choker Don Sherwood, 53%-47%.</p>
<p>In MN-01, Fighting Dem Tim Walz defeated Republican Gil Gutknecht, 52%-48%.</p>
<p>In NY-29, Fighting Dem Eric Massa lost to Republican Randy Kuhl, 51%-49%.</p>
<p>In PA-08, Fighting Dem Tim Murphy is locked up against Mike Fitzpatrick, 50%-50%. CNN has not called the race, as of 11:00 pm PST.</p>
<p>In IL-06, Fighting Dem Tammy Duckworth lost to Peter Roskam, 52%-48%.</p>
<p /> | Fighting Dems Update | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2006/11/fighting-dems-update/ | 2006-11-08 | 4 |
<p>HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Tuesday afternoon’s drawing of the Pennsylvania Lottery’s “Pick 3 Day” game were:</p>
<p>5-6-2, Wild: 9</p>
<p>(five, six, two; Wild: nine)</p>
<p>HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Tuesday afternoon’s drawing of the Pennsylvania Lottery’s “Pick 3 Day” game were:</p>
<p>5-6-2, Wild: 9</p>
<p>(five, six, two; Wild: nine)</p> | Winning numbers drawn in ‘Pick 3 Day’ game | false | https://apnews.com/eead16bc176e427396b9ba99900ecb66 | 2018-01-23 | 2 |
<p />
<p>Erin O’Flaherty is the first openly gay Miss America contestant after being crowned Miss Missouri on Saturday.</p>
<p>O’Flaherty, 23, told <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/missouri-openly-gay-miss-missouri-40059314" type="external">Associated Press</a>she came out at 18. She says she plans to use her reign as Miss Missouri to bring attention to suicide prevention and while she will advocate for the LGBT community, it won’t be her only focus.</p>
<p>“My focus of my year isn’t going to be that I’m gay,” O’Flaherty told Associated Press.&#160;“It’s certainly a big part of who I am, and I will be promoting it and raising awareness for the LGBT community. But also there will be many appearances that I do that have nothing to do with that. And so I’m hoping that I can strike a really nice balance of staying true to the values of Miss Missouri and also being able to exercise my personal views.”</p>
<p>The Miss America pageant will air on Sunday, September 11 from Atlantic City, N.J. on ABC.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Associated Press</a> <a href="" type="internal">Erin O'Flaherty</a> <a href="" type="internal">Miss America</a> <a href="" type="internal">Miss Missouri</a></p> | Miss Missouri is first openly gay Miss America contestant | false | http://washingtonblade.com/2016/06/23/newly-crowned-miss-missouri-first-openly-gay-miss-america-contestant/ | 3 |
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<p><a href="https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/moodys-downgrades-uks-rating-on-brexit-and-growth-fears-532103" type="external">Moody’s downgrades UK’s rating on Brexit and growth fears</a>Reuters <a href="https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news" type="external">Stock Markets</a></p>
<p>By William Schomberg and David Milliken LONDON (Reuters) – Ratings agency Moody’s downgraded Britain’s credit rating on Friday, saying the government’s plans to bring down its heavy debt load had been knocked off course and Brexit would weigh on the economy. A few hours after Prime Minister Theresa May set out plans for new ties with the …</p> | Jeff Koons: Success Comes From Following Your Interests | 100 Seconds of Advice | Forbes | false | https://newsline.com/jeff-koons-success-comes-from-following-your-interests-100-seconds-of-advice-forbes/ | 2017-09-23 | 1 |
<p>Mitt Romney.Andre J. Jackson/Detroit Free Press/ZumaPress.com</p>
<p />
<p>The Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act by a 5 to 4 vote on Thursday.&#160;Maybe you heard. (My colleague Adam&#160;Serwer has <a href="" type="internal">a great analysis of what this actually means</a>.) GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, responding to the ruling in front of the US&#160;Capitol, <a href="http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/romney-promises-to-repeal-obamacare-after-health-care?ref=fpb" type="external">reiterated</a> his pledge to spend his hypothetical first day in office working to repeal Obamacare. (House Majority Leader Eric&#160;Cantor is already promising another repeal vote in early July.)</p>
<p>But it’s safe to say Romney, the only other elected official in American history to mandate that citizens buy health insurance, probably won’t like this passage from Justice Ruth&#160;Bader&#160;Ginsburg’s opinion, which partially concurred with Roberts and partially dissented:</p>
<p>See our full coverage of the Supreme Court’s Obamacare decision.</p>
<p>By requiring most residents to obtain insurance, see Mass. Gen. Laws, ch. 111M, §2 (West 2011), the Commonwealth ensured that insurers would not be left with only the sick as customers. As a result, federal lawmakers observed, Massachusetts succeeded where other States had failed.&#160; See Brief for Commonwealth of Massachusetts as Amicus Curiae in No. 11–398, p. 3 (not­ing that the Commonwealth’s reforms reduced the number of uninsured residents to less than 2%, the lowest rate in the Nation, and cut the amount of uncompensated care by a third); 42 U. S. C. §18091(2)(D) (2006 ed., Supp. IV) (noting the success of Massachusetts’ reforms). In cou­pling the minimum coverage provision with guaranteed­ issue and community-rating prescriptions, Congress followed Massachusetts’ lead.</p>
<p>Ginsburg, of course, is completely correct. And in a sane political climate, Mitt Romney would happily take credit for this. As it stands, he’s in the uncomfortable position of once more distancing himself from his biggest political accomplishment.</p>
<p>(h/t <a href="http://www.politico.com//blogs/burns-haberman/2012/06/ginsburg-opinion-cites-massachusetts-law-127565.html" type="external">Politico‘s Alex&#160;Burns</a>.)</p>
<p /> | Obamacare Decision: Romney Won’t Like This Passage | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2012/06/supreme-court-congress-followed-massachusetts-lead/ | 2012-06-28 | 4 |
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<p />
<p>Columbia wouldn’t say how many wrestlers are barred from competing, citing educational privacy laws, and the team coach and assistant coaches didn’t immediately respond to emails and phone calls seeking comment.</p>
<p>The team apologized in a letter on Thursday, calling the text messages inexcusable and saying members were prepared for repercussions.</p>
<p>“We could not be more remorseful for the harm that this situation has caused,” the team wrote, according to a student-run blog that said it received the letter.</p>
<p>The blog, Bwog.com, had published screengrabs of the crude text messages.</p>
<p>The Ivy League university had put all competition on hold Monday to investigate the texts, which the blog said were exchanged by seniors on the wrestling team.</p>
<p>Some messages disparaged female students, expressed hope that someone would be sexually assaulted at a campus event, used anti-gay terms and slurred black people, including while discussing the deadly police shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The blog redacted the senders’ identities, so it was unclear how many people sent or responded to them. But Columbia’s athletics department said in a statement on Friday it determined only a “distinct group” of wrestlers was involved.</p>
<p>Those responsible for the offensive statements are suspended from the team through the rest of the school year, some others are barred just through the rest of the semester and those who weren’t involved can continue competing, the athletics department said. No wrestlers are suspended from their studies, just from the sport.</p>
<p>The department said it recognized students have a right to express themselves, but the “appalling” messages don’t fit behavior standards for Columbia’s student-athletes. The athletes’ code of conduct includes pledges to “treat everyone with dignity and respect” and not to do anything that might reflect poorly on themselves or the team.</p>
<p>The wrestlers will work with an advocate for fighting discrimination in sports, the department said.</p>
<p>The messages were revealed a week after Harvard University canceled the remainder of the season for its men’s soccer team because of lewd comments about members of the women’s soccer team.</p> | University stops wrestlers from competing after lewd texts | false | https://abqjournal.com/892501/university-stops-wrestlers-from-competing-after-lewd-texts.html | 2016-11-18 | 2 |
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<p>“iLuminate” will open Popejoy’s 2017-2018 season.</p>
<p>The 2017-2018 performing arts season is chock-full of classics and fan favorites.</p>
<p>“We’re excited to have some of the most splendid Broadway shows coming to Popejoy for our 52nd season,” says Tom Tkach, director of Popejoy Hall. “The Broadway shows coming this next season have won 52 Tony Awards between them. The Ovation Series shows in the coming season are among the most creative, most exciting shows out on tour. We’re delighted to present all 26 shows this coming season.”</p>
<p>Coming to the Duke City as part of the Haverland Carter Broadway in New Mexico Series features a lineup of Broadway hits, including Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg’s Tony Award-winning musical phenomenon “Les Misérables”; Tony Award for best musical revival, “The King and I”; the classic fairy tale on stage, “Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella”; Broadway favorite “A Chorus Line”; and hilarious newcomer “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love &amp; Murder.”</p>
<p>A scene from “Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella.”</p>
<p>Broadway shows playing next year as Broadway in New Mexico Extras include Broadway hits returning by popular demand, “The Book of Mormon” and “Wicked.”</p>
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<p>Tkach says the crew at Popejoy Hall spends a lot of time researching productions to bring to New Mexico.</p>
<p>He says the entire audience base of more than 65,000 is surveyed each season.</p>
<p>“Our audience helps us choose the shows that we pursue,” he says. “It’s proven very popular, and we really program for Albuquerque.”</p>
<p>Tkach says there are a many variables that have to fall into place before productions are brought to Popejoy.</p>
<p>“We’re the only venue in the state that can accommodate bigger shows,” he says. “The first part of it is that the show has to be accessible to us. We need to make sure that the houses will be robust. We’re always trying to bring in productions that will connect to the audiences.”</p>
<p>From left, John Owen-Jones and Chris McCarrell in “Les Misérables.” (SOURCE: Matthew Murphy)</p>
<p>Tkach is looking forward to “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love &amp; Murder” as well as “Les Misérables.”</p>
<p>” ‘Gentlemen’s Guide to Love &amp; Murder’ is fresh and new,” Tkach says. ” ‘Le Mis’ is one of my all-time favorites. And we have something new with ‘Cinderella.’ There’s something for every type.”</p>
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<p>In addition to the Haverland Carter Broadway in New Mexico Series, Popejoy will also feature 17 other events that include comedy, music, dance and theater.</p>
<p>The season includes a returning favorite, David Sedaris, renowned dance troupe Pilobolus, “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and Mannheim Steamroller Christmas to name a few.</p>
<p>Terry Davis, marketing manager for Popejoy Hall, says the number of events is slightly higher than last year.</p>
<p>Davis says planning the season takes about a year.</p>
<p>“We’re already working on the next season,” he says. “Somehow, we’re always putting together the best season we can. It helps that there is always something new and fresh. We try to get them to Albuquerque as soon as we can.”</p>
<p>The 2017-2018 Popejoy Presents season begins Oct. 27 with “iLuminate,” an electrified contemporary dance performance, and closes in October 2018 with 16 performances of the Broadway sensation “Wicked.”</p>
<p>Broadway subscription packages start at $179.75. For more information, please visit <a href="http://popejoypresents.com" type="external">popejoypresents.com</a>. Only season ticket packages are being sold at this time.</p>
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<p>&#160; 2018 Jan. 19 – Pilobolus Feb. 11 – The Peking Acrobats Feb. 17 – Mummenschanz Feb. 23 – “Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery” Feb. 25 – The Ten Tenors March 3 – “Gobsmacked!” March 4 – Celtic Nights March 25 – “Live in Central Park [Revisited]: Simon and Garfunkel” March 31 – “Porgy and Bess” April 20 – TAO: Drum Heart</p>
<p>&#160; Haverland Carter Broadway in NM Series Dec. 7-10 – “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love &amp; Murder”</p>
<p>&#160; 2018 Jan 4-7 – “Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella” March 8-11 – “A Chorus Line” May 9-13 – “Les Misérables” June 20-24 – “The King and I”</p>
<p /> | Popejoy’s 2017-2018 season includes Broadway plays, music, comedy, dance | false | https://abqjournal.com/1019403/something-for-every-type.html | 2 |
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<p>The U.N. has warned Australia its plan to send refugees, referred to locally as boat people, to Malaysia - has not ratified the torture convention - could violate international law.</p>
<p>Faced with a flood of asylum-seeker arriving on boats from Asia, and in the wake of violent unrest in detention centers - where refugees await a decision on whether they will be allowed to resettle in Australia - Canberra this month announced plans to transfer 800 boat people to Malaysia for processing.</p>
<p>In return, Australia says it will accept and resettle 4,000 registered refugees currently living in Malaysia over a period of four years, Agence France-Presse reports.</p>
<p>The plan has been compared by Australian media with the "Pacific Solution" which was branded "inhumane" by human rights groups before it was repealed by Prime Minister Julia Gillard's center-left Labor Party in 2007.</p>
<p>U.N. High Commissioner for <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2011/s3225813.htm" type="external">Human Rights</a> Navi Pillay She said if it went ahead with the plan, Australia would be sending asylum seekers to a country that hasn't ratified the torture convention or the refugee convention, according to the ABC.</p>
<p>She appealed for Canberra to be more humane towards <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110524/wl_asia_afp/australiaimmigrationrefugeesmalaysiaun" type="external">asylum seekers</a>, saying the country should improve its refugee processing policy rather than sending detainees offshore, AFP reports.</p>
<p>"If Australia is serious about this policy of sending 800 people out to Malaysia, then I think it violates refugee law," said Pillay during an official visit to the country.&#160;"They cannot send individuals to a country that has not ratified the torture convention, the convention on refugees."</p>
<p>She continued: "So there are no protections for individuals in Malaysia. And Australia, of all people, that upholds [international standards], should not collaborate with these kinds of schemes."</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amnesty.org/en/for-media/press-releases/malaysia-government-reveals-nearly-30000-foreigners-caned-2011-03-10" type="external">Amnesty International</a> has reportedly said that asylum seekers sent to Malaysia will face lengthy waits to determine their status, inhumane detention conditions and even torture, in the form of caning.</p> | UN slams Australian plan to send boat people to Malaysia | false | https://pri.org/stories/2011-05-24/un-slams-australian-plan-send-boat-people-malaysia | 2011-05-24 | 3 |
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<p>The natural wonder is thanks to a wet winter followed by warm temperatures in the Anza-Borrego State Park, northeast of San Diego. Wildflower seeds that have been dormant for years in the drought-plagued region have sprouted in mass, producing a spectacular display not seen in 20 years.</p>
<p>An estimated 150,000 people in the past month have converged on Borrego Springs, a town of about 3,500 that abuts the park.</p>
<p>Rain-fed wildflowers are springing up in different landscapes across the state and the western United States. In the Antelope Valley, an arid plateau northeast of Los Angeles, blazing orange poppies are lighting up the ground.</p>
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<p>But the “super bloom” — mass amounts of desert plants blooming at once — has been concentrated in the 640,000-acre (1,000-square-mile) Anza-Borrego State Park.</p>
<p>In California, super blooms happen about once in a decade in a given area. They have been occurring less frequently with the drought. Last year, the right amount of rainfall and warm temperatures produced carpets of flowers in Death Valley.</p>
<p>The natural show at Anza-Borrego is expected to roll along through May, with different species blooming at different elevations and in different areas. The state park is California’s largest, with hundreds of species of plants including desert lilies, blazing stars and the flaming tall, spiny Ocotillo.</p>
<p>Deputies were brought in to handle the traffic jams as Borrego Springs saw its population triple in a single day.</p>
<p>On one particularly packed weekend in mid-March, motorists were stuck in traffic for five hours, restaurants ran out of food, and some visitors relieved themselves in the fields. Officials have since set up an army of Port-A-Pottys, and eateries have stocked up. The craze has been dubbed “Flowergeddon.”</p>
<p>Tour groups from as far as Japan and Hong Kong have flown in to catch the display before it fades away with the rising temperatures.</p>
<p>Wildflower enthusiasts worldwide track the blooms online and arrive for rare sightings like this year’s Bigelow’s Monkey flower, some of which have grown to 8 inches (203 millimeters) in height. The National Park Service has even pitched in with a 24-hour wildflower hotline to find the best spots at the state park.</p>
<p>“We’ve seen everything from people in normal hiking attire to people in designer flip-flops to women in sundresses and strappy heels hike out there to get their picture. When I saw that, I thought, ‘Oh no. Please don’t go out there with those shoes on,'” laughed Linda Haddock, head of the Borrego Springs Chamber of Commerce.</p>
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<p>On a recent day, a young woman sat among knee-high desert sunflowers and shot selfies against the backdrop of yellow blooms that looked almost neon in contrast to the brown landscape. A mother jumped in the air as her daughter snapped her photo among yellow brittlebushes.</p>
<p>The blooms are attracting hungry sphinx moth caterpillars that munch through acres. The caterpillars in turn are attracting droves of Swainson hawks on their annual 6,000-mile (9,656-kilometer) migration from Argentina.</p>
<p>“It’s an amazing burst in the cycle of life in the desert that has come because of a freakish event like a super bloom,” Haddock said. “It’s exciting. This is going to be so huge for our economy.”</p>
<p>This year’s display has been especially stunning, experts say. The region received 6½ inches (165 millimeters) of rain from December to February, followed by almost two weeks of 90-degree temperatures, setting the conditions for the super bloom. Five years of drought made the seeds ready to pop.</p>
<p>Humans also helped. Park staff, volunteers and female prisoners have been removing the Sahara Mustard plant, an invasive species believed brought to California in the 1920s with another plant, the date palm. Sahara Mustard had been covering popular wildflower areas, said Jim Dice, research manager at the Anza-Borrego Desert Research Center.</p>
<p>Sandra Reel and her husband drove hundreds of miles out of their way when they heard about this year’s super bloom.</p>
<p>“It is absolutely phenomenal to see this many blooming desert plants all at the same time,” she said. “I think it’s probably a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”</p> | California’s desert wildflower explosion draws record crowds | false | https://abqjournal.com/980240/californias-desert-wildflower-explosion-draws-record-crowds.html | 2017-03-31 | 2 |
<p>PURISCAL, Costa Rica&#160;—&#160;"Ayayay no! That pot's going to burn!" Isabel Arias Rojas shrieks as she sprints out of the back door onto the patio where her wood-oven stove is firing up a huge pot of corn masa. Smoke spews from the mix, just one of the potfuls meant to stuff 200 tamales and feed as many as 50. It is the only near-moment of disaster in Arias' flawless operation. Her daughter and niece stand close by as she briskly snatches the pot.</p>
<p>The family "tamalada" is saved.</p>
<p>It's the dry season in Costa Rica, and the sun is beating on palm fronds and metallic roofs in one of the first scorchers after an unrelenting rainy season in this hilly village, about an hour's bus ride west of the capital, San Jose. The women and girls of the Arias family are gathered on the back patio, their hair tied beneath bandanas, ready to initiate an assembly line-style production called the tamalada, a Costa Rican tradition, especially during holidays.&#160;(One of the wonders of the Spanish language: You can take almost any food name and add an "-ada" at the end, and usually, a party will ensue.)</p>
<p>This family's tamales start with ground corn and broth cooked into a thick batter, later to greet globs of masa accented with paprika, then garlicky bits of pork, carrots, potatos, sweet peppers and cilantro (which Costa Ricans call "culantro"). The women wrap this gloppy goodness neatly in a banana leaf, tying the bundle with string, readying the tamal to cook in boiling water for about 45 minutes.</p>
<p>Rather than each focus on one specific task, the women here rotate from stirring batter to chopping, loading to tying. Throughout, the 47-year-old Arias is at the helm, and the suave voice of a bolero singer serenades the women from the stereo in the living room.</p>
<p>Some families prefer chicken to pork. Others add something sweet to the garlicky mix, such as raisins or prunes. Even olives sometimes pop up in more elaborate mixtures. On sweets and olives, Arias holds the line: "No, that's not a traditional tamal."</p>
<p>But unorthodox tamales are making headway in some kitchens. Costa Rican chef Marco Gonzalez says he likes to add a dash of more "exotic" flavors to his tamales. "Personally, I like to make them with a combination of starches such as yucca and corn and spice them quite heavily towards Mexican flavor, or even more exotic, as Indian or Thai flavor, mixed in there and with a large presence of veggies," he says.</p>
<p>Gonzalez admits to dabbling with a vegetarian version, using soy protein instead of pork or other meat&#160;—&#160;adaptations that purists such as Arias might frown upon. The traditional tamalada would include the slaughtering of a pig or chicken, but for Arias' production, the pork was purchased at the village market.</p>
<p>Gonzalez, who has studied nutrition, says tamales are "fairly nutritious," especially when compared with some of Ticos other favorite foods, such as the fried fatty pork cubes called chicharrones, which Arias also cooks up around the holidays.</p>
<p>Still, the tamal is no treat for those watching their carbs.&#160;"For the carb-phobics," Gonzalez says, "I am afraid they do contain quite a good amount of starch, though on the good side it is either from corn masa or fresh corn and usually not very refined, so they add some carbs but they are actually better carbs than wheat or rice."</p>
<p>Tamal variants are eaten throughout Central America, but feature different fillings. Nicaragua's tamals&#160;—&#160;with peas, rice and raisins&#160;— are among the most commonly known,&#160;Gonzalez explains.</p>
<p>Mexico's popular version differs in that it's wrapped in cornhusks and steamed. And, to be sure, Costa Rica's lacks the Mexican kick that might make you say, "hot tamale!" Instead, Ticos pour on their beloved Salsa Lizano, an omnipresent brown, Worcestershire-like concoction used to flavor dishes at breakfast, lunch and dinner.</p>
<p>But for Arias, the leaf is also key.</p>
<p>"The banana leaf is essential to the flavor," Arias says. The thick green wrapping, however, is inedible. Arias' 21-year-old dimpled niece, Yensy Arias Mora, makes a joke about eating the wrapping. "What did the gringo say when he ate the tamal?" she asks. "Tastes great but the lettuce was too tough."</p>
<p>Marcos Elizondo Arias, 24, Isabel's son, pours a glass of "chicha," an alcoholic beverage homemade from sugarcane, and tells how he and his grandfather went out the day before with a machete to fetch the banana leaves. In the rambling countryside of Puriscal, banana trees abound.&#160;After the leaves are gathered, they are laid briefly over a flame, which makes them easier to work with.</p>
<p>Yensy's 9-year-old sister Kimberline hurries over to the table with a wet rag to clean off a warm leaf, as she has done with piles of other tamal wrappings. And so, the tamales factory resumes. In shifts, two generations churn out a feast.</p>
<p>Six-year-old Axel Marin Arias&#160;keeps an eye on the busy cooks, sneaking a finger in the masa occasionally, and studying the whole procedure. He claps his hands in amazement for the women at work, and says, "The best thing about tamales is it brings the family together."&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Other GlobalPost dispatches from Costa Rica:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/costa-rica/090128/costa-ricas-criminal-underbelly" type="external">Costa Rica's criminal underbelly</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/costa-rica/090115/costa-ricans-tweetear-their-way-through-quake" type="external">Costa Ricans "tweetear" their way through quake</a></p> | A Costa Rican tradition | false | https://pri.org/stories/2009-02-05/costa-rican-tradition | 2009-02-05 | 3 |
<p>If you're feeling unprepared for retirement, you're not alone. According a study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, nearly one-third of households led by those 55 and older have no retirement plan savings at all.&#160;However, it's never too late to save for retirement. Remember, your retirement investment time horizon is your life expectancy, not your retirement date. Here are four strategies to catch up on retirement savings.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>I'm looking forward to turning 50 years old in a few years. It's not because I'm particularly excited about being half a century old; it's because I'll be able to save more money because of the tax provisions for retirement catch-up savings.</p>
<p>Both individual retirement account (IRA) and defined contribution plans such as 401(k) plans allow savers over 50 years old to make <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/09/07/3-retirement-accounts-you-should-try-to-max-out.aspx?source=isesitlnk0000001&amp;mrr=0.11&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=c441192a-971d-11e7-914e-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">catch-up contributions Opens a New Window.</a> into retirement accounts. The contribution limit for 2017 for IRA plans is $5,500. Savers over 50 can contribute an additional $1,000 toward IRA accounts for a total of $6,500 per year.</p>
<p>The benefit for defined contribution plans is even better. Currently, the IRS allows defined contribution plan participants to contribute $18,000 into their accounts, and catch-up contributions for plan owners over 50 is an additional $6,000. Therefore, you can contribute a total of $24,000 into your defined contribution plan.</p>
<p>Since many people over 50 are in their peak earning years, it's a great time to sock away extra earnings into these tax-advantaged retirement plans. Even if you plan to retire soon, these investments can continue to grow for many years into your retirement.</p>
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<p>If you're behind in your retirement savings, it's time to trim unnecessary expenses so you can save more money.Lower financial support to adult children or don't let them live rent-free in your home. Analyze your budget and&#160; <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/how-much-can-i-save-if-i-cut-expenses.aspx?source=isesitlnk0000001&amp;mrr=0.50&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=c441192a-971d-11e7-914e-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">cut expenses Opens a New Window.</a>. For example, have you reviewed your credit card for automatic renewals for subscriptions you no longer use? Have you considered raising your insurance deductibles to reduce the cost? Can you reduce the number of times you dine out during the month? Trim expenses for daily living and invest the difference or use the extra cash to pay off debt.</p>
<p>If you have credit card debt, pay more than the minimum payments. Consider transferring higher-rate balances to low- or no-interest cards, and set a goal to pay off the balance during the low introductory interest rate period. For other debt payments, request a lower interest rate if you've made payments on time. If you plan to stay in your home during retirement, make extra payments to pay off the mortgage faster. You'll save thousands in interest payments.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.fool.com/personal-finance/retirement/2016/03/13/3-reasons-to-delay-retirement.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=c441192a-971d-11e7-914e-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Delaying retirement Opens a New Window.</a> has the dual benefit of delaying the number of years you'll need to live off of retirement savings and providing additional earning years to save. If you continue to work, you can continue to contribute to your company's defined contribution plan and increase your retirement savings. Working longer may also increase your social security benefit since your final work years are frequently your highest earning years.</p>
<p>Some companies, and even some federal government agencies, are now offering a phased retirement option. This program allows workers to shift to part-time employment while retaining other benefits. According to a survey from the Society for Human Resource Management, 30% of companies that have strategies to retain older workers have phased or gradual retirement programs for them. These programs allow older workers to start the transition to retired life while allowing their company to bring on younger workers who can benefit from the mentoring of these experienced employees.</p>
<p>Some seniors may choose to retire from full-time employment but work part-time. Seniors may be able to use part-time work to explore an interest in another field, provide structure and meaning to the day, and provide additional income for living expenses.</p>
<p>For most seniors approaching retirement, home equity is their largest store of savings. Homeowners can access home equity by downsizing or getting a reverse mortgage.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.fool.com/retirement/2017/09/07/looking-to-downsize-during-retirement-consider-a-4.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=c441192a-971d-11e7-914e-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Downsizing Opens a New Window.</a> can be a great solution for accessing home equity and reducing ongoing expenses in retirement. Studies show that taxes, insurance, upkeep, and utilities account for nearly 30% of retired homeowner expenditures. Downsizing can cut many of these expenses.</p>
<p>A reverse mortgage may be a good option for homeowners who want to use their home's equity but don't want to move. Homeowners can use a reverse mortgage to access equity as a lump sum, a line of credit, lifetime payments, or a stream of payments for period of time.</p>
<p>While both downsizing and reverse mortgages can be time-consuming and have fees and closing costs, either can be a great source of income for some retirees.</p>
<p>If you're behind in your retirement savings, it's not too late to make a big impact on the money you'll have for retirement. Utilize the retirement plan catch-up contributions in your direct contribution plan or IRA. Cut expenses and use the extra funds to invest or pay off debt. Consider delaying full retirement and continue to work full-time or part-time. You may also choose to use the equity in your home by downsizing or using a reverse mortgage. The sooner you make changes, the more money you'll be able to save.</p>
<p>The $16,122 Social Security bonus most retirees completely overlook If you're like most Americans, you're a few years (or more) behind on your retirement savings. But a handful of little-known "Social Security secrets" could help ensure a boost in your retirement income. For example: one easy trick could pay you as much as $16,122 more... each year! Once you learn how to maximize your Social Security benefits, we think you could retire confidently with the peace of mind we're all after.&#160; <a href="http://www.fool.com/mms/mark/ecap-foolcom-social-security?aid=8727&amp;source=irreditxt0000002&amp;ftm_cam=ryr-ss-intro-report&amp;ftm_pit=3186&amp;ftm_veh=article_pitch&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=c441192a-971d-11e7-914e-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Simply click here to discover how to learn more about these strategies Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | 4 Ways to Catch Up on Retirement Savings | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/09/22/4-ways-to-catch-up-on-retirement-savings.html | 2017-09-22 | 0 |
<p>BRAINTREE, Mass. (AP) _ These Massachusetts lotteries were drawn Saturday:</p>
<p>MassCash</p>
<p>10-25-27-29-34</p>
<p>(ten, twenty-five, twenty-seven, twenty-nine, thirty-four)</p>
<p>Mega Millions</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $63 million</p>
<p>Megabucks Doubler</p>
<p>02-17-29-36-41-49</p>
<p>(two, seventeen, twenty-nine, thirty-six, forty-one, forty-nine)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $8.8 million</p>
<p>Numbers Evening</p>
<p>4-0-9-2</p>
<p>(four, zero, nine, two)</p>
<p>Numbers Midday</p>
<p>9-1-5-7</p>
<p>(nine, one, five, seven)</p>
<p>Powerball</p>
<p>26-28-47-49-58, Powerball: 3, Power Play: 4</p>
<p>(twenty-six, twenty-eight, forty-seven, forty-nine, fifty-eight; Powerball: three; Power Play: four)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $78 million</p>
<p>BRAINTREE, Mass. (AP) _ These Massachusetts lotteries were drawn Saturday:</p>
<p>MassCash</p>
<p>10-25-27-29-34</p>
<p>(ten, twenty-five, twenty-seven, twenty-nine, thirty-four)</p>
<p>Mega Millions</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $63 million</p>
<p>Megabucks Doubler</p>
<p>02-17-29-36-41-49</p>
<p>(two, seventeen, twenty-nine, thirty-six, forty-one, forty-nine)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $8.8 million</p>
<p>Numbers Evening</p>
<p>4-0-9-2</p>
<p>(four, zero, nine, two)</p>
<p>Numbers Midday</p>
<p>9-1-5-7</p>
<p>(nine, one, five, seven)</p>
<p>Powerball</p>
<p>26-28-47-49-58, Powerball: 3, Power Play: 4</p>
<p>(twenty-six, twenty-eight, forty-seven, forty-nine, fifty-eight; Powerball: three; Power Play: four)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $78 million</p> | MA Lottery | false | https://apnews.com/76f3be4996364342909f58623b3782c2 | 2018-01-21 | 2 |
<p><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yvmreq5qZck/Te_We1uGM_I/AAAAAAAACX8/WZT_F2wHGEI/s1600/Phyllopteryx_taeniolatus1.jpg" type="external" /></p>
<p><a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Phyllopteryx_taeniolatus1.jpg" type="external" />Weedy sea dragon, Phyllopteryx taeniolatus. Credit: Richard Ling, Rling via Wikimedia Commons.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>In case in the middle of an ordinary dry Wednesday you’ve forgotten how extraordinary is our ocean planet, here are a few watery reminders.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
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<p><a href="http://vimeo.com/15907252" type="external">The Blue Ocean in RED</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/howardhallproductions" type="external">Howard Hall</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com" type="external">Vimeo</a>.</p>
<p />
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<p>&#160;&#160;</p>
<p><a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Squid_komodo.jpg" type="external" />Squid, possibly the bigfin reef squid, Sepioteuthis lessoniana. Credit: Nhobgood at Wikimedia Commons.</p>
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<p><a href="http://vimeo.com/11350764" type="external">MAYO / MAY</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1502205" type="external">Rafa Herrero Massieu</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com" type="external">Vimeo</a>.</p>
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<p>&#160;&#160; <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Condylactis_gigantea_%28Giant_Anemone_-_yellow_%26_pink_tip_variation%29.jpg" type="external" />Giant anemone, Condylactis gigantea. Credit: Nhobgood via Wikimedia Commons.</p>
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<p><a href="http://vimeo.com/3890238" type="external">Antarctica</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user827458" type="external">Darek Sepiolo</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com" type="external">Vimeo</a>.</p>
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<p>&#160;&#160; <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BrownGiantKelp3600ppx.jpg" type="external" />Kelp. Credit: FASTILY via Wikimedia Commons.</p>
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<p>This new product released by Google Earth and developed by oceanographers at Columbia’s <a href="http://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/2814" type="external">Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory</a> promises a dynamic look through darkness to the seafloor. I confess, the extinct filmmaker in me wants to get my hands on this video and edit in some heft. But you can see how cool the perspectives are—how the new layers make Google Earth more oceanlike.</p>
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<p><a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:White_shark.jpg" type="external" />Great white shark, Carcharodon carcharias. Credit: Pterantula via Wikimedia Commons.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Happy World Ocean Day | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2011/06/happy-world-ocean-day/ | 2011-06-08 | 4 |
<p>A lobbying research firm has compiled a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/30/AR2006103001061.html?referrer=emailarticle" type="external">list</a> of the most (and least) powerful legislators. Although given the prevalence of scandals and the likelihood of a Democratic takeover of Congress, the list could be outdated very quickly.</p>
<p>Washington Post:</p>
<p>Lawmakers who don’t do much lawmaking tend to make up the bottom of the pile. But it’s not only the number of bills a member backs but their importance, and the role a member took in the debate, that count.</p>
<p>Nicely for this lackluster session, the formula discounts lame amendments and bills “of a ceremonial or commemorative nature such as naming of post offices or other public buildings,” 14 of which were introduced on a single day last month. That’s unfortunate for Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio), whose move to establish September as Campus Fire Safety Month probably didn’t help her move beyond her No. 388 place on the list.</p>
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<p>The rankings also recognize what their creators call the “Sizzle/Fizzle” factor. On the Senate side, rock star Barack Obama (D-Ill.), detainee-law broker John McCain (R-Ariz.) and former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) sizzle like burgers on a backyard grill. Messenger-messager Mark Foley fizzled like a firecracker in a monsoon after his steamy notes to congressional pages appeared on TV. The Florida Republican left Congress, and the list, for a stint in rehab.</p> | Washington Power Rankings | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/washington-power-rankings/ | 2006-10-31 | 4 |
<p>Published time: 5 Dec, 2017 03:44Edited time: 5 Dec, 2017 04:14</p>
<p>Internet porn has apparently claimed yet another victim as the last erotic cinema in Paris is set to close its doors at the end of the year.</p>
<p>The Beverly, located on the French capital’s Rue de la Ville-Neuve, was the last survivor of the city’s once thriving pornographic cinema scene. However after more than 30 years operating, and later owning the venue, Maurice Laroche has decided to retire, Le Parisien&#160; <a href="http://www.leparisien.fr/culture-loisirs/la-petite-mort-du-dernier-cinema-x-de-paris-02-12-2017-7428405.php" type="external">reports</a>.</p>
<p>Laroche says that erotic cinemas have been wiped out by the internet “on which 10-year-old kids can see any porn movie.”</p>
<p>Read more</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/411082-macron-demonizing-pornography-actor/" type="external" /></p>
<p>“Today, when we sell 600 tickets a week, we are happy. Twenty years ago, we sold 1,500-1,600,” he explained. The newspaper reports that the cinema’s annual turnover now hardly exceeds €300,000.</p>
<p>“In the early 1980s, the atmosphere was happy. There were 20 porn cinemas between Republic and Opera. The National Film Center had up to 44 screens devoted to X-rated films in the capital in 1976, and there were 110 across France.”</p>
<p>The 74-year-old entrepreneur said that most of the customers are regulars who have been visiting the cinema for decades, however he added that the clientele “goes from 18 years to 101 years and we have all levels of society.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/uk/411401-porn-markle-prince-harry/" type="external">READ MORE: Porn searches for Meghan Markle skyrocket 2,208%</a></p>
<p>On Saturday and Thursday, The Beverly hosts “couples nights” and Laroche says the endeavor even turned the cinema into a “place of reproduction.”</p>
<p>“Fifteen years ago, a couple came to introduce me to his baby, conceived, according to them, at Beverley!”</p>
<p>A former customer Francois said the cinema was classier than the competition it outlasted in Paris. “It was clean,” he said “while many X rooms were dirty, sometimes with a sinister prostitute in the toilet. At Beverley, and it was the only movie like that, the boss respected you and wanted the room to be well kept.”</p> | Last porno palace in Paris: French capital’s favorite erotic cinema set to close its doors | false | https://newsline.com/last-porno-palace-in-paris-french-capitals-favorite-erotic-cinema-set-to-close-its-doors/ | 2017-12-04 | 1 |
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<p>Dear Liz,&#160;</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>I have a small Roth IRA that will mature in a few weeks, and I have been advised to leave it as is. How long can I wait to make a decision? Where else might I be able to move the money to continue to grow safely? I am 63, widowed and self-employed. My only other retirement money is a variable annuity. -- Becca</p>
<p>Dear Becca,</p>
<p>Like many people, you've confused the bucket you put investments in with the investment itself. You've also got the idea that you can have growth and safety at the same time, which you can't.</p>
<p>Roth IRAs don't "mature," but an investment held inside of a Roth IRA might. It sounds like your Roth IRA holds certificates of deposit or bonds, since those are investments that typically mature or stop growing at a specified date. You can roll the money into a similar investment, but you may find the return or yield to be lower than what you previously received, particularly if you've owned the previous investment for a while.</p>
<p>The problem with seemingly "safe" investments is that they often don't offer returns large enough to offset inflation. So every year your buying power shrinks.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>To sustain you through what could be decades in retirement, you likely need to take more risk. Also, as a self-employed person, you probably have access to better tax-advantaged savings options than a variable annuity. Variable annuities offer tax deferral but no tax deductions, and often have high expenses that reduce returns.</p>
<p>Now is the time to hire a fee-only planner, compensated only by fees clients pay rather than by commissions, to review your financial situation and give you advice about the best way to move forward.</p>
<p>Ask the adviser</p>
<p>To ask a question of Liz Weston, go to the " <a href="http://www.bankrate.com/brm/ask.asp" type="external">Ask the Experts Opens a New Window.</a>" page and select "Retirement" as the topic. Read more <a href="http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/advisers/retirement-adviser.aspx?pid=p:foxbz" type="external">Retirement Adviser Opens a New Window.</a> for additional personal finance advice.</p>
<p>Bankrate's content, including the guidance of its advice-and-expert columns and this website, is intended only to assist you with financial decisions. The content is broad in scope and does not consider your personal financial situation. Bankrate recommends that you seek the advice of advisers who are fully aware of your individual circumstances before making any final decisions or implementing any financial strategy. Please remember that your use of this website is governed by <a href="http://www.bankrate.com/coinfo/disclaimer.asp" type="external">Bankrate's Terms of Use Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Copyright 2014, Bankrate Inc.</p> | How Can I Grow Money Safely in a Roth IRA? | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2014/11/06/how-can-grow-money-safely-in-my-roth-ira.html | 2016-03-06 | 0 |
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<p>The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed expanding the area where the predators are allowed to roam, but it could be months before a final decision is reached. Until then, the agency is required to capture those wolves found outside the nearly 7,000-square-mile wolf-recovery area, which straddles the Arizona-New Mexico line.</p>
<p>That was the case with a pair that had traveled north to El Malpais National Monument near Grants. They had been in the area since February before wildlife managers darted and captured them last Friday.</p>
<p>This was the farthest north a pair of Mexican gray wolves had been documented, said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity.</p>
<p>"This is excellent habitat. It's remote country, and filled with deer," he said. "This would have been an opportunity for the population to expand naturally."</p>
<p>Ranchers and community leaders in rural areas have opposed any plans that would expand the program and the locations where the wolves could be released. They say the wolves threaten the livelihoods and safety of residents who live in areas that border the reintroduction zone.</p>
<p>The two wolves captured at El Malpais were returned to the agency's wolf center in New Mexico. They could be released later in the Gila Wilderness.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>To bolster wolf numbers, officials on Wednesday released the first of two breeding pairs in Arizona's Apache National Forest. The pair included a pregnant female and a wild male captured during the annual wolf population survey in January.</p>
<p>Another breeding pair being held at the wolf center in New Mexico will be released next week.</p>
<p>Eva Lee Sargent, director of Defenders of Wildlife's Southwest Program, said the releases are good news. If the pairs succeed, she said, their offspring will add to the genetic diversity of the struggling population.</p>
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<p /> | Gray wolf breeding pair released in Arizona | false | https://abqjournal.com/378939/gray-wolf-breeding-pair-released-in-arizona.html | 2 |
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<p>I was recently hit by a trio of insults regarding my age. Let me just say that for the purposes of this column, you don’t need to know how old I am. It is none of your business. (OK, if you must know, my age has a 4 and a 6 in it, but I’m not 46). But back to my triple humiliation (have you noticed how older people digress in their storytelling?). First, my 5-year-old grandson recently asked my wife, “Grandma, when will you be old and wrinkled like Papa?” Bless his little heart. If he weren’t so cute, I’d slip some Metamucil in his kid’s yogurt.</p>
<p>That same week, I was making a nursing home visit, and a resident looked at me and barked, “Hey, old man, come look at my coin collection!” And then, shortly after that, as if all of creation had conspired to crush me, I was chatting with a lady about her homebound mother. The daughter said cheerfully, “Mom likes you. She’s always liked older men.”</p>
<p>At that point, I had a choice. I could either give up, call the funeral home, make my arrangements, fold my arms and give up the ghost. Or I could write this column as a way of therapy, hoping for some sympathy from my readers.</p>
<p>As a way of processing my pain, I thought about trying my hand at a popular approach: Five ways you know you’re getting old. 1) When nurses and wait staff begin calling you “Hun.” 2)&#160; When all of the bank tellers look like 8th graders and their supervisors still have acne. 3) When all the actors on TV talk too fast. 4) When you read the obituaries before the sports page. 5) I can’t remember the last one.</p>
<p>I’m not moved by notions of “growing old gracefully.” Someone once said that we grow old with the grace of a polar bear on roller skates. Amen. I think part of my dilemma is that life is going by too quickly. Where did it go? About the time you can reach the cookie jar, you can’t afford the calories. And about the time your face clears up, your mind gets fuzzy.</p>
<p>I take some comfort in the fact that, according to the biblical narratives, God did many great things through older people. I especially warm to the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth in the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel. Verse seven says they were both advanced in years. If I understand that Greek word “advanced,” &#160;it was also used to describe someone who goes ahead of others, to scout the way. I like that image. Aging is advance work for younger generations. Maybe that’s why I enjoy mentoring others during this season of my life. Bob Buford writes that the first half of our life is about striving for success while the second one focuses on significance (see his book, Halftime). Again, note my attraction to discipleship and pouring my life into young leaders.</p>
<p>I feel better after writing this. “Old” is just a word. I’m fine. But be warned. If some salesperson knocks on my door tonight, offering to sell me a funeral plan, I might become violent.</p> | ‘Old’ is just a new word | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/old-is-just-a-new-word/ | 3 |
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<p>In an author’s note at the beginning of&#160; <a href="" type="internal">In the Sea There Are Crocodiles</a>, Fabio Geda states that at an event when he was talking about his first novel, he met Enaiatollah Akbari. The younger man said that he had had an experience similar to the one Geda had described: fleeing his homeland and seeking refuge in Italy. At the time, Enaiat was fifteen; several years earlier, he had been secreted out of Afghanistan by his mother after the Taliban took over their village. His mother left him in Pakistan, and from there he fled through Iran, Turkey, and Greece, until he finally reached Italy.</p>
<p>Geda, an Italian novelist, works with distressed children, often immigrants, employing storytelling to get to the root of deep-seated emotional problems. On the cover of In the Sea There Are Crocodiles, below the title, is the following line: “Based on the true story of Enaiatollah Akbari,” which would seem to imply a memoir of the young man, but the title page refers to the book as a novel. Geda explains the categorization by calling it a “re-creation” of Enaiat’s experience; hence, a novel that has allowed the Afghani “to take possession of his own story.” If this explanation is fairly convoluted, it is within the context of several recent memoirs that have been questioned for their authenticity and, in fact, called hoaxes. Whatever the fusion of Geda and Akbari’s voices, the result is a horrific account of an ordeal too common in our contemporary world: people traffickers aiding young men (and sometimes women) in their quest for asylum in the West.</p>
<p>The core of the story is Enaiat’s indomitable will to succeed, once he <a href="" type="internal" /> <a href="" type="internal" />understands that it is his own mother who made the first move to save her son’s life. In an early flashback, the boy describes the closing down of his school by the Taliban, the in cold blooded murder of the school’s teacher, shot in front of the students. As terrifying as that incident is, it is nothing to what Enaiat will undergo in situation after situation during his long flight to Italy.</p>
<p>Pakistan is easy, after the initial experience of staying in a windowless warehouse with other illegals. He works at several brief jobs in Quetta, including selling cheap goods on the streets. Many of us have observed young children selling chewing gum, shoe laces, socks, or other objects on the streets of Third World countries. Probably, we never considered that they may have been illegals—even at that age—moving from one country to the next.</p>
<p>The details that take him into Iran are much more revealing. The trafficker will smuggle Enaiat into the country for no up front money; but once in Iran, he has to give his first three months’ income at a construction site to the trafficker. Barely has he paid off the debt when the police apprehend him and send him back to Afghanistan, but Enaiat (and we are led to believe hundreds of other young men) simply begins the process all over again. Eventually he ends up stonecutting in Qom, after being repatriated twice, each time paying off the traffickers.</p>
<p>Getting into Turkey—crossing the mountains between Iran and Turkey—is a much more dangerous and hair-raising experience. But the traffickers are there at every stage of his journey, willing to take illegals to their next destination. Enaiat becomes part of a group of seventy-two people from several Asian countries who are told by the traffickers that the crossing over the mountains will take three days. They’re provided with food for a few days and told they need a sturdy pair of shoes, which Enaiat purchases with some of the money he’s earned from stone cutting after working three years in Iran. But the trek takes twenty-six days to the top of the mountain pass. Twelve people do not survive. Rounding a corner high up in the mountains, they encounter a “group of people sitting on the ground. They’d be sitting there forever. They were frozen.” Enaiat takes the shoes from one of them, since his own have worn out.</p>
<p>It’s not any easier getting from Eastern Turkey to Istanbul. First, there’s the wait for the next method of conveyance: three days in the false bottom of a transport lorry, where he’s packed like a sardine with dozens of others, trying to control his kidneys because there’s with almost no possibility of movement for three days. Then, finally, in Istanbul, in “an underground garage, filled with hundreds and hundreds of people. A kind of marshaling yard for immigrants, or something like that, a cave in the belly of Istanbul.” For several weeks in Istanbul, his urine is red with blood.</p>
<p>There’s still more—the most harrowing part of the journey—but I’ve related enough, I hope, to whet your interest in this unforgettable narrative. From Istanbul, Enaiat has to get to Greece and that has its own complications because the trail is no longer over land. Then from Greece to Italy, working in all of these countries in the underground economy to pay off the traffickers and earn a little more for incidentals for the next phase of the impossible journey.</p>
<p>In the Sea There Are Crocodiles is an eye-opening account of human endurance, of overcoming the most difficult obstacles—all for freedom and a better life. The loss of human lives at every stage is horrendous. And, yes, without the help of numerous sympathetic strangers, Enaiat’s ordeal would have been even worse—much worse.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">In the Sea There Are Crocodiles</a> By Fabio Geda Trans. by Howard Curtis Doubleday, 213 pp., $22.95</p>
<p>Charles R. Larson&#160;is Emeritus Professor of Literature at American University, in Washington, D.C. Email:&#160; <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | The Horrors of People Trafficking | true | https://counterpunch.org/2011/08/19/the-horrors-of-people-trafficking/ | 2011-08-19 | 4 |
<p>CAPE TOWN, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Angola is withholding repatriation of over $500 million in revenues generated in the country by international airlines, airline industry body IATA said in a statement on Thursday.</p>
<p>Africa’s No. 2 crude producer, which is facing a shortage of foreign currency reserves, has previously not paid airlines, including South African Airways and Emirates the money due to them. (Reporting by Wendell Roelf; Editing by Ed Stoddard)</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>MILWAUKEE (Reuters) - A powerful spring storm pummeled the U.S. Midwest and Plains on Saturday with blizzard conditions and high winds, while tornadoes and thunderstorms threatened some of the South.</p> Dark clouds hover above buildings amidst tornadoes in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the U.S., April 10, 2018 in this still image obtained from a social media video. MANDATORY CREDIT. Emmet Finneran/via REUTERS
<p>Minnesota, Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota were under warnings for blizzard-like conditions. The city of St. Paul, Minnesota declared a snow emergency.</p>
<p>Forecasters were expecting more than a foot of snow (30 cm) in parts of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Wind gusts around Duluth, Minnesota had exceeded 50 miles (80 km) per hour, the National Weather Service (NWS) said.</p> Cars are seen on a road during a tornado in Mountainburg, Arkansas, U.S., April 13, 2018 in this picture grab obtained from social media video. Picture taken April 13, 2018. JOSHUA COLEMAN/via REUTERS
<p>“Difficult, dangerous travel conditions expected,” it said on Twitter.</p>
<p>As the storm pushed south into Saturday evening, authorities warned that severe thunderstorms could bring gusting winds, flooding and hail. Severe weather warnings extended from Texas to central Alabama, which was under a tornado watch.</p>
<p>Freezing rain and ice storms were expected to move into northern New England through Monday.</p> Slideshow (2 Images)
<p>National weather forecasters also cautioned that high winds were producing critical fire conditions in the Southern Plains.</p>
<p>On Friday, the system produced 10 reports of tornadoes in Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas, the weather service said. Four people were injured and 160 buildings damaged in a possible tornado in northwest Arkansas, local media reported.</p>
<p>About 50,000 customers in the Texas and Louisiana were without power on Saturday afternoon, along with an additional 45,000 in Michigan and Wisconsin, the website Poweroutage.us reported.</p>
<p>The airport in Rochester, Minnesota said on Twitter it had canceled all flights until Sunday morning “due to the extreme weather conditions.” Rapidly falling snow also prompted Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport to suspend flight operations on Saturday afternoon.</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Letitia Stein in Detroit; Editing by Helen Popper and Alistair Bell</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>LIMA (Reuters) - The United States urged regional leaders on Saturday to take stronger steps to isolate Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, as it joined a declaration condemning the worsening humanitarian crisis and political repression in the South American nation.</p> Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores attend a rally with supporters in Caracas, Venezuela April 14, 2018. Miraflores Palace/Handout via REUTERS
<p>U.S. Vice President Mike Pence told the Summit of the Americas in the Peruvian capital that immediate action was needed as Venezuela gears up for presidential elections on May 20 that have been condemned by many regional leaders as a farce to legitimize Maduro’s rule.</p>
<p>For the first time, the United States backed a statement by heads of state from the Lima Group of nations - established last year to seek a peaceful end to Venezuela’s political turmoil - which called on Maduro to release political prisoners and hold free elections.</p>
<p>Despite an economic collapse that has driven an estimated 3 million people to flee his once-prosperous OPEC nation, Maduro is expected to win next month’s poll.</p>
<p>Venezuela’s two most popular opposition leaders are banned from competing and electoral authorities are stacked with government supporters.</p>
<p>“The United States of America will not stand idly by as Venezuela crumbles,” Pence said in a speech. “Every free nation gathered here must take stronger action to isolate the Maduro regime. We must all stand with our brothers and sisters suffering in Venezuela.”</p> U.S. Vice President Mike Pence participates in the opening session of the Americas Summit in Lima, Peru April 14, 2018. REUTERS/Andres Stapff
<p>The statement by the Lima Group voiced alarm at an exodus of migrants from Venezuela and urged governments to intensify actions aimed at restoring democracy.</p>
<p>Washington has already targeted senior members of Maduro’s administration with sanctions due to accusations of corruption and rights abuses.</p>
<p>Former U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson raised the prospect in February that this could be broadened to restrict Venezuela’s exports of crude oil and its imports of U.S. refined products.</p>
<p>Neighboring countries’ frustration with Maduro’s socialist government has been stoked by the arrival of thousands of hungry migrants across the border into Colombia and Brazil every day.</p> CALL FOR HUMANITARIAN AID
<p>The joint statement called on international organizations to offer support to neighboring countries to cope with the arrivals and for Maduro to allow access for humanitarian aid to his nation of 30 million people - something he has refused to do, denying there is a crisis.</p>
<p>“To have in Maduro a leader that will not allow humanitarian aid into his own country as people are starving and people are dying is unconscionable,” Pence said.</p>
<p>Addressing red-shirted supporters at an “anti-imperialist” rally in Caracas, Maduro branded the meeting in Lima as “a complete failure” and said Latin American presidents were wasting their time criticizing him.</p> Slideshow (12 Images)
<p>Maduro was banned from the Lima gathering due to regional censure of his democratic record.</p>
<p>Hosting the summit, Peru has sought the broadest possible support for the document from governments outside the 14-nation Lima Group - which includes regional heavyweights such as Brazil, Mexico and Canada but not the United States.</p>
<p>However, efforts to build momentum behind the statement were hit by the last-minute cancellation of U.S. President Donald Trump’s attendance.</p>
<p>In the end, the statement was signed by 16 nations, fewer than half of the 35 countries that are members of the Organization of American States (OAS).</p>
<p>Previous efforts to build consensus behind strongly worded condemnations of Venezuela at the OAS have run into resistance not just from Caracas’ left-leaning allies such as Cuba and Bolivia, but Caribbean nations that have benefited from Venezuela’s subsidized oil programmers.</p>
<p>The official theme of the Lima summit was the fight against corruption and leaders agreed a statement calling for improvements in transparency of public tenders, more independent and accountable judiciaries and stronger international cooperation on money laundering.</p>
<p>However, the meeting was overshadowed by U.S. air strikes in Syria in retaliation for what Washington said was a chemical weapons attack by President Bashar al-Assad’s government.</p>
<p>While Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau voiced strong support for the air strikes by the United States, France and Britain, several Latin American nations including Brazil, Argentina and Peru expressed caution about the escalating military action.</p>
<p>“There’s deep concern in Brazil with the escalation of military conflict in Syria,” Brazilian President Michel Temer told the summit. “It’s time to find permanent solutions based on international law to a war that has been going for far too long and ended too many lives.”</p>
<p>Reporting By Roberta Rampton, Lisandra Paraguassu and Teresa Cespedes; Writing by Daniel Flynn; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Alistair Bell</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Western powers said on Saturday their missile attacks struck at the heart of Syria’s chemical weapons program, but the restrained assault appeared unlikely to halt Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s progress in the 7-year-old civil war.</p>
<p>The United States, France and Britain launched 105 missiles overnight in retaliation for a suspected poison gas attack in Syria a week ago, targeting what the Pentagon said were three chemical weapons facilities, including a research and development center in Damascus’ Barzeh district and two installations near Homs.</p>
<p>The bombing was the biggest intervention by Western countries against Assad and his superpower ally Russia, but the three countries said the strikes were limited to Syria’s chemical weapons capabilities and not aimed at toppling Assad or intervening in the civil war.</p>
<p>The air attack, denounced by Damascus and its allies as an illegal act of aggression, was unlikely to alter the course of a multisided war that has killed at least half a million people.</p>
<p>U.S. President Donald Trump called the operation a success.</p>
<p>He proclaimed on Twitter: “Mission accomplished,” echoing former President George W. Bush, whose use of the same phrase in 2003 to describe the U.S. invasion of Iraq was widely ridiculed as violence there dragged on for years.</p>
<p>“We believe that by hitting Barzeh in particular we’ve attacked the heart of the Syrian chemicals weapon program,” U.S. Lieutenant General Kenneth McKenzie said at the Pentagon.</p>
<p>However, McKenzie acknowledged elements of the program remain and he could not guarantee that Syria would be unable to conduct a chemical attack in the future.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-sarin/u-s-official-says-information-points-to-sarin-chlorine-use-in-syria-attack-idUSKBN1HL172" type="external">U.S. official says 'information' points to sarin, chlorine use in Syria attack</a>
<a href="/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-trump/trump-mission-accomplished-on-perfectly-executed-syria-strike-idUSKBN1HL0TW" type="external">Trump: 'mission accomplished' on 'perfectly executed' Syria strike</a>
<a href="/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-idlib/france-warns-of-humanitarian-disaster-in-syrian-city-idlib-idUSKBN1HL1C2" type="external">France warns of humanitarian disaster in Syrian city Idlib</a>
<p>The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said at an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council that Trump told her that if Syria uses poisonous gas again, “The United States is locked and loaded.”</p>
<p>The Western countries said the strikes were aimed at preventing more Syrian chemical weapons attacks after a suspected poison gas attack in Douma on April 7 killed up to 75 people. They blame Assad’s government for the attack.</p>
<p>In Washington, a senior administration official said on Saturday that “while the available information is much greater on the chlorine use, we do have significant information that also points to sarin use” in the attack.</p>
<p>Speaking at a summit in Peru, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence seemed less sure of the use of sarin, saying that Washington may well determine that it was used along with chlorine.</p> ASSAD ‘RESILIENCE’
<p>Ten hours after the missiles hit, smoke was still rising from the remains of five destroyed buildings of the Syrian Scientific Research Center in Barzeh, where a Syrian employee said medical components were developed.</p>
<p>There were no immediate reports of casualties.</p>
<p>Syria released video of the wreckage of a bombed-out research lab, but also of Assad arriving at work as usual, with the caption “Morning of resilience”.</p>
<p>Late on Saturday Syria time, a large explosion was heard in a Syrian government-controlled area in a rural region south of Aleppo, according to the Britain-based war monitor The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Observatory said the cause of the explosion was unknown, as well as its target.</p>
<p>Russian and Iranian military help over the past three years has allowed Assad to crush the rebel threat to topple him.</p>
<p>The United States, Britain and France have all participated in the Syrian conflict for years, arming rebels, bombing Islamic State fighters and deploying troops on the ground to fight that group. But they have refrained from targeting Assad’s government, apart from a volley of U.S. missiles last year.</p>
<p>Although the Western countries have all said for seven years that Assad must leave power, they held back in the past from striking his government, lacking a wider strategy to defeat him.</p>
<p>Syria and its allies also made clear that they considered the attack a one-off, unlikely to do meaningful harm to Assad.</p>
<p>A senior official in a regional alliance that backs Damascus told Reuters the sites that were targeted had been evacuated days ago thanks to a warning from Russia.</p>
<p>Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the strikes were “unacceptable and lawless.”</p>
<p>Syrian state media called them a “flagrant violation of international law,” while Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called it a crime and the Western leaders criminals.</p>
<p>Russia had promised to respond to any attack on its ally, but the Pentagon said no Russian air defense systems were used. Syria fired 40 unguided surface-to-air missiles - but only after the Western strikes had ended, the Pentagon said.</p>
<p>“We are confident that all of our missiles reached their targets,” McKenzie said.</p>
<p>British Prime Minister Theresa May described the strike as “limited and targeted,” with no intention of toppling Assad or intervening more widely in the war.</p>
<p>Washington described the strike targets as a center near Damascus for the research, development, production and testing of chemical and biological weapons; a chemical weapons storage site near the city of Homs; and another site near Homs that stored chemical weapons equipment and housed a command post.</p>
<p>The Pentagon said there had been chemical weapons agents at one of the targets, and that the strikes had significantly crippled Syria’s ability to produce such weapons.</p>
<p>Trump spoke to May and French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss results of the strikes, the leaders’ offices said.</p> A U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer, deployed to Al Udeid Air Base, launches a strike as part of the multinational response to Syria's use of chemical weapons is seen in this image from Al Udeid Air Base, Doha, Qatar released on April 14, 2018. U.S. Air Force/Handout via REUTERS
<p>U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged all Security Council members to exercise restraint and avoid escalation in Syria, but said allegations of chemical weapons use demand an investigation.</p> WEAPONS INSPECTIONS
<p>Inspectors from the global chemical weapons watchdog OPCW were due to try to visit Douma on Saturday to inspect the site of the suspected gas attack. Moscow condemned the Western states for refusing to wait for their findings.</p>
<p>Russia, whose relations with the West have deteriorated to levels of Cold War-era hostility, has denied any gas attack took place in Douma and even accused Britain of staging it to whip up anti-Russian hysteria.</p>
<p>The Western countries took precautions to avoid unexpected conflict with Russia. French Defence Minister Florence Parly said Russians was warned beforehand to avert conflict.</p>
<p>Dmitry Belik, a Russian member of parliament who was in Damascus and witnessed the strikes, told Reuters: “The attack was more of a psychological nature rather than practical. Luckily there are no substantial losses or damages.”</p>
<p>In Douma, site of the suspected gas attack, the last buses were due on Saturday to transport out rebels and their families who agreed to surrender the town, state TV reported. That effectively ends all resistance in the suburbs of Damascus known as eastern Ghouta, marking one of the biggest victories for Assad’s government of the war.</p>
<p>The Western assault involved more missiles than a U.S. attack last year but struck targets limited to Syria’s chemical weapons facilities. The U.S. intervention last year had effectively no impact on the war.</p> Slideshow (18 Images)
<p>Syria agreed in 2013 to give up its chemical weapons after a nerve gas attack killed hundreds of people in Douma. Damascus is still permitted to have chlorine for civilian use, although its use as a weapon is banned. Allegations of Assad’s chlorine use have been frequent during the war although, unlike nerve agents, chlorine did not produce mass casualties as seen last week.</p>
<p>Reporting by Phil Stewart and Tom Perry; additional reporting by Jeff Mason, Steve Holland, Idrees Ali, Yara Bayoumy, Matt Spetalnick and Joel Schectman in Washington; Michelle Nichols in New York; Samia Nakhoul, Tom Perry, Laila Bassam, Ellen Francis and Angus McDowall in Beirut; Kinda Makieh in Barzeh; Michael Holden and Guy Faulconbridge in London; and Jean-Baptiste Vey, Geert de Clerq and Matthias Blamont in Paris; Polina Ivanova in Moscow; writing by Doina Chiacu; editing by Yara Bayoumy, Alistair Bell and Jonathan Oatis</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>PARIS (Reuters) - French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian warned of a humanitarian disaster in the rebel-controlled Syrian city of Idlib, which could be a next target of the Syrian army.</p> FILE PHOTO - People inspect the damage at a site hit by airstrikes in the rebel-held city of Idlib, Syria February 7, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah
<p>The northwestern Idlib region remains the largest populated area of Syria in the hands of insurgents fighting the Damascus government. In recent years, tens of thousands of fighters and civilians have fled there from parts of the country which the army has recaptured with the help of Russia and Iran.</p>
<p>Le Drian said Idlib now has some 2 million inhabitants, including hundreds of thousands of Syrians evacuated from rebel-held cities taken back by the Syrian regime.</p>
<p>“There is a risk of a new humanitarian disaster. Idlib’s fate must be settled by a political process, which includes disarming the militias,” Le Drian said in an interview with French weekly Le Journal du Dimanche.</p>
<p>Some insurgent officials have said they feared an onslaught against Idlib, which a senior Iranian official has indicated could be the next target.</p>
<p>He added that France would also keep a close eye on the situation in northeastern Syria, which was freed from Islamic State with French help.</p>
<p>“Let’s not forget that our principal enemy remains Islamic State, as well as other terrorist groups which are currently regrouping in the east of the country,” Le Drian said.</p>
<p>The insurgents controlling Idlib include both jihadist factions and nationalist FSA rebels. The dominant force there is Hayat Tahrir al Sham, an Islamist alliance spearheaded by the former al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria.</p>
<p>Le Drian also said Russia was denying reality in Syria and that its protection of Bashar al-Assad could not be justified.</p>
<p>“There is a denial of reality, and he have seen this several times. Already in 2013 and then again in 2017 the Russians denied that the Syrian regime had used chemical weapons,” he said.</p>
<p>He said that at the time verification mechanisms already put in place by the United Nations had placed responsibility on the regime.</p>
<p>“It is no wonder that Russia voted against the renewal of this mechanism last autumn,” he said, adding that when France proposed last week to put in place a comparable mechanism, Russia had vetoed it.</p>
<p>Reporting by Geert De Clercqd; editing by Jonathan Oatis</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | Airline body IATA in talks with Angola over blocked $500 mln 'Snow emergency' as powerful spring storm pounds parts of U.S. U.S. urges regional leaders to isolate Venezuela's Maduro U.S. says air strikes cripple Syria chemical weapons program France warns of humanitarian disaster in Syrian city Idlib | false | https://reuters.com/article/angola-airlines/airline-body-iata-in-talks-with-angola-over-blocked-500-mln-idUSL8N1PD3LG | 2018-01-18 | 2 |
<p>SOUTH SIOUX CITY, Neb. (AP) — Authorities in northeast Nebraska have arrested a man suspected in two South Dakota slayings.</p>
<p>Police say Manuel Frias was taken into custody a little before 10 p.m. Tuesday in South Sioux City, following a brief standoff. South Sioux City Police Chief Ed Mahon says the U.S. Marshals Service notified his department just after 6:30 p.m. that Frias was in the South Sioux City home.</p>
<p>Authorities say Frias is wanted in the Jan. 5 shooting deaths of 28-year-old Samuel Crockett and 30-year-old Corey Zephier. Police say the drug-related slayings occurred outside a Sioux Falls apartment building.</p>
<p>It's unclear whether Frias has an attorney who could comment for him. Two other suspects already have been arrested.</p>
<p>SOUTH SIOUX CITY, Neb. (AP) — Authorities in northeast Nebraska have arrested a man suspected in two South Dakota slayings.</p>
<p>Police say Manuel Frias was taken into custody a little before 10 p.m. Tuesday in South Sioux City, following a brief standoff. South Sioux City Police Chief Ed Mahon says the U.S. Marshals Service notified his department just after 6:30 p.m. that Frias was in the South Sioux City home.</p>
<p>Authorities say Frias is wanted in the Jan. 5 shooting deaths of 28-year-old Samuel Crockett and 30-year-old Corey Zephier. Police say the drug-related slayings occurred outside a Sioux Falls apartment building.</p>
<p>It's unclear whether Frias has an attorney who could comment for him. Two other suspects already have been arrested.</p> | Man wanted in South Dakota slayings arrested in Nebraska | false | https://apnews.com/amp/a1fbfe07b02f47d195e098f7d99a763a | 2018-01-17 | 2 |
<p>Published time: 25 Jul, 2017 18:02</p>
<p>Northern Ireland’s Orange Order has instructed its members not to use “RIP” to commemorate deaths – a move that has been met with incredulity online.</p>
<p>The bizarre diktat was issued in a special Reformation anniversary edition of the Orange Standard, a magazine for members of the Orange Order.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/uk/396498-orange-order-nazi-costumes/" type="external">READ MORE: Orange Order’s Nazi-style costumes to be investigated by Scottish police</a></p>
<p>Speaking on BBC’s Talkback program, Wallace Thompson, secretary of Evangelical Protestants Northern Ireland, said: “Observing social media, we have noticed that the letters RIP are used a lot by Protestants, and by some evangelical Protestants.”</p>
<p>He added: “From a Protestant point of view, we believe, when death comes, a person either goes to be with Christ for all eternity, or into hell. So from a Protestant point of view to use the term is not theological or correct.”</p>
<p />
<p>‘Orange Order calls on Protestants not to use ‘RIP’ as it’s unbiblical, un-Protestant, and a form of superstition connected to Catholicism.’ <a href="https://t.co/P1b7tdqyz4" type="external">pic.twitter.com/P1b7tdqyz4</a></p>
<p>— Ali (@alastairwreid) <a href="https://twitter.com/alastairwreid/status/889536580389675009" type="external">July 24, 2017</a></p>
<p />
<p>The magazine piece points out that RIP is an abbreviation of “rest in peace,” or “requiescat in pace” in Latin.</p>
<p>“[These terms] have long been used by the Roman Catholic Church and can be frequently seen, for example, in death notices and gravestones,” the article reads, before adding that the souls of those who refuse the offer of salvation will be “lost in hell forever.”</p>
<p>“This is what the Bible teaches, and there is no Biblical warrant for praying for the dead or for wishing that their soul might ‘rest in peace,’” the piece adds.</p>
<p>Speaking to the <a href="http://www.impartialreporter.com/news/15424137.Orangemen_warned_to____reject_Rome____and_not_use_RIP_on_social_media/" type="external">Impartial Reporter</a>, County Grand Master of Fermanagh’s Grand Orange Lodge, Stuart Brooker, said the article “clearly explains why Protestants and members of the Orange Institution should not use the term ‘RIP’.</p>
<p>“For guidance on any matters like these we should refer to what the Bible teaches.”</p>
<p />
<p>The <a href="https://twitter.com/OrangeOrder" type="external">@OrangeOrder</a> has told members not to use “RIP” The whole protestant work ethic phyilosophy is to be employed even after death.</p>
<p>— neil dougan (@neildougan) <a href="https://twitter.com/neildougan/status/889767168870625280" type="external">July 25, 2017</a></p>
<p />
<p />
<p>The Orange Order want protestants to stop using RIP on social media and in general, apparently the phrase has its roots in Catholicism. <a href="https://t.co/XHmXPFCZqi" type="external">pic.twitter.com/XHmXPFCZqi</a></p>
<p>— TheFatConsoler (@TheFatC0ns0ler) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheFatC0ns0ler/status/889459648616701953" type="external">July 24, 2017</a></p>
<p />
<p>Reaction to the comments have been typically scathing online.</p>
<p />
<p>Orange Order -“why does everyone demonise us?” Also the Orange Order – “don’t use RIP cause it’s papish”</p>
<p>— Kathryn (@purple_kathryn) <a href="https://twitter.com/purple_kathryn/status/888428503263322112" type="external">July 21, 2017</a></p>
<p />
<p />
<p>The organisation that deems ‘RIP’ as too Roman is tackling sectarianism? Interesting concept!</p>
<p>— John Lightbody (@janl78) <a href="https://twitter.com/janl78/status/889806650802147328" type="external">July 25, 2017</a></p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Did I mishear? Have I dreamt it? Protestants urged by Orange Order not to use “RIP” because it is Catholic hocuspocus.</p>
<p>— Rachel McGovern (@rmcg2799) <a href="https://twitter.com/rmcg2799/status/889580261037535232" type="external">July 24, 2017</a></p>
<p /> | ‘No Biblical warrant’: Orange Order tells its members to give up using ‘Catholic’ RIP | false | https://newsline.com/no-biblical-warrant-orange-order-tells-its-members-to-give-up-using-catholic-rip/ | 2017-07-25 | 1 |
<p />
<p>Dear Opening Credits,</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>My daughter just graduated from college in May 2013, started a job on June 28 starting at $45,000, got a great car loan from Volkswagen of America, (some kind of college grad loan that let her lease a car with no credit, just proof of starting a job in three months) -- and she can't get a credit card. She has applied online three times and was denied. Now she has negative marks on her credit. She wants to go for a Capital One Secured Card, but is afraid to get another negative nick on her record. If she goes with this, and she's accepted, how long would it take for her to get a real credit card with rewards? And is it better for your credit record to pay off your balance each month or just the minimum? &#160;</p>
<p>- Marian&#160;</p>
<p>Dear Marian,</p>
<p>You'll be happy to learn that your daughter is on the precipice of broad credit approval. Here's what she needs to do to so she can leap over safely, in four simple steps.</p> | Great Degree, Great Job, but No Credit | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2013/11/13/great-degree-great-job-but-no-credit.html | 2016-03-05 | 0 |
<p>YARMOUTH, Mass. (AP) — A pipe that burst in subfreezing temperatures caused major flooding and damage to all three floors at Yarmouth Town Hall on Cape Cod.</p>
<p>Firefighters and police responded to the building at about 7 p.m. Saturday. Officials told the <a href="http://www.capecodtimes.com/news/20171231/burst-pipe-floods-yarmouth-town-offices" type="external">Cape Cod Times</a> that a 2-inch sprinkler pipe in the attic froze and burst, sending water cascading down the entire building.</p>
<p>Fire Capt. Tom Lundquist says most of the town offices, a computer room and the meeting room were flooded. He also says flooding affected the town's computer servers, which caused problems with fire station computers Sunday.</p>
<p>Town officials called in an emergency cleanup company.</p>
<p>Officials say they're trying to open Town Hall by Tuesday, but aren't sure if that's possible. Damage is still being assessed.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: Cape Cod (Mass.) Times, <a href="http://www.capecodtimes.com" type="external">http://www.capecodtimes.com</a></p>
<p>YARMOUTH, Mass. (AP) — A pipe that burst in subfreezing temperatures caused major flooding and damage to all three floors at Yarmouth Town Hall on Cape Cod.</p>
<p>Firefighters and police responded to the building at about 7 p.m. Saturday. Officials told the <a href="http://www.capecodtimes.com/news/20171231/burst-pipe-floods-yarmouth-town-offices" type="external">Cape Cod Times</a> that a 2-inch sprinkler pipe in the attic froze and burst, sending water cascading down the entire building.</p>
<p>Fire Capt. Tom Lundquist says most of the town offices, a computer room and the meeting room were flooded. He also says flooding affected the town's computer servers, which caused problems with fire station computers Sunday.</p>
<p>Town officials called in an emergency cleanup company.</p>
<p>Officials say they're trying to open Town Hall by Tuesday, but aren't sure if that's possible. Damage is still being assessed.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: Cape Cod (Mass.) Times, <a href="http://www.capecodtimes.com" type="external">http://www.capecodtimes.com</a></p> | Burst pipe causes flooding, damage at Yarmouth Town Hall | false | https://apnews.com/amp/4aa3005af6494e01b806c1a318c07585 | 2017-12-31 | 2 |
<p>Saying they were doing something no other government has done, Obama administration officials rolled out a plan Tuesday they say will enable automakers to get self-driving cars onto the road without compromising safety.</p>
<p>In drawing up 112 pages of guidelines, the government tried to be vague enough to allow innovation while at the same time making sure that car makers, tech companies and ride-hailing firms put safety first as the cars are developed.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Only time will tell whether the mission was accomplished, but the document generally was praised by businesses and analysts as good guidance in a field that's evolving faster than anyone imagined just a few years ago.</p>
<p>"How do you regulate a complex software system?" asked Timothy Carone, a Notre Dame University professor who has written about the future of automation. "They want to allow innovation, but they want to be very proscriptive in managing the risk side of this. In my mind, they're trying to manage the unknown."</p>
<p>The guidelines from the Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration don't tell companies specifically how to get to an autonomous car that can safely carry people down the road, leaving a lot to interpretation.</p>
<p>But they tell companies to explain how they'll comply with a 15-point safety assessment before they roll out the cars. And the guidelines also make clear that NHTSA will force recalls if software doesn't perform as it should. The agency, for the first time in its history, may even seek authority from Congress to approve technology before it goes on the road.</p>
<p>"We want to be as nimble and flexible as we can be, recognizing that we will never, ever compromise on what we think is safe," Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said at a Washington news conference.</p>
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<p>Among other things, the safety assessment asks automakers to document how the car detects and avoids objects and pedestrians, how the car is protected against cyberattacks and what sort of backup system is in place in case the computers fail.</p>
<p>Companies that already have even semi-autonomous vehicles on the road will have to submit assessments four months after the government's 60-day comment period ends. Companies that are developing autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles will be asked to submit assessments before those cars go on the road.</p>
<p>For now, the assessments are voluntary, but the government intends to make them mandatory after a lengthy rule-making process.</p>
<p>The guidelines come as the government has struggled with how to capitalize on the technology's promised safety benefits — the cars can react faster than people, but don't drink or get distracted — while making sure they are ready for widespread use. Officials hope the guidelines will bring order to what has been a chaotic rollout so far.</p>
<p>The Transportation Department also said it, rather than the states, would be responsible for regulating cars controlled by software. States have historically set the rules for licensing drivers, but Foxx said states should stick to registering the cars and dealing with questions of liability when they crash when the driver is a computer.</p>
<p>The guidelines allow automakers to seek exemptions from NHTSA from federal safety standards that might be outdated, such as a rule requiring a steering wheel in brake pedals in a vehicle without a human driver. California currently requires a steering wheel and brake pedals, but NHTSA has the authority to approve vehicles without them if the agency decides they're safe.</p>
<p>The government also wants cars, whether partially or fully self-driving, to collect and share data from crashes and near-misses so companies and the government can learn from the experience. Data isn't currently collected industrywide.</p>
<p>NHTSA made clear that it can use its current recall authority to regulate the new cars. It warned automakers that self-driving cars that still rely on a human driver to intervene in some circumstances must have a means for keeping the driver's attention. If they don't, that "may be defined as an unreasonable risk to safety and subject to recall," the department said.</p>
<p>NHTSA says the warning isn't aimed at electric car maker Tesla Motors. But it would address events like a fatal crash in Florida that occurred while a Tesla Model S was operating on the company's semi-autonomous Autopilot system. The system can brake when it spots obstacles and keep cars in their lanes. But it failed to spot a crossing tractor-trailer and neither the system nor the driver braked. Autopilot allows drivers to take their hands off the steering wheel for short periods.</p>
<p>Tesla has since announced modifications so Autopilot relies more on radar and less on cameras, which it said were blinded by sunlight in the Florida crash. The company has maintained that Autopilot is a driver assist system and said it warns drivers they must be ready to take over at any time.</p>
<p>Some consumer advocates have objected to voluntary guidelines instead of safety rules that are legally enforceable.</p>
<p>"Consumers need more than just guidelines. This new policy comes with a lot of bark, but not enough bite," Marta Tellado, President and CEO of Consumer Reports, said in a statement.</p>
<p>Industry reaction, however, was largely favorable. Former NHTSA Administrator David Strickland, who now represents a coalition involving Ford, Google, Lyft, Uber, and Volvo Cars, said the guidelines are a foundation of how to test and deploy autonomous cars. Yet if a manufacturer doesn't follow the guidelines "it will be open and apparent," he said.</p>
<p>____</p>
<p>Associated Press writer Justin Pritchard contributed from Los Angeles. Krisher and Durbin reported from Detroit.</p> | Innovation, safety sought in self-driving car guidelines | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/09/20/innovation-safety-sought-in-self-driving-car-guidelines.html | 2016-09-20 | 0 |
<p />
<p>Image source: Royal Caribbean.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Wall Street is warming up toRoyal Caribbean(NYSE: RCL) as analysts angle to chime in as bullish ahead of Thursday morning's quarterly report. Rachel Rothman at Susquehanna became the latest Wall Street pro to check in as bullish, bumping her price target on the stock from $95 to $99.</p>
<p>Rothman's banking on a cheery outlook when it reports its fourth-quarter results on Thursday. As a highly-leveraged, cyclical company -- a fair description of Royal Caribbean given the nearly $10 billion in long-term debt on its balance sheet -- Rothman sees this as the perfect storm where strong demand, improving pricing power, and the cruise line's solid free cash flow should deliver a knockout performance. She's sticking to her firm's Positive rating on the stock.</p>
<p>Last week it wasStifel analyst Steven Wieczynski checking in with an upbeat note. He feels that Thursday's results and the 2017 guidance that it's expected to initiate will be positive catalysts for Royal Caribbean shares. Wieczynski expects analysts to push their profit targets higher following what he predicts will be a better-than-expected showing. That's not a very risky statement to make. Royal Caribbean has surpassed analyst earnings estimates with ease every quarter over the past year.</p>
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<p>It's easy to fall for the bullish sentiment given the travel niche's favorable momentum. Larger rivalCarnival Corporation &amp; plc(NYSE: CCL)(NYSE: CUK)posted <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/12/20/carnival-corporation-plc-earnings-friendly-seas.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">encouraging results Opens a New Window.</a>last month. Carnival operates on a different fiscal calendar than Royal Caribbean. Carnival saw revenue climb a modest 6% for the quarter, but adjusted income soared 26%.</p>
<p>Gross revenue yields -- essentially revenue divided by available lower berth days -- rose at a higher-than-expected 4.1% clip on a constant currency basis for the period. Between a 6% uptick in passenger tickets and a 5% boost in what guests spent once they boarded the ships, Carnival was able to parlay a decent top-line move into a major spike on the bottom line as gross cruise costs held firm.</p>
<p>Wall Street sees a similar scenario playing out at Royal Caribbean Thursday morning. Consensus estimates are calling for a 3% increase in revenue translating into a 28% pop in earnings per share.</p>
<p>Not every analyst is checking in as bullish. A day before last week's Stifel update,Goldman downgraded the stock from Neutral to Sell. Sticking to his $78 price target, Goldman's Stephen Grambling feels that the stock's recent price gains are already discounting a strong report, and he sees it as a laggard in a travel industry where those with more exposure to corporate travel will fare better. The threat of tax reform -- always a lingering notion given the low corporate tax rates cruise lines pay with foreign-flagged ships -- is another reason that Grambling isn't as bullish as some of his peers.</p>
<p>The battle lines have been drawn. At least one Wall Street analyst is going to look good Thursday morning.</p>
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<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of January 4, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFBreakerRick/info.aspx" type="external">Rick Munarriz Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Royal Caribbean. The Motley Fool recommends Carnival. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Royal Caribbean Stock is Ready to Make Waves in 2017 | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/01/25/royal-caribbean-stock-is-ready-to-make-waves-in-2017.html | 2017-01-25 | 0 |
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<p>Daily NexusTucker Carlson and Eric Alterman at a UC-Santa Barbara debate: CARLSON: "Everybody in journalism is pro-choice, pro-gun control and for gay marriage. When you only have people [in the media] that all think the same, you do not have good coverage. You can’t cover America until you have a newsroom that looks like America … who thinks like America." ALTERMAN: "If we had a liberal media, then 44 percent of Americans would not have believed the Sept. 11 bombers were Iraqis. We get an extremely biased version of the news."</p> | Claim: Everyone in journalism is pro-choice, favors gay vows | false | https://poynter.org/news/claim-everyone-journalism-pro-choice-favors-gay-vows | 2006-01-18 | 2 |
<p>The Canadian government has approved the sale of Cirque du Soleil to a group headed by a U.S. private equity firm and its Chinese partners.</p>
<p>Industry Minister James Moore said Tuesday the application to acquire the famed circus troupe was deemed an overall economic benefit for Canada.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The buyers have committed to maintain the Cirque's strategic decision-making and creative and artistic development at its Montreal headquarters.</p>
<p>It is known for its cutting-edge shows that feature aerialists, acrobats and contortionists. Founder Guy Laliberte announced in April that he was selling a majority stake for an undisclosed price.</p>
<p>TPG is acquiring a 60 percent stake, Chinese investment firm Fosun will own a 20 percent stake and Quebec pension fund manager the Caisse de depot another 10 percent. Laliberte maintains 10 percent.</p> | Canadian government approves Cirque du Soleil sale to group headed by US private equity firm | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2015/06/30/canadian-government-approves-cirque-du-soleil-sale-to-group-headed-by-us.html | 2016-03-05 | 0 |
<p><a href="http://d1o2xrel38nv1n.cloudfront.net/files/2014/06/url.jpg" type="external" />The first essay of Leslie Jamison’s The Empathy Exams, from which the collection takes it title, begins with a declaration of performed pain: “My job title is medical actor, which means I get to play sick.” The final, <a href="http://www.vqronline.org/essays-articles/2014/04/grand-unified-theory-female-pain" type="external">“Grand Unified Theory of Female Pain,”</a> ends with a “search for possibility.” It asks how we might understand this performed pain–bloody, self-inflicted, purple, feminized or otherwise–and also all&#160;pain, in all its painfulness, as real. The nine essays in between are exercises in not letting the violence of metaphor, and metaphorizing pain (the act of writing, really), overpower painful realities and the reality of pain itself. They are, as Jamison titles two paired series of shorter essays, “pain tours.”</p>
<p>Jamison, as a participant-observer, tours us across landscapes of bodily and spiritual and psychic suffering–real and imagined, literary and literal: the mysterious formications of Morgellon’s disease; <a href="http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2011/08/22/frida%E2%80%99s-corsets/" type="external">Frida Kahlo’s vocabulary of color as a private language&#160;of despair</a>; a defense of the sentimental genre that emerges from the history of artificial sweeteners; a gripping reading of the Paradise Lost <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Lost:_The_Child_Murders_at_Robin_Hood_Hills" type="external">documentary trilogy</a> that helped to exonerate the alleged young murderers known as the Memphis Three; a palimpsest of <a href="http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/la-frontera-700-v18n2" type="external">“the contours of two parallel geographies, one mapping the narco wars and another the landscape of literary production”</a>in Mexico; a perverse incarnation of the Most Dangerous Game that calls itself <a href="http://www.believermag.com/issues/201105/?read=article_jamison#.U4ekD61dXzk" type="external">the Barkley Marathon;</a>&#160; <a href="http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2011/10/24/didions-details/" type="external">a festival of miniatures for the life-sized desires of a Bolivian town.</a>&#160;</p>
<p>Thanks to Jamison’s writing, we are granted acute access to these strange topographies. In return, Jamison asks that we travel along with her as more than strangers. We are not given permission to stare dumbly as tourists. We are pushed beyond the voyeur’s glass window into the sweaty, and uncomfortable, and contested seat of the journalist’s chair–and, if we summon enough feeling, her subjects’ too. Jamison tries to hold us all accountable while also often wondering aloud whether and to what extent this type of accounting is possible.</p>
<p>As an intellectual project, the collection reads as an inquiry into the economics of empathy. An inquiry that explicitly and brilliantly seeks more questions in the place of answers: What is the value of feeling for another if it doesn’t change anything about their material situation? Can making ourselves into better feelers actually help others feel better? When might it make everything worse? How can we dwell on wounds–our own and others–in the face of the rampant accusation (our greatest fear and shame) of wound-dwelling? When does empathy slide into narcissism? Is empathy always just narcissism by another name–or is this fear of solipsism an alibi we use to get ourselves off the hook, with our doors locked, relationships confined to the contacts in our phones?</p>
<p>Jamison’s extensive dwelling on the self–a dwelling that would so lovingly be called self-reflexivity/consciousness/charm when exhibited by her male counterparts and is perhaps too readily called narcissism for females–is daring in its willingness to dwell on the unknown. These internal debates end not with a harsh RESOLVED but with the insistently feminist curve of the question mark. That Jamison asks these questions of herself doesn’t mean she has all the answers. “What good is guilt?…We ask. We like the sound of the question. It puts a crude finger on a heartbeat in us that won’t stop racing, a pulse broken in sympathy. It makes us talk. It makes us talk about ourselves. It makes us confess. We want to purge something that even confession won’t justify.”&#160;</p>
<p>It’s worth noting that the word “essay”–as anyone who has ever looked it up in a dictionary will condescend to tell you–comes from the French verb to try. I think this factoid is important insofar as The Empathy Exams is a series of trials: the essays examine and experiment the histories and pleasures and limits of this oddly relational feeling. They quite literally test, with a keen eye and capacious heart, our own capacity to relate to these relations, to feel with and for and through others–in short, to empathize.</p>
<p>They sketch out this structure of empathy–as feeling, as questionable feeling, as necessary feeling–in their form. They are all part memoir, part someone or something else’s story. Jamison tries to feel with and through her subjects; we try and feel with and through her feeling. But these trials are not cumulative. There is no feel-good moral to the stories, no conclusive take-away. “Like Stevens’ thirteen blackbirds, we see pain from every angle; no single posture of suffering is allowed any measure of perceptual tyranny,” Jamison writes of Anne Carson’s <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178364" type="external">“The Glass Essay”</a>&#160;in “Grand Unified Theory,” but she might as well be summarizing her own collection as well. Her perspective is likewise kaleidoscopic and firmly situated: an ecstatic panorama of observation privy to all of its own particular agonies of flesh. Remember:&#160;“We can’t see suffering one way; we have to look at it from thirteen directions and that is only the beginning–then we are called forth to follow this figure out of the light.”</p>
<p>Jamison is always present as a first person narrator and her presence on the page is the figure we follow into the light. Yet as our thoughtful guide, she sounds less like the retrospectively-omniscient-New Yorker-writer, wryly profiling (in this caricature) the personalities of “fascinating” subjects, and more like a real person thinking in real time. This means that when she’s funny she’s funny without the jaded edges of irony. This means that she’s willing to admit when she feels like “an idiot,” when she doesn’t know what’s going on, what she doesn’t know. She processes–and takes readers through the process–of these errors not towards some higher path of ultimate truth, but rather, down the gentle slope of humility, inadequate and intimate. In <a href="http://harpers.org/archive/2013/09/the-devils-bait/?single=1" type="external">“Devil’s Bait”</a>Jamison discusses the “strange sympathetic limbo” that comes with writing about Morgellon’s disease, a dermal condition known to its sufferers as excruciatingly real but to the medical community as a collective delusion: “I wish I could invent a verb tense full of open spaces–a tense that didn’t pretend to understand the precise mechanisms of which it spoke; a tense that could admit its own limits.”</p>
<p>Nearly every one of her essays acknowledges, at some point and in considerable detail, its own scene of writing. Like that moment when she writes about taking a break from typing notes for her essay on the Barkley Marathon to watch the Real World in the backseat of her car (was it a station wagon?) in the pouring rain as her computer battery was just about to die. Or when, in the last moments of “Grand Unified Theory of Female Pain,” the last moments of the book, she writes (I cry): “Pain that gets performed is still pain. Pain turned trite is still pain. I think the charges of cliché and performance offer our closed hearts too many alibis, and I want our hearts to be open. I just wrote that. I want our hearts to be open. I mean it.”</p>
<p>Her constant self-examining, self-reflective presence is more than a winning rhetorical move: it is always also an ethical stance.&#160;There is no view from nowhere here, nor are any of her critical positions unstudied.</p>
<p>As she wrote these articles and fiction short and long, Jamison studied at Harvard, then Iowa’s Writer’s Workshop for Fiction, and now Yale, where is she currently completing her PhD dissertation in English. What is so amazing about her hybridization of scholarly and creative genres is not just the risk but its results: rigorous, probing, inventive prose. She employs both the Writer’s Workshop eye for fine-toothed description (“He was like a kid’s drawing of God”) and the academic’s insistence on intervening into an existing conversation–and does so conversationally: “Wallace Stevens called sentimentality a “failure of feeling,” but his syntax is ambiguous: does he mean that we’ve failed our feelings or that they’ve failed us? This ambiguity seems to circle back to Solomon’s distinction…” She locates us among the small details of the world; she locates her own position within a critical dialogue; and in doing, swiftly swims us inside of these problems, too. You might even recognize–in&#160;her ritual (dis)avowals of psychic pain, of guilt and confession, of the shame of watching oneself cry–and the thrilling pleasure, your own aching secrets. I did.</p>
<p>We can read the essays, as they are collected and assembled here, as an ethnographic excavation–of the splintered spectacle of the self, of sentimentality as virtue rather than disease, of illness and metaphor, of dead hot shame. As a journey to the wayward center of a feeling that is always off-center. A journey that must inevitably end with the not-defense, not-apology, not-jargon theoretical framework she calls (in earnest, I hope) “Grand Unified Theory of Female Pain.” I like to think she calls it this because no one else would dare to totalize female pain. Which is her point. She reminds us how tiring it is and how damn tired we are of seeing Woman as nothing but a pretty picture, a never-ending bruise. That essay is a request and invitation that is also a question: “…what if some of us want to take our scars seriously?”</p>
<p>She is writing against the tradition that turns female suffering into a trope, that turns real cries into the aestheticized contours of the hysteric’s arched spine. “I want to insist that female pain is still news. It’s always news. We’ve never already heard it.”&#160;She is writing against the dominant literary canon that makes female pain into the butt of an infinite jest. But she is also writing against our tendency as “post-wounded women” to shrug at this masculine tradition with “post-wounded” laughter. She is writing the essay I’d been waiting to read my whole life. She is writing: “There is a way of representing female consciousness that can witness pain but also witness a larger self around that pain–a self who grows larger than it scars without disowning them, who is neither wound-dwelling nor jaded, who is actually healing.”</p>
<p>And as she sketches this self–at once a private quilt and an authoritative cenotaph, eleven fractured and oracular representations, healing, wounded, always and never broken–so too are we as readers invited to suture our own failures of feeling into the essays, to map our conscience onto the consciousness of others, to wonder what the conditions of possibility might be for feeling differently, for feeling more. With bigger hearts, arms uncrossed, arms wide open. Arms wide open: it’s a cliché, but I mean it, too.</p>
<p>Throughout her work, Jamison encounters and cites the brightest figures of the generation before her, writers like Grealy, Carson, Sontag, Didion, and the like. I–we–will quote Jamison. We’ve never already heard it.</p>
<p>Ava Kofman is a freelance journalist. She is a guest contributor to Feministing.&#160;</p> | Not Oprah’s Book Club: The Empathy Exams | true | http://feministing.com/2014/06/03/not-oprahs-book-club-the-empathy-exams/ | 4 |
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<p>As the Democrats convened in Denver to celebrate Hillary Clinton and nominate Barack Obama, a tiny minority of her supporters continued to behave petulantly. They whined, they blustered, they agitated themselves and each other. But what was it about Sen. Clinton’s repeated endorsements of her former opponent that they could not understand? How do they honor her by undermining him?</p>
<p>No doubt many of her friends still feel robbed, months after her gracious concession. With considerable justification, they believe that their woman should have been the one accepting the nomination of their party this week, rather than the man who took it from her. She certainly possesses the talent and experience to be a formidable national candidate, and during her life in politics she has worked very hard to earn that prize. She entered the campaign almost two years ago as a prohibitive favorite.</p>
<p>It is past time for the zealots to face honestly why she lost what might have been hers. Her defeat cannot be blamed on outdated or unfair party rules, on the rhetorical manipulations of the Obama campaign or even on the reflexively hostile coverage of the Clintons in the mainstream media — because a competent campaign would have accounted for all those utterly predictable factors. Those angry donors and voters should be brandishing their pitchforks at the well-compensated consultants who wasted tens of millions of dollars without developing an inspirational theme or an effective plan.</p>
<p>Dwelling on blame, however, is not what Sen. Clinton urged her fellow Democrats to do.</p>
<p />
<p>To take her at her word — as those who constantly proclaim their devotion ought to do — means joining her behind the new Obama-Biden ticket. Rather than sulking over the slights and stupidities of the primary, she speaks about the disastrous implications of a Republican victory as well as the policies and values she holds in common with Sen. Obama. Do the rejectionists think that her speeches on his behalf are insincere — that when she says she wants him to win, she is being false? Such assumptions are an insult to her.</p>
<p>Still more confounding is the threat by some of her supporters to defect to John McCain. His campaign’s latest commercial features a grinning Clinton supporter who praises his “maverick, independent streak” as well as his “experience and judgment,” and promises that “it’s OK, really” to vote for the Republican. Is this the politics of revenge? Is it the cult of personality? Is it just stubborn idiocy?</p>
<p>Whatever else it may be, it is not OK. No, it is emphatically not OK to mislead Sen. Clinton’s supporters into lining up behind a candidate whose positions are the opposite of hers, whose judgment on many issues is woefully deficient, and whose maverick independence is no more than a memory.</p>
<p>Sen. McCain, too, deserves to be taken at his word — which makes it all the more astonishing that anyone who claims to have voted for Sen. Clinton would consider voting for him. He has declared his firm opposition to reproductive rights and promised to appoint Supreme Court judges who would restrict those rights. He would continue the U.S. occupation of Iraq and may well expand the war to Iran and beyond. He opposes universal health care and denounces Social Security as a “disgrace” that should be privatized. He dropped his principled opposition to the regressive Bush tax cuts and his support of immigration reform to pander to the Republican right.</p>
<p>Speaking of right-wing Republicans, their encouragement of the intransigent Clintonites is a clue for the clueless. The sudden affection lavished on Sen. Clinton by neoconservatives and other assorted wingnuts could hardly be more transparent or insincere — or predictable as soon as Sen. Obama, their erstwhile favorite, secured the Democratic nomination. Pundits who beseeched Democrats to join the Obama campaign as a crusade to destroy the Clintons now demand respect for her. But their insincerity is blatant. They merely want to exploit her most disappointed supporters, whose eagerness to cooperate in that strategy is mystifying.</p>
<p>Private opinions about Sen. Obama and his chances of victory notwithstanding, Sen. Clinton clearly understands that her own political future, her family’s political legacy and the causes she holds dear will all depend on the vigor of her support for the Democratic ticket this fall. And despite persistent hisses of complaint from both the Obama and Clinton camps during the convention week, she knows there is no upside in recalcitrance and no downside in enthusiasm. As a lifelong advocate of racial and gender equality, she should appreciate the historic moment that she and Sen. Obama have the privilege to share on the public stage. None of her supporters should stoop to tarnish it.</p>
<p>Joe Conason writes for <a href="http://www.observer.com" type="external">The New York Observer</a>.</p>
<p>© 2008 Creators Syndicate Inc.</p> | Questions for Hillary's Zealots | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/questions-for-hillarys-zealots/ | 2008-08-28 | 4 |
<p>“The Cross and the Lynching Tree”</p>
<p>A book by James H. Cone</p>
<p>For more than 40 years I’ve been moved and provoked by the writings of James Cone, Union Seminary’s distinguished professor of systematic theology. While reading his newest book, “The Cross and the Lynching Tree,” however, I felt grief and anger on a whole new scale. I felt grief for the nearly 5,000 African-American men, women and children who were lynched between 1880 and 1940, and anger that during that 60-year holocaust, white preachers, evangelists and theologians didn’t even notice. No author has ever made me more ashamed to be a white American Christian and at the same time no author has ever given me a more dramatic example of the sustaining power of the cross.</p>
<p>All my life I had been taught that the cross was at the heart of my Christian faith. It has been a long time since I was deeply moved by it. “The Cross and the Lynching Tree” helped me experience the cross on a far more visceral level. Cone says it simply: Jesus was lynched. He makes the connection between the crucifixion of Jesus and the lynching of African-Americans. He explains why understanding that connection is vital to understanding the meaning of the cross:</p>
<p />
<p>“As Jesus was an innocent victim of mob hysteria and Roman imperial violence, many African-Americans were innocent victims of white mobs, thirsting for blood in the name of God and in defense of segregation, white supremacy, and the purity of the Anglo-Saxon race. Both the cross and the lynching tree were symbols of terror, instruments of torture and execution, reserved primarily for slaves, criminals, and insurrectionists — the lowest of the low in society. Both Jesus and blacks were publicly humiliated, subjected to the utmost indignity and cruelty. They were stripped, in order to be deprived of dignity, then paraded, mocked and whipped, pierced, derided and spat upon, and tortured for hours in the presence of jeering crowds for popular entertainment. In both cases, the purpose was to strike terror in the subject community. It was to let people know that the same thing would happen to them if they did not stay in their place.”</p>
<p>During his decades of research, Cone found, incredibly, no sermons, lectures, books or articles by white preachers, evangelists or theologians linking what happened on the cross to what happened on the lynching tree — not even when lynching was at its peak.</p>
<p>Cone is particularly saddened that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhold_Niebuhr" type="external">Reinhold Niebuhr</a>, perhaps the most influential theologian and ethicist of the 20th century, “failed to connect the cross and its most vivid reenactment in his time.” Cone, who is black and grew up in segregated Arkansas, is rightfully aggrieved when he describes the silence of Christian leaders during and after the lynching years. “To reflect on this failure,” Cone warns, “is to address a defect in the conscience of white Christians and to suggest why African-Americans have needed to trust and cultivate their own theological imagination.”</p>
<p>Story after heartbreaking story, Cone walks us through those tragic and shameful years when thousands of black Americans were dragged from their homes and families, raped, tortured, disemboweled, castrated, burned and/or hanged by white Americans. Often those same white Americans were quoting Scripture while silhouetted by flaming crosses. Here are just two of the stories Cone tells to illustrate the horror of the lynching tree:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781570759376?aff=Truthdig" type="external" /></p>
<p>By James H. Cone</p>
<p>Orbis Books, 202 pages</p>
<p><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781570759376?aff=Truthdig" type="external" /></p>
<p>In 1918, when a white mob in Valdosta, Ga., couldn’t find Haynes Turner (who was guilty of nothing more than being black) the sheriff arrested his wife instead. Mary Turner was eight months pregnant. When she insisted that her husband was innocent, she was “stripped, hung upside down by the ankles, soaked with gasoline and roasted to death. In the midst of this torment, a white man opened her swollen belly with a hunting knife and her infant fell to the ground and was stomped to death.”</p>
<p>In 1955, Emmett Louis “Bo” Till, a 14-year-old African-American from Chicago, was kidnapped from his grandparents’ Mississippi home because (or so the rumor went) he had dared to whistle at Carolyn Bryant, a 21-year old white woman, and moments later said “Bye, baby” as she left a local store. At 2 a.m. Bryant’s husband and his half-brother dragged Till to a barn where one of the boy’s eyes was gouged out. He was tortured, beaten beyond recognition, shot in the head, tied to a heavy gin fan and dropped into the Tallahatchie River. The two men were arrested, tried and found not guilty of the crime.</p>
<p>Cone documents in grim detail the unimaginable mental and physical suffering black Americans experienced during those lynching years. But instead of giving up on God, those who suffered embraced their Christian faith with new zeal. Cone turns to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to help us understand how great suffering, paradoxically, can lead to even greater faith. In his “darkest hours” during the Montgomery bus boycott, King’s own experience of suffering lead him to conclude that we do not know what we truly believe or what our theology is worth until “our highest hopes are turned into shambles of despair” or “we are victims of some tragic injustice and some terrible exploitation.” Cone summarizes the mystery of faith that grew stronger during the lynching years:</p>
<p>“Black faith emerged out of black people’s wrestling with suffering, the struggle to make sense out of their senseless situation, as they related their own predicament to similar stories in the Bible. On the one hand, faith spoke to their suffering, making it bearable, while on the other hand, suffering contradicted their faith, making it unbearable. That is the profound paradox inherent in black faith, the dialectic of doubt and trust in the search for meaning, as blacks ‘walk[ed] through the valley of the shadow of death.’&#160;“</p>
<p>“The Cross and the Lynching Tree” also explores the connection between faith and art, through the music, poetry and prose of those who suffered. Cone asks: “How did ordinary blacks, like my mother and father, survive the lynching atrocity and still keep together their families, their communities and not lose their sanity?” He answers that question simply: “Both black religion and the blues offered sources of hope that there was more to life than what one encountered daily in the white man’s world.” There was no opportunity for black Americans to protest, let alone defend themselves from the violence that permeated their lives. In public, where a black man could be lynched for looking a white man in the eye, they had to play the subservient coward. But on Saturday nights, by singing the blues in the privacy of their “juke joints” where the whole community gathered to dance, drink, clap, stomp and “hollar,” these “cowards” expressed their courage and their determination to overcome. Those nights brought a measure of joy and a lot of relief to black Americans. To the white man all that “noise” must have seemed tribal and orgiastic. But if those same white men had been capable of truly listening, they would have realized that the poetry of the blues was in fact restoring the souls of black Americans and renewing their determination to resist despair.</p>
<p>As a child, Cone remembers hearing the blues echoing at night from “Sam’s Place” near his home in Arkansas. The author recalls tapping his feet and moving his body to the sounds of B.B. King’s “Rock Me Baby” and Bo Diddley’s “I’m a Man.” There is no question, however, that Billie Holiday holds a special place for the author. In 1939, on the stage of New York’s Café Society, Holiday sang “Strange Fruit,” the first of many songs that would help mobilize the civil rights movement. Time magazine called “Strange Fruit” “the best song of the century,” and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs" type="external">Holiday</a> “history’s greatest jazz singer.” The song was written by Abel Meeropol, the white Jewish communist who later adopted the two sons of convicted spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg after their execution. “Strange Fruit” was inspired by an appalling photo Meeropol saw of a lynching in Mississippi:</p>
<p>“Southern trees bear strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black body swinging in the Southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees. Pastoral scene of the gallant South, The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth, Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh, Then the sudden smell of burning flesh …”</p>
<p>On Sundays a different kind of music was heard. Cone uses the familiar spiritual “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen” to show how the black poetry of those lynching years reflected both suffering and certainty. The spiritual begins with a mournful lament but ends with an almost inexplicable shout of praise: “Nobody knows de trouble I’ve seen. Nobody knows my sorrow. Nobody knows de trouble I’ve seen … Glory Hallelujah!”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781570759376?aff=Truthdig" type="external" /></p>
<p>By James H. Cone</p>
<p>Orbis Books, 202 pages</p>
<p><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781570759376?aff=Truthdig" type="external" /></p>
<p>Black poets and musicians brought hope in times of despair. They were not blind to the fact that white Christians were in large part the cause of their suffering. With scathing sarcasm, black poet <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=7KYtAAAAMAAJ&amp;pg=PA12&amp;lpg=PA12&amp;dq=Walter+Everette+Hawkins+A+Festival+of+Christendom%22&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=7zNp2XjnqB&amp;sig=-gn5lG88X7YRb8t3QjjNj_i_yyY&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=VvXvTq-EHaariQLi1bzIDg&amp;ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false" type="external">Walter Everette Hawkins</a> called lynching “A Festival of Christendom” alongside the festive days of Christmas and Easter:</p>
<p>“And so the Christian mob did turn from prayer to rob, to lynch and burn. A victim helplessly he fell to tortures truly kin to hell; They bound him fast and strung him high. They cut him down lest he should die Before their energy was spent in torturing to their heart’s content. They tore his flesh and broke his bones and laughed in triumph at his groans; They chopped his fingers, clipped his ears and passed them round as souvenirs. The bored hot irons in his side and reveled in their zeal and pride; They cut his quivering flesh away and danced and sang as Christians may … ”</p>
<p>In spite of their anger at white Christians, they spoke of Jesus’ life and death with increasing reverence. Black poet <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countee_Cullen%20" type="external">Countee Cullen</a> writes, “How Calvary in Palestine, extending down to me and mine, was but the first leaf in a line of trees on which a Man should swing … ” Cone points out that in this poem Cullen is claiming “that Christ, poetically and religiously, was symbolically the first lynchee,” and by this close association with Jesus “turned lynch victims into martyrs.” Cullen wrote, “The South is crucifying Christ again,” and this time “he’s dark of hue.” According to Cone, Cullen and many of his fellow poets and musicians could not help but see “ … the liberating power of the ‘Black Christ’ for suffering black people.”</p>
<p>“Ordinary blacks” survived those lynching years, Cone says, because their Jesus too had been lynched. He too had suffered exactly as they were suffering. They were not alone when they walked into the valley of death because Jesus walked that way before them. “Jesus walked this lonesome valley,” a spiritual begins, “He had to walk it by himself. Nobody else could walk it for him. He had to walk it by himself.” African-American Christians were absolutely certain the Christ who died on a cross understood their suffering and would see them through it.</p>
<p>Cone understands that although black art and music helped foment the civil rights movement, “ … the blues and the juke joint did not lead to an organized political resistance against white supremacy. But one could correctly say that the spirituals and the church, with Jesus’ cross at the heart of its faith, gave birth to the black freedom movement that reached its peak in the civil rights era during the 1950s and 1960s. The spirituals were the soul of the movement, giving people courage to fight, and the church was its anchor, deepening its faith in the coming freedom for all.”</p>
<p>Cone makes it clear that the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s — with spirituals as its soul and the church as its anchor — saw an end to segregation but not to white supremacy. At its heart, “The Cross and the Lynching Tree” is a powerful indictment of white supremacy, past and present, and a challenge to white Americans to have “the courage to confront the great sin and ongoing legacy of white supremacy with repentance and reparation.” The lynching of black Americans is still taking place in the 21st century. Cone targets America’s criminal justice system “ … where nearly one-third of black men between the ages of 18 and 28 are in prisons, jails, on parole or waiting for their day in court.” Cone continues:</p>
<p>“Nearly one-half of the more than 2 million people in prisons are black. That is 1 million black people behind bars, more than in colleges. Through private prisons and the ‘war against drugs’ whites have turned the brutality of their racist legal system into a profit-making venture for dying white towns and cities throughout America. … Nothing is more racist in America’s criminal justice system than its administration of the death penalty. America is the only industrialized country in the West where the death penalty is still legal. The death penalty is primarily reserved, though not exclusively, for people of color, and white supremacy shows no signs of changing it. That is why the term ‘legal lynching’ is still relevant today. One can lynch a person without a rope or tree.”</p>
<p>I am a white American. What questions should I ask myself about living in a nation still permeated by white supremacy? What questions should I ask myself about living in a mostly white neighborhood, attending a mostly white church and hanging out with mostly white friends? Cone states unequivocally that Jesus calls us to confront white supremacy. “I believe,” Cone writes, “that the cross placed alongside the lynching tree can help us to see Jesus in America in a new light, and thereby empower people who claim to follow him to take a stand against white supremacy and every kind of injustice.”</p>
<p>“The Cross and the Lynching Tree” also transcends the topic of lynching and the suffering of African-Americans. Cone asks his readers to see all suffering and oppression in light of the promise of the cross. Therefore — and please forgive this personal aside — his “every kind of injustice” includes the injustice faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans. What was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard" type="external">Matthew Shepard’s</a> death but a lynching? All the elements are present. Shepard was harassed, kidnapped, driven to a remote country area, robbed, pistol-whipped, tortured, tied to a fence and left to die. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Teena" type="external">Brandon Teena</a>, a 21-year-old trans man who was raped and murdered, is just one example of dozens of forgotten trans people who are lynched every year. And in some ways <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_of_Tyler_Clementi" type="external">Tyler Clementi</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_of_Jamey_Rodemeyer" type="external">Jamey Rodemeyer</a> and all the other gay teens and young people who have committed suicide because of bullying and harassment are lynching victims.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781570759376?aff=Truthdig" type="external" /></p>
<p>By James H. Cone</p>
<p>Orbis Books, 202 pages</p>
<p><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781570759376?aff=Truthdig" type="external" /></p>
<p>My son once asked me, “How can you still be a Christian, Dad, after what the church has done to you?” Suddenly we’re back to the same mystery we encountered with black Christians during the lynching years. Cone quotes the Apostle Paul to describe this mystery: “St. Paul said that the ‘word of the cross is foolishness’ to the intellect and a ‘stumbling block’ to established religion. The cross is a paradoxical religious symbol because it inverts the world’s value system with the news that hope comes by way of defeat, that suffering and death do not have the last word, that the last shall be first and the first last.” I believed that Jesus was with me during the attacks by Bible-quoting Christians, during the disappearance of most of my old friends and clients, and during the aversive therapies, the electric shock and the exorcisms by well-meaning Christians who tried to rid me of the “demon of homosexuality.” And in my lowest moments when I genuinely longed for death, I knew that Jesus would walk with me through that valley as well.</p>
<p>Black Americans were victims of white Christian bigotry as gay Americans are victims of straight Christian bigotry. Please don’t think for a moment that I am comparing my suffering or the suffering of the LGBT community to the suffering of African-Americans during the lynching years. I am not. But in the struggle between faith and oppression, and sensing Jesus’ presence during my own suffering, I feel solidarity with my African-American family whose faith in the “old rugged cross” was the key to surviving the lynching tree.</p>
<p>Here is the danger: To say that Jesus stands with me in my suffering is far too simple. My redemption doesn’t come that easily. There’s something in the cross that says this is not just about my “salvation” but about the “salvation” of all those who suffer injustice and inequality. The cross warns and welcomes. It warns me that if I confront white supremacy, homophobia or injustice of any kind, I could end up being lynched. And the cross welcomes me to that great company of the committed who believed its promise that “death is not the end but the beginning of life.”</p>
<p>Cone reminds us that “ … it takes a special kind of imagination to understand the truth of the cross. … The Gospel of Jesus is not a rational concept to be explained in a theory of salvation, but a story about God’s presence in Jesus’ solidarity with the oppressed which led to his death on the cross. … What is redemptive is the faith that God snatches victory out of defeat, life out of death and hope out of despair, as revealed in the biblical and black proclamation of Jesus’ resurrection.”</p>
<p>The Rev. Mel White is co-founder of <a href="http://www.soulforce.org/" type="external">Soulforce</a> and the author of “Stranger at the Gate: To Be Gay and Christian in America” and “Religion Gone Bad: The Hidden Dangers of the Christian Right.”</p>
<p /> | Jesus Was Lynched | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/jesus-was-lynched/ | 2011-12-24 | 4 |
<p>The campaign bus of Hillary Clinton is being investigated for illegally dumping human waste. Yup, you read that correctly. On Tuesday, police in Lawrenceville, Georgia, received multiple reports of Hillary's "Forward Together" tour bus dumping human waste into a storm drain.</p>
<p>A local businessman took photos of the illegal activity, prompting police to launch a full investigation. The photos showed off-colored liquid oozing out of the bus. The bus was stationed at Grayson highway. Hillary Clinton was not at the scene as the bus was in-between campaign stops.</p>
<p>. <a href="https://twitter.com/CityofLville" type="external">@CityofLville</a> cops investigating claims that <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Hillary?src=hash" type="external">#Hillary</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ForwardTogether?src=hash" type="external">#ForwardTogether</a> bus dumped human waste into storm drain. Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/cbs46" type="external">@cbs46</a> for updates. <a href="https://t.co/xyBnfaMy7n" type="external">pic.twitter.com/xyBnfaMy7n</a></p>
<p>When police arrived at the scene, they were greeted with a foul odor and remnants of used toilet paper scattered across the ground. What the campaign dumped at the scene was so disgusting that a HAZMAT team was called to come in to clean up the mess.</p>
<p>In addition to the local police, the Gwinnett County Stormwater Management and the State Environment Protection Department are participating in the investigation.</p>
<p>Local CBS affiliate CBS46 asked the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the party organization working in tandem with the campaign to get Hillary elected, prompting an apology by the DNC.</p>
<p>"This was an honest mistake and we apologize to the Lawrenceville community for any harm we may have caused," <a href="http://www.cbs46.com/story/33418363/witness-clinton-forward-together-tour-bus-dumps-human-waste-into-storm-drain" type="external">read</a> the apology. "We were unaware of any possible violations and have already taken corrective action with the charter bus company to prevent this from happening again. Furthermore, the DNC will work with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, as well as local and state officials to determine the best course of corrective action."</p> | Hillary Campaign Bus Investigated for Illegally Dumping Human Waste. How Fitting. | true | https://dailywire.com/news/10049/hillary-campaign-bus-investigated-illegally-michael-qazvini | 2016-10-18 | 0 |
<p>The recent disclosure that the latest National Intelligence Estimate concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapon program several years ago, assuming Iran ever had such a program, has caused consternation among neoconservatives, right-wing Israeli government officials, and Bush regime ranks.</p>
<p>Members of the right-wing Israeli government have denounced the NIE finding as contrary to Israel’s interests. Former Bush regime official John Bolton accused America’s intelligence agencies with conspiring to discredit President Bush with politicized intelligence. According to Bolton, it is US intelligence agencies, not the neoconservatives, who have their “own agenda.” President Bush has promised to continue his threats against Iran regardless of the NIE finding.</p>
<p>The NIE finding puts Bush on the spot by bringing US intelligence up to speed with the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose director has repeatedly reported, as he did on December 4, that “the agency has no concrete evidence of an ongoing nuclear weapons program or undeclared nuclear facilities in Iran.”</p>
<p>Bush has been trying to work up an attack on Iran based on a non-existent nuclear weapon program. When asked how he could be threatening World War III with a nuclear-armed Iran when US intelligence (and the International Atomic Energy Agency) cannot find evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, Bush said that “nobody told me” about the new finding.</p>
<p>Absurd say intelligence officials. The White House has known about the finding for six months while Dick Cheney tried to suppress the NIE finding. Neocon National Security Advisor Steve Hadley even lied to the press that the NIE finding was new and that’s why Bush didn’t know about it.</p>
<p>The unasked question is: What is the real reason the Bush Regime is so determined to attack Iran? We now know for certain that the reason has nothing whatsoever to do with Iranian nukes any more than the US invasion of Iraq had to do with Iraqi nukes. What is the real reason that is driving the Bush Regime to seek to overthrow with military invasions the only MIddle Eastern states that are not US puppets or dependents?</p>
<p>Until we have the answer to this question, we cannot know why the Bush regime wasted two administrations and $1 trillion at the minimum in order to kill and maim civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq.</p>
<p>Bush’s insane wars have seen the US dollar plummet in value, the price of oil skyrocket, American’s soft power destroyed, and the hardening of opposition to the US worldwide.</p>
<p>What has been gained by these extraordinary sacrifices? How can the American people and their representatives in the two parties in Congress tolerate a criminal executive branch that uses lies and deceit to lead them into illegal wars for secret reasons?</p>
<p>Surely, no one believes that Bush invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, or that Bush and Cheney were working up an attack on Iran because the executive branch did not know of the intelligence findings of its own agencies.</p>
<p>The invasion of Afghanistan also remains unexplained. The Taliban are not Al Qaeda and had nothing to do with 9/11 even in the official version of that event. Bush clearly did not invade Afghanistan in order to capture Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, who escaped scot free. The Bin Laden/Sept. 11 rationale for Bush’s wars has completely disappeared.</p>
<p>Osama and 9/11 were never more than public excuses for a pre-determined agenda.</p>
<p>Why do the US media and the investigative committees of Congress have no interest whatsoever in finding the agenda behind Bush’s wars?</p>
<p>How can Americans be a free people living under a rule of law when the president can commit the country to catastrophic wars on the basis of deception and escape all accountability?</p>
<p>And Bush has the chutzpah to call on Iran to “come clean” about its nuclear program or face diplomatic isolation. When is Bush going to “come clean” and tell us the real agenda behind his lies, deceptions, and wars?</p>
<p>PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of <a href="" type="internal">The Tyranny of Good Intentions</a>. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p />
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p /> | When Will Bush Come Clean? | true | https://counterpunch.org/2007/12/08/when-will-bush-come-clean-2/ | 2007-12-08 | 4 |
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<p>It’s the ultimate sunrise: not over the horizon but over the planet.</p>
<p>World View Enterprises Inc. posted a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pagvP3AoVU" type="external">video</a>today of a sunrise seen from the edge of space, the sun&#160;emerging over the earth’s curve. It’s footage shot during an October test flight of the company’s high-altitude balloon, which launched from Roswell.</p>
<p>The Tucson, Ariz.-based company wants to send passengers willing to pay&#160;the $75,000 ticket up 20 miles into the stratosphere in a capsule equipped with 360-degree views and a bar.</p>
<p>“So many astronauts have gone to space to see infinity, but when they turn around and see earth they fall in love with it,” CEO Jane Poynter said in a statement.</p>
<p>In October, the company was reported to be in negotiations with New Mexico’s Spaceport America as a future launch site.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | World View video shows sunrise from near space | false | https://abqjournal.com/514420/world-view-video-shows-sunrise-from-near-space.html | 2 |
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<p>Shares of Crocs (NASDAQ:CROX) surged as much as 15% Wednesday afternoon following reports that revealed the $1.1 billion iconic shoe maker had discussed a leveraged buyout.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The M&amp;A buzz comes as Crocs has seen its share price struggle to keep up with the broader markets amid stalling sales in the Americas.</p>
<p>A person familiar with the matter confirmed Crocs recently held buyout talks with giant private-equity firm Blackstone Group (NYSE:BX).</p>
<p>Earlier, Bloomberg News first reported that Crocs held talks with Blackstone as well as with KKR (NYSE:KKR). A deal is unlikely due to a gap in price expectations and Crocs has begun to explore its strategic options, Bloomberg reported.</p>
<p>Both Blackstone and KKR declined to comment on the report. Niwot, Colo.-based Crocs didn't respond to a request for comment.</p>
<p>Crocs entered the day with a market capitalization of about $1.12 billion, but that's well below its peak value of $5.6 billion in 2007. The company saw its shares spike as much as 14.9% on Wednesday to an intraday high of $14.53 on the news. In recent action, Crocs was up 7.83% to $13.64.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Concerns about declining sales have helped keep a lid on shares of the shoe maker's shares, which had been trading flat over the past 12 months before Wednesday's big rally.</p> | Crocs Cruises 15% Higher on Buyout Buzz | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2013/11/13/crocs-cruises-15-higher-on-buyout-buzz.html | 2016-03-05 | 0 |
<p>From writer/director Andrew Klavan... In a world gone crazy, in a world gone mad, a strange new horde of mindless leftist zombies lurk in the shadows. These unthinking undead claim to support your fundamental freedom to think, say, believe and report any damn thing you think, say, believe and report, BUT!!!!</p>
<p>That's right. It's the Attack of the But-Heads.</p>
<p>TRANSCRIPT:</p>
<p>I’m Andrew Klavan and this is the Revolting Truth.</p>
<p>Today a tale of horror all the more frightening because it’s true.</p>
<p>As a poisonous miasmic fog of sharia creeps like a poisonous miasmic fog of sharia across the nations of the west, strange creatures are growing up among us.&#160; They are haunting our halls of power, the sewers of our news media and the circus tents of our universities. They move in hordes as mindless and destructive as the zombies in The Walking Dead or the Democrat voters in the last presidential election or the walking dead democrat voters in Chicago and Philadelphia.&#160;</p>
<p>If you listen carefully, in the watches of the night, you can hear these shambling monsters murmuring their eldritch refrain:&#160; “I believe in Free speech but…&#160; I support the first amendment but… I believe in free expression but…”</p>
<p>That’s right.&#160; It’s The Attack of The But-Heads.</p>
<p>The “but” in the phrase “I believe in free speech but…” is bigger than Kim Kardashian’s, has more wiggle room than Jennifer Lopez’ and is as white and soft as Kate Upton’s…&#160; all right, maybe I just got distracted on that last one.</p>
<p>But the point is…&#160; the but-heads are everywhere and they’ve come to devour your rights, one exception at a time.</p>
<p>Consider this. When Islamist terrorists staged a vicious mass murder in Paris in response to a magazine satire of Muhammed, the terrorists declared, “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” No, wait that wasn’t the terrorists that was President Obama.&#160; No, no, it was the terrorists.&#160; No, it was Obama.&#160; No, it must’ve been the terrorists, right?</p>
<p>Obama:&#160; The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.</p>
<p>Anyway, whether it was the terrorists or our president, they were expressing the creeping but-head belief that there should be an exception to free speech when it comes to blasphemy.&#160; The Obama administration has even lent support to United Nations efforts to curtail blasphemous speech, and in England, Italy and Holland, people are being prosecuted for anti-religious speech already.&#160; Now I know, many of the west’s foundational nations had anti-blasphemy laws. That’s why they executed Socrates and Jesus. So what could possibly go wrong?</p>
<p>But in the present day, those who try to outlaw blasphemy only look like western human beings. They’re really but-heads.</p>
<p>In our media the horror continues. Even after the Paris slaughter, many western news outlets refused to display cartoons that had offended the delicate sensibilities of cold blooded Islamist butchers.&#160; Editors at The New York Times, a former newspaper, said, “We do not normally publish… material deliberately intended to offend religious sensibilities.”&#160; Which was a lie since they’ve repeatedly published material offensive to Christians.&#160; But then the editors of the Times only look like free-speaking men and women…&#160; they’re really but-heads.</p>
<p>Then there’s our universities. From Yale to Purdue to UC Berkeley, the academy’s but-heads have banned, persecuted and harassed students, teachers and visiting speakers whose speech violated leftist principles by being truthful about Islamism.</p>
<p>So be afraid.&#160; The Nazi-like thugs of militant islam are only men and can be destroyed…&#160; but the but-heads are the hollowed-out shell of free people animated by oppressive undead ideas.&#160; They’re your worst nightmare.&#160; No buts.</p>
<p>I’m Andrew Klavan with the Revolting Truth.</p> | Andrew Klavan: Attack of the But-Heads! | true | http://truthrevolt.org/videos/andrew-klavan-attack-heads | 2018-10-02 | 0 |
<p>Rock the Vote is in shambles. According to a February 7 LA Times article by Charles Duhigg, the organization is $700,000 in debt and has cut its staff from twenty people in 2004 to two today. Rock the Vote hasn’t had a chief operating officer since the last Presidential election.</p>
<p>Duhigg attributes the crisis to overspending in non-election years and to the opportunism of the music industry executives who dominate the group’s board and use Rock the Vote primarily to promote their own artists.</p>
<p>Rock the Vote has a more fundamental problem: It has hitched its star to politicians who are completely hostile to the needs and desires of the American people. For example, check out the political hacks it has chosen to bestow its Rock the Nation Award upon.</p>
<p>There’s Bill Clinton, who presided over the 1996 Democratic Party convention which removed universal health care from the party platform even though more than 70 per cent of Americans are in favor of it.</p>
<p>There’s Hilary Rosen, who was head of the RIAA at the time she was honored. Rosen rocked the nation by launching the war against file-sharing. Sharing music on-line is, to say the least, wildly popular.</p>
<p>There’s Hillary Clinton, who, despite the unpopularity of the war in Iraq, has called for sending 80,000 more of our sons and daughters to the slaughter.</p>
<p>In June 2005, the Rock the Nation Award went to John McCain, one month after the Arizona Senator was part of the 100-0 Senate vote to approve Bush’s war funding bill. In his acceptance speech, McCain introduced himself as “Funk Master McCain.” Since then, Funk Master McCain has kept busy campaigning for California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose November ballot initiatives to cripple unions and give himself unsupervised power to gut social programs were soundly defeated by California voters.</p>
<p>In 2004, Rock the Vote, under the leadership of Jehmu Greene (who came to the organization directly from serving as Southern Political Director of the Democratic National Committee), registered 1.4 million voters in an effort to elect John Kerry. On March 2 of this year Kerry was one of 89 Senators who voted to make the Patriot Act permanent, even though more than 250 U.S. cities have passed resolutions calling for it to be abolished.</p>
<p>One of Rock the Vote’s few high points came in the early 1990s when the organization aired over 175 public service announcements in which artists gave their frank views on democracy. Our favorite was Ice-T’s. “I’m as anti ‘the system’ as you could possibly be,” he said. “We’ve got two options–the vote or hostile takeover. I’m down with either one.”</p>
<p>In other words, voter registration as a tactic can be useful when it’s part of an effort to transform the system. When voter registration is used as a strategy, what you get is Rock the Vote. It won’t be missed.</p>
<p>LEE BALLINGER is coeditor of one of CounterPunch’s favorite newsletters, <a href="http://www.rockrap.com/" type="external">Rock and Rap Confidential</a>, where this article originally appeared. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>For a free copy of the latest RRC issue, email your postal address to: RRC, Box 341305, LA CA 90034 or send an email to: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | The Real Reason Rock the Vote is Falling Apart | true | https://counterpunch.org/2006/05/30/the-real-reason-rock-the-vote-is-falling-apart/ | 2006-05-30 | 4 |
<p>Shares of <a href="http://variety.com/tag/roku/" type="external">Roku</a> shot up as high as 31% in its initial public offering Thursday on NASDAQ, as investors bought up stock in the streaming-media device and platform that’s challenging tech giants Apple, Google and Amazon.</p>
<p>The company began trading on NASDAQ under the “ <a href="http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/roku-new-hulu-app-1202563689/" type="external">ROKU</a>” stock symbol around 10:40 a.m. ET on Thursday. <a href="http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/roku-ipo-share-price-1202574719/" type="external">Roku priced its shares at $14 per share</a> (at the high end of its previous range), and the stock quickly rose to more than $18 in initial trading for a market cap of more than $1.6 billion. The peak in early trading was $18.40 per share. Roku raised about $220 million from the offering of 15.7 million shares.</p>
<p>In Roku’s IPO registration statement, the company disclosed healthy revenue gains and a shift toward a more diversified sales mix that includes advertising income — and while it’s not profitable, the company narrowed losses in the first half of 2017.</p>
<p>Roku generated $199.7 million in revenue during the first half of 2017, up 23% from $162.3 million during the same time last year. It reported a net loss of $24.2 million for the first six months of 2017, versus a net loss of $33.2 million in the comparable year-earlier period.</p>
<p>For the first six months of this year, 59% of Roku’s revenue came from the sale of streaming devices. The other 41% from what the company calls its platform business, which includes ad sales on advertising-supported channels, as well as licensing fees, fees for placement in the Roku channel store and more. The Roku platform business grew 91% year-over-year.</p>
<p>According to the regulatory filing, Roku had 15.1&#160;million active user accounts as of June 30, which stream an average of three hours of video daily. The company reported average revenue per user of $11.22 as of the end of Q2, which it calculates based on revenue and average number of active accounts during the preceding four fiscal quarters; that was up 35% from ARPU of $8.32 a year earlier.</p>
<p>Underwriters of the Roku IPO are Morgan Stanley and Citigroup, as well as Allen &amp; Co., Needham &amp; Co., RBC Capital Markets, Oppenheimer &amp; Co., and William Blair.</p> | Roku Shares Soar in Streaming-Device Maker’s IPO Debut | false | https://newsline.com/roku-shares-soar-in-streaming-device-makers-ipo-debut/ | 2017-09-28 | 1 |
<p>"Fix the Debt," the CEO-led campaign promoting fear and what some have called near-hysteria over the national debt, has met its grassroots nemesis: "Flip the Debt."</p>
<p>While speaking at a Fix the Debt conference on Monday, Honeywell International Inc. CEO David Cote was interrupted several times by Flip the Debt protesters over tax loopholes that allow companies like Honeywell and General Electric to pay far less taxes than ordinary Americans.</p>
<p>Three minutes into Cote's keynote address, the first heckler trumpeted:</p>
<p>"Fix the Debt claims to seek bipartisan solutions to reduce the deficit, but Fix the Debt is nothing more than a CEO lobby whose real objective is huge corporate tax breaks and drastic cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. David Cote and his CEO friends receive a lot from government: In 2011, Honeywell received $725 million in government deals, making it the 35th largest federal contractor. However, Honeywell and other companies pay next to nothing in taxes. Honeywell's tax rate from 2008-2011 was 2 percent. Does anyone in this room pay 2 percent?"</p>
<p>The crowd applauded, but Cote only laughed nervously.</p>
<p>Gan Golan, cofounder of Flip the Debt, laid out his group's goals. "We will disrupt Fix the Debt meetings across the country to elevate our message that the biggest corporations in the country aren't paying taxes, and now they want the rest of us to pay for it. Sustained public pressure against corporate tax dodgers in the UK has put the issue at the top of the agenda there, and we hope to do the same."</p>
<p>Flip the Debt's launch comes on the heels of legislation, introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, seeking to close corporate tax loopholes and raise nearly $600 billion over the next decade.</p>
<p>Said Sanders, "Wall Street banks and big corporations love America when they want corporate welfare. But when it comes to paying taxes, they want nothing to do with this country."</p>
<p>After police escorted the protesters out of the conference, at St. Anselm's College in New Hampshire, Cote stated that "entitlements" like Social Security and Medicare are bankrupting the United States. Cote's Honeywell retirement amounts to $78 million - enough to qualify for monthly retirement checks of $428,000 starting at age 65. By contrast, the average Social Security payment to retirees is $1,237 per month.</p>
<p>Charlie Balban, president of the Alliance for Retired Americans-New Hampshire, grilled Cote during a question-and-answer period. "We should do something about the debt, but we don't need to cut programs that people depend on. Instead of reducing the deficit on the backs of working Americans, corporations should pay taxes like the rest of us."</p> | Protesters Slam CEO and "Fix the Debt" Leader over Corporate Tax Breaks | true | http://occupy.com/article/protesters-slam-ceo-and-fix-debt-leader-over-corporate-tax-breaks | 4 |
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<p>On Sunday, a fight broke out on an airline — and it <a href="http://www.latimes.com/socal/burbank-leader/news/tn-blr-me-airplane-fight-20170509-story.html%20'" type="external">wasn’t even the airline’s fault</a>.</p>
<p>According to Burbank, California police, two men were aboard <a href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/business/transportation-industry/air-transportation-industry/southwest-airlines-ORCRP014240-topic.html" type="external">Southwest Airlines</a> flight 2530, traveling from Dallas, Texas, to Oakland, which was taxiing to a terminal at Hollywood Burbank Airport. They allegedly started scuffling with each other before one man pushed the other into a seat and threw vicious punches at him.</p>
<p>Michael Krause, a passenger who videotaped the incident as he had his phone out to call his wife, said he heard a “big tussle” several rows in front of him, adding, “The guy had picked up another guy by his shirt and pushed him up against the overhead bin. Then he kind of flung around and threw him down.”</p>
<p>Krause’s son posted the video later.</p>
<p>Sgt. Derek Green of the Burbank Police Department said Chaz Cable, a 37-year-old Lancaster man, was arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor battery.</p>
<p>According to Southwest, three people were involved in the fight. The airline stated, “We’re grateful to our employees who quickly reacted to break up a fight involving three customers. One customer had minor injuries but was able to travel onward. We have no other reports of injuries.”</p>
<p>Krause noted Southwest acted correctly, as a flight attendant tried to pull the two men apart but became pinned underneath them. He said, “It seems like a lot of the airlines have done bad things (recently). I feel that this shows that Southwest and their employees did a wonderful job. They tried to defuse the situation.”</p>
<p>Cable is currently being held in lieu of $50,000 bail.</p>
<p>Video below:</p> | WATCH: Man Pummels Other Man On Incoming Flight | true | https://dailywire.com/news/16304/watch-man-pummels-other-man-incoming-flight-hank-berrien | 2017-05-10 | 0 |
<p>Jan 18 (Reuters) - Texas Instruments Inc:</p>
<p>* BRIAN CRUTCHER TO BECOME NEXT CEO OF TI ON JUNE 1 AND CURRENT CEO RICH TEMPLETON CONTINUES AS CHAIRMAN</p>
<p>* TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INC - BOARD OF DIRECTORS HAS SELECTED BRIAN CRUTCHER TO BECOME COMPANY’S NEXT PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER​ Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | BRIEF-Brian Crutcher To Become Next CEO Of Texas Instruments | false | https://reuters.com/article/brief-brian-crutcher-to-become-next-ceo/brief-brian-crutcher-to-become-next-ceo-of-texas-instruments-idUSASB0C1HK | 2018-01-18 | 2 |
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<p />
<p>Sunland is bouncing back from a salmonella outbreak that linked its products to 41 cases in 20 states last fall and shuttered its plant for months.</p>
<p>Roosevelt County Chamber of Commerce Director Karl Terry told the Clovis News Journal the community never lost faith in the company that is the heart of the Valencia peanut capital and the country’s largest organic peanut butter processor.</p>
<p>Sunland also is a major part of the chamber-sponsored annual Peanut Valley Festival.</p>
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<p>“It’s very heartening to see that the community stayed behind them,” Terry said. “That’s a testament to see how good a small business like Sunland is. You don’t get that respect by accident.”</p>
<p>Coburn said it shouldn’t be too long until people can see Sunland’s products back on shelves nationwide.</p>
<p>“I really can’t predict that just yet, the restart of the plant is not just turning on a button,” Coburn said. “But I would guesstimate products back on the shelf within a month.”</p>
<p>The Food and Drug Administration has been the regulator in Sunland’s return to nut butter market. In a month-long investigation conducted by FDA inspectors in the fall, samples of salmonella were found in 28 locations in the plant and 13 in nut butter samples.</p>
<p>As requested by the FDA as part of Sunland’s reopening, Sunland hired an independent expert to help develop a sanitation plan.</p>
<p>Coburn said as part of the plan, peanuts will be processed on one line separately from their nuts such as almonds in Sunland’s nut butter plant.</p>
<p>The Portales City Council recently approved $150,000 in economic development funds for Sunland to cover some of the costs of its sanitation plan, according to City Manager Tom Howell.</p>
<p>“The purpose of that money is to help them get through requirements of the FDA,” Howell said. “One of the requirements to reopen is that they had to have an independent inspector. We’re going to help provide some money to those costs.”</p>
<p>Sunland currently has 100 full-time employees and has plans to create 40 new jobs as it continues to rebuild, according to Roosevelt County Community Development Corp. Director Doug Redmond.</p>
<p>“I am very much looking forward to being able to go and talk with all our customers and generally being back and doing business,” Coburn said. “I’m looking forward to creating new products and providing wonderful Valencia peanut-based products.”</p> | Portales peanut plant ramping back up | false | https://abqjournal.com/202428/portales-peanut-plant-ramping-back-up.html | 2013-05-23 | 2 |
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<p>In this photo taken on Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2014, a chef and owner Oh Keum-il of Daegyo, the dog meat restaurant, shows how to cook for dog meat at her restaurant in Seoul, South Korea. When she was in her twenties, Oh traveled around South Korea to learn dog meat recipes from each region. During a period of South Korean reconciliation with North Korea early last decade, she went to Pyongyang as part of a business delegation and tasted a dozen different dog dishes, from dog stew to dog taffy, all served lavishly at the Koryo, one of the North’s best hotels. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)</p>
<p>SEOUL, South Korea — For more than 30 years, chef and restaurant owner Oh Keum-il built her expertise in cooking one traditional South Korean delicacy: dog meat.</p>
<p>In her twenties, Oh traveled around South Korea to learn dog meat recipes from each region. During a period of South Korean reconciliation with North Korea early last decade, she went to Pyongyang as part of a business delegation and tasted a dozen different dog dishes, from dog stew to dog taffy, all served lavishly at the Koryo, one of the North’s best hotels.</p>
<p>She adapted famous dishes to include dog meat, replacing beef with dog in South Korea’s signature meat and rice dish bibimbap. But the 58-year-old’s lifelong experience with a food eaten for centuries in Korea is about to become history.</p>
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<p>Daegyo, the famous dog meat restaurant she opened in a Seoul alley in 1981, will serve its last bowl of boshintang, or dog stew, on Friday, a reflection of the challenges facing a trade that is neither legal nor explicitly banned under South Korean laws governing livestock and food processing.</p>
<p>Opposite views on dogs as either for eating or petting have co-existed in the country’s recent history, feeding a controversy that becomes most bitter in the summer. On three “dog days,” which are among the hottest times of the year, many South Koreans queue for the dish of shredded dog meat and vegetables in hot red soup, believing it gives strength to bear the heat.</p>
<p>Animal rights activists protest nearby, urging people not to eat man’s best friend. The closure of Oh’s restaurant, dubbed by a local newspaper as the “Holy Land of boshintang” and frequented by two former presidents, Lee Myung-bak and late Roh Moo-hyun, shows one view of dogs is gaining more traction among young South Koreans.</p>
<p>“There is too much generational gap in boshintang,” said Oh. “There are no young customers.”</p>
<p>Dogs are also food in countries such as China and Vietnam. The long tradition of eating the meat in South Korea is such that a respected 17th century book on Korean medicine extols its health benefits. But today it is an increasingly tough sell and a less attractive dining option for young South Koreans. Oh plans to reopen her restaurant as a Korean beef barbecue diner.</p>
<p>Animal rights groups have also highlighted that some of the 2 million or so dogs eaten in South Korea each year suffer painful and inhumane deaths.</p>
<p>Most young people eat chicken soup on a dog day and even those who eat dog tend to refrain from talking about it openly, according to Moon Jaesuk, a 32-year researcher who enjoyed eating dog meat before he moved to Seoul.</p>
<p>“There’s a burden in a group of 10 or 20 people to suggest eating dog, like making a sexual joke,” he said. “It’s not easy to talk about eating dog when there are a lot of people.”</p>
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<p>Young South Koreans grow up watching TV shows about raising puppies and other pets, which sapped appetite for dog meat, said Oh.</p>
<p>Her restaurant used to sell as many as 700 bowls of dog stew a day in the 1980s. These days it is less than half that. Young people also enjoy a diverse dining culture unlike previous generations that came of age amid the poverty that followed the 1950-1953 Korean War.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Nonghyup Economic Research Institute forecasts the pet business in South Korea to swell to 6 trillion won ($5.9 billion) by 2020, from 0.9 trillion won in 2012. It says one in five South Korean households have either a pet dog or cat.</p>
<p>Sometimes the differing perceptions of dogs become a source of family tension. Kim Dongyoung, 30, said she gets into fierce arguments with her grandfather over her lap dog.</p>
<p>“Whenever he saw my dog at home, he would say it’s the size of one bowl of hot soup,” Kim said. She recently pulled out of signing a lease for an apartment when she saw it was in the same building as a dog stew restaurant.</p>
<p>There is no official data on the dog meat industry, but people who raise dogs as livestock or supply dog meat to diners say its consumption is in decline.</p>
<p>Butcher Shin Jang-gun who supplies dog cuts to restaurants said the number of merchants in the dog meat trading business has shrunk to half of what it was. He keeps a list of between 700 and 800 restaurants in Seoul, some current and others potential clients, and believes there was once more than 1,500.</p>
<p>His father sold only dog meat for several decades. After Shin inherited the butcher shop in southern Seoul in 2002, he added goat meat to offset declining dog meat sales.</p>
<p>“Dog is not an industry with a long-term future,” Shin said. “New generations don’t eat a lot.”</p>
<p>Choi Young-im, secretary general of an association of dog farmers, said dog meat, which used to be most popular after beef, pork and chicken, has been overtaken by duck but will remain a fixture on menus.</p>
<p>Choi estimated between 2 million and 2.5 million dogs are consumed in South Korea each year.</p>
<p>With one fewer dog meat restaurant in downtown Seoul, Oh feels sad that young people are losing touch with the tradition.</p>
<p>“Even now when I see young people at my restaurant, I feel so happy,” she said.</p>
<p>——</p>
<p>Follow Youkyung Lee on Twitter: <a href="http://www.twittter.com/YKLeeAP" type="external">www.twittter.com/YKLeeAP</a></p> | A flavor out of favor: Dog meat fades in S. Korea | false | https://abqjournal.com/453282/a-flavor-out-of-favor-dog-meat-fades-in-s-korea.html | 2 |
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<p />
<p>Duo of Roasted and Braised Heritage Turkey</p>
<p>One18-pound Heritage turkey, legs removed, wings removed at the second joint, 1 large onion, peeled and cut into large <a href="#mirepoix" type="external">mirepoix</a> 1 large carrot, peeled and cut into large mirepoix 1 celery branch, peeled and cut into large mirepoix 1 small rutabaga, peeled and cut into large mirepoix 4 garlic cloves, unpeeled and lightly crushed Bouquet garni, containing 2 bay leaves, 2 branches of sage, 5-6 parsley leaves, and a few inner celery leaves 750 milliliters white wine 2 liters chicken stock 150 milliliters vegetable oil 90-100 grams onion, <a href="#mirepoix" type="external">ciselée</a> 175 grams butter Salt and freshly ground pepper 25-30 sage leaves, stemmed, stems reserved</p>
<p>For the Braise 1. Preheat the oven to 350¡F. Begin by cutting a <a href="#mirepoix" type="external">manchon</a> into the leg ends, which will facilitate the removal of the tough leg tendons after cooking. Season the legs with salt and pepper and set aside. 2. In a sautoir just large enough to hold the legs comfortably, heat 75 milliliters of oil; add the legs and brown well on all sides. 3. Add half of the mirepoix and cook until soft and it develops some color. Remove the legs and strain the contents, leaving 2-3 tablespoons of the fat in the pan. 4. Return all the ingredients to the pan and deglaze with 500 milliliters of wine. Reduce the liquid until syrupy and add approximately 1_ liter of stock — the liquid should come about halfway up the sides of the legs. 5. Add the bouquet garni and 2 garlic cloves, bring to a boil, cover, and place in the oven. Let braise, turning occasionally, for 2-2 1/2 hours, or until a thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the inner thigh (not touching bone) registers at least 180¡F. Remove the legs, cover, and keep warm. Strain the braising liquid and return to the heat, skimming diligently and reducing slightly.</p>
<p>For the Roast 1. At the same time you start braising the legs, begin roasting the breast. Rub it all over with about 25 milliliters of oil and season with salt and pepper. Chop the neck and wings into 1-inch pieces. 2. Place a small roasting pan in the oven to heat it for a few minutes. Add 50 milliliters of oil to the pan, place the breast in the pan, skin side up, and distribute the remaining garlic and neck and wing pieces around it. Place the pan in the oven, roast the turkey for 30 minutes, and then baste with 25 grams of butter to encourage browning. 3. If the neck and wing pieces have developed color, deglaze them with the remaining stock and bring to a boil. Return the pan to the oven and continue basting every 15 minutes for approximately 1 1/2 – 2 hours, or until a thermometer inserted into the thickest part registers 168¡F. Remove the breast, cover loosely with a foil, and keep warm. Let the breast rest a minimum of 15-20 minutes before carving. Strain and degrease the cooking liquid and skim well.</p>
<p>For the Sauce 1. Marry the braising and the roasting liquids together and reduce them to just under 1 liter. 2. Meanwhile, soften the onion in the reserved fat and deglaze with the remaining wine. Add the sage stems and reduce by two-thirds. Combine this with the reduced stock and simmer for just a few minutes to meld the flavors. 3. Strain the sauce through a fine chinois and mount with the remaining butter. Taste for seasoning and add a chiffonade of sage leaves. 4. Debone the legs and serve a portion of leg meat accompanied by some breast meat, and nap with the sage jus. If a slightly more viscous sauce is desired, thicken the finished reduction with a slurry.</p>
<p><a type="external" href="" />Mirepoix: Diced; cut the vegetablesin about 1/2-inch dice Manchonner : To cut off the tip of the legbone Ciselée: Finely diced</p>
<p>Corn, Sage, and Goat Cheese Spoonbread Stuffing</p>
<p>Yields 6 servings</p>
<p>1 small white onion, chopped 6 Tbsp. Unsalted butter plus extra for greasing pan 1/4 cup minced fresh sage leaves 2 cups milk 3/4 cup roasted Iroquois White Corn Flour 1/2 cup buttermilk 6 eggs separated 1 1/2 tsp. baking soda 1 1/4 tsp. salt 1 1/2 Tbsp. sugar 3/4 cup grated Parmesan 1 1/3 cups goat cheese</p>
<p>1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter 8″ x 11″ pan and sprinkle with 2 Tbsp. grated Parmesan. 2. In a saucepan, heat the butter and sauté onion until translucent. Add the minced sage and set aside. 3. Combine the corn flour in a bowl. Heat the milk to a scald and pour while still very hot over the cornmeal mixture. Stir to combine. Smooth out lumps. 4. Add sautéed onions with the butter and sage. In a separate bowl, mix egg yolks baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar, grated Parmesan and buttermilk. Add to cornmeal mixture, then dot with goat cheese. 5. Whip the egg whites to soft peaks. Gently fold into the batter. 6. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake 40-45 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.</p>
<p>To order Iroquois White Corn Flour, call Pinewoods Community Farming at 1-888-652-5628. Prices range from $17.50 for 5 lbs. to $60.00 for 20 lbs.</p>
<p>Turnip and Potato Gratin</p>
<p>Yield: 6 to 8 Servings</p>
<p>5 medium Yellow Finn or russet potatoes 10 medium turnips Butter Salt and Pepper 2 cups heavy cream</p>
<p>Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.</p>
<p>1. Peel and slice the potatoes 1/4 inch thick, with a knife or on a mandolin, and put them in a bowl of cold water to prevent them from discoloring. 2. Peel the turnips if their skin is tough and slice them 1/4 inch thick. 3. Butter the sides and bottom of a 9 x 12-inch baking dish. 4. Drain the potatoes and pat them dry. 5. Layer the potatoes and turnips alternately in the baking dish, seasoning each layer with salt and pepper. 6. Pour in enough of the cream and half chicken stock, to barely cover the vegetables. 7. Bake uncovered for 40 minutes. Rotate the dish periodically for even browning.</p>
<p /> | A Slow Thanksgiving Menu | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2003/05/slow-thanksgiving-menu/ | 2003-05-05 | 4 |
<p>(Angry Patriot Movement) – Secretary of State John Kerry came down hard on Israel for wanting to keep East Jerusalem and other regions, garnering a response from the new British prime minister.</p>
<p>British Prime Minister Theresa May denounced Kerry’s speech about the United Nations Security Council resolution demanding Israel stop building settlements in specified areas. Kerry claimed the U.S. was forced to act in a strong manner on the important issue, but he failed to acknowledge that the so-called strong response amounted to nothing more than deciding to abstain and not take a stand either way during the historic vote.</p>
<p>“We do not believe that the way to negotiate peace is by focusing on only one issue, in this case the construction of settlements, when clearly the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians is so deeply complex,” said a representative for May during an interview with the Jewish Chronicle.</p>
<p>The British prime minister’s spokesperson went on to say, “And we do not believe that it is appropriate to attack the composition of the democratically-elected government of an ally. The government believes that negotiations will only succeed when they are conducted between the two parties, supported by the international community.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.yespatriot.com/collections/t-shirts/products/old-school-conservative" type="external" /></p>
<p />
<p>A State Department spokesperson said Kerry and the federal agency were shocked by May’s response. The spokesperson went on to point out all the nations that did support Kerry’s speech and, essentially, the decision by the Obama administration to abstain from casting a ballot.</p>
<p>The nations which heralded the U.S. for abandoning our only true ally in the Middle East include Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Germany, and the United Arab Emirates, among others. Kerry reportedly mentioned the words “settlements” or “settlers” when discussing Israel a grand total of 62 times during his 70-minute speech.</p>
<p>“We are surprised by the UK prime minister’s office statement given that Secretary Kerry’s remarks—which covered the full range of threats to a two state solution, including terrorism, violence, incitement and settlements—were in-line with the UK’s own longstanding policy and its vote at the United Nations last week,” the State Department spokesperson added.</p>
<p>Kerry also claimed there would never be peace between Israel and the rest of the Arab world if the nation did not heed what he apparently feels is the sound advice of the Obama administration. Israel is not bound by the U.N. Security Council resolution.</p>
<p>“[If] Israel goes down the one-state path, it will never have peace with the Arab world – and I can say that with certainty,” Kerry said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to disregard the demand to stop creating settlements and asserted his nation’s sovereignty over its own affairs.</p>
<p>The United Kingdom was one of the 14 nations to vote for the termination of settlement building in Israel. While still defending the vote, Theresa May’s representative still slammed Kerry for his dogged focus on just a single issue plaguing the chance for peace in the region.</p>
<p>“We continue to believe that the construction of settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is illegal, which is why we supported UN Security Council Resolution 2334 last week. But we are also clear that the settlements are far from the only problem in this conflict. In particular, the people of Israel deserve to live free from the threat of terrorism, with which they have had to cope for too long,” the UK representative also stated.</p>
<p>John Kerry personally attacked Benjamin Netanyahu during his final public speech before the Obama administration is forced to finally exit the White House. Kerry called Neyanyahu “the most right-wing in Israeli history with an agenda driven by the most extreme elements.”</p>
<p>www.angrypatriotmovement.com/british-pm-response-john-kerry/</p> | British PM Issues Surprising Response to John Kerry’s Anti-Israel Rant, Media STUNNED | true | http://teaparty.org/british-pm-issues-surprising-response-john-kerrys-anti-israel-rant-media-stunned-210054/ | 0 |
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<p>JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (AP) - A Pennsylvania man accused of running a prostitution ring out of a hotel and paying the women with drugs has been sentenced to serve 13 to 26 years in prison.</p>
<p>The (Johnstown) Tribune-Democrat <a href="http://www.tribdem.com/news/johnstown-man-sentenced-to---years-in-state-prison/article_48449a0c-f039-11e7-92e6-bf9632fcc1e9.html" type="external">reports</a> that 36-year-old Barshay Dunbar, of Johnstown, was found guilty in October of charges including human trafficking, prostitution and drug possession.</p>
<p>Police say Dunbar used a website to advertise women as prostitutes and arrange sexual encounters. They say he kept most of the money they received and paid them with drugs.</p>
<p>The defense argued that Dunbar never forced anyone into prostitution and that the women voluntarily agreed to perform sex acts in exchange for drugs.</p>
<p>Dunbar's attorney has said he plans to appeal the conviction.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Tribune-Democrat, <a href="http://www.tribune-democrat.com" type="external">http://www.tribune-democrat.com</a></p>
<p>JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (AP) - A Pennsylvania man accused of running a prostitution ring out of a hotel and paying the women with drugs has been sentenced to serve 13 to 26 years in prison.</p>
<p>The (Johnstown) Tribune-Democrat <a href="http://www.tribdem.com/news/johnstown-man-sentenced-to---years-in-state-prison/article_48449a0c-f039-11e7-92e6-bf9632fcc1e9.html" type="external">reports</a> that 36-year-old Barshay Dunbar, of Johnstown, was found guilty in October of charges including human trafficking, prostitution and drug possession.</p>
<p>Police say Dunbar used a website to advertise women as prostitutes and arrange sexual encounters. They say he kept most of the money they received and paid them with drugs.</p>
<p>The defense argued that Dunbar never forced anyone into prostitution and that the women voluntarily agreed to perform sex acts in exchange for drugs.</p>
<p>Dunbar's attorney has said he plans to appeal the conviction.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Tribune-Democrat, <a href="http://www.tribune-democrat.com" type="external">http://www.tribune-democrat.com</a></p> | Man sentenced to prison for running hotel prostitution ring | false | https://apnews.com/amp/f563ebb6ff9342dd98027d80ada326af | 2018-01-03 | 2 |
<p>CARRACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says the cash-strapped country has picked an oil field to back its proposed digital currency called the petro.</p>
<p>Maduro's comments Wednesday on the proposed cryptocurrency shed some light on the government's project for which few public details have been released.</p>
<p>He identifies the field as the Ayacucho Block of the Orinoco Belt and says it has proven reserves of more than 5 billion barrels of oil.</p>
<p>Maduro says each barrel of oil pumped there will equal one petro.</p>
<p>The president first proposed the cryptocurrency early in December as a way to fight what he calls a financial "blockade" by the Trump administration against the socialist-run country.</p>
<p>Venezuela has been in a deepening financial crisis since global crude prices fell and its production levels crashed.</p>
<p>CARRACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says the cash-strapped country has picked an oil field to back its proposed digital currency called the petro.</p>
<p>Maduro's comments Wednesday on the proposed cryptocurrency shed some light on the government's project for which few public details have been released.</p>
<p>He identifies the field as the Ayacucho Block of the Orinoco Belt and says it has proven reserves of more than 5 billion barrels of oil.</p>
<p>Maduro says each barrel of oil pumped there will equal one petro.</p>
<p>The president first proposed the cryptocurrency early in December as a way to fight what he calls a financial "blockade" by the Trump administration against the socialist-run country.</p>
<p>Venezuela has been in a deepening financial crisis since global crude prices fell and its production levels crashed.</p> | Venezuelan president sheds light on proposed cryptocurrency | false | https://apnews.com/amp/6b748fca42534549856040dd03b62106 | 2017-12-28 | 2 |
<p />
<p>A line of rotary tools that can overheat and melt are among this week's recalled consumer products. Other products being recalled include mowers with leaky gas tanks and defective bicycles.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Here's a more detailed look:</p>
<p>ROTARY TOOL</p>
<p>DETAILS: This recall involves the Dremel MICRO Model 8050 Rotary Tool with date codes 407 through 505. The model number and date codes are located on the name plate of the product, which is on the side opposite the Dremel logo. They were sold at Ace Hardware, Home Depot, Lowe's, Menards and other home improvement, hardware and major retailers nationwide and online including www.acehardware.com, www.amazon.com, www.homedepot.com, www.lowes.com and www.menards.com from July 2014 through May 2015.</p>
<p>WHY: The tool's circuit board can overheat and melt the tool's enclosure. If the tool is being held while overheating, it could present a risk of burn. Additionally, some tools may lose their speed control changing to high speed in use, turn on by themselves, or may not turn off, posing a personal injury hazard.</p>
<p>INCIDENTS: Six reports from consumers of tools overheating. There are no reports of injuries.</p>
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<p>HOW MANY: About 93,000 in the U.S. and 2,750 in Canada.</p>
<p>FOR MORE: Call Robert Bosch Tool Corp. at 855-866-1291 between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. CT Monday through Friday, or visit www.dremel.com and click on "Customer Service &amp; Safety Information" for more information.</p>
<p>MOWERS</p>
<p>DETAILS: Scag Liberty-Z zero-turn lawn mowers. The recalled mowers include model SZL48-22KT with serial numbers K7100001 through K7102353 and model SZL52-24KT with serial numbers K7200001 through K7202020. The model and serial numbers are printed on a vertical plate under the mower's seat. "Scag" in red letters, "Liberty Z" in white letters and a blue "Z'' is printed on a plate below the front of the seat. They were sold at Scag Power Equipment authorized dealers nationwide from October 2014 through May 2015.</p>
<p>WHY: The gas tank can leak, posing a fire hazard.</p>
<p>INCIDENTS: Five reports of gas tank leaks on the mowers. No injuries have been reported.</p>
<p>HOW MANY: About 4,400.</p>
<p>FOR MORE: Call Scag Power Equipment at 844-491-4859 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. CT Monday through Friday or visit at www.scag.com and click on Recall Information at the bottom of the page for more information.</p>
<p>LED TUBES</p>
<p>DETAILS: SubstiTUBE IS T8 LED lamps. "OSRAM SubtiTUBE IS LED T8" is printed on a silver label affixed to the end of lamps. The model number 73312-1 or 73315-1 also appears on the label beneath the statement "Compatible LED T8 for use with instant start T8 electronic ballasts." They were sold at Osram Sylvania industrial/commercial distributors between December 2014 and May 2015.</p>
<p>WHY: Lamps can overheat and melt.</p>
<p>INCIDENTS: 34 reports of overheating and melting. No injuries have been reported.</p>
<p>HOW MANY: About 46,300 in the U.S. and an additional 8,700 sold in Canada.</p>
<p>FOR MORE: Call Osram Sylvania Inc. at 877-423-3772 from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET Monday through Friday, send email to [email protected] or visit www.sylvania.com and click on the Site Map in the bottom right-hand corner, then click on "Recall Safety Information" for more information.</p>
<p>EXERCISE MACHINES</p>
<p>DETAILS: This recall involves four models of Cybex exercise machines that allow consumers to use the resistance from the selected weight to perform bicep curls. The recall affects the VR2, VR2TA, Eagle, and the VR3 models. A complete list of serial numbers is available at www.cybexintl.com or at http://www.cpsc.gov/en/Recalls/Recall-Alerts/2015/Cybex-International-Recalls-Arm-Curl-Machines/ . The serial number is located on the frame tube of the weight stack by the floor. Cybex and the model name are printed on the top of the machine. They were sold at Cybex or its distributors directly to gyms from November 1996 through October 2008.</p>
<p>WHY: The swivel handles can break off from the frame causing users to hit themselves in the face or head, posing an impact injury hazard.</p>
<p>INCIDENTS: 108 reports of incidents, including 12 reports of injury to users. One injury involved loss of sight to one eye.</p>
<p>HOW MANY: About 4,400.</p>
<p>FOR MORE: Call Cybex International at 888-678-3846 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET Monday through Friday or visit at www.cybexintl.com and click on Support, followed by Service and then Recalls for more information.</p>
<p>BICYCLES</p>
<p>DETAILS: This recall involves model year 2015 Trek 9.8 Superfly FS SL, X1 and XT bicycles equipped with Bontrager Approved Carbon seatposts. Recalled bicycles have a serial number ending in J or K. The serial number is located on the bottom of the bicycle frame. Superfly FS, X1 or XT is printed on the bicycle's top tube. Trek is printed on the frame downtube. "Bontrager Carbon" is printed on the seatpost. They were sold at bicycle stores nationwide from September 2014 through July 2015.</p>
<p>WHY: The seatpost can crack and break, posing a fall hazard to the rider.</p>
<p>INCIDENTS: Two incidents reported involving the recalled bicycles. No injuries have been reported.</p>
<p>HOW MANY: About 330.</p>
<p>FOR MORE: Call Trek at 800-373-4594 from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. CT Monday through Friday, or visit www.trekbikes.com and click on Safety &amp; Recalls at the bottom of the page for more information.</p>
<p>CRAMPONS</p>
<p>DETAILS: Cassin Blade Runner and Blade Runner Alpine Crampons used for ice climbing. They attach to footwear allowing the front points of the crampon to cut into the snow or ice. The Blade Runner crampons have two ice front points and the Blade Runner Alpine crampons have two snow front points. "Sandvik Nanoflex" is printed on a rubber label attached to the gray nylon ankle strap. "Cassin" and "Blade Runner" are stamped on the orange traction plate on the foot of the crampon. The crampon frames are made of Chromoly and Nanoflex steel. They were sold at specialty outdoor retailers nationwide and online at backcountry.com, camp-usa.com and mountaingear.com from June 2013 to June 2015.</p>
<p>WHY: The front part, where the points connect to the crampons, can break, posing a fall hazard.</p>
<p>INCIDENTS: Three reports of these crampons breaking during use. No injuries have been reported.</p>
<p>HOW MANY: About 900 in the U.S. and 20 in Canada.</p>
<p>FOR MORE: Call CAMP USA at 877-421-2267 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. MT Monday through Friday or online at www.camp-usa.com and click on the Safety Notices link at the bottom of the page then click on Blade Runner Crampon for more information.</p>
<p>CRAMPONS</p>
<p>DETAILS: Tour Nanotech Automatic and Semi-Automatic Crampons. Both crampons are made of steel plates that attach to boots for ice climbing. The Tour Nanotech Automatic has a red heel bail with a gray strap that fastens around the ankle. The Tour Nanotech Semi-Automatic has a red toe strap at the front of the crampon and a red heel bail at the back. A gray strap is connected to both heel bails and fastens around the boot. They were sold at specialty outdoor retailers and online at backcountry.com, camp-usa.com and mountaingear.com from June 2013 to June 2015.</p>
<p>WHY: The heel bail which connects the ankle strap to the crampon can detach from the crampon, posing a fall hazard.</p>
<p>INCIDENTS: One report of the heel bail detaching during use. No injuries have been reported.</p>
<p>HOW MANY: About 500 in the U.S. and 19 in Canada.</p>
<p>FOR MORE: Call CAMP USA at 877-421-2267 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. MT Monday through Friday or visit www.camp-usa.com and click on the Safety Notices link at the bottom of the page then click on Camp Tour Nanotech Crampons for more information.</p>
<p>PAINTBALL GUNS</p>
<p>DETAILS: Rental versions of Tippmann model FT-12 .50 caliber and 0.68-inch caliber paintball guns. The guns are made of metal and are black. The left side of the upper receiver has "Tippmann" molded into the front and a silver, metal name plate with "Rental" riveted to the center. Serial numbers on recalled guns are from 86941 to 108040. The serial number is etched onto the bottom rear of the gun just below the rear hinge. This product is not sold through retail outlets. This product was sold from January 2015 to July 2015 directly to distributors and paintball fields as a rental gun for use by customers.</p>
<p>WHY: Trigger safety can fail and allow paintballs to fire unexpectedly, posing an impact hazard.</p>
<p>INCIDENTS: Three incidents in which the trigger safety failed to perform properly. No injuries have been reported.</p>
<p>HOW MANY: About 6,500.</p>
<p>FOR MORE: Call Tippmann Sports Service Department at 800-533-4831 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET Monday through Friday or visit www.tippman.com and click on the "Recall" icon at the top of the page for more information.</p>
<p>BICYCLES</p>
<p>DETAILS: All model year 2014 Huffy TR 745 and TR-S 740 bicycles with 27.5-inch wheels. "Huffy" is on the downtube of the frame of both bicycles and model name TR 745 or TR-S 740 is on the rear portion of the frame. The TR 745 has a green frame with model number 26504M on the bottom of the frame near the pedals. The TR-S 740 has a white frame and model number 26604M on the bottom of the frame near the pedals. Bicycles that have a green dot on the inside of the quick release lever are not included in this recall. They were sold at Walmart.com, Sears Puerto Rico and The Northwest Company (Cost U Less) from September 2014 through May 2015.</p>
<p>WHY: An open quick release lever on the bicycle's front wheel hub can come into contact with the front disc brake assembly, causing the front wheel to come to a sudden stop or separate from the bicycle, posing a risk of injury to the rider.</p>
<p>INCIDENTS: None reported.</p>
<p>HOW MANY: About 460.</p>
<p>FOR MORE: Call Huffy at 888-366-3828 from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET Monday through Friday, send email to [email protected] or visit www.huffybikes.com and click on "Recalls" at the bottom of any page</p> | Recalls this week include rotary tools, mowers, bicycles, crampons, exercise machines | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2015/08/28/recalls-this-week-include-rotary-tools-mowers-bicycles-crampons-exercise.html | 2016-03-05 | 0 |
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<p>OAKLAND, Calif. — It wasn’t exactly reefer madness Monday as California launched the first legal sales of recreational marijuana, but those who could find the drug celebrated the historic day, lining up early for ribbon cuttings, freebies and offerings ranging from cookies to gummy bears to weed with names like “heaven mountain” and “alien rock candy.”</p>
<p>Jeff Deakin, 66, his wife Mary and their dog waited in the cold all night to be first in a line of 100 people when Harborside dispensary, a longtime medical pot shop in Oakland, opened at 6 a.m. and offered early customers joints for a penny and free T-shirts that read “Flower to the People — Cannabis for All.”</p>
<p>“It’s been so long since others and myself could walk into a place where you could feel safe and secure and be able to get something that was good without having to go to the back alley,” Deakin said. “This is kind of a big deal for everybody.”</p>
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<p>Harborside founder Steve DeAngelo used a giant pair of scissors to cut a green ribbon, declaring, “With these scissors I dub thee free,” before ringing up the first customer at a cash register.</p>
<p>Sales were brisk in the shops lucky to score one of the roughly 100 state licenses issued so far, but customers in some of the state’s largest cities were out of luck. Los Angeles and San Francisco hadn’t authorized shops in time to get state licenses and other cities, such as Riverside and Fresno, blocked sales altogether.</p>
<p>Licensed shops are concentrated in the San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego, around Palm Springs, San Jose and Santa Cruz, where the KindPeoples shop tacked up a banner Monday declaring, “Prohibition is Over!”</p>
<p>The state banned what it called “loco-weed” in 1913, though it has eased criminal penalties for use of the drug since the 1970s and was the first state to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes in 1996.</p>
<p>California voters in 2016 made it legal for adults 21 and older to grow, possess and use limited quantities of marijuana, but it wasn’t legal to sell it for recreational purposes until Monday.</p>
<p>The nation’s most populous state now joins a growing list of states, and the nation’s capital, where so-called recreational marijuana is permitted even though the federal government continues to classify pot as a controlled substance, like heroin and LSD.</p>
<p>The signs that California was tripping toward legal pot sales were evident well before the stroke of midnight. California highways flashed signs before New Year’s Eve that said “Drive high, Get a DUI,” reflecting law enforcement concerns about stoned drivers. Weedmaps, the phone app that allows customers to rate shops, delivery services and shows their locations, ran a full-page ad Sunday in the Los Angeles Times that said, “Smile California. It’s Legal.”</p>
<p>Travis Lund, 34, said he’d been looking forward while working the graveyard shift to buy weed legally for the first time since he began smoking pot as a teen.</p>
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<p>“I’m just stoked that it’s finally legal,” he said after purchasing an eighth of an ounce of “Mount Zion” and another type of loose leaf marijuana at Northstar Holistic Collective in Sacramento, where the fragrance of pot was strong. “I’m going to go home and get high — and enjoy it.”</p>
<p>Lund previously purchased marijuana on the black market through friends and said that may continue, given the high costs of the legal weed, which is heavily taxed. But he said he would indulge in retail pot occasionally because of controls being phased in to ensure a higher-quality product.</p>
<p>Shops will be able to sell marijuana harvested without full regulatory controls for six months but will eventually only be able to sell pot tested for potency, pesticides and other contaminants, and products that have been tracked from seed to sale.</p>
<p>The Bureau of Cannabis Control was not aware of any problems or complaints about the first day of sales, but it didn’t have inspectors in the field, spokesman Alex Traverso said.</p>
<p>Employees at the bureau on the holiday continued to process 1,400 pending license applications for retail sales, distribution and testing facilities.</p>
<p>Traverso said they expect a flood of applications from LA and San Francisco after those are approved locally. Because Los Angeles is the biggest market in the state, some of those shops will be approved more quickly than others waiting in line, he said.</p>
<p>The status of the Los Angeles shops highlights broad confusion over the new law.</p>
<p>Los Angeles officials announced late last month that the city will not begin accepting license applications until Wednesday, and it might take weeks before any licenses are issued. That led to widespread concern that long-established businesses would have to shut down during the interim.</p>
<p>Attorneys advising a group of city dispensaries have concluded those businesses can legally sell medicinal marijuana as “collectives,” until they obtain local and state licenses under the new system, said Jerred Kiloh of the United Cannabis Business Association, an industry group.</p>
<p>It wasn’t immediately clear how many of those shops, if any, were open.</p>
<p>“My patients are scared, my employees are scared,” said Kiloh, who owns a dispensary in the city’s San Fernando Valley area.</p>
<p>In Orange County, shops in Santa Ana received the green light over the weekend to open and a steady flow showed up at ShowGrow.</p>
<p>Ellen St. Peter, 61, shopped with her son, Bryce St. Peter, 23, both medical marijuana users.</p>
<p>She said she smoked pot for years — at times taking great risks to get it — but stopped once she started having kids.</p>
<p>“In high school my guy friends would fantasize about shops we could go into and just buy weed,” she said. “I couldn’t have dreamed of this place.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Melley reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press writers Kathleen Ronayne in Sacramento; Krysta Fauria in Santa Ana; and Christopher Weber and Michael R. Blood in Los Angeles contributed to this report.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow AP’s complete coverage of marijuana legalization in California: https://apnews.com/tag/CaliforniaMarijuana .</p> | California pot: Smoke ’em (or eat ’em) if you can get ’em | false | https://abqjournal.com/1113379/new-year-brings-broad-pot-legalization-to-california.html | 2018-01-01 | 2 |
<p>Draghi not expected to rock policy boat at Jackson Hole</p>
<p>European stocks pushed higher Wednesday, with stocks continuing to recover after the flare-up in tensions between the U.S. and North Korea and big exporters getting a boost from a weaker euro.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The Stoxx Europe 600 index picked up 0.7% to close at 379.09, logging a third straight day of gains.</p>
<p>"Over the past couple of days we've seen a decent rebound in equity markets as risky assets start to regain some of their attraction, as concerns about tensions in North Korea show signs of settling down a little," wrote Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets.</p>
<p>"In spite of the recent rebound we still remain below the levels we were sitting at a week ago, which suggests that a certain degree of caution still remains," he said.</p>
<p>Stock movers: Fiat Chrysler (FCA.MI) (FCA.MI) ended up 2.6%, building on an 8.2% advance from Monday following an Automotive News report (http://www.autonews.com/article/20170814/OEM/170819914/chinese-automakers-covet-fca) that several Chinese auto makers are considering a bid for the Italian-American vehicle maker. Fiat shares didn't trade Tuesday as trading in Italy was closed for a holiday.</p>
<p>In other Fiat news on Wednesday, the car maker said it is joining a consortium led by BMW (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/fiat-chrysler-joins-bmw-led-self-driving-car-group-2017-08-16)(BMW.XE) to develop self-driving cars technology. BMW shares rose 0.2% in Frankfurt.</p>
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<p>Balfour Beatty PLC (BBY.LN) shot up 6.4%, the top gainer on the Stoxx 600, after the U.K. -based construction company swung to a half-year pretax profit (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/balfour-beatty-swings-to-pretax-profit-2017-08-16).</p>
<p>Miners were also among biggest advances, rising alongside a jump in zinc and copper prices. Copper futures were up nearly 3% and zinc futures surpassed $3,000 a metric ton for the first time since 2007.</p>
<p>That helped the Stoxx Europe 600 basic resources index gain 2.5% for its one-day percentage jump since July 25.</p>
<p>Admiral Group PLC (ADM.LN) tumbled 6% as the insurer's first-half profit increased but the company did see an impact from the higher cost of personal injury claims.</p>
<p>"Most of the adverse impact from the increase in the costs of large injury claims, resulting from the change in the Ogden discount rate, was captured in our 2016 second half result. However, some extra costs carry into 2017," Admiral said in its earnings report.</p>
<p>Carlsberg AS shares (CARL-A.KO) (CARL-A.KO) fell 2.7% as the Danish brewer's half-year revenue of 31.77 billion kroner came in below estimates of 32.29 billion kroner (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/carlsberg-operating-profit-rises-20-2017-08-16).</p>
<p>Indexes: Germany's DAX 30 index rose 0.7% to 12,263.86, with the export-heavy benchmark getting a boost from a weaker euro.</p>
<p>The shared currency was buying $1.1695, down from $1.1736 late Tuesday in New York. The shared currency hit an intraday low of $1.1692 after a Reuters report (https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-ecb-policy-draghi-idUKKCN1AW0LL) that European Central Bank President Mario Draghi won't deliver a fresh policy message at the Federal Reserve's Jackson Hole conference next week.</p>
<p>Read:Euro slides after ECB hints at no hawkish shift at Jackson Hole (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/euro-slides-after-ecb-hints-at-no-hawkish-shift-at-jackson-hole-2017-08-16)</p>
<p>Also read:The pound is 'extremely undervalued' right now, according to UBS (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-pound-is-extremely-undervalued-right-now-according-to-ubs-2017-08-16)</p>
<p>France's CAC 40 index ended 0.7% higher at 5,176.61, while the U.K.'s FTSE 100 index climbed 0.7% to 7,433.03.</p>
<p>Minutes from the Fed's latest policy meeting (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/dollar-steady-ahead-of-fed-minutes-pound-firms-after-jobless-data-2017-08-16) will be released at 7 p.m. London time, or 2 p.m. Eastern Time.</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>August 16, 2017 11:59 ET (15:59 GMT)</p> | EUROPE MARKETS: European Stocks Log 3rd Straight Rise As Euro Weakens | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/08/16/europe-markets-european-stocks-log-3rd-straight-rise-as-euro-weakens.html | 2017-08-16 | 0 |
<p />
<p>SOURCE: FLICKR USER STEVE JURVETSON.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>What:Swirling rumors that an acquirer might step up to buy the company caused shares inRelypsa, to soar 67.6% higher today.</p>
<p>So what: The company has been the subject of M&amp;A chatter ever since AstraZeneca plc forked over $2.7 billion to buy competitor ZS Pharma last year.</p>
<p>Relypsa markets Veltassa, a drug for the treatment of high potassium levels in the blood, or hyperkalemia. The FDA approved Veltassa last October to high expectations that stem from the fact that up to 3 million Americans with chronic kidney disease or heart failure could benefit from this therapy. Hyperkalemia can cause abnormal heart rhythms, and in some instances, can result in death.</p>
<p>Prior to Veltassa's approval, treatment options consisted mostly ofmethods that reduce potassium intake and boost potassium excretion. However, dietary restrictions can be tough to adhere to, and current methods that boost excretion lead to high patient-discontinuation rates.</p>
<p>The combination of those factors prompted AstraZeneca to pony up big money to buy ZS Pharma, a company with a late-stage hyperkalemia drug of its own. The FDA is set to issue its decision on ZS Pharma's hyperkalemia drug on May 26.</p>
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<p>Now what: Investors are hoping that a similarly attractive valuation could be given by an acquirer to Relypsa, but there's a big "who knows" component to this story. That's because Veltassa's approval includes a black-box label that warns of Veltassa binding to other drugs that are taken orally.</p>
<p>The label recommends that patients avoid taking other drugs orally within six hours of taking Veltassa. If AstraZeneca's competing hyperkalemia drug gets approved with a less-restrictive label than Veltassa, it could become the gold standard. Given that backdrop, acquirers may exercise some caution, at least until the end of May when they'll know how the label reads.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/04/07/why-relypsa-inc-shares-skyrocketed-67-today.aspx" type="external">Why Relypsa, Inc. Shares Skyrocketed 67% Today Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/EBCapitalMarkets/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Todd Campbell Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. Todd owns E.B. Capital Markets, LLC. E.B. Capital's clients may have positions in the companies mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/help/index.htm?display=about02" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Why Relypsa, Inc. Shares Skyrocketed 67% Today | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/04/07/why-relypsa-inc-shares-skyrocketed-67-today.html | 2016-04-07 | 0 |
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<p>Photo by John Duffy | <a href="" type="internal">CC BY 2.0</a></p>
<p />
<p>On Sunday, November 6, in Redwood Valley, a tiny agricultural community in northern California known for its premium wine grapes and marijuana and its back-to-the-land ethics, cars spilled out of the parking lot at the local Grange and lined rural East Side Road in both directions for most of the afternoon. In an event sponsored by the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians, several hundred people gathered to listen to activists report back from Standing Rock where they had stood in solidarity with Native American Tribes opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline. In a kind of relay race that is being enacted across the country, the event was also a fundraiser for another team of local activists who will leave shortly for Standing Rock. I was there with my wife, Sherrie, who is Mihilakawna Pomo and Bodega Miwok, and comes from an activist California Indian family. In the 1970s, her father, Bill Smith, led a dogged ten-year struggle to stop construction of Warm Springs Dam, which ultimately flooded his tribe’s homeland in Sonoma County’s Dry Creek Valley, a project that was sold to the public as flood control but which was actually designed to provide drinking water for development of Marin and Sonoma Counties, development which came, as promised, in a rush, and continues.</p>
<p>We were happy and surprised to see all the cars outside the Grange, but even still we weren’t prepared for the standing-room-only gathering inside. Roughly two hundred people listened as local activists talked about their experience at Standing Rock, about the banks who are funding construction of the pipeline, and about the spirit of the people gathered in North Dakota to oppose it. Many more people came throughout the afternoon to eat a hot meal, listen to music, watch Native American dancing, and give their support.</p>
<p>It was the largest gathering of people for a progressive cause that I’ve witnessed in the nearly twenty years I’ve lived in progressive though sparsely populated Mendocino County. These events are vital, not only because they educate and raise funds, but also because they connect us to actions and issues that are bigger than ourselves and to the people most directly involved in them.</p>
<p>A week earlier, as most of the people gathered at the Grange knew, police and deputies from six states had turned violent when arresting 141 water protectors who had, only a day before, staged a camp on private land in the direct path of the planned Dakota Access Pipeline. If we’ve learned anything this year it is that it’s ok to occupy federal land, but private property, perhaps especially if it is owned by a corporation spending a lot of money in your community, is another thing. Police shot activists, some of them children, with bean bags and rubber bullets, blasted them with pepper spray fired in thick jets from canisters the size of a fire extinguisher though meant to start not quench fires, assaulted them with LRAD sound cannons (long range acoustic devices), and wrestled them to hard ground, kneeling on their backs and binding their wrists with plastic zip ties.</p>
<p>Somehow, through all of this, almost all of the protestors remained peaceful, calling out to each other “Stand in your prayer,” and holding their ground. And where they didn’t remain peaceful, setting fires that burned a couple of cars, they were rebuked by the movement’s leadership. In a statement made after the arrests, Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II makes it clear that no form of violence by anyone is acceptable.</p>
<p>“Militarized law enforcement agencies moved in on water protectors with tanks and&#160;riot gear today. We continue to pray for peace. We call on the state of North Dakota&#160;to oversee the actions of local law enforcement to, first and foremost, ensure&#160;everyone’s safety. The Department of Justice must send overseers immediately to&#160;ensure the protection of First Amendment rights and the safety of thousands here at Standing Rock. DOJ can no longer ignore our requests…We have repeatedly seen&#160;a disproportionate response from law enforcement to water protectors’ nonviolent exercise of their constitutional rights. Today we have witnessed people praying&#160;in peace, yet attacked with pepper spray, rubber bullets, sound and concussion cannons…We need our state and federal governments to bring justice and peace&#160;to our lands, not the force of armored vehicles.</p>
<p>We also call on the thousands of water protectors who stand in solidarity with us&#160;against DAPL to remain in peace and prayer. Any act of violence hurts our cause&#160;and is not welcome here. We invite all supporters to join us in prayer that, ultimately,&#160;the right decision—the moral decision—is made to protect our people, our sacred&#160;places, our land and our resources. We won’t step down from this fight. As peoples&#160;of this earth, we all need water. This is about our water, our rights, and our dignity as human beings.”</p>
<p>A few days after the gathering in Redwood Valley, Sherrie was at UC Berkeley’s Phoebe Hearst Museum, part of its Native American Advisory Council. One of her friends who was also on the Council, a California Indian artist and long-time activist, had recently returned from Standing Rock and planned to go back the next day. She would be taking supplies and the materials to erect a bathhouse, a way to help people, particularly the mothers and children among the protestors, get warm and clean. She told Sherrie, “What you’re hearing about the way police have treated protesters is pretty much true, so is the depiction of protesters as peaceful.&#160; The front lines of the protest are mostly young people. When the word came to them that the elders were calling on them to step back, not to engage violently, that’s what they did.” Sherrie asked her what people need. “They need basic things – first aid supplies for those providing medical care, particularly for protestors suffering from encounters with the police. And warm clothes, and believe it or not, things like ear plugs because the police are using sound as a weapon, and also the wind never stops and it’s so loud. I thought of all those depressed women in the Willa Cather novels…”</p>
<p>I am trying to understand why people are so taken with the Native American-led protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline. There have been countless worthy Native American protests over the years that have received only limited, local attention, including battles across the country to protect Tribal homelands.</p>
<p>At the gathering in Redwood Valley, I listened while a Native American activist told us that opposition to DAPL shouldn’t be about moving the pipeline off-rez. It should be about an end to pipelines. It should be about the shift we need to make to alternative energy. No doubt nationwide support of the protest at Standing Rock is a complex, multi-faceted reaction. And no doubt it has something to do with the courage of Native people who are standing up to “big petroleum” in an era of growing consciousness and fear of climate change. Maybe we are, at long last, witnessing a dawning consciousness that there is something crucial to be learned from First Nations, a spark of recognition that the people who occupied this continent for twelve or fourteen thousand years without harming it may just have something to teach us about living well on this planet.</p> | Standing Rock Resistance: Something to Teach Us About Living Well | true | https://counterpunch.org/2016/11/16/standing-rock-resistance-something-to-teach-us-about-living-well/ | 2016-11-16 | 4 |
<p>On the eve of president Hugo Chavez’s visit to Syria, as part of his tour of a number of countries, Matthew Clark wrote an article in the Christian Science Monitor, which he titled “Hugo Chavez’s Evil Axis Tour tour: looking for love in all the wrong places?”&#160; Chavez’s tour includes Russia, Belorussia, Syria, Algeria, Libya and Iran.&#160; Although the author acknowledges that these countries could be the “wrong places” only from Washington’s perspective, he concludes his article by adopting the Western judgment of Belarus president, Alexander Lukashenka, whom he describes as Europe’s last dictator citing as evidence banning him from entering the European Union and the United States because of his crackdown on “western-friendly” opposition leaders a few years ago.</p>
<p>Such articles these days only put a frosty smile on the faces of readers in the “wrong” countries, because the peoples of these countries are no longer hostage to the evaluations made by representatives of Western governments, whether politicians or journalists, known for their double standards, double values and double positions.&#160; They are no longer convinced that these governments advocate, as they claim, “democracy and human rights”.&#160; It has become clear, after the performance of the former US administration in Iraq, Afghanistan and to a certain extent Pakistan, and after the whole world saw how the official West towed the line of that administration in all its decisions and actions in terms of war, torture and violation of the freedom of countries and the human rights of their populations.&#160; The world still sees how these governments still use their military, technological and economic power to plunder more of the resources of these peoples under different labels and pretexts,&#160; ranging from “fighting terrorism”, to preventing possession of nuclear weapons, to “spreading democracy and defending human rights”.</p>
<p>It has become clear to the peoples of the “wrong places” that everything has a price for Western governments, and that deals can be reached to settle any issue with complete disregard to Western moral values and even the laws in force in the West.</p>
<p>It has also become clear to the peoples of these “wrong” countries that Western governments, without exception, apply double standards to most issues, and do not bat an eyelid when calling for something while practicing the exact opposite.</p>
<p>I think that is exactly what the chairman of the&#160; US’ Joint Chiefs of Staff, Michael Mullen, meant when he wrote in the military publication Joint Force Quarterly that the United States cannot rely on rhetoric to build bridges with the Muslim world.&#160; He writes that persisting in the policy of talking will be in vain if the talking is not supported by actions on the ground.&#160; He adds, “To put it simply, we need to worry a lot less about how to communicate our actions and much more about what our actions communicate.”&#160; He expressed concern about the tendency to create government bodies with the objective of improving America’s image in the world, saying that this means creating a bureaucracy and has nothing to do with the real actions and positions of the United States.&#160; He writes, “We still have a long way to go.&#160; The Muslim community is a subtle world we don’t fully – and don’t always attempt to understand.&#160; I would argue that most strategic communication problems are not communication problems at all. They are policy and execution problems. Each time we fail to live up to our values or donít follow up on a promise, we look more and more like the arrogant Americans the enemy claims we are.”</p>
<p>Mullenís analysis echoes the sentiment felt by every Muslim and every citizen in the ëwrong placesí, because it is based on respecting the truth and respecting others and their intelligence and not wasting time on rhetorical expressions and devices which, everyone knows, have nothing to do with reality.</p>
<p>Despite the fact that Mullen’s statements are the most important thing I have recently read about the relationship between the East and the West, and constitute the best remedy to the accumulated and exasperating problems bedeviling this relationship, the Western press has&#160; not acclaimed them in the way it usually celebrates Elliot Abrams’s racist pronouncements which display disgraceful hatred towards the Arabs and complete disregard to their lives, their dignity and their capabilities.&#160; Take for instance his article in The Weekly Standard magazine of Sept. 1, 2009 in which he decides that president Obama’s approach to the Arab world and to dictatorships has failed.&#160; Naturally, Abrams and his ilk see nothing in the Arab world except dictatorship and terrorism as a result of their racist view of the Arabs and disregard for their rights and dignity. Regrettably, such a racist article is publicized by Western news outlets&#160; while Mullen’s article, which expresses a high sense of responsibility towards oneself and towards the other, is largely ignored.</p>
<p>Mullen, in his article about Afghanistan, writes that it is only through the common understanding of peoples’ culture, needs and aspirations for the future that we can hope to change the narrative of extremism.&#160; These are actually the things which people in the “wrong places” think about, in Gaza, Jerusalem, Palestine, Iraq, the Golan, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Belorussia and Iran.&#160; Nobody in these countries is interested in reading about “the axis of evil” or about the West’s fight against terrorism.&#160; Masks have dropped, and it is of no use to print thousands of pages every day filled with the pronouncements of Elliot Abrams and his likes who have no respect for our peoples and for the credibility of the United States.&#160; Everybody can see that after over six years of occupation in Iraq, the net result is over a million orphans, over a million widows and over four million refugees and displaced people.</p>
<p>People the world over see today the genocide perpetrated by Israel in Gaza.&#160; Israeli occupation forces close water wells, destroy agricultural land, prevent medicine from entering the territory, chase and hunt down fishermen trying to get a living from the sea, destroy the beautiful Arab houses of West Jerusalem and expel their owners who lived there for hundreds of years.&#160; The whole world is meanwhile watching and talking about ëfreezingí or ësuspendingí settlement building for a few months.</p>
<p>If Israeli authorities accuse all those who try to uncover their crimes of anti-Semitism (see Jerusalem Post, Sept. 3, 2009 which again attacked this author accusing her of anti-Semitism, something of which they are guilty because they have done the greatest damage to Jews and their history by defending Israel and its crimes against humanity), what could they say about Oxfam reports which revealed the depth and extent of Palestinian suffering as a result of Israeli occupation and settlement activity? (The Guardian, August 28, 2009).&#160; Oxfamís CEO, Barbara Stocking considered the reports required read material for Western diplomats and politicians who, so far, have taken no serious action to stop settlement building.</p>
<p>The peoples of the world are no longer deceived by the trappings of labels and rhetorical devices; and the crack in the wall of arrogance is getting wider thanks to the outspokenness and courage of an increasing number of individuals.&#160; Today I add to my list of such individuals the US chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Michael Mullen.&#160; So, would those who have the illusion of being able to identify the right and wrong times and places, the needs and aspirations of people, have some modesty and start listening to the real voices of people instead of carrying on with their drab homilies which can no longer deceive anyone?</p>
<p>BOUTHAINA SHAABAN is Political and Media Advisor at the Syrian Presidency, and former Minister of Expatriates. She was the spokesperson for Syria. She was nominated for Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. She can be reached through <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | In Praise of Admiral Mullen | true | https://counterpunch.org/2009/09/07/in-praise-of-admiral-mullen/ | 2009-09-07 | 4 |
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<p>Donald Trump and Jeb Bush in August during the first Republican debate among the strongest candidates. ( <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nordique/20384513116" type="external">Peter Stevens</a> / CC BY-SA 2.0)</p>
<p>Maybe our definition of the Republican presidential contest is a little off.</p>
<p>It’s often cast, accurately enough, as a choice between “outsiders” and “insiders.” But another party division may be more profound – between Republicans who still view the country’s future hopefully, and those deeply gloomy about its prospects.</p>
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<p>The pessimism within significant sectors of the GOP is more than the unhappiness partisans typically feel when the other side is in power. It’s rooted in a belief that things have fundamentally changed in America, and there is an ominous possibility they just can’t be put right again.</p>
<p>This is one of the big contrasts between the two parties: Democrats are more bullish on the future.</p>
<p>Hillary Clinton has a big lead in the national polls because Democrats broadly favor continuity, with some tweaks. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders offers a tough critique of inequality and the outsized power of the rich. But he and his supporters are comfortable with the country’s cultural direction and have enough faith in government to believe it can engineer the reforms that economic fairness requires.</p>
<p>These thoughts are provoked by an evening spent watching last week’s GOP presidential debate with a group of Republicans pulled together here for me by Sarah Stewart, a New Hampshire political consultant.</p>
<p>They were anything but pitchfork-bearing rebels, and many of them are involved with local government. There was not a Donald Trump or Ben Carson supporter in the lot, although Jon DiPietro, a libertarian-leaning businessman, said he gets Trump’s appeal and could imagine voting for him.</p>
<p>The debate watchers shared the media’s view in one respect: They all agreed that Jeb Bush had a bad night. DiPietro’s offhandedly devastating comment: “Bush had a typical poor performance.” Toni Pappas, a Hillsborough County commissioner, offered sympathy that was almost as crushing. “I feel badly for Jeb,” she said. “He’s really a bright guy.”</p>
<p>The consensus was that the strongest performance came from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, not Marco Rubio, the man lifted high by the very media he and the others enjoyed attacking during the event. Rubio gained ground with some in the group, but Newton Kershaw III, a successful developer, said the young Florida senator still hadn’t persuaded him that he had the experience to be president. Rubio, Kershaw said, looked “rehearsed and studied.”</p>
<p>Gary Lambert, a former state senator who chairs Sen. Lindsey Graham’s campaign here, was proud of the South Carolina senator’s performance in the undercard match. But he spoke for the group in praising Christie for having some of the evening’s best moments. Lambert also offered his take on Carson’s appeal: “He remains so calm. I could never do that.” Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz also got some nods of approval.</p>
<p>But the most instructive part of the evening came toward the end when Ross Terrio, a Manchester school board member, took the conversation to a different place, describing his response to President Obama’s time in office. “I have gotten so pessimistic,” he said. “I used to be such an optimistic person. Maybe Obama just sucked the life out of me.” Terrio, who works as a pharmacist, has no complaints about his personal situation but wonders how his neighbors with much more constrained incomes can make it.</p>
<p>DiPietro shared Terrio’s worries that the country’s problems might be beyond our ability to solve, especially if Democrats win the White House again. Reflecting his skepticism about the public sector, DiPietro said he had warned his daughters about a dark future in which “government’s going to be reaching into your wealth.” Lambert’s worries focused more on terrorism and the rise of the Islamic State, one reason he supports Graham’s robust interventionism.</p>
<p>Others in the group pronounced themselves more hopeful, Pappas, perhaps, most of all. She highlighted her faith that the inventiveness and entrepreneurial spirit of the next generation would pull the country through.</p>
<p>But that this argument about the country’s long-term viability could break out among these thoughtful citizens — they in no way fit the stereotypes we liberals sometimes hang on conservatives — speaks to a central reality of our politics: Many Republicans see government itself as almost irreparably broken.</p>
<p>This is why there’s cheering on the right for the obstructionism of groups such as the House Freedom Caucus. Throwing sand in the gears of the machine is an honorable pursuit if you believe the machine is headed entirely in the wrong direction. It’s also why Trump and Carson will not be easily pushed aside.</p> | The Real GOP Divide | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/the-real-gop-divide/ | 2015-11-02 | 4 |
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<p>The new “Wonder Woman” movie has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/06/07/how-the-jewish-identity-of-wonder-womans-star-is-causing-a-stir/?tid=sm_tw&amp;utm_term=.c946f411736c" type="external">caused</a> a lot of controversies since it is the first comic book movie centering on a female character and directed by a woman. The actress herself, Gal Gadot, is causing a stir on her own.</p>
<p>The actress is actually Israeli and speaks English with an Isreali accent. Lebanon has reportedly banned the film because Gadot, like most Israeali citizens, served in the Isreali military forces. Jordan is also considering banning the film.</p>
<p>The Jordanian campaign against the normalization of Israel <a href="http://www.jta.org/2017/06/06/news-opinion/united-states/jordan-considering-banning-wonder-woman-over-israeli-star-gal-gadot" type="external">said</a> this about the film:</p>
<p>“We remind the Jordanians of their obligation to boycott the film, and we refuse to be partners to the crimes of the Zionists and to increase their profits from this film. The Arab audience will not be involved in projects that represent Zionism and the Israeli army.”</p>
<p>The release has also been <a href="http://variety.com/2017/film/news/wonder-woman-suspended-tunisia-gal-gadot-1202456752/" type="external">suspended</a> in Tunisia because of opposition to Gadot.</p>
<p>The film’s boycott was widely publicized on Facebook.</p>
<p>Gadot’s grandfather <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/06/07/how-the-jewish-identity-of-wonder-womans-star-is-causing-a-stir/?tid=sm_tw&amp;utm_term=.c946f411736c" type="external">survived</a> Auschwitz. She jokes that being pregnant as Wonder Woman was harder than being in the Israeli army. She did some shoots when she was five months pregnant.</p>
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<p>Jewish and Israeli media outlets have <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2017/06/01/why_so_many_people_care_that_wonder_woman_is_israeli.html" type="external">covered</a> the film with some hometown pride. They tell people to watch the movie with “national Israeli pride.”</p>
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<p>Featured image via YouTube <a href="https://youtu.be/VSB4wGIdDwo" type="external">screenshot</a>.</p> | OMG! The New Wonder Woman Isn’t WHITE? WTF? | true | http://offthemainpage.com/2017/06/08/omg-the-new-wonder-woman-isnt-white-wtf/ | 2017-06-08 | 4 |
<p>Berta Cáceres, an indigenous activist who opposed huge dam projects in her native Honduras, was recently murdered in her home. This draws attention to dangers that environmental activists in her country face. Billy Kyte of the British NGO global witness tells host Steve Curwood that she was one of the bravest people he’d ever met and that Honduras is among the most dangerous countries in the world for environmental campaigners. (published March 11, 2016)</p> | Honduran Environmental Activist Murdered | false | https://pri.org/stories/2016-03-11/honduran-environmental-activist-murdered | 2016-03-11 | 3 |
<p>Senior military leaders are examining whether strict budget constraints have contributed to a recent rash of deadly training accidents and crashes across the armed forces, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Monday.</p>
<p>In comments to Pentagon reporters, Mattis said the military services are looking at all the circumstances surrounding the accidents to see if there are any broader cultural, training or other problems common to the mishaps. “I am not willing to say right now that there’s a direct line between sequestration and what has happened,” he said, referring to congressional budget constraints. But “we’re going to take a very close look at that.”</p>
<p>Mattis dismissed the notion that military commanders might be afraid to say no to duties their troops might not be ready for or to suggest their personnel might need more training.</p>
<p>Since mid-July, nearly 100 U.S. service members have been killed or injured in close to a dozen mishaps, among them ship collisions, military aircraft crashes and a Marine amphibious vehicle that ran over and ruptured a gas line.</p>
<p>Seventeen sailors were killed and five injured in two separate Navy ship collisions in recent months, and 15 Marines and a sailor were killed when their transport plane slammed into a soybean field in the Mississippi Delta.</p>
<p>In response, the Navy and the Marine Corps ordered operational pauses for their forces to review safety and readiness procedures. Already the Navy has fired six senior officers, including the commander of America’s Japan-based 7th Fleet, citing a loss of confidence in their ability to command.</p>
<p>The top-level firings suggest that broader institutional, cultural and training problems need to be addressed.</p>
<p>A retired four-star Marine general, Mattis said what concerns him most are the root causes of the accidents.</p>
<p>Senior leaders, he said, have to examine not just the specifics of an accident, but “what is the environment, what is the culture, what have we done with training over this time, have we reduced hours, have we increased hours, have some of these been the result of maintenance failure? You’ve got to look very, very broadly and look for data points and we’re doing that.”</p>
<p>While Mattis and other military leaders have stopped short of blaming accidents on congressional budget restrictions, they have repeatedly complained that the shortfalls have limited their training and maintenance.</p>
<p>They have called on Congress to end the practice of providing defense budgets by way of stopgap spending measures, which have been used over the past eight years. The short-term bills lock in the Pentagon’s budget in at the previous year’s level, forcing the services to move money from their weapons modernization and training accounts to pay for current missions.</p>
<p>Asked if military commanders are afraid to admit it if their troops are unprepared, Mattis said no.</p>
<p>While acknowledging that “we’re almost hardwired to say ‘can do,'” Mattis said that in peacetime operations commanders are required to ensure their troops are ready, and they will often ask for more training time when needed.</p>
<p>“We reward people for raising their hand and saying ‘no more,'” he said. “We’ve had people actually stop training where they thought their troops needed to rehearse before they went forward with it. That’s not that unusual. So I am not concerned right now that we’re rewarding the wrong behavior.”</p>
<p>He added, however, that military leaders also must make sure they’re not always saying they can do more with less.</p>
<p>Mattis’ comments came a day before Navy leaders are set to testify to Congress on the two ship collisions, and what they’ve done to remedy any problems in the force.</p>
<p>“We’ve got to find out why we suddenly have had this spate of incidents,” said Mattis. “Right now, as I look at each of the services, they’re doing the right things.”</p> | Mattis: Unclear If Budget Cuts Play Role in Military Crashes | false | https://newsline.com/mattis-unclear-if-budget-cuts-play-role-in-military-crashes/ | 2017-09-19 | 1 |
<p>ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — At 6-foot-8 and 345 pounds, Oklahoma offensive tackle Orlando Brown isn’t exactly built for Disneyland.</p>
<p>While the No. 2 Sooners and No. 3 Georgia enjoyed the various rides at the resort’s two theme parks Wednesday, “You won’t catch me on one,” Brown said.</p>
<p>It’s an approach that Lincoln Riley of Oklahoma and the Bulldogs’ Kirby Smart would appreciate as each head coach has stressed discipline heading into the College Football Playoff semifinal at the Rose Bowl on Monday.</p>
<p>The visit to Disneyland and dinner at Lawry’s The Prime Rib steakhouse in Beverly Hills are the only two events associated with the Granddaddy of Them All, but they take on a different context when the Rose Bowl hosts the national semifinal. The focus is on winning and advancing to the championship game, which will be in Atlanta on Jan. 8, not grabbing selfies with Mickey Mouse or gorging in the Beef Bowl.</p>
<p>“Just stay focused,” Georgia offensive tackle Isaiah Wynn said, even as roadsters from the Radiator Springs Racers attraction sped by behind him. “Don’t get distracted. Don’t let this type of stuff affect us. It’s just another business trip this week.”</p>
<p>“We’ve still got work to do and it won’t finish for us until we kick the game off,” Riley said.</p>
<p>That message comes from personal experience for both teams. Smart was the defensive coordinator at Alabama for two playoff appearances, losing in a semifinal in 2014 and winning the national title in 2015, and now has Georgia (12-1) in the final four. Oklahoma (12-1) lost to Clemson 37-17 in the semifinal at the Orange Bowl at the end of the 2015 season when Riley was the Sooners’ offensive coordinator.</p>
<p>Brown sees a more mature Oklahoma team that is benefitting from its previous experience in the playoff.</p>
<p>“When we were in Miami, it was our first time so we had people doing out of the ordinary things,” Brown said. “And with it being our second time in the playoffs, we just had a tremendous amount of focus. We had a bunch of guys that have been here, not too much starstruck by LA. Guys that are wanting to practice, wanting to play in the game, been watching the film and doing all those different things.”</p>
<p>While Oklahoma can lean on its memories, Smart has been relying on his senior class to impart his message of how important the time on the ground can be in the buildup to a playoff game. Finding the right balance between game prep and bowl activities is a challenge, and Smart has seen it go both ways.</p>
<p>“But I think if you explain that to your leadership and they understand that there’s a time for fun, there’s a time for play, there’s a time for practice and focus, as long as you can separate that and you got a senior-laden team you can use that to your advantage,” Smart said.</p>
<p>Smart does want his team to appreciate the Rose Bowl, which he holds in esteem after helping Alabama to the BCS championship in 2009. Not exactly the prone to sentimentality, Smart gushed about the venue.</p>
<p>“The sky was red, and it was a great stadium, and you know the history of that stadium,” Smart said. “So many kids these days don’t know the history of that stadium and they don’t know the people who have played in that stadium prior, but I do and I recognize the Rose Bowl is a special, special moment.”</p>
<p>Oklahoma already showed how its priority is the game by having quarterback Baker Mayfield skip the Disneyland trip because he was under the weather. The Heisman Trophy winner participated in practice earlier in the day, and Riley was “trying to let him rest a little bit.”</p>
<p>But Riley isn’t going to the extremes of famed Ohio State head coach Woody Hayes, who refused to have his teams participate in the visit to Lawry’s when they played in the Rose Bowl.</p>
<p>“You’ve got to have a balance,” Riley said. “You can’t go all football all the time. Our guys aren’t used to doing that anyway.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://www.twitter.com/AP_Top25" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.twitter.com/AP_Top25" type="external">http://www.twitter.com/AP_Top25</a>More AP college football: <a href="http://collegefootball.ap.org" type="external">http://collegefootball.ap.org</a> and</p>
<p>ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — At 6-foot-8 and 345 pounds, Oklahoma offensive tackle Orlando Brown isn’t exactly built for Disneyland.</p>
<p>While the No. 2 Sooners and No. 3 Georgia enjoyed the various rides at the resort’s two theme parks Wednesday, “You won’t catch me on one,” Brown said.</p>
<p>It’s an approach that Lincoln Riley of Oklahoma and the Bulldogs’ Kirby Smart would appreciate as each head coach has stressed discipline heading into the College Football Playoff semifinal at the Rose Bowl on Monday.</p>
<p>The visit to Disneyland and dinner at Lawry’s The Prime Rib steakhouse in Beverly Hills are the only two events associated with the Granddaddy of Them All, but they take on a different context when the Rose Bowl hosts the national semifinal. The focus is on winning and advancing to the championship game, which will be in Atlanta on Jan. 8, not grabbing selfies with Mickey Mouse or gorging in the Beef Bowl.</p>
<p>“Just stay focused,” Georgia offensive tackle Isaiah Wynn said, even as roadsters from the Radiator Springs Racers attraction sped by behind him. “Don’t get distracted. Don’t let this type of stuff affect us. It’s just another business trip this week.”</p>
<p>“We’ve still got work to do and it won’t finish for us until we kick the game off,” Riley said.</p>
<p>That message comes from personal experience for both teams. Smart was the defensive coordinator at Alabama for two playoff appearances, losing in a semifinal in 2014 and winning the national title in 2015, and now has Georgia (12-1) in the final four. Oklahoma (12-1) lost to Clemson 37-17 in the semifinal at the Orange Bowl at the end of the 2015 season when Riley was the Sooners’ offensive coordinator.</p>
<p>Brown sees a more mature Oklahoma team that is benefitting from its previous experience in the playoff.</p>
<p>“When we were in Miami, it was our first time so we had people doing out of the ordinary things,” Brown said. “And with it being our second time in the playoffs, we just had a tremendous amount of focus. We had a bunch of guys that have been here, not too much starstruck by LA. Guys that are wanting to practice, wanting to play in the game, been watching the film and doing all those different things.”</p>
<p>While Oklahoma can lean on its memories, Smart has been relying on his senior class to impart his message of how important the time on the ground can be in the buildup to a playoff game. Finding the right balance between game prep and bowl activities is a challenge, and Smart has seen it go both ways.</p>
<p>“But I think if you explain that to your leadership and they understand that there’s a time for fun, there’s a time for play, there’s a time for practice and focus, as long as you can separate that and you got a senior-laden team you can use that to your advantage,” Smart said.</p>
<p>Smart does want his team to appreciate the Rose Bowl, which he holds in esteem after helping Alabama to the BCS championship in 2009. Not exactly the prone to sentimentality, Smart gushed about the venue.</p>
<p>“The sky was red, and it was a great stadium, and you know the history of that stadium,” Smart said. “So many kids these days don’t know the history of that stadium and they don’t know the people who have played in that stadium prior, but I do and I recognize the Rose Bowl is a special, special moment.”</p>
<p>Oklahoma already showed how its priority is the game by having quarterback Baker Mayfield skip the Disneyland trip because he was under the weather. The Heisman Trophy winner participated in practice earlier in the day, and Riley was “trying to let him rest a little bit.”</p>
<p>But Riley isn’t going to the extremes of famed Ohio State head coach Woody Hayes, who refused to have his teams participate in the visit to Lawry’s when they played in the Rose Bowl.</p>
<p>“You’ve got to have a balance,” Riley said. “You can’t go all football all the time. Our guys aren’t used to doing that anyway.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://www.twitter.com/AP_Top25" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.twitter.com/AP_Top25" type="external">http://www.twitter.com/AP_Top25</a>More AP college football: <a href="http://collegefootball.ap.org" type="external">http://collegefootball.ap.org</a> and</p> | Oklahoma, Georgia want focus and balance before Rose Bowl | false | https://apnews.com/689880d05282459d94ec14c0e465a1b5 | 2017-12-28 | 2 |
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<p>A day after the company was fined for an incomplete response to regulators, General Motors (NYSE:GM) got hit with a downgrade that sent shares more than 2% lower on Wednesday.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Analysts at Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) downgraded GM to “underweight” from “overweight” and cut its price target to $33 from $49. The firm said its concerns focus primarily on a slowdown in U.S. auto sales, noting that GM’s ignition-switch recall and its financial impact “does not have a material influence on our investment opinion” regarding the company.</p>
<p>According to a research note sent to clients, Morgan Stanley sees all industry players as having to grapple with the end of the auto replacement cycle. The peaking U.S. market presents a near-term challenge for GM, which is “highly levered” to a recovery in North America.</p>
<p>“In terms of valuation, we think the stock market’s got it right on GM: It’s cheap for a reason,” the analysts, led by Adam Jonas, wrote. “The market’s incredibly low valuation of GM’s shares…implies some concerning developments impacting the broader industry -- including GM.”</p>
<p>The note also said capital expenditures will be needed to fund growth initiatives at GM, especially when it comes to electric and autonomous vehicles. Morgan Stanley believes market expectations for GM’s capital returns and North American margins of 10% are “inappropriately high.”</p>
<p>“We believe global autos are engaged in a war of attrition featuring a decade-long [capital expenditures] arms race. Not everyone can win,” the analysts added.</p>
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<p>Shares of GM were trading 2.1% lower at $33.81 on Wednesday afternoon. The stock has retreated more than 17% since the start of the year.</p>
<p>Morgan Stanley did note how several key attributes about the “new GM” have improved since the automaker’s 2009 bankruptcy. GM has a better handle on fixed costs and its pension situation, while having one of the strongest balance sheets in the company’s history.</p>
<p>The analysts also said GM’s lineup of vehicles is “barely recognizable” compared to what dealers had on their lots five years ago.</p>
<p>On Tuesday evening, the nation’s top automaker came under increased scrutiny from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which <a href="" type="internal">fined GM for failing to meet an April 3 deadline</a> to answer questions about its ignition-switch recall.</p>
<p>GM is also facing federal investigations into a years-long gap between discovery of a defect and this year’s recall, which covers about 2.2 million vehicles in the U.S.</p> | GM Slumps Further After Downgrade, NHTSA Fine | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2014/04/09/gm-slumps-further-after-downgrade-nhtsa-fine.html | 2016-03-06 | 0 |
<p><a href="http://d1o2xrel38nv1n.cloudfront.net/files/2013/05/Mamas-Day-Reflects-Yr-Family.png" type="external" />Ed. note: This is a guest post by&#160;Rebecca Trotzky-Sirr.&#160;It is part of the Strong Families&#160; <a href="http://mamasday.org/" type="external">Mama’s Day Our Way</a>&#160;celebration. You can read more posts in the series on the&#160; <a href="http://www.reproductivejusticeblog.org/search/label/Mama%27s%20Day%202013" type="external">Strong Families blog</a>.&#160; <a href="http://strongfamiliesmovement.org/" type="external">Strong Families</a>&#160;is a national initiative led by&#160; <a href="http://forwardtogether.org/" type="external">Forward Together</a>. Our goal is to change the way people think, act and talk about families. Rebecca’s bio is after the jump.</p>
<p>“No one threw me a baby shower. No one said congratulations. My pregnancy was not celebrated. My child’s birth was seen as a failure,” Jayme, a strong teenage mother, shared with me during a checkup for her healthy young baby. I sympathized with her as a family doctor and as a young mother myself. What do you do when you don’t get any Mothers’ Day adoration? In spite of decades of work for girls’ and women’s health justice, a surprisingly narrow band of acceptance surrounds mothers. Jayme was too young, too single, and too poor to receive the embrace of her community.</p>
<p>That same day, a friend I studied with during my medical training, gladly gossiped with me about how welcomed she felt in the world of mothers at the park, in the farmers markets, and the prenatal yoga centers. I asked her if she realized her privilege, her skin color, the ring on her finger, the zip code on her driver’s license, and the brand-name maternity wear that opened doors for her during her pregnancy and mothering. She paused. I backtracked, awkwardly offering congratulations. “You and your baby deserve to be welcomed, celebrated, and supported,” I cheered. Without saying it, I thought,&#160;and so do Jayme and her baby.</p>
<p>In college, as one of the few student moms in the ivory tower, I was the confidant of pregnant and parenting women. Like Jayme, I had my kid too young. My pregnant belly didn’t fit in the narrow desks provided in our college lectures. I succeeded because I received support, not judgment, from family and friends. Structural supports like Pell grants and needs-based assistance for college students allowed me to step ahead. Still more, I succeeded when others dropped out, because of a lot of social advantages that had nothing to do with my merit. My citizenship, skin color, health, luck of geography, and class meant that I could attend school in districts where I could learn, someone believed in me, and I believed in myself. My kid’s dad worked and provided child support even though we weren’t together. Though I have a B.A. and an M.Eng from Stanford University, I earned a far more comprehensive education, including a deeper understanding of empathy, from welfare and government offices.</p>
<p>I ignored well-intentioned advice to drop out of college and enroll in a technical program where it was thought young mothers could more easily succeed. A counselor asked, “Have you considered beauty school?” I’ve had two professional haircuts in the past two decades and last wore make-up for Halloween face paint. Any social worker or career counselor, if they had the case load to allow them to open their eyes, would see that beauty school was the last place I should go. But, as a young single mom who received food stamps and Medicaid, I was the target of a lot of bad advice and judgment.&#160;</p>
<p>Medicine and mothering intertwine in my life. My kid entered kindergarten the same week I started medical school. As a mom and a doctor, I am thrilled that I am able to work toward a world where all women and kids are supported and celebrated. Motherhood should be a fair choice, not a forced choice.</p>
<p>Today, I am a family physician who believes in providing comprehensive health care. All women deserve access to comprehensive sex education. We deserve to be in healthy, positive relationships and to decide when and with whom we want to have sex. We should have affordable contraception and quality health care. We should be able to choose to continue a pregnancy without judgment or shame, regardless of our backgrounds. Had I found myself pregnant under a different set of circumstances, I shouldn’t have had to choose differently. Regardless of whether my wallet carried a health insurance card, credit cards, or a driver’s license, women deserve to choose to be, or not to be, mothers.</p>
<p>I believe that my adolescent patients have the resiliency to build strong positive relationships. And yes, these relationships involve sex. So my job involves providing solid and accurate information about sex. As much as I wish this were the norm among my health provider colleagues, I know that’s not always the case. Too many of us believe the myth that teens can’t use highly effective forms of contraception, like IUDs. Too few of us provide options to women who find themselves pregnant when they don’t want to be. Too many of us don’t support teen parents. But when a pregnant teenager enters my office and declares she is ready to be a mother, I believe her. I support her. I know she has the inherent capacity to succeed, because I was once just like her.</p>
<p>That’s why on Sunday I celebrate all mothers. So Happy Mama’s Day from a mom who knows what it’s like not to hear congratulations while pregnant. And Happy Mama’s Day from a family doctor who believes that every woman and every pregnancy deserves to be celebrated.</p>
<p>Rebecca Trotzky-Sirr, MD, MSc, is a single mom to an amazing&#160;teenager who barely tolerates her sense of humor. She’s been a part of the reproductive justice movement since before becoming a family&#160;doctor. During medical school, Rebecca received a Fulbright grant to study human rights based medicine in Venezuela. Currently she practices family medicine in Los Angeles. She is a Physician for Reproductive Health Leadership Training Academy Fellow.</p> | For the mamas who don’t get love on Mother’s Day | true | http://feministing.com/2013/05/08/for-the-mamas-who-dont-get-love-on-mothers-day/ | 4 |
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<p>The Coen Brothers occupy a Hollywood niche that implies subversion while reinforcing conservatism. “Blood Simple,” “Raising Arizona,” and “No Country for Old Men” are morality tales in which a flawed - but invariably handsome and charismatic - protagonist trespasses upon a preternaturally obsessive villain who pursues the former for the remainder of the movie. The formula takes an off-kilter tone through the use of ostensibly Texan dialogue that is earthy, laconic, and melodiously articulate. Like most of their films, “True Grit” - an adaptation of Charles Portis’s 1968 novel - combines a putatively subversive - more quirky - form with conservative content.</p>
<p>Much of the film’s dialogue is taken directly from Portis’s book, and it is delivered as if the actors were reading it off the page, effectively reminding viewers that they are watching a tale, and making it all the more enjoyable for this paradoxical postmodern earnestness. The tale is absorbing, as long, patient shots of beautiful landscapes and attractive actors, combined with elegant scenes of taut violence, pace the plot. But the visual and thematic core of the quest for vengeance/coming of age story is its 14-year-old protagonist Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld), who is determined to restore honor to her murdered father by capturing his partner-turned-killer (Josh Brolin). Spiritedly joining the world of men - she has contempt for her indecisive mother - Mattie rejects the injustice of a system that pursues criminals based on the power of their victims. Unaware that she is young and female and thereby traditionally unsuited for her task, Mattie overcomes a variety of male adversaries who are charmed, confounded, outwitted, outtalked, and out-“gritted” by her. Valorization of the father is of course patriarchy 101 - or just see politicians’ favorite biographical subjects - and it is noteworthy how Mattie, vulnerable and beautiful, becomes “male” through avenging hers.</p>
<p>First, it is significant - and surely a strike against realism, if any is intended - that Mattie, while humored and patronized, is never explicitly sexually objectified. The only reference to her being physically desirable is made by the boyish and buffoonish Texas Ranger Labouf (an excellent Matt Damon) who merely notes that he could have kissed her while she was sleeping but decided, he protests too much, that she was too unattractive for his tastes. This coddling of headstrong-to-the-point-of-domineering Mattie (even her nemesis is strangely reluctant to kill her) brings to mind the far more reality-based and critical film “The Ballad of Little Jo,” which, based on a true story, depicts a woman who would rather disfigure herself and live as a man than endure the unrestrained brutality of the nineteenth-century west. That is, the Coens suggest a self-actualizing (but ultimately empty) freedom for anyone with “true grit,” although this grit is in fact supported by the chivalry, compassion, and heroism of paternalistic benefactors.</p>
<p>While critics such as Stanley Fish comment on the film’s supposedly meaningless and irrational violence, the film in fact portrays violence as being socially - specifically racially - structured. Among three men awaiting imminent hanging, only the Native American is deprived of saying his piece before the execution. Far less critically, Rooster (Bridges) gratuitously assaults two Choctaw children about Mattie’s age, earning a cheap and sadistic laugh from the audience.</p>
<p>Indeed, Mattie’s men don’t valorize her because she is a pretty, young girl per se, but because as a white, Bible-quoting young woman she is “civilization” glamorously and tenderly personified. Mattie buys and tames a black pony, taking it from a young Black boy and, with no further comment, christening the horse “Little Blackie.” Exemplifying a burgeoning capitalism and its rule of law - which even rebels cow to — Mattie throws her weight around with money and by invoking contracts and ownership rights. After she overwhelms the horse trader by threatening to sue him, she buffaloes individualistic, self-sufficient Rooster by invoking her rights as his employer. Notwithstanding his claims to autonomy, she, not he, controls his labor, and Rooster participates in this disempowerment not because he is awed by her beauty and grit, but because her beauty disguises the fact that her grit is nothing more than the inexorable workings of a misanthropic machine.</p>
<p>I’ve read no review of the film that mentions Mattie’s conventional attractiveness or the tacit sexual tension underscoring her relationships. After (spoiler alert) killing Chaney (Brolin), Mattie immediately falls into a pit where she’s bitten by a snake. Not especially subtle, we are supposed to see that Mattie has lost her innocence. Increasingly paternalistic Rooster, however, sucks out the venom and brings her to safety - killing “Little Blackie” along the way.</p>
<p>And while we are supposed to be moved when (more spoiler alert) Rooster saves Mattie’s life, his self-sacrifice in fact preserves the embodiment of a system that is destined to domesticate and degrade him - as he indeed spends his later years as a carnival attraction. While Mattie’s adult incarnation is even more spiteful, sanctimonious, and priggish than her cuter, younger version, Rooster’s docility vis-?-vis this tyrant makes self-subordination cool. Who doesn’t want to be like Jeff Bridges?</p>
<p>JOSHUA SPERBER lives in Brooklyn and can be reached at [email protected]</p>
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<p /> | The Subversive Conservatism of "True Grit" | true | https://counterpunch.org/2010/12/31/the-subversive-conservatism-of-quot-true-grit-quot/ | 2010-12-31 | 4 |
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<p>The Cyber Crimes squad and the Lahav 443 anti-corruption unit have been hard at work arresting pedophiles this week. Over 25 suspects from across the country were collapsed upon in a joint forces investigation that took place over three months. All were arrested for possession or distribution of child pornography via the internet. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said that the suspects were arrested for being charged for using chat rooms and websites to distribute child pornography in Israel and abroad.</p>
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<p>These suspects were exchanging images and videos with one another using the internet. In a public statement, Rosenfeld said "During overnight police operations in the South and Central districts, 25 suspects were arrested involved in possessing and distributing pedophile materials on the Internet, including indecent acts against minors and sexual harassment.The houses of the suspects were searched and computer materials containing sexual and pedophile content were seized." A court-issued gag order prevented police from revealing details of the investigation such as the suspects identities but Rosenfeld did reveal their computers, cellphones and other devices were confiscated for being used to download and send the disturbing images.</p>
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<p>Rosenfeld was quite proud of the police work, "This is again an example of police operations across the country to find suspects involved in using networks in order to distribute sexual materials and endanger minors." He even gave a warning to parents, "We recommend that parents take careful steps to protect their children from the dangers that exist on the various networks and social networks."</p>
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<p>On Twitter:</p>
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<p><a href="https://twitter.com/ErvinProduction" type="external">@ErvinProduction</a></p>
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<p>Tips? Info? Send me a message!</p>
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<p>Source: <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Police-Cyber-crimes-Unit-arrests-25-in-national-pedophilia-raid-503718" type="external">jpost.com/Israel-News/Police-Cyber-crimes-Unit-arrests-25-in-national-pedophilia-raid-503718</a></p> | Jewish Pedophilia on the Rise in Israel | true | http://thegoldwater.com/news/7352-Jewish-Pedophilia-on-the-Rise-in-Israel | 2017-08-31 | 0 |
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<p><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/15658" type="external">Continental Resources</a>&#160;— the company founded and led by&#160;CEO&#160;Harold Hamm,&#160; <a href="" type="internal">energy adviser</a>&#160;to&#160;Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and&#160; <a href="" type="internal">potential&#160;U.S.&#160;Secretary of Energy</a>&#160;under a Trump presidency — has announced to investors that oil it obtains via&#160; <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/fracking-the-future/" type="external">hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”)</a>&#160;from North Dakota’s&#160; <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/7174" type="external">Bakken Shale</a>&#160;basin is destined for transport through the hotly-contested&#160; <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/energy-transfer-partners-bakken-oil-pipeline-through-iowa" type="external">Dakota Access pipeline</a>.</p>
<p>The company’s&#160;37-page&#160; <a href="" type="internal">September 2016&#160;Investor Update</a>&#160;presentation&#160;walks investors in the publicly-traded company through various capital expenditure and profit-margin earning scenarios.&#160;It also features five slides on the Bakken Shale, with the fifth one named “CLR&#160;Bakken Differentials Decreasing Through Increased Pipeline Capacity” honing in on Dakota Access,&#160;ETCOP&#160;and how the interconnected lines&#160;relate to Continental’s marketing plans going&#160;forward.</p>
<p>In a section of that slide titled, “Bakken Takeaway Capacity” a bar graph points out that the opening of Dakota Access would allow more barrels of Continental’s Bakken fracked&#160;oil to flow through&#160;pipelines.</p>
<p>Dakota Access is&#160; <a href="http://www.daplpipelinefacts.com/docs-dapl/DAPL_States_Counties.pdf" type="external">slated to carry</a>&#160;the fracked Bakken oil&#160;across South Dakota, Iowa and into Patoka, Illinois. From there, it will connect to the company’s&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Energy Transfer Crude Oil Pipeline (</a> <a href="" type="internal">ETCOP</a> <a href="" type="internal">) line</a>, which terminates in Nederland, Texas at the Sunoco Logistics-owned&#160;refinery.</p>
<p>From Keystone&#160;XL&#160;to Dakota&#160;Access</p>
<p>Previously, Harold Hamm was as an outspoken supporter of TransCanada’s&#160; <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/5857" type="external">Keystone&#160;XL</a>&#160;pipeline, deploying the lobbying group he founded named the&#160;Domestic Energy Producers Alliance to&#160; <a href="" type="internal">advocate for&#160;KXL</a>&#160;and a Bakken on-ramp which would connect to it. Once he realized the northern leg was doomed politically, Hamm&#160; <a href="" type="internal">began singing a different tune on Keystone</a>.</p>
<p>“We’re supporting other pipelines out there, we’re not waiting on Keystone. Nobody is,”&#160;Hamm, also an energy adviser to Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign,&#160; <a href="" type="internal">told Politico in November 2014</a>. “That thing … needed action on it six years ago. I just think it’s too late and we need to move&#160;on.”</p>
<p>One of those ‘other pipelines’ Hamm&#160;appears to have taken an&#160;interest&#160;in&#160;is Dakota Access (DAPL). Although to date, neither Hamm nor Trump have commented publicly on the&#160;DAPL&#160;project. Continental Resources&#160;told DeSmog that it does not comment on pipeline shipping&#160;contracts.</p>
<p>As The Intercept’s Lee Fang pointed out in a recent article, some oil from Dakota Access could feed&#160; <a href="" type="internal">export&#160;markets</a>, despite Energy Transfer’s claims&#160;in a&#160; <a href="" type="internal">presentation</a>&#160;that it will feature “100% Domestic produced crude” that “supports 100% domestic&#160;consumption.”</p>
<p>Hamm’s&#160;Domestic Energy Producers Alliance, as revealed in a December 2015 DeSmog investigation, led the successful&#160; <a href="" type="internal">public relations and lobbying campaign charge</a>&#160;for lifting the crude oil export&#160;ban.</p>
<p>The battle over the fate of&#160;Dakota Access has pitted Native American Tribes, environmentalists&#160;and libertarian private property rights supporters against Energy Transfer Partners and state- and federal-level agencies which have permitted the&#160;project.</p>
<p>The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe awaits a decision by a Judge in the&#160;U.S.&#160;District Court for the District of Columbia in its lawsuit against the&#160;U.S.&#160;Army Corps of Engineers,&#160; <a href="" type="internal">set for September 9</a>.</p>
<p>“Hamm is an oil profiteer exploiting the health of the water, farmland, and communities in the Dakotas and all downstream,” Angie Carter of the Women, Food and Agriculture Network —&#160;one of the over 30 groups comprising the Iowa-based Bakken Pipeline Resistance Coalition&#160;— told DeSmog. “In Iowa, we’ve called upon both Trump and Clinton to speak out against the&#160;pipeline.”</p>
<p>Like Trump, Clinton has yet to comment on the pipeline.</p>
<p>This article originally appeared on <a href="" type="internal">DeSmogBlog</a>.</p> | Company Led by Donald Trump’s Energy Aide Says Its Oil Will Flow Through Dakota Access Pipeline | true | https://counterpunch.org/2016/09/08/company-led-by-donald-trumps-energy-aide-says-its-oil-will-flow-through-dakota-access-pipeline/ | 2016-09-08 | 4 |
<p>DETROIT (AP) — Kendrick Nunn scored a career-high 38 points, his eighth game this season with 30, and Oakland held off Detroit Mercy 92-86 on Saturday.</p>
<p>Nunn, who matched his career best with eight 3-pointers, made all six of his free throws in the last 25 seconds, the final two breaking his previous career high.</p>
<p>Martez Walker added 18 points and Jalen Hayes 17 for the Grizzlies (13-8, 5-3 Horizon League).</p>
<p>Kameron Chatman and Corey Allen had 24 points each for the Titans (6-15, 2-6), who trailed by 17 with six minutes to go.</p>
<p>Nunn had five points in a 10-0 run that put the Grizzlies up 37-23 with 5:25 to go in the first half. Oakland stretched that into a 21-4 run, Walker scoring nine points, and led 50-29 at the break.</p>
<p>Detroit Mercy's Jermaine Jackson Jr. and Allen combined for three 3s in the last 25 seconds but after each one Nunn made good from the foul line.</p>
<p>DETROIT (AP) — Kendrick Nunn scored a career-high 38 points, his eighth game this season with 30, and Oakland held off Detroit Mercy 92-86 on Saturday.</p>
<p>Nunn, who matched his career best with eight 3-pointers, made all six of his free throws in the last 25 seconds, the final two breaking his previous career high.</p>
<p>Martez Walker added 18 points and Jalen Hayes 17 for the Grizzlies (13-8, 5-3 Horizon League).</p>
<p>Kameron Chatman and Corey Allen had 24 points each for the Titans (6-15, 2-6), who trailed by 17 with six minutes to go.</p>
<p>Nunn had five points in a 10-0 run that put the Grizzlies up 37-23 with 5:25 to go in the first half. Oakland stretched that into a 21-4 run, Walker scoring nine points, and led 50-29 at the break.</p>
<p>Detroit Mercy's Jermaine Jackson Jr. and Allen combined for three 3s in the last 25 seconds but after each one Nunn made good from the foul line.</p> | Nunn scores 38, Oakland holds off Detroit Mercy 92-86 | false | https://apnews.com/amp/c97e9832dd704505947dd22363977c3f | 2018-01-20 | 2 |
<p>Since footage of the terrorist attacks in Paris started plastering itself across our computer and television screens, the country—and the rest of the world, at this point—has been engaged in a knock down, drag out battle royale over refugees, terrorists, refugees who might be terrorists, and most notably, the influence and effects of Islamic culture in America.</p>
<p>Everyone—from our grandmas to our long lost high school frienemies to the presidential candidates from both parties—have chimed in with condolences, opinions, and solutions to address the refugee crisis and the rise of radical Islam.</p>
<p>The key word here is radical. By and large, the commentary has centered on how to counter the threat of radical Islamic terrorism on American soil, but even so, the this-or-that-and-nothing-else-type arguments posited by talking heads and politicians have acted as chum in the water for comms shops and operatives looking to update the RAAAAACISM narrative for the 2016 cycle.</p>
<p>It’s been an ugly time on Facebook on Twitter—and the DNC wants you to know that they’re watching. They put out an ad today accusing the Republican presidential candidates of lumping all Muslims together with ISIS and other radical sects. The only problem is, they couldn’t seem to find a single example of a Republican presidential candidate lumping all Muslims together with ISIS and other radical sects.</p>
<p>Watch this nonsense:</p>
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<p>Ridiculous. Embarrassing. The stupidity and blatant intellectual dishonesty of this ad makes me hostile. Normally, what the DNC says and does pales in comparison to the follies of the social justice warriors and 60s-era “activist” sect, but this is just too much.</p>
<p>The DNC rails in this ad about “incitement,” saying that inciting fear “isn’t presidential”; the problem is that this very ad attempts to incite more fear than even the most radically offensive, white hood-wearing, backwoods racist could ever hope for.</p>
<p>They don’t want you to be afraid of radical Islamists. They want you to be afraid of Republicans. I’m not sure how this messaging could get any stupider or more opportunistic, but I welcome the comments section to have some fun with it.</p>
<p>Most importantly, as Alex Griswold points out, the DNC may have just <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/tv/dnc-ad-attacking-republicans-for-saying-radical-islam-is-laughably-stupid/" type="external">alienated their own base</a>:</p>
<p>To begin with, the ad is horribly tone-deaf. I don’t doubt that the decision-makers in the Democratic Party are horrified by the phrase “radical Islam.” But a new poll released today on the issue found that a supermajority of Americans agree that the United States is at war with radical Islam, including 56% of Democratic voters. Only 24% of the country agrees with the president. So right off the bat, the Democratic Party is attacking Republicans for a stance their own voters agree with.</p>
<p>But of course, the ad attacked Republicans for just saying “radical Islam,” not saying we’re at war with it. Well, 92% of Americans also say “radical Islamic terrorism” is a serious threat to the United States. But hey, at least the DNC is making inroads with that 8%.</p>
<p>To say nothing of the timing behind the ad. Literally any other time of the year, voters might have just rolled their eyes at the unbearable PC-ness of it all. But the DNC ad comes after a series of major terrorist attacks across the globe… and after President Barack Obama gave a speech in response that left the impression that he was more fired up about attacking his domestic critics than taking on ISIS. To attack Republicans for “inciting fear” about radical Islam in the wake of nonstop news about radical Islamic terror is just an unbelievable misfire.</p>
<p>This reeks of desperation. The DNC knows that right now, what Americans want is reassurance. That reassurance may not come out of the mouth of Donald Trump, but it sure as hell isn’t coming out of the gaping maw of the Obama administration. This was a ploy to redraw political battle lines over “racism” and “profiling” and “problematic policies,” but all they’ve done is draw their own supporters right out of the conversation they’re so desperate to lead.</p>
<p>Welcome to slow clap politics.</p>
<p>Follow Amy on Twitter <a href="http://twitter.com/thatamymiller" type="external">@ThatAmyMiller</a></p> | The DNC Just Lost Its Mind—and Maybe Its Own Base—with this New Ad | true | http://legalinsurrection.com/2015/11/the-dnc-just-lost-its-mind-and-maybe-its-own-base-with-this-new-ad/ | 2015-11-20 | 0 |
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<p>The $1.1 trillion spending commitment fleshes out 11 unfinished appropriations bills pending in Congress for 2017 and reflects priorities ranging from the military to health research, heating assistance for poor Americans and disaster relief for war-torn Sudan and Somalia.</p>
<p>The bill would provide $50 million for the Albuquerque Rapid Transit project and continued funding for the popular Community Development Block Grant program that helps cities and towns pay for local projects.</p>
<p>New Mexico’s House Democrats – Reps. Ben Ray Luján and Michelle Lujan Grisham – voted for the spending bill Wednesday, and Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich have said they also will vote in favor when the bill arrives on the Senate floor, likely today. Rep. Steve Pearce, New Mexico’s only Republican in Washington, voted against the spending plan.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Without offering specifics, Pearce said the bill passed by the Republican-controlled House contained “frivolous” spending that reflected “politics in Washington,” not the needs of everyday Americans.</p>
<p>“It’s truly unfortunate that the House was unable to produce a budget plan that adequately supports the policies and priorities of the people who elected us to get the job done,” Pearce said.</p>
<p>While the legislation falls far short of President Donald Trump’s preferred spending amounts for the military and border security, it contains increases in both areas and represents a status quo or more approach to funding much of the rest of federal government.</p>
<p>Congressional Republicans lauded the bill’s increased border and military spending, but the conservative Heritage Action group in Washington said it “woefully fails the test of fiscal responsibility and does not advance important conservative policies.”</p>
<p>Democrats described the deal as a victory for a wide array of their spending priorities.</p>
<p>“It’s good for New Mexico, and it’s good for the country,” Udall, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which crafted the budget document, told the Journal on Wednesday. “We (Democrats) made our principles clear. We were really firm that we were opposed to throwing billions of dollars away on a border wall that even some Republicans didn’t want. We got a good result. No one wanted a shutdown.”</p>
<p>Although the bill doesn’t contain money explicitly for Trump’s proposed wall along the Mexican border, it does include $1.5 billion for “enhanced border security.” It directs the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to have “obligation plans” for the cash infusion within 45 days of the bill’s enactment.</p>
<p>Of the $1.5 billion, the legislation sets aside $487 million for “Border Security Assets and Infrastructure,” but it’s unclear how much of that amount would be spent in New Mexico.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“This legislation will allow us to substantially strengthen the border,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. “It contains the largest increase in border-security resources in a decade, allowing us to address high-priority security needs, crack down on illegal border crossings, and strengthen the border with everything from upgraded physical infrastructure to high-tech biometric and surveillance technology.”</p>
<p>Overall, the Department of the Interior – an agency with a large presence in New Mexico – would get a small budget bump, from $12 billion in 2016 to $12.2 billion in 2017. The bulk of that increase is in the budgets of the National Park Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.</p>
<p>Udall said he persuaded congressional negotiators to aside $407 million in emergency funding to protect Western communities from the most devastating wildfires. The bill also contains $160 million to combat the prescription opioid addiction epidemic nationwide, and some of the strongest funding in years for the Land and Water Conservation Fund – including $2 million for acquisitions in Rio Grande del Norte and Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks national monuments.</p>
<p>The total 2017 budget for the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons programs, including those at Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories in New Mexico, is set at $12.9 billion, an increase of $400 million over current-year spending.</p>
<p>Waste cleanup at Los Alamos is set at $194 million in the 2017 spending bill, an increase of $9 million over current-year spending and $5 million more than Trump’s request.</p>
<p>The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad would receive $324 million, or $53 million more than Trump asked for in his first budget proposal earlier this year. That amount includes nearly $27 million to settle with New Mexico over a 2014 accident that shut down the facility for three years.</p>
<p>Don Hancock, director of the nuclear waste safety program at the Southwest Research and Information Center in Albuquerque, noted that the bill does not include any money to open the long-closed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Las Vegas, Nev., which the Trump administration has proposed reopening. It also does not contain money for construction of a repository for high-level defense nuclear waste in New Mexico.</p>
<p>The Environmental Protection Agency is largely spared in the 2017 budget compromise, taking a cut of just 1 percent. But the White House has suggested steep cuts for water, renewable energy, national parks, wildlife and other programs next year.</p>
<p>The White House has also proposed eliminating federal funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, but each agency would get a $2 million increase under the latest spending bill, bringing their respective budgets to $150 million in total. The NEA helps underwrite dozens of arts programs in New Mexico.</p>
<p>“This bill puts us in a strong position as we start working on the 2018 appropriations bill … and that will likely be a tougher fight,” Udall said.</p>
<p>Congress will need to clear the 2017 spending package before current appropriations expire under a continuing resolution at midnight Friday.</p>
<p />
<p /> | $1.1 trillion spending bill includes funds for NM | false | https://abqjournal.com/998251/11-trillion-spending-bill-includes-funds-for-nm.html | 2 |
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<p>WASHINGTON — U.S. manufacturers expanded at a faster pace in December, boosted by a sharp increase in new orders.</p>
<p>The Institute for Supply Management said Wednesday that its manufacturing index rose to 59.7 last month from 58.2 in November. Any reading above 50 points to greater factory activity. Manufacturing has been expanding for the past 16 months.</p>
<p>“With a report like this, I can’t do anything but smile,” said Tim Fiore, chair of the ISM manufacturing business survey committee.</p>
<p>U.S. manufacturers have been helped this year by a solid global economy and a decline in the dollar’s value, which helps to make exports more competitive abroad. Firms will soon see whether the lower corporate tax rates signed into law by President Donald Trump will help to push profits and growth even higher.</p>
<p>New orders jumped in December to the highest level since January 2004. Production also rose. The pace of hiring slipped, although it remained positive.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The ISM, a trade association of purchasing managers, said 16 of 18 manufacturing industries expanded in December. Among the sectors seeing growth were machinery, computer and electronics and chemicals.</p>
<p>Other measures point to steady growth.</p>
<p>The Federal Reserve said that factory output in November had increased at an annual rate of 2.4 percent.</p>
<p>Through the first 10 months of the year, factory orders have risen 5.6 percent, according to the Census Bureau.</p> | US factories closed out 2017 with a boom | false | https://abqjournal.com/1114090/us-factory-activity-improved-in-december.html | 2018-01-03 | 2 |
<p>Investing.com – India stocks were higher after the close on Monday, as gains in the , and sectors led shares higher.</p>
<p>At the close in NSE, the gained 0.55%, while the index climbed 0.62%.</p>
<p>The best performers of the session on the were Aurobindo Pharma Ltd. (NS:), which rose 2.74% or 18.40 points to trade at 690.85 at the close. Meanwhile, UPL Ltd (NS:) added 2.47% or 17.95 points to end at 745.55 and Wipro Ltd (NS:) was up 2.01% or 5.70 points to 289.40 in late trade.</p>
<p>The worst performers of the session were Bharti Infratel Ltd (NS:), which fell 1.50% or 5.60 points to trade at 368.05 at the close. NTPC Ltd (NS:) declined 1.50% or 2.70 points to end at 178.35 and Asian Paints Ltd. (NS:) was down 0.70% or 8.00 points to 1125.85.</p>
<p>The top performers on the BSE Sensex 30 were Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (BO:) which rose 2.35% to 2662.00, Mahindra &amp; Mahindra Ltd. (BO:) which was up 2.16% to settle at 1419.00 and Lupin Ltd (BO:) which gained 2.15% to close at 837.70.</p>
<p>The worst performers were NTPC Ltd (BO:) which was down 1.36% to 177.50 in late trade, Oil And Natural Gas Corporation Ltd (BO:) which lost 0.78% to settle at 178.90 and Reliance Industries Ltd (BO:) which was down 0.55% to 915.90 at the close.</p>
<p>Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the India National Stock Exchange by 813 to 776 and 27 ended unchanged; on the Bombay Stock Exchange, 1408 rose and 1252 declined, while 147 ended unchanged.</p>
<p>The , which measures the implied volatility of Nifty 50 options, was up 3.47% to 14.1475.</p>
<p>Gold Futures for February delivery was up 0.36% or 4.50 to $1252.90 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in January fell 0.23% or 0.13 to hit $57.23 a barrel, while the February Brent oil contract rose 0.13% or 0.08 to trade at $63.48 a barrel.</p>
<p>USD/INR was down 0.19% to 64.365, while EUR/INR rose 0.06% to 75.9022.</p>
<p>The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.10% at 93.75.</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> | India stocks higher at close of trade; Nifty 50 up 0.55% | false | https://newsline.com/india-stocks-higher-at-close-of-trade-nifty-50-up-0-55/ | 2017-12-11 | 1 |
<p>By Peter Van BurenThis article was originally published by TomDispatch. Be sure to read Tom Engelhardt’s excellent introduction to it by clicking <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175472/" type="external">here</a>.</p>
<p>Here’s the First Amendment, <a href="http://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_Am1.html" type="external">in full</a>: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”</p>
<p>Those beautiful words, almost haiku-like, are the sparse poetry of the American democratic experiment. &#160;The Founders purposely wrote the First Amendment to read broadly, and not like a snippet of tax code, in order to emphasize that it should encompass everything from shouted religious rantings to eloquent political criticism. &#160;Go ahead, reread it aloud at this moment when the government seems to be carving out an exception to it large enough to drive a tank through.</p>
<p>As the occupiers of Zuccotti Park, like those pepper-sprayed at UC Davis or the Marine veteran shot in Oakland, recently found out, the government’s ability to limit free speech, to stopper the First Amendment, to undercut the right to peaceably assemble and petition for redress of grievances, is perhaps the most critical issue our republic can face. If you were to write the history of the last decade in Washington, it might well be a story of how, issue by issue, the government <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175398/" type="external">freed itself</a> from legal and constitutional bounds when it came to torture, the assassination of U.S. citizens, the holding of prisoners without trial or access to a court of law, the illegal surveillance of American citizens, and so on.&#160; In the process, it has entrenched itself in a comfortable shadowland of ever more impenetrable secrecy, while going after any whistleblower who might shine a light in.</p>
<p />
<p>Now, it also seems to be chipping away at the most basic American right of all, the right of free speech, starting with that of its own employees.&#160; As is often said, the easiest book to stop is the one that is never written; the easiest voice to staunch is the one that is never raised.</p>
<p>It’s true that, over the years, government in its many forms has tried to claim that you lose your free speech rights when you, for example, work for a <a href="http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/comm/free_speech/tinker.html" type="external">public school</a>, or join the <a href="http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/04/16/military-personnel-have-free-speech-rights/" type="external">military</a>. In dealing with school administrators who sought to silence a teacher for complaining publicly that not enough money was being spent on academics versus athletics, or generals who wanted to stop enlisted men and women from blogging, the courts have found that any loss of rights must be limited and specific. As Jim Webb <a href="http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20030619_falvy.html" type="external">wrote</a> when still Secretary of the Navy, “A citizen does not give up his First Amendment right to free speech when he puts on a military uniform, with small exceptions.”</p>
<p>Free speech is considered so basic that the courts have been wary of imposing any limits at all. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater" type="external">famous warning</a> by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes about not falsely shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater shows just how extreme a situation must be for the Supreme Court to limit speech.&#160; As Holmes put it in his definition: “The question in every case is whether the words used… are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.” That’s a high bar indeed.</p>
<p>The Government v. Morris Davis</p>
<p>Does a newspaper article from November 2009, a few hundred well-reasoned words that <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704402404574525581723576284.html" type="external">appeared</a> in the conservative Wall Street Journal, concluding with these mild sentences, meet Justice Holmes’s high mark?</p>
<p>“Double standards don’t play well in Peoria. They won’t play well in Peshawar or Palembang either. We need to work to change the negative perceptions that exist about Guantanamo and our commitment to the law. Formally establishing a legal double standard will only reinforce them.”</p>
<p>Morris Davis got fired from his research job at the Library of Congress for writing that article and a similar <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/10/AR2009111017461.html" type="external">letter to the editor</a> of the Washington Post. (The irony of being fired for exercising free speech while employed at Thomas Jefferson’s library evidently escaped his bosses.) &#160;With the help of the ACLU, Davis demanded his job back.&#160; On January 8, 2010, the ACLU <a href="http://www.aclu.org/free-speech/davis-v-billington" type="external">filed</a> a lawsuit against the Library of Congress on his behalf. &#160;In March 2011 a federal court <a href="http://www.aclu.org/free-speech/court-rules-aclu-lawsuit-behalf-former-gitmo-prosecutor-fired-library-congress-can-move-" type="external">ruled</a> that the suit could go forward.</p>
<p>The case is being heard <a href="http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/appeals_court_hears_case_of_ex-gitmo_prosecutor_fired_by_library_of_congres/" type="external">this month</a>. Someday, it will likely define the free speech rights of federal employees and so determine the quality of people who will make up our government. We citizens vote for the big names, but it’s the millions of lower-ranked, unelected federal employees who decide by their actions how the laws are carried out (or ignored) and the Constitution upheld (or disregarded).</p>
<p>Morris Davis is not some dour civil servant. &#160;Prior to joining the Library of Congress, he spent more than 25 years as an Air Force colonel. &#160;He was, in fact, the chief military prosecutor at Guantánamo and showed enormous courage in October 2007 when he <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/security/2007/12/10/18199/morris-gitmo-haynes/" type="external">resigned</a> from that position and left the Air Force. Davis had stated he would not use evidence obtained through torture back in 2005.&#160; When a torture advocate was named his boss in 2007, Davis quit rather than face the inevitable order to reverse his position.</p>
<p>In December 2008, Davis went to work as a researcher at the Library of Congress in the Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade Division.&#160; None of his work was related to Guantanamo. &#160;He was not a spokesperson for, or a public face of, the library.&#160; He was respected at work. &#160;Even the people who fired him do not contest that he did his “day job” as a researcher well.</p>
<p>On November 12, 2009, the day after his op-ed and letter appeared, Davis was <a href="http://www.truth-out.org/former-guantanamo-chief-prosecutor-pair-testicles-fell-president-after-election-day/1320935259" type="external">told by his boss</a> that the pieces had caused the library concern over his “poor judgment and suitability to serve… not consistent with ‘acceptable service'” — as the letter of admonishment he received put the matter.&#160; It referred only to his op-ed and Washington Post letter, and said nothing about his work performance as a researcher. &#160;One week later, Davis was fired.</p>
<p>But Shouldn’t He Have Known Better Than to Write Something Political?</p>
<p>The courts have consistently supported the rights of the Ku Klux Klan to use extreme and hateful words, of the burners of books, and of those who desecrate the American flag.&#160; All of that is considered “protected speech.” &#160;A commitment to real free speech means accepting the toughest cases, the most offensive things people can conceive of, as the price of a free society.</p>
<p>The Library of Congress does not restrict its employees from writing or speaking, so Davis broke no rules. &#160;Nor, theoretically at least, do other government agencies like the CIA and the State Department restrict employees from writing or speaking, even on matters of official concern, although they do demand <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/docs/v41i3a01p.htm" type="external">prior review</a> for such things as the possible misuse of classified material.</p>
<p>Clearly, such agency review processes have sometimes been used as a de facto method of prior restraint. &#160;The CIA, for example, has been accused of using indefinite security reviews to effectively prevent a book from being published. The Department of Defense has also wielded <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/26/us/26agent.html" type="external">exaggerated claims</a> of classified material to block books.</p>
<p>Since at least 1968, there has, however, been no broad prohibition against government employees writing about political matters or matters of public concern. &#160;In 1968, the Supreme Court decided a seminal public employee First Amendment case, <a href="http://www.firstamendmentschools.org/freedoms/faq.aspx?id=12819" type="external">Pickering v. Board of Education</a>. &#160;It ruled that school officials had violated the First Amendment rights of teacher Marvin Pickering when they fired him for writing a letter to his local paper criticizing the allocation of money between academics and athletics.</p>
<p>A Thought Crime</p>
<p>Morris Davis was fired by the Library of Congress not because of his work performance, but because he wrote that Wall Street Journal op-ed on his own time, using his own computer, as a private citizen, never mentioning his (unrelated) federal job. &#160;The government just did not like what he wrote.&#160; Perhaps his bosses were embarrassed by his words, or felt offended by them.&#160; Certainly, in the present atmosphere in Washington, they felt they had an open path to stopping their own employee from saying what he did, or at least for punishing him for doing so.</p>
<p>It’s not, of course, that federal employees don’t write and speak publicly.&#160; As long as they don’t step on toes, they do, in startling numbers, on matters of official concern, on hobbies, on subjects of all sorts, through what must be an untold number of blogs, Facebook pages, Tweets, op-eds, and letters to the editor. &#160;The government picked Davis out for selective, vindictive prosecution.</p>
<p>More significantly, Davis was fired prospectively — not for poor attendance, or too much time idling at the water cooler, but because his boss believed Davis’s writing showed that the quality of his judgment might make him an unsuitable employee at some future moment. &#160;The simple act of speaking out on a subject at odds with an official government position was the real grounds for his firing. &#160;That, and that alone, was enough for termination.</p>
<p>As any devoted fan of George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, or Philip K. Dick would know, Davis committed a thought crime.</p>
<p>As some readers may also know, I evidently did the same thing.&#160; Because of my book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805094369/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People</a>, about my experiences as a State Department official in Iraq, and the articles, op-eds, and <a href="http://www.wemeantwell.com/" type="external">blog posts</a> I have written, I first had my <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175446/tomgram%3A_peter_van_buren,_wikileaked_at_the_state_department/" type="external">security clearance suspended</a> by the Department of State and then was <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/08/world/us-envoy-peter-van-buren-takes-caustic-pen-to-iraq-war.html" type="external">suspended</a> from my job there. &#160;That job had nothing to do with Iraq or any of the subjects I have written about. &#160;My performance reviews were good, and no one at State criticized me for my day-job work. &#160;Because we have been working under different human resources systems, Davis, as a civil servant on new-hire probation, could be fired directly. &#160;As a tenured Foreign Service Officer, I can’t, and so State has placed me on indefinite administrative leave status; that is, I’m without a job, pending action to terminate me formally through a more laborious process.</p>
<p>However, in removing me from my position, the document the State Department delivered to me darkly echoed what Davis’ boss at the Library of Congress said to him:</p>
<p>“The manner in which you have expressed yourself in some of your published material is inconsistent with the standards of behavior expected of the Foreign Service. &#160;Some of your actions also raise questions about your overall judgment. &#160;Both good judgment and the ability to represent the Foreign Service in a way that will make the Foreign Service attractive to candidates are key requirements.”</p>
<p>There follows a pattern of punishing federal employees for speaking out or whistle-blowing: look at Davis, or me, or <a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/julyaugust_2011/features/the_unquiet_life_of_franz_gayl030495.php?page=all" type="external">Franz Gayl</a>, or <a href="http://www.whistleblower.org/action-center/save-tom-drake" type="external">Thomas Drake</a>.&#160; In this way, a precedent is being set for an even deeper cloud of secrecy to surround the workings of government.&#160; From Washington, in other words, no news, other than good or officially approved news, is to emerge.</p>
<p>The government’s statements at Davis’s trial, now underway in Washington D.C., do indeed indicate that he was fired for the act of speaking out itself, as much as the content of what he said. &#160;The Justice Department lawyer representing the government said that Davis’s writings cast doubt on his discretion, judgment and ability to serve as a high-level official.&#160; (She also added that Davis’s language in the op-ed was “intemperate.” &#160;One judge on the three-member bench seemed to support the point, saying, “It’s one thing to speak at a law school or association, but it’s quite a different thing to be in The Washington Post.” &#160;The case will likely end up at the Supreme Court.</p>
<p>Free Speech Is for Iranians, Not Government Employees</p>
<p>If Morris Davis loses his case, then a federal employee’s judgment and suitability may be termed insufficient for employment if he or she writes publicly in a way that offends or embarrasses the government. In other words, the very definition of good judgment, when it comes to freedom of speech, will then rest with the individual employer — that is, the U.S. government.</p>
<p>Simply put, even if you as a federal employee follow your agency’s rules on publication, you can still be fired for what you write if your bosses don’t like it. &#160;If your speech offends them, then that’s bad judgment on your part and the First Amendment goes down the drain.&#160; Free speech is increasingly coming at a price in Washington: for federal employees, conscience could cost them their jobs.</p>
<p>In this sense, Morris Davis represents a chilling precedent. &#160;He raised his voice.&#160; If we’re not careful, the next Morris Davis may not.&#160; Federal employees are, at best, a skittish bunch, not known for their innovative, out-of-the-box thinking. &#160;Actions like those in the Davis case will only further deter any thoughts of speaking out, and will likely deter some good people from seeking federal employment.</p>
<p>More broadly, the Davis case threatens to give the government free rein in selecting speech by its employees it does not like and punishing it.&#160; It’s okay to blog about your fascination with knitting or to support official positions.&#160; If you happen to be Iranian or Chinese or Syrian, and not terribly fond of your government, and express yourself on the subject, the U.S. government will support your right to do it 110% of the way. &#160;However, as a federal employee, blog about your negative opinions on U.S. policies and you’ve got a problem.&#160; In fact, we have a problem as a country if freedom of speech only holds as long as it does not offend the U.S. government.</p>
<p>Morris Davis’s problem is neither unique nor isolated.&#160; Clothilde Le Coz, Washington director of&#160; <a href="http://en.rsf.org/" type="external">Reporters without Borders</a>, told me earlier this month, “Secrecy is taking over from free speech in the United States. &#160;While we naively thought the Obama administration would be more transparent than the previous one, it is actually the first to sue five people for being sources and speaking publicly.” &#160;Scary, especially since this is no longer an issue of one rogue administration.</p>
<p>Government is different than private business. &#160;If you don’t like McDonald’s because of its policies, go to Burger King, or a soup kitchen, or eat at home. &#160;You don’t get the choice of federal governments, and so the critical need for its employees to be able to speak informs the republic. &#160;We are the only ones who can tell you what is happening inside your government. &#160;It really is that important. &#160;Ask Morris Davis.</p>
<p>Peter Van Buren spent a year in Iraq as a State Department Foreign Service Officer serving as Team Leader for two Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs). Now in Washington, he writes about Iraq and the Middle East at his blog, <a href="http://www.wemeantwell.com/" type="external">We Meant Well</a>. His book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805094369/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People</a> (The American Empire Project, Metropolitan Books), has recently been published. To read about the grilling he’s gotten from the State Department for his truth-telling, <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175446/tomgram%3A_peter_van_buren%2C_wikileaked_at_the_state_department/" type="external">click here</a>.</p>
<p>[Note on further readings: You can check out the ACLU’s full-filing text on behalf of Davis by <a href="http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/2010_01_08_-_FINAL_Davis_Complaint.PDF" type="external">clicking here</a>.]</p>
<p>[Disclaimer: The views expressed here are solely those of the author in his private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of the Department of State, the Department of Defense, or any other entity of the U.S. Government. It should be quite obvious that the Department of State has not approved, endorsed, or authorized this post.]</p>
<p>Copyright 2011 Peter Van Buren</p> | Thought Crime in Washington | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/thought-crime-in-washington/ | 2011-11-29 | 4 |
<p>Investing.com – Anticipation for Thursday’s European Central Bank policy decision has been fading over the last few weeks as experts and markets have slowly come to realize that the euro zone monetary authority is unlikely to provide big hints on its strategy for eventually winding down, or tapering, its asset purchase program.</p>
<p>The ECB’s latest is due at 7:45AM ET (11:45GMT) on Thursday with .</p>
<p>Most of the focus will be on ECB president Mario Draghi’s 45 minutes after the announcement, as investors look for more clues on when and how the ECB could start unwinding its massive quantitative easing (QE) program, valued at a monthly €60 billion ($71.7 billion).</p>
<p>Markets looking towards October for concrete details</p>
<p>However, consensus among analysts across the globe has recently pushed back their bets on when the euro area central bank will reveal details over its tapering plans.</p>
<p>46 of 66 economists in a taken from August 28 to August 31 expect the central bank to announce a change in October.</p>
<p>Just three weeks before the most recent survey, slightly over half of economists polled had said such an announcement would come in September.</p>
<p>Now, only 15 respondents expected it at the September 7 policy-setting meeting with the other five economists suggesting that markets will have to wait until December.</p>
<p>That poll was also taken prior to the news from ECB sources cited by Bloomberg that bank’s Governing Council may not be ready to finalize their decision on next year’s bond-purchase plan until just a couple of weeks before the current program expires at the end of the year.</p>
<p>Grabbing any random analyst note to clients on ECB expectations, one is likely to find that the experts widely believe that Thursday is “too early” for any concrete details to be announced and that their expectations have shifted to the October 26 meeting.</p>
<p>Shift in QE bias</p>
<p>However, that doesn’t mean that Thursday’s statement and posterior press conference will have nothing to watch.</p>
<p>“We think that the ECB will hint at QE tapering, to be announced later in the year, by modifying its forward guidance,” Morgan Stanley wrote it its preview for clients.</p>
<p>“Rather than saying that it stands ready to increase the QE program in terms of size and/or duration, if needed, it’ll likely drop any reference to the possibility of increasing the monthly purchases, while it’ll continue to say that it could buy for longer,” these analysts explained.</p>
<p>Euro in focus</p>
<p>Furthermore, the ECB will present updated economic projections with an upgrade to the growth outlook and a slight reduction in inflation projections, making any remarks on recent euro strength a major focus of the meeting.</p>
<p>Indeed, as Draghi and team struggle to push inflation towards its 2% objective, several analysts have chimed in on the consequences of the strong single currency.</p>
<p>Societe Generale calculated that a 10% appreciation in leads to a 30 basis point reduction to inflation over the next six quarters, while Goldman Sachs noted that a stronger exchange rate puts the euro area in a weaker position to absorb the negative impulse from global growth.</p>
<p>“We expect Mario Draghi to express concern about this and explicitly mention that the stronger euro is the main reason the ECB has lowered its inflation projection and that there is further downside risk,” analysts from Danske Bank wrote in their ECB preview.</p>
<p>“That said, Draghi will still have some hawkishness in his tone in our view (…) because growth momentum remains strong, which has previously been one of his arguments for why inflation will rise eventually,” they added.</p>
<p>ING economists agreed that the stronger euro will make the ECB more cautious with its tapering communication and suggested that the central bank has two options:</p>
<p>“Either announcing the details of a very dovish tapering starting in January hoping that full clarity brings back calm, or striking a cautious balance between giving first hints at the upcoming tapering and dovish sounds, like warning against the unwarranted tightening of financial conditions in order to calm FX markets,” they explained.</p>
<p>“As the ECB is probably not yet unanimous on the first option, we expect that Thursday will again be about what Draghi doesn’t say, rather than what he does say,” these experts concluded.</p> | ECB preview: eyes on QE bias, euro and what Draghi does not say | false | https://newsline.com/ecb-preview-eyes-on-qe-bias-euro-and-what-draghi-does-not-say/ | 2017-09-06 | 1 |
<p>The press should not let up on this one.Vice President Dick Cheney has yet to offer a reasonable explanation for the delay in the release of information. He was embarrassed? Maybe he felt so bad about shooting his friend he couldn't face the public scrutiny?&#160;The suggestion that the press is making too much of this is off base. The Veep shot somebody. The public has a stake in this and a reasonable expectation to hear that information sooner, not later. It would be the same if the vice president had a heart attack or was pulled over by cops for drunken driving. Any incident that could potentially impact his ability to fulfill his duties as second in command is of interest to the public. Accidentally shooting one's hunting buddy could be a cause or a result of impaired judgment. Viewed in the best possible light, the failure to disclose the information in a timely manner looks like a lapse in judgment. Cynics suggest a cover up.&#160;Journalists ask questions on behalf of the public. Reporters are doing their job in pressing for a fuller explanation of the delay. And until Cheney explains, they should continue to press the White House for accountability. Sometimes, solid journalism&#160;demands simple and patient persistence.</p> | The Press and the Veep: Questions Remain | false | https://poynter.org/news/press-and-veep-questions-remain | 2006-02-14 | 2 |
<p>In 2011, the United States experienced its biggest year ever in weapons exports: According to an annual study by the Congressional Research Service [ <a href="http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/R42678.pdf" type="external">PDF</a>] released earlier this week, the US overseas weapons sales jumped to $66.3 billion last year ( <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/27/world/middleeast/us-foreign-arms-sales-reach-66-3-billion-in-2011.html" type="external">77.7 percent</a> of the $85.3 billion global market in 2011), from $21.4 billion in deals in 2010.&#160;</p>
<p>In just one year, the US more than tripled its revenue in arms deals with foreign countries. The $66.3 billion also sets a new cash total record, easily surpassing the previous record of $31 billion in sales in fiscal year 2009.</p>
<p>If you’re having trouble putting those hefty sums in perspective, $66.3 billion is amounts to an extra <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/world/us-weapon-sales-top-66-billion-thats-950-for-everyone-on-the-planet-20120828-24xuv.html" type="external">$9.50</a> in lunch money for every man, woman, and child alive today. And if you’re still having some trouble putting this in perspective, here’s a pie chart that shows just how much our global share in arms deals with developing countries ticked up in that one year:</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Yep. That’s us, on the right, doing a reverse- <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2yo_r0kj2o" type="external">Pac-Man</a>-death on overseas arms transfer agreements between 2010 and 2011.</p>
<p>The uptick was mostly fueled by demand in developing countries, which accounted for over $56 billion in sales from the US. Here are two more charts illustrating in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constant_dollars" type="external">constant</a> dollars how America definitively pwns all others in flooding the arms market in the developing world:</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
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<p>Illustrations by <a href="https://twitter.com/daudig" type="external">Dave Gilson</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Much of the surge was driven exclusively by the ongoing freak-out over Iran: <a href="" type="internal">Saudi Arabia</a>, Oman, and the <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/07/uaes-ambassador-endorses-an-american-strike-on-iran-contd/59257/" type="external">United Arab Emirates</a> (all Persian Gulf allies or partners of the United States) in particular started buying missile defense systems, fighter jets, and other hardware from the US at record levels, just in case Iran ever <a href="" type="internal">goes nuclear</a> and tries to throw its weight around West Asia and the Gulf. Saudi Arabia’s <a href="http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/R42678.pdf" type="external">$33.4 billion</a> deal included dozens of F-15 fighter jets and Black Hawk helicopters. The UAE threw down $4.5 billion for a missile shield and other toys.</p>
<p>And in case you were wondering: In arms sales to both developing and developed nations, our closest competitor is Russia, which came in at a total of $4.8 billion in 2011—roughly 7 percent of what the United States hauled in that same year:</p>
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<p /> | CHARTS: US Overseas Arms Sales More Than Tripled in 2011 | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2012/08/charts-us-arms-sales-overseas-triples/ | 2012-08-29 | 4 |
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<p>But a new GOP majority will take control in January, meaning nearly a dozen abortion-related bills could soon be on the table, and Democrats will be unable to block them by vote for the first time in a decade.</p>
<p>“With these changes in Iowa, this can be when we start to really see a lot of abortion restrictions fly through the Legislature,” said Elizabeth Nash, a policy analyst with the Guttmacher Institute, a national organization that supports reproductive health and rights.</p>
<p>It’s been nearly 20 years since the GOP controlled both state chambers and the governor’s office. Republican Gov. Terry Branstad has said he opposes abortion in general.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>After spending most of the last 26 years at the Capitol, former state lawmaker Chuck Hurley, a spokesman for an anti-abortion organization known as The Family Leader, said he sees this as the movement’s “best opportunity ever to protect innocent human life.”</p>
<p>Iowa was one of at least three states where voters turned the government completely Republican in the Nov. 8 election. The GOP widened its hold on governorships and maintained a majority in Congress, in addition to gaining the power of the presidency with Donald Trump.</p>
<p>Legislation in Iowa could reduce the window of time that a woman can seek an abortion and ban the use of fetal tissue donated to universities for research.</p>
<p>Other bills could force a woman to wait at least 24 hours before having an abortion or require counseling about the procedure’s health effects, which critics say can sometimes be inaccurate. In some states, women must be told about pain a fetus might suffer, and teenagers must get consent from a parent.</p>
<p>Branstad signed a bill in the 1990s that required parental notification but not consent. He has been public about his effort to appoint abortion opponents to a state board that unsuccessfully tried to ban telemedicine abortion in the state. The practice allows women in rural areas to get abortion pills without the need for an in-office consultation in a city clinic.</p>
<p>Republicans have also repeatedly pushed to eliminate state funding for Planned Parenthood, despite the money not being used for abortions. The issue has delayed adjournment in previous legislative sessions.</p>
<p>Because of its divided Legislature, Iowa was mostly shielded from measures that emerged after Tea Party candidates won big in the 2010 midterm elections, including in Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and North Carolina.</p>
<p>Between 2011 and 2016, more than 330 abortion restrictions were enacted around the country, according to the Guttmacher Institute.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>GOP leaders in the Iowa House and Senate have been mum on what ideas they might support.</p>
<p>Republican state Rep. Greg Heartsill said he will try again to introduce legislation to ban abortion despite the legal challenges that would be sure to follow. His proposal includes a bill to change state law and an amendment to the state constitution. He said he’s still working to secure enough votes within his party.</p>
<p>Jenifer Bowen of Iowa Right to Life said a new coalition of anti-abortion groups will announce their legislative priorities before lawmakers return to the Capitol on Jan. 9. She offered a practical assessment of a flat-out abortion ban, though she said that has always been the ultimate goal.</p>
<p>“We want to be successful with whatever it is that we decide to put forward because we know the momentum is with us. We know that the votes are with us,” she said. “But I guess for a lack of a better way to say it, we don’t want to overplay our hand.”</p>
<p>Rachel Lopez, a spokeswoman for the Iowa affiliate of Planned Parenthood, said her office has noticed an uptick in calls from people concerned about their reproductive rights in the new year. She declined to give specifics on how the organization would respond to legislation but emphasized that nothing would change immediately.</p>
<p>“We’ve been fighting for these rights for 100 years,” she said of the national organization. “The fight hasn’t always been easy, but we are standing strong. We will not back down. Today is no different.”</p> | New GOP majority could bring abortion restrictions to Iowa | false | https://abqjournal.com/895337/new-gop-majority-could-bring-abortion-restrictions-to-iowa.html | 2 |
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<p>In light of the Salvadoran right’s fear-mongering campaign in advance of the Central American nation’s Sunday presidential election, which has sought to portray leftist candidate Mauricio Funes of the Farabundo Martí Liberation Front (FMLN) as a kind of dangerous foreign agent of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, perhaps it’s instructive to consider the political history of the past four years.</p>
<p>Bolivia, Presidential Election of 2005: Chávez and “Terrorists”</p>
<p>During the country’s presidential election, Evo Morales of the Movement Towards Socialism or MAS campaigned on a progressive platform stressing resource nationalism.&#160; His opponent, conservative Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga of the PODEMOS or We Can party (no relationship to Barack Obama) claimed that Morales had ties to drug smugglers, terrorism, Hugo Chávez and Cuba’s Fidel Castro.&#160; Quiroga, who pledged to pursue free trade policies, went down to ignominious defeat and got trounced by Morales, 54 per cent to 28 per cent.</p>
<p>Peru and Presidential Election of June, 2006: “Flagrant and Persistent” Meddling</p>
<p>After meeting with Chávez and Morales, the leftist Ollanta Humala, a former officer in the Peruvian army, declared himself part of “a Latin America with new leaders, in which the perception is that the neo-liberal economic model is exhausted.” &#160;Adopting a nationalist platform, Humala pledged to nationalize Peru’s hydrocarbons industry and said he strongly opposed the free trade agreement that his country had signed with Washington.</p>
<p>When Chávez injected himself into the presidential contest by saying that Humala was the voice of the downtrodden and conservative Lourdes Flores was “the candidate of Peru’s oligarchy,” the Peruvian government briefly withdrew its ambassador from Venezuela in protest.&#160; During a runoff vote Flores was eliminated, thus leaving Humala and Peru’s former President Alan García of the APRA Party or American Popular Revolutionary Alliance to face off against one another.</p>
<p>García finished second in that vote trailing Humala.&#160; During his first presidency García had espoused some progressive positions but now he referred to Chávez and Morales as spoiled children and “historical losers” when they criticized Peru’s free-trade agreement with the United States.&#160; Chávez shot back that García, whose previous presidency was marred by hyperinflation, food shortages and guerrilla violence, was a “thief” and a “crook.”</p>
<p>“I hope that Ollanta Humala becomes president of Peru,” Chávez declared.&#160; “To Ollanta Humala, go comrade! Long live Ollanta Humala! Long live Peru!” the Venezuelan leader added.&#160; Chávez’s comments prompted Peru to recall its ambassador from Venezuela in protest.&#160; The Venezuelan leader, Peruvian authorities charged, was persistently and flagrantly intervening in their country’s internal affairs.</p>
<p>García, who had languished behind Humala by more than ten points in opinion polls, exploited the diplomatic spat by accusing Chávez of political interference.&#160; When the APRA man painted Humala as a puppet of Chávez and Morales, Humala was unable to launch an articulate counteroffensive.&#160; When the votes were finally counted, García edged out Humala, 53 per cent to 47 per cent.&#160; The vote, García remarked, was a blow to Chávez.&#160; “Today, the majority of the country has delivered a message in favor of national independence, of national sovereignty,” García said. &#160;“They have defeated the efforts by Mr Hugo Chávez to integrate us into his militaristic and backwards expansion project he intends to impose over South America. Today, Peru has said no,” García added proudly.&#160; &#160;U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick was also pleased with the result, proclaiming that “the best response is that of the Peruvian people (who) decided to vote for President Garcia and not for [Hugo] Chávez’s candidate.”</p>
<p>Mexico and Presidential Election of July, 2006: López Obrador Is a “Danger”</p>
<p>Even though Chávez was not a candidate in the Mexican election which followed one month after Peru’s contest, he was certainly a political specter.&#160; The election pitted leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the PRD or Party of the Democratic Revolution against two conservative candidates, Roberto Madrazo of the PRI or Institutional Revolutionary Party and Felipe Calderón of the PAN or National Action Party.&#160; In early polling López Obrador, a populist mayor of Mexico City who had instituted socialist-style handout programs and who had spoken of his desire to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA, had a clear lead over both candidates.</p>
<p>Trailing in public opinion surveys, Madrazo sought to take down his leftist challenger by linking him to Chávez.&#160; “There are clear similarities between Chávez and López Obrador,” Madrazo said.&#160; “I see authoritarianism in them both.”&#160; The PRI candidate added that López Obrador and Chávez did not respect the rule of law and that foreign investors would avoid Mexico if the PRD candidate ever came to power.&#160; Madrazo declared, “I foresee the capital flight that happened in Venezuela with Chávez’s government that I don’t want to happen here.”&#160; Going even further, Madrazo accused López Obrador of being in contact with Chávez aides and charged that the Venezuelan leader was trying to influence the election.</p>
<p>Pro-business candidate Calderón joined in the pummeling.&#160; In his TV ads, he linked Obrador to Hugo Chávez and claimed that the PRD candidate was “a danger to Mexico.” “Hugo Chávez is not running for president of Mexico,” remarked the Washington Post. &#160;“But some days it’s been hard to tell. The Venezuelan president’s face has been all over Mexican television at critical stages in this country’s bitter mudfest of a presidential race.”&#160; A little known political activist group put Chávez on TV, surrounded by machine guns and soldiers, and accompanied by an ominous voice-over which intoned:&#160; “In Mexico, you don’t have to die to define your future — you only have to vote!”</p>
<p>The Federal Electoral Commission ruled that Calderón’s ads TV ads violated its rules and ordered him to withdraw them but only after the scare-mongering message had set in and Calderón had shot up in the polls.&#160; Encouraged by the successful result of Calderón’s dirty campaign, the candidate’s aides claimed that the Venezuelan Bolivarian circles — small community groups supported by the Chávez government – were secretly working on behalf of López Obrador.</p>
<p>The leftist candidate of the PRD was known for his combative political style.&#160; Bizarrely however, López Obrador barely responded to the fear mongering campaign against him.&#160; Weeks passed until he finally disavowed a relationship with Chávez.&#160; Cowed by the right wing attacks, one presidential aide finally remarked “It’s absurd.&#160; Andrés Manuel López Obrador doesn’t know Chávez, nor have they ever spoken.”</p>
<p>The election itself was plagued with irregularities.&#160; When Calderón claimed victory, López Obrador cried fraud and called for street protests.&#160; The Electoral Tribunal ultimately ruled that Calderon had won the election by a very narrow margin and rejected Obrador’s allegations.</p>
<p>Ecuador Presidential Election of October, 2006: “Colonel Correa”</p>
<p>The next setback for Chávez came in Ecuador, where the Venezuelan leader’s would-be protégé, Rafael Correa, came in second against Álvaro Noboa in the first round of the country’s presidential election. &#160;Correa, a leftist economics professor who criticized U.S.-style free trade, denied that Chávez had funded his campaign and the Venezuelan leader, chastened by his defeats in Mexico and Peru, was uncharacteristically quiet about the Ecuador election.&#160; However, it was no secret that the two had a personal rapport. Correa in fact visited Chávez’s home state of Barinas, where he met with the Venezuelan leader and spent the night with Chávez’s parents.</p>
<p>As the presidential campaign heated up, Noboa, a banana magnate, sought to label Correa as a Chávez puppet.&#160; In an allusion to Chávez’s former military background, Noboa called his adversary “Colonel Correa.” Correa, the Noboa campaign charged, was being financed by Venezuela. In a bombastic tirade Noboa even declared, “the Chávez-Correa duo has played dirty in an effort to conquer Ecuador and submit it to slavery.”</p>
<p>If he were elected, Noboa promised, he would break relations with Caracas.&#160; Correa denied that his campaign was financed by Chávez and in a biting aside declared that his friendship with the Venezuelan leader was as legitimate as President Bush’s friendship with the bin Laden family. “They have pursued the most immoral and dirty campaign against me in an effort to link me with communism, terrorism, and Chavismo,” Correa explained.&#160; “The only thing left is for them to say that Bin Laden was financing me.”</p>
<p>Chávez, perhaps fearing that any statement on his part might tilt the election in favor of Noboa, initially remained silent as regards the Ecuadoran election. But at last the effusive Chávez could no longer constrain himself and broke his silence. The Venezuelan leader accused Noboa of baiting him in an effort to gain the “applause” of the United States. Chávez furthermore expressed doubts about the veracity of the voting result in the first presidential runoff, in which Correa came in second.</p>
<p>In his own inflammatory broadside, Chávez accused Noboa of being “an exploiter of child labor” on his banana plantations and a “fundamentalist of the extreme right.”&#160; In Ecuador, Chávez said, “there are also strange things going on. A gentleman who is the richest man in Ecuador; the king of bananas, who exploits his workers, who exploits children and puts them to work, who doesn’t pay them loans, suddenly appears in first place in the first [electoral] round.”&#160; The Noboa campaign, in an escalating war of words, shot back that the Venezuelan Ambassador should be expelled from Ecuador due to Chávez’s meddling.</p>
<p>In the end however, Noba’s fulminations came to nothing: the Banana King came in second to Correa, losing 43 per cent to 56 per cent for Correa.</p>
<p>Nicaragua Presidential Election of November, 2006: Chávez’s “Lieutenant” in Central America</p>
<p>In 2005, when Nicaraguan Sandinista leader traveled to Venezuela for a meeting with Chávez, the friendship between the two began to bear fruit. During the meeting at Miraflores, the presidential palace, Ortega remarked that Latin American unity was necessary to confront globalization. &#160;Ortega later alarmed Washington by remarking that if he won the election he would make sure that Nicaragua would join ALBA, Chávez’s Bolivarian Alternative for The Americas. &#160;Chávez’s trading plan, which is designed to sideline traditional corporate interests and Bush’s Free Trade Agreement of The Americas (FTAA), is based on barter agreements between Latin American countries. Ortega later added that he opposed U.S.-backed trade deals such as the Central American Free Trade Agreement or CAFTA. &#160;“Central America’s trading future lies not with the U.S. but with Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina,” he said.</p>
<p>Such statements put Ortega at odds with the likes of U.S. trade representative Robert Zoellick.&#160; “CAFTA is the opportunity of a lifetime,” Zoellick remarked in an address given at the Heritage Foundation.&#160; “If we retreat into isolationism, Daniel Ortega, Hugo Chávez and others like them, leftist autocrats will advance.”</p>
<p>As per Peru, the Nicaraguan right sought to link its Sandinista opposition to Chávez in an effort to instill fear in voters. Presidential candidate Jose Rizo remarked that Chávez and Ortega were “a threat to regional and hemispheric stability,” and claimed that the Venezuelan leader was financing Ortega’s campaign [both Venezuela and Ortega denied the accusation].&#160; “Ortega will become Chávez’s lieutenant in Central America and the Caribbean in the same way that he represented the extinct and failed Soviet Bloc,” Rizo added.</p>
<p>In the end however, Rizo’s red-baiting was unsuccessful: the veteran Sandinista leader edged out his opponent by 10 points to win the election.</p>
<p>El Salvador: Chávez and His “Totalitarian” Projects</p>
<p>To listen to the Salvadoran right in advance of Sunday’s presidential election, you’d think Mauricio Funes was leading El Salvador on the march towards Stalinist dictatorship.&#160; While campaigning near the Honduran border recently, his opponent Rodrigo Ávila claimed that the Funes campaign was being funded by Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez.&#160; “There’s a saying that ‘Whoever pays the mariachi decides what song is going to be played,’” Ávila remarked. &#160;“And that’s going to happen with them,” he added.&#160; “No matter what they say, what they do, their campaign is being financed by Venezuela.”</p>
<p>Funes himself denies having any political links with the Chávez government and has said that Venezuela will not meddle in Salvadoran internal affairs if he wins the presidential election.&#160; Furthermore, the FMLN leader has distanced himself from some of the more enthusiastic pro-Chávez members of his party.&#160; Despite Funes’s disavowals however, ARENA has continued to press on with its hysterical red baiting even though the rightist party has no proof that Funes has received financial support from Chávez.</p>
<p>Both Funes and Chávez, said outgoing President Antonio Saca, were trying to spread “totalitarian projects” and wanted to “stick their noses” in anti-democratic practices.&#160; It was “no secret” Saca added hyperbolically, that the FMLN received “its ideological nourishment from Havana” and its economic nourishment “from some other place.”&#160; In yet another ridiculous and over the top aside, Saca declared “I am sure that there’s some kind of working group in Venezuela which seeks to take over El Salvador.”</p>
<p>Latin American Right: Running On Empty</p>
<p>From Bolivia to Peru to Mexico to Ecuador to Nicaragua and now El Salvador, a clear pattern has emerged.&#160; The Latin American right knows that while it was in power, inequality and poverty increased and people hardly benefited economically from the extraction of natural resources.&#160; This put rightist politicians in a bind, since campaigning on U.S. – style economic policies and free trade was never going to be popular amongst electorates throughout the wider region.</p>
<p>In this sense, the Latin American right is in a similar dilemma to the Republicans in 2008.&#160; Like discredited John McCain, who represented the past and did not have any progressive economic ideas, today’s conservatives in Latin America are running on empty and hence their desperate moves to insert Chávez into the political equation.&#160; Sometimes, as in Peru and Mexico, the right’s strategy has succeeded whereas in other countries the tactic has failed. &#160;Arguably, Chávez’s inflammatory rhetoric may have backfired in certain cases and wound up hurting progressive candidates.</p>
<p>Ironically, despite the right’s claims, Chávez is hardly promoting revolution.&#160; Like other Latin American populists, Chávez has pushed economic redistribution but only up to a certain point.&#160; What’s more, Venezuela is probably not in the position right now to advance an ambitious geopolitical agenda due to the fall in world oil prices.&#160; That hasn’t stopped the right however from going negative and to claim that left candidates are intimately associated with Venezuela.&#160; For Latin American conservatives, it’s probably the only card they have left.</p>
<p>NIKOLAS KOZLOFF is the author of <a href="" type="internal">Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left</a> (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2008)</p> | Down But Not Out | true | https://counterpunch.org/2009/03/16/down-but-not-out/ | 2009-03-16 | 4 |
<p>Sharm el-Sheikh (Reuters) – Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said on Wednesday he was against the idea of military strikes against Iran or the Tehran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah as there was enough turmoil already in the Middle East.</p>
<p>He was asked what he thought of the prospect of such strikes in a question and answer session with journalists – two days after Saudi Arabia had accused Lebanon of declaring war through Hezbollah’s aggressive actions.</p>
<p>Sisi said he was against war, without spelling out who might be involved in military action.</p>
<p>When asked about recent arrests in Saudi Arabia during an anti-corruption crackdown, Sisi said the situation in the kingdom was reassuring and stable.</p>
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<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> | Egypt's Sisi against idea of strikes on Iran, Hezbollah | false | https://newsline.com/egypt039s-sisi-against-idea-of-strikes-on-iran-hezbollah/ | 2017-11-08 | 1 |
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<p>The company had offered fewer shares than planned and lowered the opening price for the stock. Sabre's IPO came as the hot market for startup stocks shows signs of cooling.</p>
<p>Thomas Klein, Sabre's CEO since last August, said that weakness in the tech sector played a role in the company's decision to trim the IPO, but he said there was no consideration of postponing the offering.</p>
<p>"We put what we thought was the appropriate number into the market," Klein said in an interview. "We think we'll be attractive over time, and we sold a small amount of the company today."</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Private-equity owners TPG and Silver Lake will keep about 80 percent of the company, which the IPO valued at around $4 billion.</p>
<p>The shares, trading on the Nasdaq stock market under the ticker symbol "SABR," rose 50 cents to close at $16.50. Broader indexes were mixed.</p>
<p>The IPO market is off to its best year since 2000, according to financial data provider Dealogic, but the 6 percent decline in the Nasdaq composite index since early March has weakened demand for new offerings.</p>
<p>Nick Einhorn, an analyst with Renaissance Capital, an investment adviser and research firm that focuses on IPOs, said the last 10 U.S. initial offerings priced below the midpoint of their expected range.</p>
<p>Hot IPOs often jump 10 percent or more in their first day of trading - shares of Chinese social media company Weibo Corp. soared 19 percent on their debut Thursday - but Sabre's more modest increase was understandable since it's larger and older than many companies that float offerings, Einhorn said.</p>
<p>"The fact that the stock traded up means that they did an OK job pricing it," he said.</p>
<p>Sabre owns online travel company Travelocity, which competes with Expedia and Priceline. It also sells software and services to link airlines, hotels and cruise lines with travel agencies to buy and sell tickets. In that business, it competes with Atlanta-based Travelport and Spain's Amadeus.</p>
<p>The Southlake, Texas-based company said that it raised $588 million after underwriting expenses, pricing 39.2 million shares at $16 each. The banks managing the deal have options to buy more shares. On April 4, Sabre indicated that it expected to offer 44.7 million shares at between $18 and $20 each.</p>
<p>Sabre has lost money each of the last five years. Last year, it posted a loss after paying preferred dividends of $137.2 million on revenue of $3.05 billion. Revenue was up nearly 3 percent from 2012, according to regulatory filings.</p>
<p>Klein said the company will benefit from global growth in travel by selling software to help customers "solve their biggest problems, like the logistics of running an airline every day."</p>
<p>Sabre scored a big win in January when American Airlines Group Inc. picked it to build the reservations system that it will use after American and US Airways are fully combined.</p>
<p>Sabre started as the reservations department of American, which spun it off in 2000. TPG and Silver Lake bought Sabre in 2007 for $4.5 billion and took it private.</p> | Shares of Travelocity owner Sabre rise after IPO | false | https://abqjournal.com/385604/shares-of-travelocity-owner-sabre-rise-after-ipo.html | 2 |
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<p>By: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/JSCaldwell2/?fref=ts" type="external">Jeff Caldwell</a></p>
<p>In an&#160; <a href="http://www.basicincome.org/news/2016/07/us-libertarian-presidential-candidate-open-to-basic-income/" type="external">article</a> shared on Facebook by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/OurAmericaInitiative/posts/994110360707403" type="external">Our America Initiative</a>,&#160;Gary Johnson&#160;is described&#160;as&#160;being&#160;“open” to the idea of&#160;Universal Basic Income paid for with a carbon tax.</p>
<p>Our America Initiative states in the headline text of the post,</p>
<p>“A Basic Income – though worrisome if a mere addition to the government mass now drowning the economy in debt – could be a good replacement of the current welfare bureaucracy. Same thing with the carbon tax – if sold as a replacement of environmental bureaucracy. OAI founder Governor Johnson is open to these and other fundamental reforms, which activists should debate now before they arise as votes in the near future.”</p>
<p>The verbiage from the headline text comes across as Gary Johnson supports&#160;the replacement of current government bureaucracy with a different governmental design. Basic Income Earth Network reports, “Like many libertarians, Johnson said he liked the idea of the Universal Basic Income (UBI) because of its potential to save money in bureaucratic costs, freeing up more money to give people directly.”</p>
<p>Because of how each source words their releases, I am left asking myself four&#160;questions:</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>Perhaps I should be comforted by Johnson’s <a href="https://www.facebook.com/OccupytheMediaX/videos/1816823511879769/" type="external">appearance</a> on Bill Maher when&#160;he supported the free market in dealing with climate change.</p>
<p>However, the Universal Basic Income&#160;news comes out 18 days after Maher told Johnson&#160;the free market did not have anything to do with the collapse of coal.</p>
<p>I hope Gary Johnson does not support these stances. Incentivize citizens, allow for charities and non-profit organizations to take the reins from&#160;our governmental safety net that is at the helm of political control. We need to take the power away from the politicians and place it in the hands of the people.</p>
<p>Our America Initiative states we should have this discussion, so let the debate begin!</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Gary Johnson is Open to Government Subsidized Income | false | http://libertyviral.com/gary-johnson-open-full-statism/ | 2016-07-19 | 1 |
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<p>CONROE, Texas - About 200 neglected horses seized from a Houston-area ranch will remain with an animal protection group and the owners must pay $485,000 in care costs.</p>
<p>A judge in Conroe declined to return the horses to Herman and Kathleen Hoffman. They appealed an initial court ruling that granted custody to the Houston Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.</p>
<p>The SPCA provided the estimated cost of caring for the horses, which were seized from the Hoffman property on June 24. Experts say many of the horses were starving or had neglect-related health issues.</p>
<p>An attorney for the Hoffmans, who face misdemeanor animal cruelty charges in the case, declined comment Thursday.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | About 200 neglected horses to remain in Houston SPCA care | false | https://abqjournal.com/621114/about-200-neglected-horses-to-remain-in-houston-spca-care.html | 2 |
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<p>For the second straight card, the Jackson’s MMA Series will feature a World Extreme Cagefighting veteran in its main event.</p>
<p>On Wednesday it was announced that Jackson-Winkeljohn’s Frank Gomez (8-2), who has four WEC fights under his belt, will face Johnny Bedford (16-9) in a bantamweight bout Dec. 18 at the Hard Rock Hotel &amp; Casino Albuquerque. It’s the third installment of the Jackson’s series, which is promoted by the renowned Albuquerque mixed martial arts gym.</p>
<p>“It means a lot” to be fighting at home, said Gomez, a Sandia graduate. “Every fight I get my friends and family asking, ‘When are you gonna fight at home, when are you gonna fight at home?’ I’m really going to take advantage of this opportunity, and hopefully put on a good show for friends and family.”</p>
<p>Gomez owns a 2-2 mark in the Zuffa-owned WEC, which is set to merge with the UFC in 2011. He suffered a unanimous decision loss to jiujitsu specialist Wagnney Fabiano at WEC 49 in his most recent appearance in the cage. The wrestling standout last fought in Albuquerque in September 2008, when he earned a first-round technical knockout of Matt Ott.</p>
<p>Beford is a Dallas native who has fought under the Bellator Fighting Championships banner and has been victorious in eight of his last 10 fights.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“I’ve seen Johnny fight before. He’s a really tough, a scrappy guy with tough wrestling and jiujitsu,” Gomez said. “I know he has a lot of experience. I pretty much have to be ready for anything. I know he’ll bring the fight.”</p>
<p>The co-main event features Jackson-Winkeljohn’s Julie Kedzie (14-8) against Olympia, Wash., resident Sarah D’Alelio (4-0) in a 135-pound bout. Kedzie was scheduled to appear on the second Jackson’s fight card on Sept. 4, but had to withdraw because she was filming “Ultimate Women Challenge,” a reality show centered around female mixed martial arts that is set to air on an NBC affiliate at an unspecified date.</p>
<p>“Unfortunately I was unable to meet with D’Alelio in the cage last summer, so I’m hoping to make it up for her in December and give her a good fight. … I’m hoping we’re going to be fight of the night,” Kedzie said.</p>
<p>The event features a total of five professional and six amateur bouts. The rest of the main card includes: Jackson-Winkeljohn’s Diego Brandao (11-7) vs. Roswell’s Richard Villa (6-3) at 155 pounds; Jackson-Winkeljohn’s Willie Parks (1-0) vs. Albuquerque’s Josh Lanier (2-3) at 185 pounds and Jackson-Winkeljohn’s Clint Roberts (0-0) vs.&#160; Silver City’s Matt Madrid (2-2) at 170 pounds.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | WEC Crossover Gomez Will Fight at Home | false | https://abqjournal.com/233055/wec-crossover-gomez-will-fight-at-home.html | 2 |
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<p>TEL AVIV, Israel - If you've ever spent time in Tel Aviv, you've undoubtedly encountered the Na Nachs. Sighting a band of the Bohemian ultra-Orthodox Jewish group usually begins the same way.</p>
<p>First comes the unmistakable thump of electronic dance music. The sound grows louder as its source approaches: a brightly painted van, festooned with stickers and crowned with a pair of huge loudspeakers.</p>
<p>The van is full of grinning, bearded, long-haired men, mostly young, wearing an assortment of comfortable-looking clothing and white, tassel-topped yarmulkes. At intervals the van stops and the grinning men pour into the streets, dancing and twirling to the music.</p>
<p>A few decades old, this quirky, happy-go-lucky sect seems to be growing in numbers.&#160;</p>
<p>A sub-sect of Breslov Hasidism, Na Nachs follow the teachings of a Kabbalist mystic who lived 200 years ago in what is today Ukraine. His name, Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, forms the basis of the arcane mantra they chant throughout songs and prayers and have printed on their yarmulkes: Na Nach Nachma Nachman, Meuman.</p>
<p>Nachman was seen as somewhat outlandish in his day, but as time went by, his followers became more conventional to avoid persecution. Rabbi Yisroel Ber Odesser - a now-deceased mystic who believed that Nachman sent him a note from heaven in the 1920s - revived the fundamentals of Breslov. For a while, he kept it to himself. But by the 1980s, he began picking up followers, and traveled around Israel teaching and distributing Rebbe Nachman's books. Odesser died in 1994, but left behind money (from donations he had collected) to help print Rebbe Nachman literature. Today, traveling Na Nachs make up the rest with donations and at-cost book sales.</p>
<p>"People form splinter groups all the time," said Barry Freedman, an American Na Nach who spent the better part of the 80s and 90s in Israel, often cruising around in Na Nach party vans to spread Rebbe Nachman's teachings. "But eventually, they mellow out and someone else breaks away from the mainstream."</p>
<p>Freedman has mellowed out, too. He left the itinerant lifestyle of a roving Na Nach and works as a telecommunications salesman in New York City's Financial District. Now clean-cut, he teaches Rebbe Nachman classes once a week to Ukrainian immigrants in South Brooklyn. But Shaul Magid, a professor of religious studies at Indiana University, said that without Israel's cultural support, Na Nachs aren't likely to thrive anywhere else.&#160;</p>
<p>Contrary to ultra-Orthodox Judaism's typically conservative image - men wearing black hats and frock coats, women in long skirts, often surrounded by abundant offspring - joy-focused Na Nachs present a laid back vibe.</p>
<p>As a movement, Na Nach is emotional, anti-intellectual, non-hierarchical, and tends to attract a variety of what some consider social misfits. Many don't have jobs and spend most of their time traveling around Israel in the iconic vans, dancing and selling Nachman books. There is really no standard for what defines a "typical" Na Nach.</p>
<p>The movement's followers include people who grew up in Tel Aviv's poor neighborhoods, former clubbers and punk rockers, ex-convicts, and guys who got out of the Israeli army, became Buddhists, and then decided to embrace Judaism. Some people drawn to Na Nach aren't necessarily interested in becoming Na Nach, but are interested in Rebbe Nachman's teachings.</p>
<p>"It's a real Hasidic counter culture, comparable to Harikrishnas and American adaptors of Rastafarianism," Magid said. "I think they've been a punching bag for a lot of groups because they're not conventional."</p>
<p>Other religious Jews tend to dismiss Na Nachs as a joke. And secular Israelis view them with a mixture of amusement, interest and mild annoyance. But Na Nachs believe in the spiritual validity of their joyous singing, dancing and praying, whether they're doing in from a van or out in the forest.</p>
<p>Core beliefs include striving for constant happiness and performing hitbodedut, or praying to God intimately, as if conversing with a friend. The happiness factor makes many assume they're on drugs (some of them were), as does the yelling into thin air that often accompanies hitbodedut.</p>
<p>Regardless of what others think of them, Na Nachs continue to attract new devotees, though their lack of hierarchy and structure mean that it's difficult to obtain solid "membership" numbers. Like other Orthodox Jews, Na Nachs have a lot of children, so more and more young follwoers are being raised within the sect.</p>
<p>"Forty or fifty years ago, nobody was Breslov," said Israel Blumenfeld, an American expat who has dedicated most of the past seven years to manning one of Israel's fleet of Na Nach vans. "It's pretty amazing to see the difference today."</p> | Dancing in the streets of Tel Aviv | false | https://pri.org/stories/2011-07-17/dancing-streets-tel-aviv | 2011-07-17 | 3 |
<p><a href="https://www.investing.com/news/technology-news/trump-obama-dominate-twitter-year-but-chicken-nuggets-prevail-956030" type="external">Trump, Obama dominate Twitter year, but chicken nuggets prevail</a>Reuters <a href="https://www.investing.com/news/technology-news" type="external">Technology</a></p>
<p>By Daniel Trotta (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump continued to dominate Twitter in 2017 even though former President Barack Obama’s tweets were more liked and both were blown away by one man’s quest for free chicken nuggets. Twitter revealed the year’s most liked and retweeted tweets on Tuesday, reflecting how a nation bitterly divided…</p> | ETFs managers a better buy than ETFs | Short View | false | https://newsline.com/etfs-managers-a-better-buy-than-etfs-short-view/ | 2017-12-05 | 1 |
<p>LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — Tennessee's fast start against Kentucky was more than enough to withstand a sometimes-uneven finish by the No. 7 Lady Vols.</p>
<p>Evina Westbrook scored 17 points, Mercedes Russell added 16 and No. 7 Tennessee started quickly against Kentucky and never trailed in rolling to a 63-49 victory Sunday in the Southeastern Conference opener for both schools.</p>
<p>Playing for the first time since beating then-No. 18 Stanford 10 days ago, the Lady Vols (13-0) showed no rust in scoring the game's first 10 points for a 26-7 lead after one quarter at Rupp Arena. The gap reached 23 points midway through the third as they remained unbeaten while handing the Wildcats (8-7) their sixth consecutive loss.</p>
<p>Westbrook, a freshman guard, got Tennessee rolling with three of its five 3s on eight attempts in the opening quarter for 11 points. The Lady Vols missed their final nine shots from long range, but teammates contributed from inside the arc to lead comfortably.</p>
<p>"The shots were just open, so if they're not going to guard us, we're going to take shots," said Westbrook, who finished 7 of 11 from the field. "A different arena, definitely, but we warmed up good. We had a really practice (Saturday) and everyone just really focused."</p>
<p>Russell made 7 of 10 shots, accuracy that offset a rough start by leading scorer Jaime Nared, who missed her first eight attempts before making 2 of 3 in the fourth to finish with 11 points. She also had 10 rebounds.</p>
<p>Rennia Davis, another freshman, added 11 rebounds and 9 points.</p>
<p>Tennessee controlled the rebuilding Wildcats in nearly every category, from rebounding (50-31) to inside points (30-24). The only downsides were 40 percent shooting and 21 turnovers, though Kentucky converted them into just eight points.</p>
<p>The Lady Vols were also outscored 29-27 in the second half, but coach Holly Warlick wasn't complaining.</p>
<p>"I didn't think we let up," she said. "Did we miss some easy shots? Yeah, we did. But I just love our energy and effort and how we're playing well together. We're not going to play a perfect game. .... Our goal was to be 1-0 today in the SEC, and that's what we are."</p>
<p>Maci Morris had 18 points for the Wildcats, who shot just 30 percent in the first of three games this season on the home floor of the successful men's team.</p>
<p>BIG PICTURE</p>
<p>Tennessee: Entering the game ranked third nationally in rebounding at nearly 50 per game, the Lady Vols matched their average with their fourth-largest margin this season. Their defense meanwhile held an opponent at or below 30 percent for the fifth time this season.</p>
<p>Kentucky: The Wildcats started 3 of 16 from the field and improved only slightly in shooting 30 percent or below for the second time in three games. Their lone bright spot was forcing a season-high 21 turnovers, but they failed to convert offensively. Coach Matthew Mitchell chalked up the overall effort to a lack of confidence.</p>
<p>"There is some doubt in our minds, and we've got to battle through that," he said. "The only way you get confidence is through achievement and against Tennessee, they're really talented and you can't make those mistakes."</p>
<p>EFFECTIVE ZONE</p>
<p>Warlick and her players were especially pleased with a zone defense that kept Kentucky scoring leader Morris from getting off to the same hot start that propelled Tennessee.</p>
<p>"That was part of our game plan to throw them off a little, because they're used to getting in a rhythm with the man-to-man," Russell said. "The zone is very good for us, and today we played it very well. That's the best we've played it all year."</p>
<p>UP NEXT</p>
<p>Tennessee hosts Auburn on Thursday and Vanderbilt on Sunday.</p>
<p>Kentucky visits Texas A&amp;M on Thursday.</p>
<p>LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — Tennessee's fast start against Kentucky was more than enough to withstand a sometimes-uneven finish by the No. 7 Lady Vols.</p>
<p>Evina Westbrook scored 17 points, Mercedes Russell added 16 and No. 7 Tennessee started quickly against Kentucky and never trailed in rolling to a 63-49 victory Sunday in the Southeastern Conference opener for both schools.</p>
<p>Playing for the first time since beating then-No. 18 Stanford 10 days ago, the Lady Vols (13-0) showed no rust in scoring the game's first 10 points for a 26-7 lead after one quarter at Rupp Arena. The gap reached 23 points midway through the third as they remained unbeaten while handing the Wildcats (8-7) their sixth consecutive loss.</p>
<p>Westbrook, a freshman guard, got Tennessee rolling with three of its five 3s on eight attempts in the opening quarter for 11 points. The Lady Vols missed their final nine shots from long range, but teammates contributed from inside the arc to lead comfortably.</p>
<p>"The shots were just open, so if they're not going to guard us, we're going to take shots," said Westbrook, who finished 7 of 11 from the field. "A different arena, definitely, but we warmed up good. We had a really practice (Saturday) and everyone just really focused."</p>
<p>Russell made 7 of 10 shots, accuracy that offset a rough start by leading scorer Jaime Nared, who missed her first eight attempts before making 2 of 3 in the fourth to finish with 11 points. She also had 10 rebounds.</p>
<p>Rennia Davis, another freshman, added 11 rebounds and 9 points.</p>
<p>Tennessee controlled the rebuilding Wildcats in nearly every category, from rebounding (50-31) to inside points (30-24). The only downsides were 40 percent shooting and 21 turnovers, though Kentucky converted them into just eight points.</p>
<p>The Lady Vols were also outscored 29-27 in the second half, but coach Holly Warlick wasn't complaining.</p>
<p>"I didn't think we let up," she said. "Did we miss some easy shots? Yeah, we did. But I just love our energy and effort and how we're playing well together. We're not going to play a perfect game. .... Our goal was to be 1-0 today in the SEC, and that's what we are."</p>
<p>Maci Morris had 18 points for the Wildcats, who shot just 30 percent in the first of three games this season on the home floor of the successful men's team.</p>
<p>BIG PICTURE</p>
<p>Tennessee: Entering the game ranked third nationally in rebounding at nearly 50 per game, the Lady Vols matched their average with their fourth-largest margin this season. Their defense meanwhile held an opponent at or below 30 percent for the fifth time this season.</p>
<p>Kentucky: The Wildcats started 3 of 16 from the field and improved only slightly in shooting 30 percent or below for the second time in three games. Their lone bright spot was forcing a season-high 21 turnovers, but they failed to convert offensively. Coach Matthew Mitchell chalked up the overall effort to a lack of confidence.</p>
<p>"There is some doubt in our minds, and we've got to battle through that," he said. "The only way you get confidence is through achievement and against Tennessee, they're really talented and you can't make those mistakes."</p>
<p>EFFECTIVE ZONE</p>
<p>Warlick and her players were especially pleased with a zone defense that kept Kentucky scoring leader Morris from getting off to the same hot start that propelled Tennessee.</p>
<p>"That was part of our game plan to throw them off a little, because they're used to getting in a rhythm with the man-to-man," Russell said. "The zone is very good for us, and today we played it very well. That's the best we've played it all year."</p>
<p>UP NEXT</p>
<p>Tennessee hosts Auburn on Thursday and Vanderbilt on Sunday.</p>
<p>Kentucky visits Texas A&amp;M on Thursday.</p> | No. 7 Tennessee coasts past Kentucky 63-49 in SEC opener | false | https://apnews.com/amp/fd6d946aa2ab47c18deec3cb3ca89c50 | 2017-12-31 | 2 |
<p>The video above shows the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger and may not be appropriate for all viewers.</p>
<p>"Obviously a major malfunction." - Mission Control</p>
<p>And today marks the 30 year anniversary of the worst tragedy in NASA history.</p>
<p>Yesterday, many of the C&amp;L team were remembering where we were when we heard the news. It's one of those moments, like when Kennedy was shot for an earlier generation. You knew you would always remember where you were.</p>
<p>Where were you when you heard?</p> | Throwback Thursday: Where Were You When The Challenger Exploded? | true | http://crooksandliars.com/2016/01/throwback-thursday-where-were-you-when | 2016-01-28 | 4 |
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<p>Get up there, run as fast as you can, hope you’ve earned your way into the NCAA Championships one week from today, and then get back on a plane to New Mexico.</p>
<p>In reality, it’s more nuanced. The Lobo men are like a bubble basketball team that must play its way into the NCAA Tournament. The UNM women, ranked second nationally, are in as good a shape as a No. 2-ranked women’s hoops team would be.</p>
<p>“The women are in good position to make the national championship,” said Joe Franklin, coach of both UNM teams. “The men, quite honestly, just need to beat Utah State. You beat Utah State, you have a chance.”</p>
<p>For each gender, the top two teams from each regional qualify automatically. The Lobo women have been no worse than second at seven straight regionals and are hoping for their 10th consecutive NCAA meet.</p>
<p>Those teams who don’t finish in the top two can gain at-large berths based on qualify of work from previous meets.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Franklin is so assured of the women’s good standing that he is resting All-American Alice Wright today. UNM’s No. 1 runner, Ednah Kurgat, looks to go 4-0 for the season, and she’ll be joined by Weini Kelati, Charlotte Prouse, Sophie Eckel, Kieran Casey, Alondra Negrón Texidor and Alex Buck.</p>
<p>The women’s race (6 kilometers, 10:15 a.m.) includes No. 1 Colorado and No. 15 and host Utah State.</p>
<p>The Lobo men’s lineup of Josh Kerr, Alexander Palm, Linton Taylor, Jared Garcia, Jonny Glen, Jacob Simonsen and Tyler Valdez have to beat at least one of the seven top-25 teams in their race, Franklin believes, to earn an NCAA at-large berth.</p>
<p>New Mexico State’s Western Athletic Conference champion women running are Cassey Amberg, Crissey Amberg, Jess Dominguez, Nichole Gomez, Elana Kresl, Sydney Salas, Leah Salazar and Julia Yesca. Dylan Godfrey, Abel Ketema, Eli Kosgei, James McLain, Jereme Santistevan, Jose Silva and Aaron Valenzuela will represent the NMSU men.</p> | Cross country: Lobo men look to race into NCAA meet | false | https://abqjournal.com/1090622/cross-country-lobo-men-look-to-race-into-ncaa-meet.html | 2 |
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<p>So I was walking past “Blow,” a new salon in the MoJo hood, when I spotted this quote, attributed to Hillary Clinton, taped on the door:</p>
<p>I have to say that in all the years since I’ve been at Yale, the most important thing that I have to say today-is that hair matters. This is a life lesson my family did not teach me, Wellesley and Yale failed to instill on me: the importance of your hair. Your hair will send very important messages to those around you. It will tell people who you are and what you stand for. What hopes and dreams you have for the world…and especially what hopes and dreams you have for your hair. Likewise, your shoes. But really, more your hair. So, to sum up. Pay attention to your hair. Because everyone else will.</p>
<p>And I thought: That can’t be real. But <a href="http://clinton.senate.gov/~clinton/speeches/010520.html" type="external">it is</a>.</p>
<p>This isn’t meant to be a slight on <a href="/news/feature/2007/01/harpy_hero_heretic_hillary.html" type="external">Hillary</a>, btw. More just a sad commentary on the state of <a href="/mojoblog/archives/2007/10/5909_mitt_romney_is.html" type="external">politics in America</a>. More on how Hillary is judged on her looks <a href="/news/feature/2007/01/harpy_hero_heretic_hillary.html" type="external">here</a>.</p>
<p /> | Hillary: “Pay Attention To Your Hair” | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2007/10/hillary-pay-attention-your-hair/ | 2007-10-23 | 4 |
<p>Sen. Bernie Sanders is floating around the possibility of a recount after narrowly losing the Iowa caucuses to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. That is just about impossible.</p>
<p>When NBC's Kasie Hunt <a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2016/02/02/sanders-we-may-look-into-a-recount/" type="external">asked</a> Sanders if he was going to challenge the results of the caucus, the Marxist responded, "Honestly, we just got off the plane and I — we don’t know enough to say anything about it."</p>
<p>Hot Air's Ed Morrisey <a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2016/02/02/sanders-we-may-look-into-a-recount/" type="external">writes:</a></p>
<p>How does one recount a caucus? Even on the Republican side that would be difficult, as was discovered in 2012 in the razor-thin outcome between Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney. On the Democratic side, it would be all but impossible, thanks to the multiple-round system employed. In each precinct, voting takes place initially to figure out where the candidates stand; candidates are then eliminated if they cannot get to 15% and another round of voting takes place to see where those freed-up votes will go. Even though Martin O’Malley was in most precincts easily eliminated, the existence of multiple votes would still foul a recount process.</p>
<p>The Daily Wire <a href="" type="internal">reported</a> on Tuesday that Clinton won as the results of winning six straight coin tosses. While there is certainly a valid reason to be skeptical of that outcome, it doesn't seem likely that those Iowa precincts would flip the coins again, as that would be like football players asking the refs to redo the coin toss if they didn't get the desired result.</p>
<p>Sanders and his cult supporters will likely be incensed at the results, but they should be satisfied that Clinton came out of the close race looking very <a href="http://thefederalist.com/2016/02/02/13-quick-takeaways-from-the-2016-iowa-caucuses/" type="external">weak and battered</a> heading into New Hampshire, where Sanders has a <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/nh/new_hampshire_democratic_presidential_primary-3351.html" type="external">massive lead.</a></p> | Bernie Sanders Wants a Recount. One Problem: That’s Pretty Much Impossible. | true | https://dailywire.com/news/3116/bernie-sanders-wants-recount-one-problem-thats-aaron-bandler | 2016-02-03 | 0 |
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<p>The reunion was a year-and-a-half in the making for the brothers from Yemen, whose hopes to live in the United States seemed uncertain, even impossible, after President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning travelers from their home country and others.</p>
<p>As they re-entered the airport they had been turned back from late last month, joining family members and lawyers who had helped ensure their journey, they expressed only gratitude.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“We are so happy we’re here,” Ammar Aziz, 19, said simply, speaking through an interpreter.</p>
<p>The brothers are the face of one of the first court cases challenging Trump’s ban on travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries. A judge in Washington state has put the ban on hold, and tens of thousands of visas have been reinstated. But people like the Aziz brothers, who tried to travel last weekend and had their visas canceled, have still faced obstacles. The Justice Department has been settling these cases on an individual basis, but there is no public record of how many visas were canceled or why.</p>
<p>The brothers were among the many immigrants and refugees arriving at airports nationwide while the ban is suspended. The administration is appealing, and the case could end up at the Supreme Court.</p>
<p>Tareq and Ammar Aziz, with few educational opportunities in war-torn Yemen, had first applied for visas to come to the United States in 2015 and, after months, had secured them. Their father had made a home in Michigan, and they saw a place for themselves there.</p>
<p>“This is America,” said their father, Aquel Aziz. “America is for everybody.”</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Aquel Aziz came to the United States in 2001 on a student visa and soon applied for a green card. Although his studies in nutrition science were cut short by visa delays after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he built a career managing gas stations.</p>
<p>Aziz, who had separated from his wife long before, found life in the United States freer and happier. But he had left his young sons with his parents in Sanaa. He sent money home, and spoke with his family by phone every day as the boys grew up without him.</p>
<p>It took seven years to obtain a green card. The day after he became a legal permanent resident, he booked a flight to Yemen.</p>
<p>Aziz recalled pulling up in a taxi outside a house he didn’t recognize; two boys who he at first did not realize were his sons ran alongside it. “Everything was different,” he said. After that, he visited twice a year. When he became a U.S. citizen in April 2015, Aziz quickly moved to bring his sons over.</p>
<p>The timing was fortuitous. The boys’ comfortable lives were coming to an end as Yemen’s civil war began. Rebels took over the capital and divided the country in half.</p>
<p>Before, because of the money their father had sent, Tareq and Ammar Aziz lived almost like American teenagers in the Arab world’s poorest country. Tareq drove his own car, went bowling and even learned to ice skate when a rink opened in 2013. He learned English by watching American police shows, listening to Rihanna and chatting on social media.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Life became more precarious with the rebels in town, but Tareq said that for the most part, these heavily armed tribes from the northern mountains left locals alone. Then the Saudi-led airstrikes began using U.S.-supplied munitions.</p>
<p>“Yemeni people aren’t really afraid of men with guns, they are used to that,” Tareq said. “But the planes were something new.” Every night, the bombs fell, sometimes so close that the brothers couldn’t sleep.</p>
<p>One day, an especially large explosion shook the city. When Tareq got to the city’s main event hall, he came upon a scene of horror.</p>
<p>“I couldn’t believe this is real, it was like in the movies,” he said. “Some of them had no limbs, some were crying, most you couldn’t tell who they were anymore.”</p>
<p>That day – Oct. 8, 2016 – planes dropped two bombs during a funeral for a prominent politician and killed at least 100 people, one of the deadliest assaults of the conflict.</p>
<p>Even without the bombs, life was fraying. With the money from abroad, the Aziz family could afford food while others around them began to starve. But regular electricity was a thing of the past, and gas prices had soared to $300 for a five-gallon jerry can.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Like many in the city, they rigged up solar panels to give them some electricity, as fuel for the generator had become too expensive and scarce. Cars disappeared from the streets, and many people invested in bicycles.</p>
<p>Tareq’s education plans also fell apart. He had been hoping to study at the private British College, but with the war, that closed. So did the Amideast office where he and his brother had been taking English lessons.</p>
<p>The streets of the city were increasingly deserted as people feared death from above. Mosque attendance declined amid fear of suicide bombers from al-Qaida who would detonate themselves during prayer times.</p>
<p>Life devolved into a waiting game as they tried to figure out how to get the visas and join their father. He would call multiple times a day, watching the news in fear. There was no longer a U.S. embassy in Sanaa, so they applied for and were granted an interview at the embassy in Djibouti, just across the Red Sea.</p>
<p>Getting there was its own challenge. The airport was closed, so they took the dangerous road overland through the warring factions to the southern port of Aden, home of the internationally recognized government and one of the few functioning airports left in the country.</p>
<p>For days they waited at the airport for space on one of the flights out, before finally getting seats. From there, they took a flight to Amman, Jordan, then Doha, Qatar, before finally landing in Djibouti.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>In the time it had taken them to get there, they had missed their interview at the embassy. After a few weeks of waiting in the sweaty port city, they were granted another. Djibouti is expensive, and they had little to do but pace the waterfront, watching the Yemeni fishing boats and dreaming of escape.</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>On Jan. 25, they learned that they both had visas.</p>
<p>They caught a plane to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and then boarded the long flight to Dulles airport.</p>
<p>It seemed as though they had finally made it. While the brothers were aboard the plane on Jan. 27, Trump signed the executive order.</p>
<p>“We were happy because we were going to meet our dad and he was waiting for us, and then we arrived in Washington Dulles Airport and there was a guy saying, ‘Yemenis, this way,’ ” Tareq Aziz said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Along with other Yemenis, Somalis and Sudanese on the flight, they were waved to the side, fingerprinted and taken to an office where a uniformed police officer said they were going back to Djibouti.</p>
<p>“He said, ‘Your visa has been canceled,’ and I was shocked. He told us there was a presidential order,” Tareq, 21, said during a recent interview in Djibouti. He and his brother sat at a cafe under whirling ceiling fans.</p>
<p>“I said, ‘Can I call our lawyer?’ and he said, ‘You can’t, it’s a presidential order, you can’t do anything.’ “</p>
<p>Instead, Tareq said, the officials told him to sign a paper – whose dense legal language he couldn’t decipher – or face being banned from the country for the next five years. He was told that once the situation was resolved between Yemen and the United States, he could reapply.</p>
<p>Escorted by police while the other passengers stared at them, the Aziz brothers were put on the next flight back to Addis Ababa, where they then spent days in the airport, talking with their father and lawyers trying to figure out what to do.</p>
<p>They refused to pay for their flight back to Ethiopia or to board the plane for Djibouti until Ethiopian authorities said it was that or face arrest. So in a few hours, they were back in a city that had hoped never to see again, surrounded by desperate countrymen. Their luggage was missing; they walked in the 80-degree heat in sweaters meant for a Michigan winter.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>In Flint, Michigan, Aquel Aziz had made a feast of Yemeni food for his sons. After a day-long flight, he knew they would be hungry. When they did not arrive in Detroit and he could not reach them, he began driving toward Northern Virginia. He had made it to somewhere in Ohio when he received the call: His sons had been sent back to Ethiopia, their visas canceled.</p>
<p>“I was worried all that time, not knowing,” he said. “I couldn’t talk to them, I didn’t know what was going on with them until my older son called me – 34 hours later – from Ethiopia.”</p>
<p>The drive home took him three times as long, because he had to stop regularly and break down. The food, he gave to neighbors.</p>
<p>“I didn’t eat that food, that was my kids’ food,” Aziz said. Besides, he had lost his appetite. Three days would pass before he wanted to eat again.</p>
<p>Now there will be a new feast. In Flint, he has found an apartment for his sons, with beds. They still have no idea where their luggage is. Auqel Aziz doesn’t mind. He will buy them new clothes.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“Everything I didn’t do for them while I was here, I want to do,” he said. “I want to give them the things a father should. I want to give them love.”</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>Schemm reported from Djibouti.</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>Video: Families that had been affected by President Trump’s ban on travel reunited in airports across the U.S. on Sunday. (Jayne Orenstein, Dalton Bennett,Natalie Jennings / The Washington Post)</p>
<p>URL:</p>
<p><a href="http://wapo.st/2kc4mCX" type="external">http://wapo.st/2kc4mCX</a></p>
<p>Embed code:</p>
<p />
<p /> | Two brothers were forced out by President Trump’s executive order. On Monday, they moved to the US | false | https://abqjournal.com/943846/two-brothers-were-forced-out-by-president-trumps-executive-order-on-monday-they-moved-to-the-us.html | 2017-02-06 | 2 |
<p>Wisconsin Democratic lawmakers fled their state to avoid voting on a controversial anti-union bill that would boost public workers’ pension and medical contributions and deny them the right to collectively bargain. In Madison, meantime, thousands of protesters milled around the state Capitol building Friday in a fourth day of demonstrations.</p>
<p>For more live updates on events in Wisconsin, visit the Defend Wisconsin <a href="http://twitter.com/DefendWisconsin" type="external">Twitter feed</a>. –JCL</p>
<p>MSNBC:</p>
<p>Republicans were hoping Friday that state troopers would be able to send a message to Democrats boycotting a vote on a bill that would end a half-century of collective bargaining rights for most public workers in this state.</p>
<p />
<p>State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said he asked Gov. Scott Walker, a fellow Republican, to send two state troopers to the home of Mark Miller, the top state Senate Democrat, and other holdouts. He said he believes the troopers were en route.</p>
<p>The Wisconsin Constitution prohibits police from arresting legislators while they’re in session. Fitzgerald said he just wants to send a message that the 14 Democrats must come back to the Capitol in Madison.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41664858/ns/us_news-life/" type="external">Read more</a></p> | Protests Continue in Wisconsin | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/protests-continue-in-wisconsin/ | 2011-02-19 | 4 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>MOTION PICTURE</p>
<p>–Motion Picture, Drama: “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.”</p>
<p>–Actor, Motion Picture, Drama: Gary Oldman, “Darkest Hour.”</p>
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<p>–Actress, Motion Picture, Drama: Frances McDormand, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.”</p>
<p>–Director, Motion Picture: Guillermo Del Toro, “The Shape of Water.”</p>
<p>–Supporting Actor, Motion Picture: Sam Rockwell, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.”</p>
<p>–Supporting Actress, Motion Picture: Allison Janney, “I, Tonya.”</p>
<p>–Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy: “Lady Bird.”</p>
<p>–Actor, Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy: James Franco, “The Disaster Artist.”</p>
<p>–Actress, Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy: Saoirse Ronan, “Lady Bird.”</p>
<p>–Screenplay: Martin McDonagh, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>–Original Score: Alexandre Desplat, “The Shape of Water.”</p>
<p>–Original Song: “This is Me,” from “The Greatest Showman,” music by Benj Pasek, Justin Paul, lyrics by Benj Pasek, Justin Paul.</p>
<p>–Animated Film: “Coco.”</p>
<p>–Foreign Language: “In the Fade.”</p>
<p>TELEVISION</p>
<p>–Series, Drama — “The Handmaid’s Tale.”</p>
<p>–Actor, Drama: Sterling K. Brown, “This is Us,”</p>
<p>–Actress, Drama: Elisabeth Moss, “The Handmaid’s Tale.”</p>
<p>–Series, Musical or Comedy: “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”</p>
<p>–Actor, Series, Musical or Comedy: Aziz Ansari, “Master of None.”</p>
<p>–Actress, Series, Musical or Comedy: Rachel Brosnahan, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”</p>
<p>–Television, Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for TV: “Big Little Lies.”</p>
<p>–Actress, Limited Series or TV Movie: Nicole Kidman, “Big Little Lies.”</p>
<p>–Supporting Actress, Series, Limited Series or TV Movie: Laura Dern, “Big Little Lies.”</p>
<p>–Supporting Actor, Series, Limited Series or TV Movie: Alexander Skarsgard, “Big Little Lies.”</p>
<p>–Actor, Limited Series for Motion Picture Made for TV: Ewan McGregor, “Fargo.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>For full coverage of awards season, visit: https://apnews.com/tag/AwardsSeason</p> | List of winners for 75th annual Golden Globe Awards | false | https://abqjournal.com/1116210/list-of-winners-for-75th-annual-golden-globe-awards.html | 2018-01-07 | 2 |
<p>George Burchett – δημοκρατία (democracy), silkscreen print on hand-made Dò paper, 2014.</p>
<p>I chanced upon “crude thinking” while reading Bruce Cumings’ The Korean War. Here’s the quote from his book:</p>
<p>Nothing is more important than learning to think crudely,” Brecht once said. “Crude thinking is the thinking of great men.” So was the milieu of crisis in which he wrote, and Koreans fought: crude, illiberal, murderous.</p>
<p>It struck me and prompted me to find the original source of Bertolt Brecht’s quote, which I managed through Brecht’s friend, Walter Benjamin. In his <a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1859844189/counterpunchmaga" type="external">Understanding Brecht</a>, (written in 1933-1939, first published in 1966), Benjamin devotes a section to Crude Thinking while discussing Brecht’s Threepenny Novel. The original quote from the novel is:</p>
<p>The chief thing is to learn to think bluntly. Blunt thinking is great thinking. Politics is the pursuit of business by unbusiness-like methods. (Brecht, p. 169)</p>
<p>Benjamin writes, quoting Brecht paraphrasing himself:</p>
<p>‘The most important thing is to learn to think crudely. Crude thinking is the thinking of great men.’</p>
<p>There are many people to whom a dialectician means a lover of subtleties. In this connection it is particularly useful when Brecht puts his finger on ‘crude thinking’ which produces dialectics as its opposite, contains it within itself, and has need of it. Crude thoughts belong to the household of dialectical thinking precisely because they represent nothing other than the application of theory to practice: its application to practice, not its dependence on practice. Action can, of course, be as subtle as thought. But a thought must be crude in order to come into its own in action. (Benjamin, Understanding Brecht, p. 81 – my emphasis)</p>
<p>I was reminded of another quote, this time it was G.W. Bush’s senior advisor Karl Rove talking to journalist Ron Suskind:</p>
<p>We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors… and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.</p>
<p>—&#160;New York Times Magazine, Oct. 17, 2004</p>
<p>To use another famous quote, Shakespeare this time:</p>
<p>All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players…</p>
<p>Karl Rove’s “we” – history’s actors – no doubt include those G.W. Bush called “the crazies in the basement”: the neo-cons, who scripted, produced and staged the disasters that are Iraq and Afghanistan.</p>
<p>Under Obama, they morphed into “humanitarian interventionists” (under the R2P label – Responsibility To Protect) and added Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, to the list of neo-con wars and ‘interventions’.</p>
<p>As Rove says, “we’re history’s actors and you” – that is the rest of us – can “study what we do.”</p>
<p>The question is then: are we content to just study the reality the ‘reality creators’ create for us, or can we do something about it and perhaps create another reality?</p>
<p>Theodor W. Adorno, one of the founders of the Frankfurt School of critical theory, who knew both Brecht and Benjamin, disapproved of “crude thinking” or, in German, plumpes Denken. He was also a composer/theoretician of classical avant-garde music, disapproved of jazz and popular music (and culture) in general, and theorized that art should remain “autonomous” – that is detached – from ‘capitalist’ reality. His preferred playwright and writer were Beckett and Kafka. Adorno was a pessimist. For him, post Work War II reality stemmed solely from Auschwitz. He famously said: “There can be no poetry after Auschwitz.” Why only Auschwitz? Why not Hiroshima? Or the many “realities” created by Karl Rove’s “history’s actors” and their criminal predecessors?</p>
<p>On the contrary, there should be poetry, music, songs, theatre, visual art and other forms of creative resistance to combat neo-con and associated “reality creators.” It worked well against the war in Vietnam. Why shouldn’t it work against the current wars – ongoing and in-the-making?</p>
<p>For Brecht, and other revolutionary artists – Picasso, Mayakovski, Eisenstein, Chaplin, to name but a few – and to use a quote attributed to both Brecht and Mayakovski:</p>
<p>Art is not a mirror to hold up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it.</p>
<p>A hammer is a crude instrument, compared to sophisticated weapons of mass destruction (or targeted assassinations) operated by whiz kids with joysticks or high tech warriors in free-fire zones. But it’s a weapon. And so is the sickle.</p>
<p>Time to dust them off and creatively apply some of Brecht’s “crude thinking.”</p>
<p>The neo-con ‘reality creators’ and their many associates are extremely well organized, supported by the mightiest armies in the world, the best propaganda machine in human history, the best academic brains, most of the entertainment industry – in fact, the entire capitalist system.</p>
<p>So what? They don’t own people’s hearts and minds, only their pockets and parts of their brains, through fear, greed and 24/7 brainwashing.</p>
<p>I don’t think there is any point debating them in theoretical discourse, engaging in their history wars etc. That is exactly what they want. Rove: “We’re history’s actors… and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do…”</p>
<p>I don’t want to study them or debate them. I want to hammer them, whenever I can. And I want to apply Brecht’s “crude thinking” as an effective weapon to that purpose.</p>
<p>Bruce Cuming’s quoted Brecht in reference to Korea’s resistance leader Kim Il Sung and his companions in their guerilla war against Japanese imperialist occupiers. To win, they had to practice “crude thinking,” because “crude thinking is the thinking of great men.” They had to rally the peasant masses and the people in general, to win. So did Mao, so did Lenin, so did Ho Chi Minh, so did Castro and others.</p>
<p>In every case, they succeeded against the greatest possible odds by applying revolutionary theory into revolutionary practice and rallying the masses to their cause.</p>
<p>How their revolutions evolved is a matter of debate…</p>
<p>I live in Ha Noi where the red flag with the hammer and the sickle still proudly flies and a statue of Lenin still stands and watches kids ride skateboards during the day and fancy electric cars for rent in the evening. I meet many people from many countries, and they all rave about Vietnam: how friendly, how beautiful, how interesting, how exciting… I also have Vietnamese friends who share Adorno’s pessimism and would be happy to see the red flag and Lenin replaced with… I don’t know. Abstract expressionism?</p>
<p>Vietnam’s independence and unity were the result of the “crude thinking” of Ho Chi Minh, General Giap and other revolutionary leaders.</p>
<p>They didn’t debate French colonialists and American imperialists, they took to the mountains and jungles and beat them, with crude weapons – compared to the most powerful and sophisticated armies in history.</p>
<p>They had the majority of their people behind them. And eventually, the majority of humanity. And they won. And inspired others to do the same.</p>
<p>And so can we, if we apply Brecht’s “crude thinking” and start kicking Rove’s “actors” where it hurts and where they have little power and defenses: the huge space left for progressive creative thought and action.</p>
<p>Look at it as a race: they run for war, we run for peace.</p>
<p>They have big egos and want us to be shocked &amp; awed by their power and tremble and cow.</p>
<p>But we can laugh at them, we can ridicule them and show them in all their pathetic ugliness. Them and their lackeys in all spheres of life.</p>
<p>It can be done, with “crude thinking”, with humor, with faith in humanity and love for our dear little planet.</p>
<p>Brecht would approve. Adorno would shake his head disapprovingly. In 1969, he had to flee Frankfurt University after students booed him and put up a banner “If Adorno is left in peace, capitalism will never cease.” His pessimism didn’t inspire them, but Ho Chi Minh, Mao Tse Tung, Castro and Che Guevara did.</p>
<p>So let’s be optimistic and “crude” and start removing Rove’s “history’s actors” from the scene. The survival of our planet depends on it.</p>
<p>George Burchett is an artist who lives in Ha Noi. He is currently collaborating on a Brechtian play about Vietnam’s legendary revolutionary woman hero <a href="" type="internal">Ba Trieu</a>.</p> | Plumpes Denken: Crude thinking | true | https://counterpunch.org/2018/02/20/plumpes-denken-crude-thinking/ | 2018-02-20 | 4 |
<p>Horror author Stephen King, whose devotion to the Left is well-documented, decided to use Twitter to mock President Trump’s claim that Barack Obama wiretapped his phones.</p>
<p>King began his taunting with a tweet imagining exactly how Obama had executed his plan:</p>
<p>Then he raised the ante:</p>
<p>King concluded his short story with a monster-in-the closet reference:</p>
<p>Finally, King, who has never been able to figure out endings worthy of the events he sets in motion at the start of his books, offered his typically weak climax:</p>
<p>King’s latest weak attempt was prompted by Trump’s tweets Saturday morning:</p>
<p>King has been attacking those on the right for quite some time; in 2012, he wrote a piece for <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/30/stephen-king-tax-me-for-f-s-sake.html" type="external">The Daily Beast</a> in which he offered these tidbits: “The Koch brothers are right-wing creepazoids . . . Here’s another crock of fresh bullshit delivered by the right wing of the Republican Party . . .”</p>
<p>In 2013, King <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/how-to-convince-the-nra-that-assault-weapons-not-the-media-are-responsible-for-gun-massacres-49f6aaf2f629#.1qijwd53d" type="external">targeted</a> the NRA: "One only wishes Wayne LaPierre and his NRA board of directors could be drafted to some of these [violent] scenes, where they would be required to put on booties and rubber gloves and help clean up the blood, the brains, and the chunks of intestine still containing the poor wads of half-digested food that were some innocent bystander’s last meal."</p>
<p>In 2014, referring to illegal immigration, King offered the classic limousine liberal attack, this time on Christians:</p>
<p>He was promptly eviscerated by Dana Loesch:</p> | SCARY STORY: Horror Master Stephen King Goes Nuts On Twitter Over Trump | true | https://dailywire.com/news/14132/scary-story-horror-master-stephen-king-goes-nuts-hank-berrien | 2017-03-06 | 0 |
<p><a href="http://vimeo.com/15034110" type="external">Jerusalem | Filmed in Imax 3D</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user4749025" type="external">JerusalemGiantScreen</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com" type="external">Vimeo</a>.</p>
<p>The name Jerusalem first appears in the Book of Joshua, in a passage about the king of Jerusalem who allied himself with four other kings from the south against the Israelites, who had recently conquered part of the hill country. Joshua also refers to the city as Jebus, inhabited by the Jebusites. The Book of Judges (1:21) relates that ''The Benjaminites did not dispossess the Jebusite inhabitants of Jerusalem; so the Jebusites dwelt with the Benjaminites.'' At that time Jerusalem, like other cities in the land, was a royal city ruled by the Jebusite king. At the beginning of Saul's reign it was a non-Israelite enclave in the hill country. It was included in the territory of the tribe of Benjamin (Joshua 18:21-28).</p>
<p>The first known mention of Jerusalem is to be found in Egyptian texts. The name of the city appears in a group of inscriptions on pottery bowls and figurines from the nineteenth century BC, known as the ''Execration Texts'' that placed a curse upon potential rebellious city states. Five centuries later the name Jerusalem was found in archives in eI-Amarna, in Middle Egypt, which for a short time was the capital of all Egypt. Among the documents were letters by Abdi Hepa, king of Jerusalem, who sought the aid of the Egyptian monarch in his struggles against his neighbors. The source of the name Jerusalem is not clear. The city is not mentioned specifically in the Pentateuch. Melchizedek, the king of Salem, who was ''priest of God Most High'' (Genesis 14:18), may very well have been the monarch of Jerusalem. The name Jerusalem first appears in the Book of Joshua, in a passage about the king of Jerusalem who allied himself with four other kings from the south against the Israelites, who had recently conquered part of the hill country. Joshua also refers to the city as Jebus, inhabited by the Jebusites. The Book of Judges (1:21) relates that ''The Benjaminites did not dispossess the Jebusite inhabitants of Jerusalem; so the Jebusites dwelt with the Benjaminites.'' At that time Jerusalem, like other cities in the land, was a royal city ruled by the Jebusite king. At the beginning of Saul's reign it was a non-Israelite enclave in the hill country. It was included in the territory of the tribe of Benjamin (Joshua 18:21-28). <a href="http://www.jerusalem.muni.il/jer_main/defaultnew.asp?lng=2" type="external">source - Jerusalem</a></p> Amazing Jerusalem, the JOY of the whole earth | Jerusalem | Filmed in Imax 3D | true | http://nowtheendbegins.com/nteb-trip-to-israel-fall-2010.htm | 0 |
|
<p>On this evening’s Hardball, Chris Matthews repeatedly analogized the Trump family to the Tsarist Romanov family that ruled Russia. Matthews ominously concluded, “we know what happened to the Romanovs.”</p>
<p>Of course, “what happened to the Romanovs” is that the Tsar and his family were killed by Bolshevik troops in 1918, during the Russian revolution. Nice analogy, Chris.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Matthews focused on the fact that President Trump views family members, notably Ivanka, Jared Kushner, and sons Donald, Jr. and Eric, as his most trusted advisers.</p>
<p>CHRIS MATTHEWS: It seems to me there’s always an element of almost Romanov absurdity, royal family absurdity, with the Trumps now. And the only people that the president can rely on are his son, his daughter-in-law, I mean his son-in-law, and his daughter . . . I mean, it is the Romanovs! The real advisors to this president, he’s saying, is the family—the royal family.</p>
<p>. . .</p>
<p>ROBERT COSTA: Kushner, Ivanka, even the sons, Don and Eric, they have the ability, though they don’t always do it, to weigh in on major decisions, domestic and foreign.</p>
<p>MATTHEWS: And they weren’t elected. Anyways, it is a royal family. Thank you Robert Costa, Ann Gearan. We’re seeing this. We know what happened to the Romanovs.</p> | Chris Matthews: Trump Family Like “The Romanovs” and “We Know What Happened” to Them | true | http://legalinsurrection.com/2017/04/chris-matthews-trump-family-like-the-romanovs-and-we-know-what-happened-to-them/ | 2017-04-11 | 0 |
<p>FBN’s Dennis Kneale on Best Buy telling some online customers the company could not fulfill their orders because of</p>
<p><a href="http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/23/how-best-buy-stole-christmas/" type="external">This story was originally published on Tech Crunch. Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t touch you with a thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole.”</p>
<p>There’s a bit of inherent risk when shopping online. You’re handing over your credit card to a retailer that promises to ship you something in return. Most of the time transactions are completed without issue and orders are fulfilled as promised. Sometimes things go awry, though. And sometimes <a href="" type="internal">Best Buy</a> ruins Christmas.</p>
<p>Best Buy started reaching out to customers earlier this week — you know, mere days before Christmas — that the retailer was unable to fulfill orders placed as far back as November. Big Blue was sorry but they were canceling the affected orders. Happy holidays! Signed, your merry friends at Best Buy!</p>
<p>Consumers traded the safety of buying an object from a brick and mortar store for the convenience and often lower prices found online. As Best Buy proves here, buying items online is still a bit risky even in 2011. Consumers just do not know for a 100% fact that they will get their product. Sure, receipts are issued and shipping estimates are given, but there are just too many variables involved for complete trust. Shipping companies can also break the chain, too. You just never know if the <a href="" type="internal">FedEx</a> man is going to chuck your LCD monitor over a gate.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Generally though, the bigger the retailer, the more safe the transaction feels. <a href="" type="internal">Amazon</a>, Walmart, Newegg and, to a lesser extent now, Best Buy should be considered trusted retailers. These massive companies should be able to fulfill online orders with minimum exceptions. But issues do arise. Customers are sometimes left without their order, feeling used and abused.</p>
<p>Don’t worry about Best Buy, though. The retailer isn’t hurting its bottom line by canceling orders en mass. <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204464404577115490099023190.html" type="external">The Wall Street Journal quotes Opens a New Window.</a> an analyst stating “It’s a hiccup for the company” and “It probably won’t make a big difference for Best Buy’s holiday sales.” Oh good. Because Best Buy’s earnings were the first things I thought of when this story broke. Screw the customers. They don’t matter anyway.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Read more tech news on the FOX Business Technology page.</a></p>
<p>Apparently if those with canceled orders whine enough, <a href="http://www.thestreet.com/story/11351924/1/best-buy-cancels-some-black-friday-orders.html" type="external">Best Buy will issue them a gift card Opens a New Window.</a> for the inconvenience. Of course those that suck it up and move on get nothing.</p>
<p>There’s no way of knowing how many of these canceled orders were to be holiday presents. Reportedly many of the canceled items were sold on <a href="" type="internal">Black Friday</a>. But even without Christmas looming, Best Buy held these orders hostage for nearly a month. They violated the trust of their customers. The retailer essentially cast a wide net, collecting just as many orders as they could, likely knowing it would be unable to fulfill them all. It’s greedy, unacceptable and just plain wrong. Merry Christmas.</p>
<p>More from Tech Crunch:</p> | How Best Buy Stole Christmas | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2011/12/23/how-best-buy-stole-christmas.html | 2016-03-04 | 0 |
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