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<p>BY: <a href="" type="internal">Bill McMorris</a> October 9, 2013 5:00 am</p>
<p>General Motors has shied away from promoting the Chevrolet Volt in 2013 as the federal government begins selling off its final shares of company stock, a move one expert said may have been made to avoid reminding the public of the federal bailout.</p>
<p>GM press releases have avoided discussing the plug-in hybrid that was once hailed as the " <a href="http://gm-volt.com/2013/09/04/will-gms-other-halo-car-become-electrified-too/" type="external">halo car</a>" and a " <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/jan-june11/cars_01-19.html" type="external">moon shot</a>" that could increase GM’s market share in green technology.</p>
<p>GM’s public press releases mentioned the Chevrolet Volt roughly 111 times per month when it launched in 2010 and 92 times the following year.</p>
<p>However, the company began drawing less attention to the vehicle in November 2011 when the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration launched an investigation into claims that the vehicle’s fire hazards.</p>
<p>From December 2011 to December 2012, the company mentioned the Volt just 31 times per month. The acceleration of the federal government’s withdrawal from the company has also coincided with decreasing attention drawn to the Volt. GM press releases have mentioned the vehicle just 11 times per month on average through September 2013.</p>
<p>Despite record-breaking sales in August, GM mentioned the Volt only once, as part of a press release focused on overall company performance.</p>
<p>"The Chevrolet Volt had its best month ever, as did the Chevrolet Spark, Chevrolet Sonic, Cadillac XTS and Buick Verano," the <a href="http://media.gm.com/content/media/us/en/gm/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2013/Sep/gmsales.html" type="external">release</a> said.</p>
<p>Auto analyst Ed Niedermeyer said that GM has every reason to distance itself from the car because it served as a reminder of the company’s ties to Washington and the $50 billion taxpayer bailout, which he says tarnished the brand.</p>
<p>"More than turning a profit, Volt was supposed to give GM a ‘green halo’ like the one the Prius bestows on the Toyota brand," he said. "Because the Volt is so closely associated with the bailout, it has turned out to be a net negative in terms of public relations."</p>
<p>The Treasury Department sold $3.4 billion worth of stock between January and August of 2013, before announcing in September that it would sell off the remaining <a href="" type="internal">101.3 million shares</a> in taxpayer holdings.</p>
<p>GM did not respond to request for comment.</p>
<p>Company executives have been doing their best to turn the page on the bailout in recent years, especially as it attempts to unveil a new line of pick-up trucks, SUVs, and a revamped Corvette. GM North America President Mark Reuss said in October that the company must overcome the "Government Motors" moniker it acquired during the bailout.</p>
<p>"We … know that the government ownership influence is highest among truck buyers," <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-03/texas-key-to-pickup-truck-makers-success#p2" type="external">Reuss said</a>. "Being owned by the government is problematic for now."</p>
<p>Dave Sullivan, a car expert with AutoPacific, said that the company’s lack of attention for the Volt reflects the "natural" market cycles for vehicles, rather than any relation to government ownership.</p>
<p>"The car came out three years ago now," he said. "They’re introducing their bread and butter pick-up trucks; they’re now turning to SUVs, so the Volt is going to get passed by right now."</p>
<p>The reason the Volt received so much attention when it was first introduced had more to do with GM’s "stale line-up—there wasn’t a whole lot to get excited about," according to Sullivan.</p>
<p>"Now they have very good product," he said. "They’re probably turning out the best vehicles they’ve ever engineered—they’ve come a long way in a very short time."</p>
<p>Niedermeyer agreed that the new car excitement "tapers off" the longer it is around, but said the Volt stands out as a special case of silence.</p>
<p>"GM doesn’t want the Volt out there reminding traditional truck buyers that it’s a bailed-out company, as that message clashes with the values of patriotism and self-reliance that truck marketing depends on," he said.</p>
<p>Taxpayers are expected to lose <a href="" type="internal">$10 billion</a> on the GM bailout.</p> | Tarnished Reputation | true | http://freebeacon.com/tarnished-reputation/ | 2013-10-09 | 0 |
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>On February 29, Richard Boucher from the U.S. Department of State released a press release claiming that Jean Bertrand Aristide had resigned as president of Haiti and that the United State facilitated his safe departure. Within hours the major broadcast news stations in the United States including CNN, Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS, and NPR were reporting that Aristide had fled Haiti. An Associated Press release that evening said “Aristide resigns, flees into exile.” The next day headlines in the major newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, New York Times, and Atlanta Journal Constitution, all announced “Aristide Flees Haiti.” The Baltimore sun reported, “Haiti’s first democratically-elected president was forced to flee his country yesterday like despots before him.”</p>
<p>However on Sunday afternoon February 29, Pacific News network with reporters live in Port-au-Prince Haiti were claiming that Aristide was forced to resign by the US and taken out of the Presidential Palace by armed US marines. On Monday morning Amy Goodman with Democracy Now! news show interviewed Congresswoman Maxine Waters. Waters said she had received a phone call from Aristide at 9:00 AM EST March 1 in which Aristide emphatically denied that he had resigned and said that he had been kidnapped by US and French forces. Aristide made calls to others including TransAfrica founder Randall Robinson, who verified congresswomen Waters’ report.</p>
<p>Mainstream corporate media was faced with a dilemma. Confirmed contradictions to headlines reports were being openly revealed to hundreds of thousands of Pacifica listeners nationwide. By Monday afternoon mainstream corporate media began to respond to the charges. Tom Brokaw on NBC Nightly News, 6:30 PM voiced, “Haiti in crisis. Armed rebels sweep into the capital as Aristide claims US troops kidnapped him; forced him out. The US calls that nonsense.” Fox News Network with Brit Hume reported Colin Powell’s comments, “He was not kidnapped. We did not force him on to the airplane. He went on to the airplane willingly, and that’s the truth. Mort Kondracke, executive editor of Roll Call added, “Aristide, …was a thug and a leader of thugs and ran his country into the ground.” The New York Times in a story buried on page 10 reported that “President Jean-Bertrand Aristide asserted Monday that he had been driven from power in Haiti by the United States in “a coup,” an allegation dismissed by the White House as “complete nonsense.”</p>
<p>Mainstream media had a credibility problem. Their original story was openly contradicted. The kidnap story could be ignored or back-paged as was done by many newspapers in the US. Or it can be framed within the context of a US denial and dismissed. Unfortunately, the corporate media seems not at all interested in conducting an investigation into the charges, seeking witnesses, or verifying contradictions. Nor is the mainstream media asking or answering the question of why they fully accept the State Department’s version of the coup in the first place. Corporate media certainly had enough pre-warning to determine that Aristide was not going to willingly leave the country. Aristide had been saying exactly that for the past month during the armed attacks in the north of Haiti. Aristide was interviewed on CNN February 26. He explained that the terrorists, and criminal drug dealers were former members of the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH), which had led the coup in 1991 killing 5,000 people. Aristide believed that they would kill more people if a coup was allowed to happen. It was also well known in media circles that the US Undersecretary of State Roger Noriega for Latin America was a senior aide to former Senator Jesse Helms, who as chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs committee was a longtime backer of Haitian dictator Jean Claude Duvalier and an opponent of Aristide. These facts alone should have been a red flag regarding the State Department’s version.</p>
<p>As a former priest and liberation theologist, Jean Bertrand Aristide stood for grassroots democracy, alleviation of poverty, and God’s love for all human beings. He challenged the neo-liberal globalization efforts of the Haitian upper class and their US partners. For this he was targeted by the Bush administration. That the US waited until the day after Aristide was gone to send in troops to stabilize the country proves intent to remove him from office.</p>
<p>Mainstream media had every reason to question the State Department’s version of the coup in Haiti, but choose instead to report a highly doubtful cover story. We deserve more from our media than their being stenographers for the government. Weapons of mass destruction aside, we need a media that looks for the truth and exposes the contradictions in the fabrications of the powerful.</p>
<p>PETER PHILLIPS is a Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and Director of Project Censored a media research organization.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Mainstream Media Fails Itself | true | https://counterpunch.org/2004/03/04/mainstream-media-fails-itself/ | 2004-03-04 | 4 |
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<p>Image: Twitter.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Stocks fell on Wednesday, continuing the trend from Tuesday's declines and sending major market benchmarks down by more than half a percent on the day. Although crude oil prices finished slightly higher, energy stocks weighed on the overall market after weekly data on oil inventories showed an increase that was largely than most had expected. Some market commentators also turned to last night's clarification of the political picture in the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections as cause for declines. Yet even though the broader market fell, some stocks bucked the downtrend. Among the best performers of the day were Windstream Holdings , Twitter , and Papa John's International .</p>
<p>Windstream Holdings finished the day up 7% as investors celebrated a simple release from the company regarding its dividend. Windstream issued a release that confirmed that the telecom company had declared its quarterly dividend of $0.15 per share, sustaining the past dividend rate that the company has paid ever since it spun off some of its assets into a separately traded entity. Windstream's dividend yield has long been extremely high, and that has made a target of those who believe that a cut in its payout rate is inevitable. Nevertheless, Windstream has managed to defy the skeptics for years, and confirmation that it will continue to do so for at least another three months was enough to give shareholders some confidence.</p>
<p>Twitter picked up 6%, recovering from new all-time lows set on Tuesday. Analysts looking at the social-media stock are concerned that the efforts that Twitter is making to try to revamp its service and attract more active users could hurt its historical core revenue sources, and it's uncertain whether any incremental gains from its strategic moves will be able to make up for resulting lost sales. However, some have speculated that once Twitter gets cheap enough, tech giants interested in getting a foothold into social media could make a bid for the beleaguered microblogging service. Those arguments have been around for a long time and haven't kept the stock from falling further, but they were enough to keep the stock from setting still more new lows today.</p>
<p>Finally, Papa John's rose 8%. The pizza chain announced first-quarter earnings on Tuesday night that rose by 25% from year-ago levels. Comparable-restaurant sales increases were just 0.1% in North America, but internationally, Papa John's did much better, posting 5.7% comps growth. Even though overall revenue declined, net income jumped almost 18%, and the company confirmed that it was sticking with its past guidance. With more than 4,900 Papa John's locations around the world, the stock is one that growth investors are taking a close look at to see if there are more gains ahead.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/05/04/why-windstream-holdings-twitter-and-papa-johns-int.aspx" type="external">Why Windstream Holdings, Twitter, and Papa John's International Jumped Today</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
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<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFGalagan/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Dan Caplinger</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Twitter. The Motley Fool owns shares of Papa John's International. 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</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</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</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</a>.</p> | Why Windstream Holdings, Twitter, and Papa John's International Jumped Today | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/05/04/why-windstream-holdings-twitter-and-papa-john-international-jumped-today.html | 2016-05-04 | 0 |
<p>Deutsche Bank AG has agreed to pay $157 million in penalties to the Federal Reserve over alleged violations of rules on foreign-exchange trading and proprietary trading. "Deutsche Bank Fined $157 Million Over Alleged Trading Violations," at 16:22 ET, referred to only foreign-exchange trading in the first paragraph. (April 20, 2017)</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>April 20, 2017 16:57 ET (20:57 GMT)</p> | Correction to article on Deutsche Bank fine | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/04/20/deutsche-bank-fined-157-million-over-alleged-trading-violations.html | 2017-04-20 | 0 |
<p>Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said Sunday that there will be an “uptick” in American casualties in Afghanistan as the U.S. military increases its presence in that country, which he characterized as “a real mess.”</p>
<p>The vice president’s prediction prompted outrage from liberal antiwar groups who characterized it as “cavalier,” although a leading scholar at a Washington neoconservative think tank called the Biden remarks an overdue recognition of reality.</p>
<p>Afghan President Hamid Karzai foreshadowed other difficulties Sunday with any “surge” of U.S. forces into his country, condemning a U.S. operation he said killed 16 Afghan civilians and demanding greater Afghan control of U.S. military operations.</p>
<p>Mr. Biden, in an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation” conducted from his home in Wilmington, Del., said the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated, blaming a “failure to provide sufficient resources - economic, political and military - as well as failure to get a coherent policy among our allies - economically and politically and in terms of the military resources.”</p>
<p>He said corruption is “rife” because the Taliban is in “effective control of significant parts of the country they were not before” and because of the opium and heroin drug trade.</p>
<p>“The bottom line here is, we’ve inherited a real mess. We’re about to go in and try to essentially reclaim territory that’s been effectively lost,” Mr. Biden said. “There are going to be some additional military forces. There are going to be additional efforts to train their police and to train their Afghan army. And all of that means we’re going to be engaging the enemy more now.”</p>
<p>President Obama has said he will send more troops to Afghanistan as he withdraws combat soldiers from the war in Iraq, insisting it is the real front to the “war on terror.”</p>
<p>CBS host Bob Schieffer asked Mr. Biden whether his comments mean more American casualties should be expected.</p>
<p>“I hate to say it, but yes, I think there will be. There will be an uptick. Because as the commander in Afghanistan said, he said, ‘Joe, we will get this done, but we’re going to be engaging the enemy much more,’” the vice president said.</p>
<p>Leaders of antiwar groups that opposed Mr. Obama’s campaign calls to escalate the fight in Afghanistan were frustrated Sunday by Mr. Biden’s choice of words.</p>
<p>“It shows a kind of cavalier treatment of U.S. casualties by calling it an ‘uptick,’ as if there is just some little meter,” said Brian Becker, national coordinator of the Answer Coalition. “Behind the statistics are going to be grieving families and of course tragic loss of life.”</p>
<p>Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink, found Mr. Biden’s words “offensive” and called it a “terrible sign” that Mr. Biden is preparing the nation for the intensified conflict.</p>
<p>“We only need look at history of the British and Soviets to know that sending more troops is not going to solve the problem, it’s only going to mean more deaths on both sides,” she said.</p>
<p>Answer plans a march on the Pentagon on March 21 to “end the war and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan,” Mr. Becker said.</p>
<p>“There were no Afghanis on those airplanes on September 11, yet since October 7, 2001, many thousands of Afghani people have died,” he said. “A military option is something of a fantasy. There’s no light at the end of that tunnel.”</p>
<p>Fred Kagan, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, agreed with Mr. Biden’s assessment, saying “the situation is unquestionably bad. And certainly it is the case as you send more forces into Afghanistan, we can expect to take more casualties, as we saw in Iraq in 2007.”</p>
<p>But, he added, “the thing is that nothing that Biden said is news to anyone who is paying attention. We have all seen these problems for well over a year.”</p>
<p>According to an Associated Press report from Kabul, Mr. Karzai harshly criticized a Saturday U.S. raid in Laghman province and blamed these and other civilian deaths with “strengthening the terrorists.”</p>
<p>The U.S. says Saturday’s raid killed 15 armed militants, including a woman with a rocket-propelled grenade. But Afghan officials say the 16 deaths were all civilians, including two women and three children. Hundreds of villagers in Laghman’s capital denounced the American military during an angry demonstration Sunday.</p>
<p>Mr. Karzai also said Sunday that his Defense Ministry has sent to Washington and NATO headquarters in Brussels the draft of an agreement to give his government more oversight over U.S. and NATO military operations.</p>
<p>In his short CBS interview, Mr. Biden declined to speak about the U.S. use of missile-firing drones in Pakistan and along that nation’s Afghanistan border, saying it was “not appropriate” to do so. He also quoted Mr. Obama from the campaign trail that he would not hesitate to strike “if there is an actionable target, of a high-level al Qaeda personnel.”</p>
<p>But he did say there was “good news” from his last trip there.</p>
<p>“There is a great deal more cooperation going on now” between the U.S. and Pakistan in the tribal areas of Waziristan, “where the bad guys are hiding,” Mr. Biden said. “That’s where the al Qaeda folks are, and some other malcontents. And so what we’re doing is we’re in the process of working with the Pakistanis to help train up their counterinsurgency capability of their military, and we’re getting new agreements with them about how to deal with cross-border movements of these folks, so we’re making progress.”</p>
<p>Mr. Biden chose a football metaphor to describe the progress in Iraq.</p>
<p>“I think we’re basically on the 20-yard line, 20 yards to go. But now comes the really hard part,” he said. “The surge did work. Our military has done everything we’ve asked of them, but there needs to be a political reconciliation in Iraq.” He said that reconciliation is “still in flux … but we need a much stronger push.”</p>
<p>“There has to be an additional, I think, show of responsibility on the part of the Iraqi leaders that they’re able to govern,” he said, adding the Iraqi government must determine how the oil revenue will be divided.</p>
<p>• Eli Lake contributed to this report.</p>
<p>Copyright © 2018 The Washington Times, LLC. <a href="http://license.icopyright.net/3.7280?icx_id=/news/2009/jan/26/biden-sees-uptick-in-fatalities/" type="external">Click here for reprint permission</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Biden sees Afghanistan ‘uptick’ | true | http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/26/biden-sees-uptick-in-fatalities/ | 2009-01-26 | 0 |
<p>AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Golden State Warriors star Kevin Durant is donating $3 million to the University of Texas, where he won national player of the year honors in his lone season before turning pro.</p>
<p>The donation will support the Longhorns basketball program and the school's Center for Sports Leadership and Innovation. Part of the Texas basketball facility will bear Durant's name. The donation will pay for renovations made to the men's and women's practice facility and locker rooms.</p>
<p>Durant played at Texas during the 2006-2007 season. Durant said his year with the Longhorns built the foundation of who he is today as a player and person.</p>
<p>Durant is an eight-time NBA All-Star and won the 2017 NBA Finals MVP while leading the Warriors to the championship.</p>
<p>AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Golden State Warriors star Kevin Durant is donating $3 million to the University of Texas, where he won national player of the year honors in his lone season before turning pro.</p>
<p>The donation will support the Longhorns basketball program and the school's Center for Sports Leadership and Innovation. Part of the Texas basketball facility will bear Durant's name. The donation will pay for renovations made to the men's and women's practice facility and locker rooms.</p>
<p>Durant played at Texas during the 2006-2007 season. Durant said his year with the Longhorns built the foundation of who he is today as a player and person.</p>
<p>Durant is an eight-time NBA All-Star and won the 2017 NBA Finals MVP while leading the Warriors to the championship.</p> | Kevin Durant donates $3 million to University of Texas | false | https://apnews.com/94a97647422849c7bdfefbb13707b8e3 | 2018-01-04 | 2 |
<p>A new report reaffirms conservatives' long-standing suspicion of leftist media bias: journalists have donated to Hillary Clinton this election cycle by an overwhelming majority.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/10/17/20330/journalists-shower-hillary-clinton-campaign-cash" type="external">Center for Public Integrity</a> released a report on Monday detailing that members of the media have donated $396,000 this election cycle to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacies?$382,000 (96 percent) of which went to Clinton. Trump only received $14,000 from "journalists, reporters, news editors or television news anchors."</p>
<p>Some of the journalists listed in the report who donated to Clinton include:</p>
<p>Executives of media companies also tended to donate to Clinton:</p>
<p>Damien Brouillard, the Washington Post's director of finance and comptroller, for example, is among those helping fund Clinton's presidential campaign.</p>
<p>So, too, are former New Republic Publisher Chris Hughes, Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour, Vanity Fair Features Editor Jane Sarkin, Hollywood Reporter Publisher Lynne Segall, Elle Editor-in-Chief Roberta Myers and Lesley Jane Seymour, the former editor-in-chief of More and Marie Clare. Each has given Clinton at least $2,700. Some aren't shy about it, with Hughes, who also co-founded Facebook, conducting a fundraiser for Clinton last year at his Manhattan home.</p>
<p>None of the report's findings should be surprising. The <a href="" type="internal">Daily Wire reported</a> back in 2015 on a study showing that only 7 percent of journalists are Republicans, while 28 percent are Democrats. While most journalists do not list a political affiliation, the members of the mainstream media continually demonstrate that they trend left in their political thinking.</p>
<p>"Many reporters like to describe themselves as independent, but they're not - not really," Judith Miller, an editor at City Journal, <a href="" type="internal">said in a Prager University video</a>. "By any fair measure this group is overwhelmingly on the political Left." That 96 percent of journalists donated to Clinton is just further evidence of this widely known fact.</p>
<p>(h/t: <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/17/journalists-overwhelmingly-donate-clinton-trump/" type="external">Washington Times</a></p> | Report: Journalists Donate Mostly to Hillary | true | https://dailywire.com/news/10028/report-journalists-donate-mostly-hillary-aaron-bandler | 2016-10-18 | 0 |
<p>By Francesca Collins</p>
<p>The American Humane Association (AHA) is sending much-needed Superbowl cheer to servicemembers and military dogs overseas.</p>
<p>AHA is partnering with the Military Working Dog Team Support Association to send almost 200 care packages. Over 40 volunteers came together Thursday to put together the care packages for military dogs and their handlers.</p>
<p>Photo credit: Francesca Collins / <a href="http://dailycallernewsfoundation.org/2016/01/30/volunteers-send-care-packages-to-americas-dogs-on-the-front-line/" type="external">Daily Caller News Foundation</a>.</p>
<p>Each care package includes a blanket, mug, dog toothbrush, nail trimmer, NFL hat, Bowser Beer, football cookies, PetChatz, Dynamo dog treats, styptic powder, gummy bears, hot cocoa, rice, Altoids and a Nerf ball.</p>
<p>Photo credit: Francesca Collins / <a href="http://dailycallernewsfoundation.org/2016/01/30/volunteers-send-care-packages-to-americas-dogs-on-the-front-line/" type="external">Daily Caller News Foundation</a>.</p>
<p>Dr. Robin Ganzert, CEO of AHA, introduced the event, which has partnered with the military for 100 years. AHA said these packages will “bring more than smiles, it will bring hope to these men and women.”</p>
<p>Ganzert explained that military handlers and their dogs are the first targets in a war zone. Military working dogs sniff out weapon caches and improvised explosive devices. If the handler and the dogs can’t go through, the troops don’t go. “This is all about hope,” Ganzert said. “Men and women are heroes, and so are dogs.”</p>
<p>Photo credit: Francesca Collins / <a href="http://dailycallernewsfoundation.org/2016/01/30/volunteers-send-care-packages-to-americas-dogs-on-the-front-line/" type="external">Daily Caller News Foundation</a>.</p>
<p>Retired Marine Capt. Jason A. Haag says there are over 2,000 military working dogs deployed. On average, each dog saves anywhere from 150 to 200 lives. In November, 2015, AHA secured the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act. This act ensures all military working dogs will have transportation home upon their retirement. It also ensures that their human handlers and their families are given the first right of adoption.</p>
<p>Photo credit: Francesca Collins / <a href="http://dailycallernewsfoundation.org/2016/01/30/volunteers-send-care-packages-to-americas-dogs-on-the-front-line/" type="external">Daily Caller News Foundation</a>.</p>
<p>“We are home of the free because of the brave and it’s our duty to have love, hope, and compassion for our heroes on the front line, two and four-legged,” Ganzert said.</p>
<p>Photo credit: Francesca Collins / <a href="http://dailycallernewsfoundation.org/2016/01/30/volunteers-send-care-packages-to-americas-dogs-on-the-front-line/" type="external">Daily Caller News Foundation</a>.</p>
<p>Follow Francesca on <a href="https://twitter.com/FRCollins7" type="external">Twitter</a></p>
<p>Content created by The <a href="http://dailycallernewsfoundation.org/2016/01/30/volunteers-send-care-packages-to-americas-dogs-on-the-front-line/" type="external">Daily Caller News Foundation</a> is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p> | Care packages volunteers are sending to America’s dogs on front line | true | http://bizpacreview.com/2016/01/31/care-packages-volunteers-are-sending-to-americas-dogs-on-front-line-300615 | 2016-01-31 | 0 |
<p>Though the property in question remains available on the open market, word on the New York City celebrity real estate street is <a href="http://variety.com/t/keith-urban/" type="external">Keith Urban</a> surprised wife <a href="http://variety.com/t/nicole-kidman/" type="external">Nicole Kidman</a> with the purchase of an elegant townhouse mansion on a plum Upper East Side block listed with an elephantine $39 million price tag. So the unconfirmed story goes, as was first tattled by <a href="https://www.nowtolove.com.au/celebrity/celeb-news/keith-urban-million-dollar-gift-to-nicole-kidman-43080" type="external">Woman’s Day magazine</a>, Urban opted for the by-any-standard lavish gift so Kidman can “pursue her Broadway dream,” never mind, however, that Kidman and Urban already own a much smaller but still exceptionally expensive condo in lower Manhattan from whence she can launch her thespian dreams.</p>
<p>The 25-foot-wide Beaux-Arts residence was designed by architect Alexander Welch and completed in 1901 before it was purchased by prominent corporate attorney Francis Lynde Stetson, former law partner of president Grover Cleveland, and the elegantly proportioned residence, once occupied by Russian-French painter Marc Chagall and, much later, by Michael Jackson, last changed hands in 2001 when Moroccan-born American hedge fund billionaire <a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/marc-lasry/" type="external">Marc Lasry</a> picked it up for $11 million. With seven bedrooms, eight full and two half bathrooms plus a staff suite squirreled down in the basement, the genteel six-story residence weighs in at a suburban mansion-sized 12,745-square-feet.</p>
<p>Numerous original architectural elements on the exterior include a bowed portico entrance with glass and wrought iron door flanked by carved columns and muscular limestone quoins set off against red bricks while inside modern creature comforts such as central air conditioning and an elevator are seamlessly integrated with preserved original features like a carved oak staircase, oak floorboards, ten wood burning fireplaces, scads of custom mill work and a plethora of stained and leaded glass windows.</p>
<p>A small entry vestibule opens to a huge foyer at the street level, behind which are a huge, eat-in kitchen and a family room that opens to a tiny terrace, while gargantuan living and entertaining spaces on the high-ceiled piano nobile include a ballroom-scaled living room with floor-to-ceiling multi-paned windows and a dining room with floor-to-ceiling bay window.</p>
<p>The master suite sprawls across the entire third floor and comprises a closet-lined sitting room with fireplace and bay window, a separate bedroom with fireplace and French doors to a private terrace, two bathrooms, one of them barely larger than a small walk-in closet, and a dressing corridor lined on both sides with built-in wardrobes. There are four ample en suite guest bedrooms on the fourth and fifth floors, all with fireplaces and two with small private sitting rooms, while the sixth floor provides two additional bedrooms, one with small private sitting room, plus a shared hall bathroom and a kitchenette. An exterior staircase located in a courtyard patio off the stair landing and one of the bedrooms on the sixth floor leads to a roof terrace that spans the back half of the house while the basement offers a discreet exterior entrance, a small gym, a media lounge and an en suite staff bedroom with just one window that looks into a dark air shaft.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly for a man of his financial firepower, Lasry maintains a heavy-duty property portfolio that includes a generously terraced duplex penthouse atop one of Central Park West’s most distinguished buildings that he picked up from in 2013 for $33 million. The two-unit penthouse has a <a href="http://variety.com/2012/dirt/real-estalker/steven-gottlieb-gives-it-another-go-828/" type="external">long and convoluted history</a> of illustrious previous owners who include Broadway producer Jerry Herman who sold to fashion icon Calvin Klein who, after a run-in with the board over a hot tub he illegally installed on the terrace, sold it to billionaire David Geffen who quickly flipped it to Planet Hollywood co-founder Keith Barish. Barish, who is famously rumored to have used a Jasper John painting as partial payment for the penthouse, bought a neighboring unit from actress Marsha Mason before he sold it back to Calvin Klein who never moved in and once again butted heads with the board before he sold it to music industry bigwig and social networking entrepreneur Steven Gottlieb who, in turn, sold it to Lasry.</p>
<p>As for the Australian Oscar winner, nominated this year for her supporting role in “Lion,” and the platinum-selling New Zealand-born country music star, their extensive property portfolio includes: a penthouse in Sydney, Australia as well as a 100-plus acre country spread outside of Sydney; a not-quite 4,000-square-foot contemporary in a remarkably celeb-packed Beverly Hills enclave they bought in 2008 for $4.75 million; a palatial mansion of more than 12,000-square-feet in a swanky gated development in Nashville, Tenn. they also scooped up in 2008 for <a href="https://www.nashvillepost.com/business/development/article/20401853/headline-homes-nashvilles-top-10-sales-march-2008" type="external">$3.47 million</a>; and the briefly aforementioned duplex condo in lower Manhattan’s West Chelsea they snagged in 2010 for a smidgen more than <a href="http://variety.com/2010/dirt/news/keith-and-kidman-get-a-new-krib-in-manhattan-1201230620/" type="external">$9.673 million</a> and features a super-snazzy car elevator that lifts autos up from the street to a private garage on the floor on which the owners’ apartment is located.</p>
<p>Listing photos: <a href="http://www.modlingroup.com/" type="external">Modlin Group</a></p> | Did Keith Urban Buy Nicole Kidman an Elegant New York City Townhouse Mansion? | false | https://newsline.com/did-keith-urban-buy-nicole-kidman-an-elegant-new-york-city-townhouse-mansion/ | 2017-11-27 | 1 |
<p>Heads of states, religious leaders, politicians, activists, lawyers, academics - even homeless people living on the streets of some of the poorest countries in the world - all talk about equity and justice.</p>
<p>These principles are at the core of all the world’s leading religions and part of most major schools of philosophy. Yet despite these repeated pious pronouncements, the world is becoming a more unjust place in which to live, because of the choices we collectively make. Especially the choices our leaders make at the global level, which have made the world increasingly unequal.</p>
<p>The divide between the rich and the poor in terms of wages, healthcare and education is growing daily, both between the elites and the poor within states, as well as between developed and developing states in the international community.</p>
<p>Inequality is not a new phenomenon, but it has a more odious sound today as it runs contrary to the basic rights of every individual. Perhaps for that reason, better sounding names are given to the systems of social relations that create inequality, poverty, and discrimination.</p>
<p>Most so-called developed countries describe their domestic economic relations as “capitalism”. They often don’t emphasise that capitalism is a system that strives on creating winners and losers in society. They don’t explain that capitalism is based on unbridled consumerism that will eventually destroy our planet’s finite resources.</p>
<p>Many of our leaders and many people trying to make a living or merely gain social acceptance have sworn allegiance to the mantra of capitalism as if there was no alternative. Nothing could be farther from the truth.</p>
<p>Since times going back long before capitalism became fashionable there have been alternatives for social relations that emphasise sustainability, sharing and cooperation, rather than consumption, greed and competition. Perhaps the best examples of alternatives are provided by indigenous populations.</p>
<p>Indigenous peoples live - or have lived - on every inhabitable continent in relations with each other that were characterised by sustainable development. They often share or shared their resources with the community.</p>
<p>The American Indians, for example, lived off the land, its animals and its vegetation, always making an effort to utilise the natural resources at their disposal to their fullest and to allow these resources to be naturally replenished. Only when colonialists came to exploit and expropriate their land, their crops, their herds, and even their people, all in the name of capitalism, did the indigenous American Indians and their way of life perish.</p>
<p>Similarly, indigenous peoples in Africa have lived off their land, herding cattle or planting rotating crops from time in memoriam. Some indigenous peoples created the most advanced societies in the world. For example, the Malian Empire used the natural resources at its disposal to create some of the most advanced metal works of its time. It was only after the scramble for Africa, when Western colonialists took many of the people of Africa as slaves and took control of the natural bounty of Africa to use for Europe’s development, that Africa’s underdevelopment began in earnest.</p>
<p>Under the modern invention of capitalism that replaced many indigenous systems of social relations, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. This is not new; since about 1750 the gap between the rich and poor has been widening. In fact, while the number of rich is growing, the number of poor is growing even faster. Recently, the pro-capitalist Economist conservatively concluded that “with very few exceptions, the rich have done better over the past 30 years” in most developed countries.</p>
<p>Today, more than half the populations of the least developed countries (LDCs) live on less than $2 per day, according to the Population Reference Bureau (prb.org), and almost half the world’s total population is estimated to live on less than two Euros per day. Of this latter figure, more than 90 per cent live in developing countries.</p>
<p>Still, the developed Western nations, where most of the rich reside, tell the people of Africa, Asia and Latin America that their indigenous ways of governance are underdeveloped. They claim instead that their capitalism is the right way to achieve what the Soviets called “peaceful coexistence”. And they add that their liberal Western values, such as respect for the rule of law and human rights, are the right path for Africa.</p>
<p>The economic and financial disaster that beset the world during the first decade of the 21st century was not the result of indigenous values that favour sharing and sustainability. It was the result of greed and over-consumption, the type of policies that capitalism breeds.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, rather than admit their mistake, most developed countries use their extraordinary development gap and monetary influence to try to convince the rest of the world that the way out of the crisis is to give those who created it more money.</p>
<p>Governments throughout the Western world rushed to outdo each other in the amount and complex nature of the financial aid that they gave to their own banks and financial institutions. This amount dwarfed what was being given to developing countries as Overseas Development Assistance (ODA), and it was so substantial that the Western financial elites who had caused the global financial collapse were paying themselves bonuses while unemployment was still rising.</p>
<p>When the UN General Assembly, in which all 192 States are equally represented, sought to discuss the economic and financial crisis and suggest needed reforms to the international financial institutions, the same developed states that caused the crisis opposed any action. While discussions took place, largely because of the insistence of the Nicaraguan president of the General Assembly and Maryknoll priest Father Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, any action was blocked. Instead, the developed states said, it is at the World Bank and IMF where the economic and financial state of the world should be discussed. In both these forums, it is developed states that have disproportionate influence and control over decision-making. Developing states have hardly any say.</p>
<p>Watching the example of the developed states, and even the leaders of some developing countries who bought into these undemocratic strategies often to protect their own personal wealth, one might think that there is no alternative. But this is untrue.</p>
<p>As numerous experts speaking at the World Social Forum earlier this year in Dakar, showed, there are countless alternatives. Some experts suggested merely tweaking capitalism with heavier taxes on the richest earners and cash payments to the poor for basic services. Others suggested overhauling the international financial and economic institutions to make them more democratic. Still others suggested a major restructuring of our social relations to make them more equitable, more sustainable, and more equal.</p>
<p>Rather then applauding virtues of a single economic or financial system, the leading economists and social activists gathered in Dakar focused on alternatives that could protect the most vulnerable people in the world. This was a distinct difference from the focus of the champions of industry and world leaders gathered in the Swiss ski resort of Davos at the World Economic Forum just a few days earlier. In Davos the focus was on measuring society’s development based on how the richest in society fared.</p>
<p>Indeed, the wealthy, powerful and famous often seem to forget that society has created laws that call upon its members to strive for greater equality among all of its members. While this does not require achieving absolute equality between all people, it must at least require that states treat other states equally. Yet this does not happen.</p>
<p>Developed Western countries were mainly responsible for the creation of international law with is rules prohibiting the use of force, requiring action to protect human rights, prohibiting actions that destroy our planet’s environment, and requiring action to achieve more equal global development. These same developed Western countries have also been the countries that have violated all of these rules more than any single developing country.</p>
<p>The United States alone has used force against other countries in violation of international law more than all the other countries in the world combined over the past century. The countries that follow the United States are also predominately, and increasingly, developed Western countries. Today, Western coalitions of developed countries, led-by the United States, are killing Africans and Asians, mainly Muslims, without respect for the rules of international law that were created to prohibit and control the use of force. In other words, the prohibition of the use of force - the most fundamental principle of international law - is used by the most powerful states against the weakest states.</p>
<p>This is exactly the opposite of the principles of equity and justice. When international law is misused in pursuit of this agenda it merely becomes another instrument of oppression.</p>
<p>Similarly, while killing more than a million and half Iraqis and countless Afghans in two illegal wars of aggression, the US and its Western allies complain and threaten developing states when their embassies are ransacked or the property of their nationals nationalised. Of course, these developed states are silent about their mass murder of the very people about whom they complain. One law appears to apply to developed states and another to developing states.</p>
<p>Even in international human rights forums, such as the United Nations Human Rights Council, developed countries take extraordinary steps to ensure that issues affecting millions - or billions - of people’s human rights do not make it onto the global agenda. These suppressed concerns include structural inequalities, duties of cooperation and solidarity, the right to peace, contemporary forms of slavery and discrimination, the right to food, the right to housing, the right to health, the commoditisation and destruction of the planet’s environment, and the failure to create an equitable world order. The struggle to get these items on the global agenda is monumental, and even when one success is registered, developed states fight back to marginalise the issue.</p>
<p>For example, in the UN Human Rights Council, the necessity of taking action on the planet’s climate did make it onto the agenda. Two resolutions, a study and a panel were undertaken. The next step was some effective action. At this point, however, European countries, led by Switzerland, approached the tiny developing island country of the Maldives and convinced them not to push the issue of the human consequences of climate change any further. Instead, they were asked to put general questions of the environment on the council’s agenda, knowing that this would set the council’s consideration of the lex specialis of climate change back several decades.</p>
<p>While equity and justice continue to be principles to which we all pay lip service, some voices seem more weighty than others. As a result, equity and justice applies to some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time.</p>
<p>This is a situation that is unlikely to change unless the leaders of the developed world begin to act with equity and justice, at least in their international affairs. Alternatively, developed states need strong leaders who have the courage to act on behalf of their own people and not merely at the behest of those who already control most of the wealth and power.</p>
<p>Equity and justice are principles that apply to us all, but they are principles that only have meaning when we apply them to the most vulnerable among us.</p>
<p>Curtis Doebbler is a prominent international human rights lawyer.</p>
<p /> | Equity and Justice for Whom? | true | https://counterpunch.org/2011/05/27/equity-and-justice-for-whom/ | 2011-05-27 | 4 |
<p>A livestock feed company intends to contest citations and proposed penalties issued by federal safety regulators after the collapse of an Omaha plant that killed two employees.</p>
<p>International Nutrition has notified the Occupational Health and Safety Administration that it will fight the August deadline for fixing what OSHA says are safety violations, the Omaha World-Herald reported Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1oKpmiN ).</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The case now goes to an administrative law judge for a hearing and to the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission. Their decisions may be appealed to a federal appeals court.</p>
<p>Federal safety investigators said last week that overloaded storage bins on the roof of the Omaha plant caused the building collapse on Jan. 20, killing 47-year-old David Ball and 53-year-old Keith Everett. Several other workers were injured, and four were trapped in the rubble and had to be rescued by firefighters. The plant made nutritional products that are added to livestock and poultry feed.</p>
<p>International Nutrition officials said last week that they strongly disagreed with OSHA's conclusions, and they denied knowing beforehand of anything that might have contributed to the collapse.</p>
<p>OSHA cited International Nutrition for 13 violations of safety and health rules and proposed nearly $121,000 in penalties. Many of the cited violations were related to combustible-dust hazards and failure to follow respiratory protection standards. OSHA also issued a citation for what it said was a repeat violation for allowing workers to use compressed air beyond permissible limits.</p>
<p>OSHA records show that International Nutrition was assessed more than $13,000 in penalties for a 2002 accident that killed a 45-year-old worker. The worker died when he fell into a moving mixer he was cleaning.</p>
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<p>The plant also was cited for six safety violations in 2012. They included a lack of facilities to flush dangerous chemicals from workers' eyes and skin, and concerns over the lack of safeguards for some equipment.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: Omaha World-Herald, http://www.omaha.com</p> | Livestock feed company tells feds it will contest proposed penalties in Omaha plant collapse | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2014/07/30/livestock-feed-company-tells-feds-it-will-contest-proposed-penalties-in-omaha.html | 2016-03-05 | 0 |
<p />
<p>On Friday, the <a href="http://www.hannity.com/articles/hanpr-election-493995/outrageous-public-school-students-taught-to-14451508/#ixzz41xdMfY6C" type="external">Sean Hannity</a> website reported that kindergarten students from PS75,&#160;a public school in&#160;New York City, participated in a project where they made an American flag from the flags of other nations.&#160; Below the flag read the words “We pledge allegiance to an International Flag.”</p>
<p>You read that right — an international flag.</p>
<p>Naturally, parents weren’t too happy.</p>
<p>The staff at Hannity.com added:</p>
<p>The flag is being <a href="https://www.biddingforgood.com/auction/item/item.action?id=255444053" type="external">auctioned off</a>&#160;as a way to raise funds&#160;for the Parent Teacher Association. According to the description offered on the auction site:</p>
<p>The students made a beautifully painted stretched canvas American Flag and then applied flags from all the Spanish speaking countries onto the stripes of the American flag. All the children chose a flag to color using colored pencils and they were glued onto the larger American flag. The stars are cut canvas which are painted and decorated with REAL Swarovski Crystals (gold and crystal colored)!</p>
<p>The fun quote on the bottom is about unity and creating an environment in which everyone is welcome! “We pledge allegiance to an International Flag!” Our dual language classroom strives to be a place that everyone feels welcome! (Emphasis added)</p>
<p>Although the description claims that the flags are limited to “Spanish speaking countries”, the Russian flag is amongst those that are included.</p>
<p>As the site correctly notes, this is just part of the effort to indoctrinate children into a globalist agenda.</p>
<p>In an update, Hannity.com said the image has been removed from the bidding site.&#160; The high bid so far is $50.</p>
<p />
<p>Related:</p>
<p>If you haven’t checked out and liked our <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ConservativeFiringLine?fref=ts" type="external">Facebook</a> page, please go <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ConservativeFiringLine?fref=ts" type="external">here</a> and do so.</p> | New York school kids told to ‘pledge allegiance to an international flag’ | true | http://conservativefiringline.com/new-york-school-kids-told-to-pledge-allegiance-to-an-international-flag/ | 2016-03-05 | 0 |
<p>&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mittromney/7656063696/sizes/z/in/photostream/"&gt;Mitt Romney&lt;/a&gt;/Flickr</p>
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<p>It’s an old story. Republican presidential candidates move rightward to win the GOP&#160;primary (and Democrats move left). After securing the nomination, both Republicans and Democrats move back towards the center to appeal to the broader electorate. “Everything changes” in the general election,&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Eric Fehrnstrom</a>, a top Romney adviser, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/22/us/politics/etch-a-sketch-remark-a-rare-misstep-for-romney-adviser.html?_r=1" type="external">said in March</a>. “It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again.” Yet so far, Romney’s actual policy ideas haven’t changed much at all. Sure, <a href="" type="internal">he’s softened his tone on immigration</a>. But he hasn’t edged away from his previous proposals.</p>
<p>Perhaps the reason it seems that Romney hasn’t moved more to the center is that he&#160; <a href="http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=2B4A0DCD-7A1C-40F3-8FA9-08CEF547C022" type="external">hasn’t been particularly specific about what he would do as president</a>. It’s hard to be seen as changing your position if no one knows what your position is. But on some issues, at least, there seems to be some potential for Romney to pick up votes by moving towards the center. A <a href="http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2012/07/obama-leads-in-michigan-and-pennsylvania.html" type="external">recent survey by Public Policy Polling</a> found that picking Condoleeza Rice, who has a reputation as a moderate on domestic policy and has described herself as “mildly pro-choice,” as his running mate would be a “huge game changer,” creating a tie in Pennsylvania and dramatically narrowing President Barack Obama’s lead in Michigan. But Romney <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/07/20/imagining-a-better-romney/" type="external">has run away from his moderate, pro-abortion rights, pro-health care reform record as governor of Massachusetts</a>, and&#160;there is not yet a single significant domestic policy position that Romney has staked out in the general election that is significantly more centrist than the proposals he advocated in the Republican primary. How can that be?</p>
<p>There’s no doubt that Romney has a reputation as someone who radically shifts his positions based on the political climate. His campaign may be wagering that tacking center will only reinforce that image. They also probably want to illustrate as large of a contrast with Obama as they can. But money might have something to do with it, too. Never before has a presidential candidate been <a href="" type="internal">so indebted to just a few major donors</a>. Just seven families gave the pro-Romney super-PAC&#160;Restore Our Future $15 million of the $21 million it raised in June. Gambling billionaire Sheldon Adelson has <a href="" type="internal">already given eight figures to pro-Romney groups</a>. Conservative millionaires and billionaires certainly want Romney to win, but they also want to keep him on the straight and narrow. Presidential nominees have always had to answer to party machers and big money donors. But campaign donations on this huge, post-Citizens United scale carries even larger obligations.</p>
<p /> | Why Hasn’t Romney Moved More to the Center? | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/why-hasnt-romney-moved-more-center/ | 2012-07-30 | 4 |
<p>There were at least 16,196 farmers’ suicides in India in 2008, bringing the total since 1997 to 199,132, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).</p>
<p>The share of the Big 5 States or ‘suicide belt’ in 2008 — Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh — remained very high at 10,797, or 66.6 per cent of the total farm suicides in the country. This was marginally higher than it was in 2007 (66.2 per cent). Maharashtra remains the worst state in the nation for farm suicides with a total of 3802. (This is just 40 short of the combined total of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.) The all-India total of 16,196 represents a fall of 436 from 2007. But the broad trends of the past decade reflect no significant change. The national average for farm suicides since 2003 stays at roughly one every 30 minutes.</p>
<p>Within the Big 5, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh recorded higher numbers. The increase of 604 in these three States somewhat offset the dip in Maharashtra (436) and Karnataka (398). But a fall in suicide numbers in other States (for example, a decline of 412 in Kerala and 343 in West Bengal) means that the Big 5 marginally increased their two-thirds share of total farm suicides in 2008.</p>
<p>The NCRB data now cover all States for 12 years from 1997. In the first six years (1997-2002), the Big 5 witnessed 55,769 farmers’ suicides. From 2003 to 2008, they totalled 67,054, a rise of nearly 1900 a year on average. Maharashtra has logged 41,404 farm suicides from 1997 (over a fifth of the national total) and 44,468 from 1995, the year when this State began recording farm data. No other state comes close. During 1997-2002, Maharashtra saw, on average, eight farmers kill themselves daily. The corresponding figure rose to 11 during 2003-2008. The rise was from an average of 2,833 farm suicides a year in the first period to an average of 4,067 in the next period.</p>
<p>Professor K. Nagaraj, an economist who has worked at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, says of the NCRB data: “There is hardly any decline in the suicide belt, though individual States may show variations across 12 years. If this is the state for 2008, the year of the Rs. 70,000 crore [1 crore = 10 million] loan waiver and multiple farm packages, then 2009, a drought year, could show very disturbing figures. The underlying agrarian problems seem as acute as ever.”</p>
<p>P. SAINATH is the rural affairs editor of The Hindu, where this piece appears, and is the author of Everybody Loves a Good Drought. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p> | Self-Slaughter Every 30 Minutes | true | https://counterpunch.org/2010/01/22/self-slaughter-every-30-minutes/ | 2010-01-22 | 4 |
<p>TRACK 8</p>
<p>“Shame Chamber”</p>
<p>From Kurt Vile’s Wakin on a Pretty Daze</p>
<p>MATADOR</p>
<p>Liner notes: Oozing hipster disdain, Kurt Vile celebrates “living life to the lowest power/Feeling bad in the best way a man can,” punctuating his alienation with spiky guitar and ironic whoops of joy on this darkly funny ballad.</p>
<p>Behind the music: An ex-member of the War on Drugs, Philly native Vile had to delay the album when his second child arrived early.</p>
<p>Check it out if you like: Savvy noisemakers like Lou Reed and Ty Segall.</p>
<p />
<p /> | Music Review: “Shame Chamber” by Kurt Vile | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2013/04/music-review-shame-chamber-kurt-vile/ | 2013-04-11 | 4 |
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<p>During a panel discussion on “Anderson Cooper 360” Monday evening, Lord and seven other commentators discussed the president’s baseless claims that President Barack Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower during the campaign. When the conversation turned to Trump’s credibility, Lord appeared to be the lone guest unwilling to call the president a liar.</p>
<p>On an average day, that might have been par for the course for Lord, who has established himself as a reliable Trump booster since joining CNN as a paid analyst in the summer of 2015.</p>
<p>But Lord’s interlocutors weren’t having it. Hours earlier, FBI Director James B. Comey had snuffed out Trump’s wiretapping allegations, testifying under oath that there was “no information” indicating Obama had spied on his campaign. Even Comey was calling Trump a liar, they argued.</p>
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<p>Lord saw it differently, repeating the claim by some Trump backers that he didn’t mean what he said about wiretapping and therefore couldn’t be lying.</p>
<p>Trump, he said, was speaking “Americanese” when he tweeted that Obama had orchestrated a “Nixon/Watergate” plot against him. The president’s supporters knew what he meant, but Washington insiders didn’t and blew it out of proportion.</p>
<p>Cooper and other guests seemed baffled.</p>
<p>“What you’re arguing then is the FBI and the Justice Department are mistaken for taking the president literally because they don’t speak Americanese?” Cooper asked.</p>
<p>Other guests continued to press the issue.</p>
<p>“The whole world had a chance to watch this unfold, and it was a direct test of his credibility. And the whole world now knows he lied about it,” former White House aide David Gergen said of Trump.</p>
<p>“We’ve seen it again and again,” Gergen continued. “When we have a president who is a congenital liar, it really matters.”</p>
<p>Lord tried to jump back in with an attack on Obama, but Cooper cut him off.</p>
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<p>“Do you believe this president of the United States is a congenital liar,” the host asked.</p>
<p>“No,” Lord replied.</p>
<p>At that point, tensions boiled over, with the obviously frustrated guests gesticulating and talking over each other.</p>
<p>Again shifting gears, Lord brought up a tweet from Trump’s White House Twitter account saying the FBI and the National Security Agency had found Russia “did not influence electoral process.” Asked about the tweet, Comey said it didn’t reflect his congressional testimony. The Washington Post rated the tweet false.</p>
<p>Not a lie, Lord responded. The tweet, like his wiretapping allegations, had been misinterpreted.</p>
<p>“You’re smarter than that,” an exasperated Cooper told Lord as others chimed in. “Oh, come on Jeffrey.”</p> | Jeffrey Lord on CNN: Trump speaks a different language – ‘Americanese’ | false | https://abqjournal.com/973208/jeffrey-lord-on-cnn-trump-speaks-a-different-language-americanese.html | 2 |
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<p>By Bob Allen</p>
<p>Entertainer Charlie Daniels stepped gingerly into controversy over the Boy Scouts of America reconsidering its ban on gays at a local Boy Scouts fundraiser March 20 in Tennessee.</p>
<p>“I definitely have feelings about it, but I’m not a part of the Boy Scout leadership or organization,” Daniels told about 250 community leaders during the Trail of Tears District “Friends of Scouting” luncheon at World Outreach Church in Murfreesboro, Tenn. “What I have to say will not have any influence on what decision they make.”</p>
<p>The country-music legend closed his speech praising values he learned as a Boy Scout with the remark, “and I hope we protect them from those who would change the organization,” according to a <a href="http://www.dnj.com/article/20130321/NEWS/303210025/Charlie-Daniels-praises-Boy-Scouts-annual-fundraiser?nclick_check=1" type="external">report</a> in the Daily News Journal.</p>
<p>It’s a topic likely on the audience’s mind. A proposal coming up at the Boy Scouts national annual meeting in May to adopt a nationwide non-discrimination policy has been widely criticized by conservative and religious groups, including a rare emergency <a href="ministry/organizations/item/8233-sbc-leaders-chide-boy-scouts" type="external">resolution</a> adopted between annual sessions by the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention.</p>
<p>Daniels, 76, whose 30-year music career includes Grammy, Dove, Country Music Association, Academy of Country Music and American Music awards, usually isn’t shy about expressing his opinions on matters of politics and religion. His band website includes a “soapbox” <a href="http://www.charliedaniels.com/soapbox.htm" type="external">page</a> with running commentary on issues like gun control, President Obama and the military.</p>
<p>In 2011, his concerts drew pickets by members of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., after he described the group known for protests at military funerals as “that bunch of dirty scumbags” in his pro-military song “ <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWXniUm711w" type="external">Let ‘Em Win or Bring ‘Em Home</a>.” He responded to their criticism in a Dallas Observer <a href="http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/dc9/2011/12/post_17.php" type="external">interview</a>: “First of all: The Westboro Baptist Church isn’t Baptist. Second of all, it isn’t a church. A church is the body of Christ, and the God I serve is a god of love, not of hate.”</p>
<p>A singer, guitarist and fiddler who has been performing since the 1950s, Daniels rose to fame in 1975 as leader of the Charlie Daniels Band with the Southern rock anthem “The South’s Gonna Do It Again.”</p>
<p>He <a href="http://www.charliedaniels.com/theband/cdb-awards.htm" type="external">won</a> the Grammy Award for Best Country Vocal Performance in 1979 for “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” The song became a crossover success the following year after it appeared in the soundtrack of the hit movie <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081696/" type="external">Urban Cowboy</a> starring John Travolta.</p>
<p>Daniels also has recorded several traditional gospel and contemporary Christian albums. He has performed at numerous crusades with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and was the headline <a href="http://www.murfreesboropost.com/charlie-daniels-to-perform-at-woc-easter-service-other-easter-events-cms-16307" type="external">attraction</a> for a 2009 community-wide Easter service at <a href="http://www.wochurch.org/" type="external">World Outreach Church</a>, a 7,000-member non-denominational church located across the county line from Daniels’ home in Mt. Juliet, Tenn.</p>
<p>A local Scout leader suggested the idea of lifting the ban on gay Scouts and Scoutmasters isn’t going over well in generally conservative Middle Tennessee.</p>
<p>“This is a traditional values organization,” Jim Burton, vice president of special projects for the Middle Tennessee BSA council, <a href="http://www.dnj.com/article/20130321/NEWS/303210025/Charlie-Daniels-praises-Boy-Scouts-annual-fundraiser?nclick_check=1" type="external">told</a> the Daily News Journal. “Right now the organization is in a decision process at the national level, and we have to wait until they make a determination.”&#160;</p> | Singer skirts Boy Scout controversy | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/singer-skirts-boy-scout-controversy/ | 3 |
|
<p />
<p>Can the rally keep going? Not for long…</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Regular readers know I’m a big fan of Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS). The stock merits a look.</p>
<p>What is going on with Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)? Is it no longer the IT stock?</p>
<p>Back next week to see if resistance holds…or is broken.</p> | Is the Rally Running Out of Steam? | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2015/10/16/is-rally-running-out-steam.html | 2016-03-06 | 0 |
<p>Despite the fact that Hillary Clinton got a clean bill of health from her doctor, fake medical records for Clinton are circulating on some conservative websites, purporting to show that she&#160;suffers from seizures and dementia.</p>
<p>Clinton’s longtime physician — whose name appears atop the alleged “leaked” documents — released a statement to FactCheck.org calling the documents “false,” and reiterating her diagnosis that Clinton is “in excellent health and fit to serve as President of the United States.”</p>
<p>The fake records are making the rounds just as some in the conservative media have been baselessly questioning Clinton’s health. Among them was Fox News’ Sean Hannity, who played a tape of Clinton vigorously shaking her head in a manner he deemed “seizure-esque” (although neither of the medical experts on his program agreed).</p>
<p>The doctored documents play off Clinton’s very real <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/15/us/us-hillary-clinton-concussion/" type="external">concussion in December 2012</a> — which caused her to suffer double vision for nearly two months starting in late 2012. But her longtime physician, <a href="http://www.caremountmedical.com/directory/people/show/lisa-bardack/" type="external">Lisa Bardack</a>, director of internal medicine, Mount Sinai Health System at CareMount Medical, says follow-up medical exams in 2013 “revealed complete resolution of the effects of the concussion.”</p>
<p>The fake documents, dated Feb. 5, 2014, which <a href="http://halturnershow.com/index.php/news/world-news/212-more-hillary-clinton-medical-release-s" type="external">appear</a> to have originated from a <a href="http://archive.is/Lk7dU" type="external">since-deleted Twitter account</a>, purport to come from Dr. Bardack. But her title is wrong on the letterhead.</p>
<p>The letter purports to indicate that Clinton suffered complications from a 2012 concussion including “blacking out,” “uncontrollable twitching” and “memory loss.” It says Clinton has previously been diagnosed as having “Complex Partial Seizures” and “early-onset Subcortical Vascular Dementia.” The images were shared and discussed on numerous <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/hillary-seriously-ill-from-dementia-seizures-and-blackouts-comparative-analysis-of-other-us-presidents-who-experienced-serious-health-problems/5541076" type="external">websites</a> and in <a href="https://twitter.com/RogerJStoneJr/status/764543175016886272" type="external">social media</a>. But again, we can’t stress this enough: It’s a fake document.</p>
<p />
<p>The same Twitter user <a href="http://halturnershow.com/index.php/news/world-news/212-more-hillary-clinton-medical-release-s" type="external">later posted</a> what was purported to be a magnetic resonance angiogram of Clinton’s brain showing a significant “abnormality” in the brain tissue. This is also a bogus image.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p />
<p>In a statement provided to FactCheck.org by the Clinton campaign, Bardack dismissed the authenticity of these documents, saying they are “false,&#160;were not written by me and are&#160;not based on any medical facts.”</p>
<p>Bardack, Aug. 16: As Secretary Clinton’s long time physician, I&#160;released a medical statement&#160;during&#160;the campaign indicating that&#160;she is in excellent health. I have recently been made aware of&#160;allegedly “leaked”&#160;medical documents&#160;regarding&#160;Secretary Clinton with my name&#160;on them. These documents are&#160;false,&#160;were not written by me and are&#160;not based on any medical facts. To reiterate what I&#160;said in my previous statement, Secretary Clinton is in excellent&#160;health and fit to serve as President of the United States.</p>
<p>Bardack, who has served as Clinton’s personal physician since 2001, did publicly release a summary of Clinton’s health history and a medical evaluation in <a href="https://m.hrc.onl/secretary/10-documents/01-health-financial-records/2015-07-28_Statement_of_Health_-_LBardack.pdf" type="external">a letter</a> dated July 28, 2015. It paints a much different picture than the fake documents.</p>
<p>According to Bardack’s letter, Clinton “is a healthy 67-year-old female whose current medical conditions include hypothyroidism and seasonal pollen allergies.”</p>
<p>The letter discusses Clinton’s concussion — well-documented in the media at the time — and some of the lingering effects she suffered from it. As the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/us/politics/hillary-clinton-concussion.html?_r=0" type="external">New York Times noted</a> in December 2012, Clinton suffered a concussion after fainting and striking her head. Bardack’s letter said Clinton suffered a stomach virus after traveling, and became dehydrated, which caused her to faint.</p>
<p>Bardack, July 28, 2015: During follow up evaluations, Mrs. Clinton was found to have a transverse sinus venous thrombosis and began anticoagulation therapy to dissolve the clot. As a result of the concussion, Mrs. Clinton also experienced double vision for a period of time and benefited from wearing glasses with a Fresnel Prism.</p>
<p>Here’s Clinton in those much-discussed <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hillary-clintons-glasses-concussion-fashion/story?id=18313426" type="external">glasses</a>, which her aide&#160;acknowledged at the time was “because of lingering issues stemming from her concussion.”</p>
<p>Bardack said Clinton’s symptoms, including the double vision, went away within two months.</p>
<p>Bardack, July 28, 2015: She had follow-up testing in 2013, which revealed complete resolution of the effects of the concussion as well as total dissolution of the thrombosis.</p>
<p>Bardack said Clinton’s most recent physical examination on March 21, 2015, “revealed a healthy-appearing female.” Bardack said Clinton has a healthy diet and exercises regularly, including yoga, swimming, walking and weight training.</p>
<p>Bardack, July 28, 2015: In summary, Mrs. Clinton is a healthy female with hypothyroidism and seasonal allergies, on long-term anticoagulation. She participates in a healthy lifestyle and has had a full medical evaluation, which reveals no evidence of additional medical issues or cardiovascular disease. her cancer screening evaluations are all negative. She is in excellent physical condition and fit to serve as President of the United States.</p>
<p>Despite the public release of Bardack’s medical evaluation, some conservative pundits have questioned Clinton’s health and ability to serve as president.</p>
<p>On Fox News, Sean Hannity <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/08/11/in-prime-time-sean-hannity-carries-out-a-clinton-medical-investigation/" type="external">repeatedly</a> speculated about serious health issues for Clinton. Hannity <a href="http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/08/10/watch-sean-hannity-fails-convince-doctors-hillary-clinton-suffers-seizures/212323" type="external">showed clips</a> of Clinton in the midst of a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C12ZvOJNfs" type="external">coughing fit</a> in February, stumbling while boarding a plane in 2011, and dramatically shaking her head during a press scrum in June (which Hannity said “almost looks seizure-esque to me”). Never mind that two medical experts on the program said the video did not appear to show seizures, though both called for a disclosure of medical records for both presidential candidates.</p>
<p>Hannity, Aug. 10: That last one in particular is so odd to me. What was your take?</p>
<p>Dr. Fiona Gupta, neurologist, North Shore Brain and Spine Center: You know, it’s just so hard to speculate based on snippets of the clips that, you know, what is going on without having a full examination and workup.</p>
<p>Hannity: Look at this video right here. Watch her reaction, because I’m not — it almost seems&#160;seizure-esque&#160;to me.</p>
<p>Gupta:&#160;There are different types of seizures, local seizures that sometimes can cause just one body part, but it would be very rare. I mean, typically seizures will generalize, so I can’t say that’s a seizure.</p>
<p>Hannity: Aren’t there many seizures like that, Dr. Siegel?</p>
<p>Dr. Marc Siegel, Fox News medical contributor: I’m not a neurologist, and I don’t think that necessarily looks like a seizure, but I will say this …</p>
<p>An Associated Press reporter who was among those shouting questions to Clinton during the press scrum inside a&#160;muffin shop <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/2c8dbf3a7ed44e40be52fade3cfe2900/video-proves-clinton-suffering-seizures-not-so-i-was-there" type="external">called it</a> an “innocuous exchange” that has “become the fodder for one of some Trump supporters’ most popular conspiracy theories: her failing health.”</p>
<p>“Perhaps eager to avoid answering or maybe just taken aback by our volume, Clinton responded with an exaggerated motion, shaking her head vigorously for a few seconds,” AP reporter Lisa Lerer <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/2c8dbf3a7ed44e40be52fade3cfe2900/video-proves-clinton-suffering-seizures-not-so-i-was-there" type="external">later wrote</a>. “Video of the moment shows me holding out my recorder in front of her, laughing and stepping back in surprise. After the exchange, she took a few more photos, exited the shop and greeted supporters waiting outside.”</p>
<p>An opinion writer for Newsweek, who has epilepsy, <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/sean-hannity-lies-hillary-clinton-health-490469" type="external">wrote</a> that Clinton’s movements looked “nothing like” a seizure. The writer called Hannity’s speculation degrading to people with epilepsy, and he demanded an apology.</p>
<p>But Hannity isn’t the only one questioning Clinton’s physical fitness to be president. Though he was vague, Clinton’s Republican opponent, Donald Trump, said in <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?413977-1/donald-trump-delivers-foreign-policy-address&amp;start=1947" type="external">a speech on foreign policy</a> on Aug. 15 that Clinton “lacks the mental and physical stamina to take on ISIS, and all of the many adversaries we face – not only in terrorism, but in trade and every other challenge we must confront to turn our great country around.”</p>
<p>Neither Trump nor Hannity referenced the fake medical documents purporting to be from Dr. Bardack. But their baseless speculation is also refuted by the public statements and medical evaluation released by Clinton’s longtime doctor.</p>
<p />
<p /> | Fake Clinton Medical Records | false | https://factcheck.org/2016/08/fake-clinton-medical-records/ | 2016-08-16 | 2 |
<p>Footballing supremacy between nations will be determined in 2018, just maybe not in the way expected.</p>
<p>The World Cup remains the ultimate prize in sport, and a Russia buffeted by doping scandals and geopolitical rifts will open up like never before to welcome thousands of fans.</p>
<p>When the tournament reaches its climax in Moscow on July 14, the biggest global television audience of the year is likely to see the World Cup handed over.</p>
<p>Will Germany be the first team to retain the title since Brazil in 1962? Can Neymar inspire Brazil to a record-extending sixth success? Will the players who have shared major individual honors for a decade - Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal) and Lionel Messi (Argentina) - finally become world champions?</p>
<p>But it became clearer in 2017 that appearing at the World Cup is no longer the only vehicle - or preferred means - for countries to validate their status and strength in the world's biggest sport.</p>
<p>That isn't much of a reassurance, though, for Italy, the Netherlands and the United States who failed to qualify for Russia.</p>
<p>The international soccer landscape is being reshaped by the Gulf state-funded clubs, and their clout reached new heights in the last year.</p>
<p>Just as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates became ensnared in a diplomatic standoff, the jewels in their soccer crowns slugged it out in the transfer market pursuing the top talent.</p>
<p>Around $300 million was spent in the summer transfer window alone by both Manchester City, which is owned by the UAE's Abu Dhabi, and Paris Saint-Germain, which is funded by 2022 World Cup host nation Qatar.</p>
<p>The biggest statement came from PSG which more than doubled the previous transfer record by splurging 222 million euros on Neymar - an unexpected windfall for Barcelona but a deal that solidified the power shifts.</p>
<p>Both PSG and City have already obliterated the field in their French and English leagues respectively and are racing toward regaining their domestic titles. The true test of power in this intriguing rivalry between energy-rich Gulf powers should be determined in the Champions League. The competition has been won in three of the last four years by Real Madrid, and the holders now stand in the way of PSG reaching the quarterfinals in March.</p>
<p>Madrid and Barcelona remain in the control of their fans, a structure able to resist foreign ownership, although both teams have accepted injections of cash through UAE or Qatar sponsorships.</p>
<p>The future spending capabilities of the nascent forces at PSG and City will be determined in the coming months. However wealthy their ownership, unfettered spending remains subject to curbs in an often forlorn attempt to maintain a competitive balance in competitions and prevent them stockpiling players.</p>
<p>The ultimate threat hanging over PSG is exclusion from the Champions League unless it balances the books by cashing in on stars in the January transfer window. PSG's legal team is already preparing to take the fight to UEFA over its implementation of Financial Fair Play rules, having faced an earlier round of punishments - along with City - in 2014 that led to limits on the squad size and financial penalties.</p>
<p>UEFA has also served notice on AC Milan that sanctions could be looming after around $250 million was spent in the summer by new private Chinese investors. Milan is an illustration of why authorities don't want clubs risking their financial health in the pursuit of success. Despite the investment, Milan is closer to the relegation zone than the top four Champions League qualification places halfway through the Serie A season.</p>
<p>City is in a more advantageous position than either PSG or Milan due to its cut from domestic television rights. The Premier League is banking 8.3 billion pounds ($11 billion) from broadcasters under the current three-year deals, far eclipsing European counterparts.</p>
<p>One of the early defining moments of 2018 in soccer won't happen on the field but in the Premier League's negotiations over the 2019-2022 rights. The winning outlets will provide an indicator of the vitality of traditional networks in an era of fragmented viewing habits where streaming platforms are luring viewers. The value of the deals will also influence the spending power of clubs in the coming years and the destination of the players.</p>
<p>The flow of cash from Abu Dhabi since 2008 has already produced the dominant City team imagined by Sheikh Mansour. At the start of the second half of the season, Pep Guardiola's side enjoys a commanding lead over the previously pre-eminent Manchester United.</p>
<p>How rapidly fortunes change in soccer.</p>
<p>Guardiola, a serial title winner at Barcelona and Bayern Munich, was facing doubts over his managerial prowess as he opened his City reign with his first trophyless season. He remains on course for a quadruple at the second attempt.</p>
<p>Across Manchester, it was Jose Mourinho buoyant in the first half of 2017 after collecting the Europa League and League Cup to offset a sixth-place domestic finish. But Mourinho enters 2018 in sullen mood, seething with envy about the lavish investment from Abu Dhabi that enabled Guardiola to remodel his squad.</p>
<p>It's another indicator that with all the cash pumped into soccer by Gulf ruling families, the World Cup can no longer be relied on to determine the true kings of soccer in 2018.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Rob Harris is at <a href="http://www.twitter.com/RobHarris" type="external">www.twitter.com/RobHarris</a> and <a href="http://www.facebook.com/RobHarrisReports" type="external">www.facebook.com/RobHarrisReports</a></p>
<p>Footballing supremacy between nations will be determined in 2018, just maybe not in the way expected.</p>
<p>The World Cup remains the ultimate prize in sport, and a Russia buffeted by doping scandals and geopolitical rifts will open up like never before to welcome thousands of fans.</p>
<p>When the tournament reaches its climax in Moscow on July 14, the biggest global television audience of the year is likely to see the World Cup handed over.</p>
<p>Will Germany be the first team to retain the title since Brazil in 1962? Can Neymar inspire Brazil to a record-extending sixth success? Will the players who have shared major individual honors for a decade - Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal) and Lionel Messi (Argentina) - finally become world champions?</p>
<p>But it became clearer in 2017 that appearing at the World Cup is no longer the only vehicle - or preferred means - for countries to validate their status and strength in the world's biggest sport.</p>
<p>That isn't much of a reassurance, though, for Italy, the Netherlands and the United States who failed to qualify for Russia.</p>
<p>The international soccer landscape is being reshaped by the Gulf state-funded clubs, and their clout reached new heights in the last year.</p>
<p>Just as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates became ensnared in a diplomatic standoff, the jewels in their soccer crowns slugged it out in the transfer market pursuing the top talent.</p>
<p>Around $300 million was spent in the summer transfer window alone by both Manchester City, which is owned by the UAE's Abu Dhabi, and Paris Saint-Germain, which is funded by 2022 World Cup host nation Qatar.</p>
<p>The biggest statement came from PSG which more than doubled the previous transfer record by splurging 222 million euros on Neymar - an unexpected windfall for Barcelona but a deal that solidified the power shifts.</p>
<p>Both PSG and City have already obliterated the field in their French and English leagues respectively and are racing toward regaining their domestic titles. The true test of power in this intriguing rivalry between energy-rich Gulf powers should be determined in the Champions League. The competition has been won in three of the last four years by Real Madrid, and the holders now stand in the way of PSG reaching the quarterfinals in March.</p>
<p>Madrid and Barcelona remain in the control of their fans, a structure able to resist foreign ownership, although both teams have accepted injections of cash through UAE or Qatar sponsorships.</p>
<p>The future spending capabilities of the nascent forces at PSG and City will be determined in the coming months. However wealthy their ownership, unfettered spending remains subject to curbs in an often forlorn attempt to maintain a competitive balance in competitions and prevent them stockpiling players.</p>
<p>The ultimate threat hanging over PSG is exclusion from the Champions League unless it balances the books by cashing in on stars in the January transfer window. PSG's legal team is already preparing to take the fight to UEFA over its implementation of Financial Fair Play rules, having faced an earlier round of punishments - along with City - in 2014 that led to limits on the squad size and financial penalties.</p>
<p>UEFA has also served notice on AC Milan that sanctions could be looming after around $250 million was spent in the summer by new private Chinese investors. Milan is an illustration of why authorities don't want clubs risking their financial health in the pursuit of success. Despite the investment, Milan is closer to the relegation zone than the top four Champions League qualification places halfway through the Serie A season.</p>
<p>City is in a more advantageous position than either PSG or Milan due to its cut from domestic television rights. The Premier League is banking 8.3 billion pounds ($11 billion) from broadcasters under the current three-year deals, far eclipsing European counterparts.</p>
<p>One of the early defining moments of 2018 in soccer won't happen on the field but in the Premier League's negotiations over the 2019-2022 rights. The winning outlets will provide an indicator of the vitality of traditional networks in an era of fragmented viewing habits where streaming platforms are luring viewers. The value of the deals will also influence the spending power of clubs in the coming years and the destination of the players.</p>
<p>The flow of cash from Abu Dhabi since 2008 has already produced the dominant City team imagined by Sheikh Mansour. At the start of the second half of the season, Pep Guardiola's side enjoys a commanding lead over the previously pre-eminent Manchester United.</p>
<p>How rapidly fortunes change in soccer.</p>
<p>Guardiola, a serial title winner at Barcelona and Bayern Munich, was facing doubts over his managerial prowess as he opened his City reign with his first trophyless season. He remains on course for a quadruple at the second attempt.</p>
<p>Across Manchester, it was Jose Mourinho buoyant in the first half of 2017 after collecting the Europa League and League Cup to offset a sixth-place domestic finish. But Mourinho enters 2018 in sullen mood, seething with envy about the lavish investment from Abu Dhabi that enabled Guardiola to remodel his squad.</p>
<p>It's another indicator that with all the cash pumped into soccer by Gulf ruling families, the World Cup can no longer be relied on to determine the true kings of soccer in 2018.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Rob Harris is at <a href="http://www.twitter.com/RobHarris" type="external">www.twitter.com/RobHarris</a> and <a href="http://www.facebook.com/RobHarrisReports" type="external">www.facebook.com/RobHarrisReports</a></p> | Soccer's big clash of nations not only at World Cup in 2018 | false | https://apnews.com/amp/df01d32df1dc4c438eb0a2d7f19997dd | 2017-12-30 | 2 |
<p>Jan 23 (Reuters) - Firstobject Technologies Ltd:</p>
<p>* GOT ORDER TO SUPPLY DIGITAL SMART CLASS SOLUTION, FIRSTESCHOOL ‍​</p>
<p>* ORDER FROM ‍MAHATMA JYOTHIBA PHULE TELENGANA BACKWARD CLASSES WELFARE RESIDENTIAL EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS SOCIETY Source text: <a href="http://bit.ly/2ruMU4J" type="external">bit.ly/2ruMU4J</a> Further company coverage:</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>LONDON (Reuters) - A Cambridge Analytica whistleblower said on Tuesday that Canadian company AggregateIQ worked on software called Ripon which was used to identify Republican voters ahead of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.</p> Christopher Wylie, a whistleblower who formerly worked with Cambridge Analytica, speaks next to Shahmir Sanni (not in picture), a former volunteer at Vote Leave group, at the Frontline Club in London, Britain, March 26, 2018. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls
<p>AggregateIQ did not immediately respond to request for comment on the remarks by Christopher Wylie, a whistleblower formerly of British political consultancy Cambridge Analytica.</p>
<p>Wylie has previously disclosed how users’ data from Facebook was used by Cambridge Analytica to help elect U.S. President Donald Trump.</p>
<p>Ripon, the town in which the Republican Party was founded in 1854, was the name given to a tool that let a campaign manage its voter database, target specific voters, conduct canvassing, manage fundraising and carry out surveys.</p>
<p>“There’s now tangible proof in the public domain that AIQ actually built Ripon, which is the software that utilised the algorithms from the Facebook data,” Wylie told the British Parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee.</p>
<p>AggregateIQ told Reuters on March 24 that it had never been and is not a part of Cambridge Analytica nor ever entered into a contract with Cambridge Analytica.</p>
<p>It said it works in full compliance within all legal and regulatory requirements and had never knowingly been involved in any illegal activity.</p>
<p>Cambridge Analytica said on Tuesday that it had not shared any of the Facebook profile data procured by a Cambridge academic with AggregateIQ. It said it had not had any communication with AggregateIQ since December 2015.</p>
<p>Reporting by Alistair Smout, Andy Bruce and Eric Auchard, editing by Guy Faulconbridge</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>LONDON (Reuters) - Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg will not answer questions from British lawmakers over how millions of users’ data got into the hands of political consultancy Cambridge Analytica as the company faces further pressure on both sides of the Atlantic.</p> FILE PHOTO: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg speaks during the Alumni Exercises following the 366th Commencement Exercises at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., May 25, 2017. REUTERS/Brian Snyder Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-facebook-cambridge-analytica-election/whistleblower-says-canadian-company-worked-on-software-to-find-republican-voters-idUSKBN1H31CK" type="external">Whistleblower says Canadian company worked on software to find Republican voters</a>
<a href="/article/us-facebook-cambridge-analytica-britain/zuckerbergs-snub-of-uk-parliament-astonishing-says-lawmaker-idUSKBN1H31QD" type="external">Zuckerberg's snub of UK parliament 'astonishing' says lawmaker</a>
<p>Zuckerberg will instead send his Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer or Chief Product Officer Chris Cox to appear before parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee.</p>
<p>In response, its chairman said on Tuesday that lawmakers still wanted to speak to Zuckerberg and would see whether they could set up a session in person or via video link.</p>
<p>Zuckerberg apologized last week for the mistakes Facebook had made and promised tougher steps to restrict developers’ access to such information, which saw the company’s share price fall and prompt new questions from politicians and regulators.</p>
<p>In response to a request by British lawmakers to appear before them, the firm’s Head of UK Public Policy told lawmakers that Schroepfer or Cox were better placed to answer questions.</p>
<p>“Facebook fully recognizes the level of public and Parliamentary interest in these issues and support your belief that these issues must be addressed at the most senior levels of the company by those in an authoritative position,” wrote Rebecca Stimson.</p>
<p>“As such Mr Zuckerberg has personally asked one of his deputies to make themselves available to give evidence in person to the Committee.”</p>
<p>Reporting by Eric Auchard and Costas Pitas; editing by Guy Faulconbridge</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>LONDON (Reuters) - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s decision not to answer questions from British lawmakers about a scandal over the firm’s data is “astonishing”, the parliamentary committee chief who invited him to attend said on Tuesday.</p> FILE PHOTO: Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks on stage during the annual Facebook F8 developers conference in San Jose, California, U.S., April 18, 2017. REUTERS/Stephen Lam/File Photo
<p>“Given the extraordinary evidence that we’ve heard so far today... it is absolutely astonishing that Mark Zuckerberg is not prepared to submit himself to questioning,” Damian Collins said. Collins, Chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee was speaking during a hearing with a whistleblower from political consultancy Cambridge Analytica, the firm which got hold of data of millions of Facebook users.</p>
<p>Collins added: “These are questions of a fundamental importance and concern to Facebook users, as well as to our inquiry as well. We would certainly urge him to think again if he has any care for people that use his company’s services.”</p>
<p>Reporting by Alistair Smout; editing by Stephen Addison</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>LONDON (Reuters) - Stock markets jumped on Tuesday as reports that the United States and China were negotiating to avert a trade war whetted investors’ appetite for riskier assets.</p>
<p>Japan's Nikkei share index <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.N225" type="external">.N225</a> rose 2.7 percent for its best day in almost three months while a 1.4 percent gain by Europe's Stoxx 600 put it on track for its best daily performance in seven weeks.</p>
<p>The reports of behind-the-scenes talks between Washington and Beijing spurred optimism that U.S. President Donald Trump’s protectionist shift is more about gaining leverage in trade talks than isolating the world’s biggest economy with tariff barriers that would stifle global growth.</p>
<p>This helped offset news that the United States and many of its allies were expelling more than 100 Russian diplomats in retaliation for a nerve agent attack on a former Russian spy in Britain.</p>
<p>U.S. stocks .SP500 are still 7 percent below their January peaks and some investors are not rushing to recalculate risks around Trump’s America First trade agenda.</p>
<p>“He can flip-flop quite a lot,” said Lukas Daalder, chief investment officer at Robeco in Rotterdam. “The big problem is, how long will it take before new tweets and headlines that will change the sentiment again?”</p>
<p>Daalder said he was underweight emerging market equities and the Nikkei and overweight other developed markets “based on the expectation that there will be more trade uncertainty”.</p>
<p>White House officials are asking China to cut tariffs on imported cars, allow foreign majority ownership of financial services firms and buy more U.S.-made semiconductors, said a person familiar with the discussions.</p>
<p>Chinese Premier Li Keqiang pledged on Monday to maintain trade negotiations and ease access to American businesses.</p> FILE PHOTO - A woman walks past an electronic board showing the graphs of the recent movements of Japan's Nikkei average outside a brokerage in Tokyo, Japan, October 23, 2017. REUTERS/Issei Kato EURO REVERSES EARLY GAINS
<p>The surge in stocks dragged on the Treasury market, which faces a record $294 billion of new supply this week. Yields on 10-year Treasury notes US10YT=RR inched up to 2.848 percent, but remained short of last week’s top at 2.90 percent.</p>
<p>In currency markets the early reaction was to offload both the yen and the dollar, helping the euro to an early gain.</p>
<a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.N225" type="external">Nikkei Inc</a> 21317.32 .N225 Nikkei Index +551.22 (+2.65%) .N225
<p>But the single currency later went into reverse after data showed lending to euro zone companies slowed last month, and European Central Bank Governing Council member Erkki Liikanen said underlying euro zone inflation may remain lower than expected even if growth is robust.</p>
<p>The dollar, measured against a basket of currencies, .DXY used the euro’s weakness to rally 0.4 percent to 89.424, bouncing off a five-week low hit on Monday.</p>
<p>The improved mood on trade earlier pushed China’s yuan to a two-1/2 year high and gave a fillip to industrial commodities, with copper and iron ore bouncing.</p>
<p>In oil markets, Brent crude LCOc1 added 31 cents to $70.43 a barrel.</p>
<p>Daalder said there had been no clear flight to quality since February’s burst of equity market volatility, with scarce volatility in currencies and little movement in 10-year U.S. Treasury yields.</p>
<p>“It seems to be that the U.S. has lost some of its shine as the safe market to which people turn when things get rough,” said Daalder. “It’s partly the uncertainty in the U.S. itself which is playing a role.”</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Tommy Wilkes; Editing by Catherine Evans</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | BRIEF-Firstobject Technologies Got Order To Supply Digital Smart Class Solution Whistleblower says Canadian company worked on software to find Republican voters Facebook's Zuckerberg will not answer UK lawmakers' questions over data scandal Zuckerberg's snub of UK parliament 'astonishing' says lawmaker Risk assets jump on reports of U.S.-China trade talks | false | https://reuters.com/article/brief-firstobject-technologies-got-order/brief-firstobject-technologies-got-order-to-supply-digital-smart-class-solution-idUSFWN1PI0ES | 2018-01-23 | 2 |
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<p>An artist's rendering of a planned $20 million sports and wellness center at the Pueblo of Santa Ana. Ground is expected to be broken on the project today and completion is scheduled for early 2016. (Courtesy of Pueblo of Santa Ana)</p>
<p>The Pueblo of Santa Ana expects to break ground today on a $20 million sports and wellness center containing two swimming pools, basketball courts and kitchen facilities.</p>
<p>The 65,000-square-foot building, scheduled for completion in early 2016, will feature a 4,500-square-foot fitness center for weight and aerobics training, a lap pool, a family recreational pool, locker rooms and a dance/exercise studio.</p>
<p>The facility also will contain a commercial kitchen that can be used for community events and as a demonstration area for healthy cooking, said Judy Reuter, the wellness program manager for the Pueblo of Santa Ana. The center will offer on-site child care, she said.</p>
<p>Funding from the pueblo, state and private sources will pay for construction, Reuter said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Later phases of the project call for a lighted baseball field, a skate park, and an educational building with classrooms and a library, Reuter said. No completion date has been set for those projects, she said.</p>
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<p /> | Pueblo gets new sports center | false | https://abqjournal.com/383151/pueblo-gets-new-sports-center.html | 2 |
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<p>A poster of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi&lt;ahref="http://www.flickr.com/photos/7752651@N05/3790837664/"&gt;sabeth718&lt;a/&gt;/Flickr</p>
<p />
<p>This past month, I was on a <a href="" type="internal">sort of sneaky assignment</a> and then out of the country, and in my absence there have been some huge developments in US-Burma relations. For the first time in 50 years, an American secretary of state dropped in on the nation that generally receives little more high-level American acknowledgment beyond passing negs about tyranny in presidential speeches. As Mother Jones‘ <a href="http://mac-mcclelland.com/book/" type="external">resident Burmaphile</a>, I got an email from one of the editors last week asking the all-important question about Hillary Clinton’s making nice and supposedly <a href="http://www.voanews.com/english/news/Clinton-Ends-Burma-Trip-With-Pledge-of-Support-134906228.html" type="external">making headway</a> with the intractable regime: “Is this for real?”</p>
<p>If Washington is assuming that Burma’s recent <a href="" type="internal">(bullshit)</a> elections and the <a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2032108,00.html" type="external">release</a> of its most famous political prisoner means that we can lead the country into a future awash in democracy and rainbows, that would be a little too lovely to be believed. But that the Obama administration is <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-01/clinton-meets-suu-kyi-says-end-to-myanmar-sanctions-depends-on-reforms.html" type="external">cautiously optimistic</a>, or that it senses wee little steps toward progress, and that there’s an opportunity for the United States to get involved and nudge it along? Yeah. Maybe.</p>
<p>For decades, our policy has been to sanction Burma and wag our finger at it. I’ve long been a <a href="http://harpers.org/archive/2010/04/hbc-90006831" type="external">proponent</a> of more engagement with the country. Though nobody wants to look like they’re befriending bad guys, and there’s no proof that getting more involved with Burma will work, there is proof of one thing: That the policy we’ve been pursuing so far does not work. Our sanctions are <a href="" type="internal">meaningless</a>, because a) lots of other countries are happy to buy the Burmese resources we won’t; b) the goods we sanction can still make it to us via roads like smuggling; and c) there are loopholes in our sanctions that still allow Chevron to operate there and make the regime big money.</p>
<p>We’re not lifting the sanctions yet—and, for the aforementioned reasons, I kind of doubt Burma really cares—but we are starting assistance to programs that deliver health care, microlending, English instruction, and help for land mine victims. Regardless of whether you’re of the <a href="" type="internal">school</a> of thought that aid to corrupt/underdeveloped nations is enabling/infantilizing, this aid at least has the possibility of creating leverage, like the kind the <a href="http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/barney-frank-to-uganda-pass-the-kill-the-gays-bill-say-goodbye-to-foreign-aid/politics/2011/05/10/19878%20" type="external">United States</a> and <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/apr/20/anti-gay-laws-africa-uganda-ssempa%20" type="external">Germany</a> wielded against Uganda when it proposed killing gay people. It’s a long, long road to reconciling of Burma’s problems, like, say, the systematic <a href="" type="internal">government-perpetrated rape and torture and ethnic cleansing</a> going on its borderlands, issues Clinton <a href="http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2011/12/178103.htm" type="external">says</a>she “raised directly with the government” on her trip. That mention over lunch is unlikely to save lives. But what past administrations have said to Burma is, “Hey, not that there’s any reason for you to listen, because we give you/cooperate with you on absolutely nothing, and you’re dead to us. But: In our opinion, you should stop slaughtering people.” Moving forward, the conversation might be a little more compelling when it sounds like, “Hey, stop slaughtering people. We give you money.”</p>
<p>Burma has long been run by assholes. It remains to be seen whether the president and parliamentarians put in power by the elections are as big of assholes as the assholes who led before them. And at the very least, the Burmese people will be getting the chance for more medicine and education and microloans. It can’t hurt for trying to befriend Burma and empower the population. The former has a shot, and let’s definitely hear it for the latter. I’m not necessarily given to bouts of optimism, even the cautious kind, but if there’s anything we were reminded of this year, it’s that an empowered population is the the best tool of all against repressive regimes.</p>
<p /> | Hillary’s Hopes for Burma | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2011/12/hillary-clinton-burma-myanmar/ | 2011-12-05 | 4 |
<p>The owner of Rolling Stone magazine said it’s exploring strategic options for its majority stake, signaling co-founder Jann Wenner is preparing to relinquish control of the half-century-old iconic music publication.</p>
<p>Wenner Media LLC&#160;hired Methuselah Advisors, the company said in a statement late Sunday. The company didn’t say whether Wenner is in talks with any potential suitors.</p>
<p>Founded in 1967, Rolling Stone became a fixture of American pop culture, helping launch the careers of writers and creative artists over 50 years. But like many of its peers, the magazine has steadily lost advertising and readership to nimbler online alternatives over the years.</p>
<p>The announcement comes almost a year after Wenner sold a 49 percent stake in the magazine to Singapore-based BandLab Technologies, a budding digital music company co-founded by Kuok Meng Ru, the scion&#160;of one of Asia’s richest families. BandLab declined to comment on Wenner’s latest statement.</p>
<p>Earlier this year, Wenner Media sold Men’s Journal and&#160;Us Weekly to American Media Inc. for undisclosed sums.</p>
<p>When the minority stake in Rolling Stone was sold to BandLab in September 2016, it was the first time Wenner had admitted an outside investor, encapsulating the plight of an industry fighting to stay relevant in an online age. The deal was an opportunity to take the brand into new and different markets,&#160;Gus Wenner,&#160;the company’s digital&#160;chief, had said then.</p>
<p>Kuok, the third son of Singapore-based agribusiness tycoon Kuok Khoon Hong, graduated from Cambridge University with a mathematics degree and launched BandLab in 2016 as a social network for musicians and fans. The startup is funded by private investors, including Kuok’s father and JamHub Corp., a maker of audio mixers.</p>
<p>BandLab, his flagship business, is a cloud-based online community that allows artists to create, collaborate and share their music. In 2012, Kuok acquired Swee Lee, a sleepy 71-year-old distributor of guitars in Singapore and turned the company into a modern enterprise, selling merchandise online and offering music lessons. It’s now the biggest distributor of instruments and audio equipment in Southeast Asia.</p>
<p>Other acquisitions include Composr, a European iOS and web music-making service, and MONO Creators Inc., the San Francisco-based design studio that creates high-end instrument cases, straps and accessories for musicians.</p>
<p>BandLab most recently acquired Chew.tv, a London-based DJ streaming platform, underscoring the efforts of Kuok, 29, to build a global music empire.</p>
<p>Rolling Stone made its mark in the 1970s and 80s with cutting-edge music and political coverage. Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson wrote for Wenner for decades, including publishing first in its pages “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” which later became a book and movie. And it published in-depth exposes, including the 11,000-word, 1974 story of how heiress Patty Hearst went from a kidnapping victim to radicalized guerrilla. A 2010 profile of General Stanley McChrystal by the magazine that included remarks critical of the Obama administration led to the general’s resignation.</p>
<p>The publication says it reaches over 60 million people a month. In the past three years, it has grown its digital traffic by almost 50 percent and monthly video views by more than 700 percent, according to its statement.</p>
<p>Since Rolling Stone’s deal with BandLab, the company has struck a partnership with Heritage Guitar owners and developer PlazaCorp to turn a guitar-making site in Kalamazoo, Michigan, into a national music destination.</p> | Jann Wenner Eyes Giving Up Rolling Stone | false | https://newsline.com/jann-wenner-eyes-giving-up-rolling-stone/ | 2017-09-18 | 1 |
<p>Amid <a href="" type="internal">warnings</a> by a British official of a Middle Eastern cold war and CNN commentator Erin Burnett’s <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUS6su29SqI&amp;feature=player_embedded" type="external">anti-Iranian scaremongering</a>, author Matt Taibbi hears the drums of war beating in the airwaves. But a global standoff isn’t the only thing to be feared; a public that unquestioningly acquiesces to the prejudices of conventional wisdom is just as dangerous. –ARK</p>
<p>Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone:</p>
<p>There’s a weird set of internalized assumptions that media members bring to stories like this Iran business. In fact there’s an elaborate belief system we press people adhere to, about how a foreign country may behave toward the U.S., and how it may not behave. It reminds me a little of a passage in Anna Karenina about the belief system of noblemen in Tolstoy’s day:</p>
<p>Vronsky’s life was particularly happy in that he had a code of principles, which defined with unfailing certitude what he ought and what he ought not to do… These principles laid down as invisible rules: that one must pay a cardsharper, but need not pay a tailor; that one must never lie to a man, but one may lie to a woman; that one must never cheat anyone, but one may a husband; that one must never pardon an insult, but one may give one, and so on.</p>
<p />
<p>We have a similar gentleman’s code, a “Westernized industrial power” code if you will, that operates the same way. In other words, our newspapers and TV stations may blather on a thousand times a day about attacking Iran and bombing its people, but if even one Iranian talks about fighting back, he is being “aggressive” and “threatening”; we can impose sanctions on anyone, but if the sanctioned country embargoes oil shipments to Europe in response, it’s being “belligerent,” and so on.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/another-march-to-war-20120217" type="external">Read more</a></p> | When Iran Talks Back | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/when-iran-talks-back/ | 2012-02-19 | 4 |
<p>They are meant for hunting. And in the latest tragedy, at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., the shooter—armed with an assault rifle—did some hunting of the most dangerous game of all: human beings.</p>
<p>There’s a big difference between what a 9mm handgun and an AR-15 assault rifle (or, as the NRA euphemistically calls it, a “modern sporting rifle”) does to the human body. One <a href="https://www.wired.com/2016/06/ar-15-can-human-body/" type="external">trauma surgeon reports</a> that the former resembles a “bad knife cut,” while the latter “looks like a grenade went off in [the body].” Bullets from handguns travel at about one-third the speed of an AR-15. The thick bone of an upper leg can stop pistol shots. The 5.56 caliber rounds from an AR-15 can disintegrate three inches of leg bone. According to another trauma specialist, if the assault round hits an organ, say, the liver, “it looks like a Jell-O mold that’s been dropped on the floor.” When it comes to its effect on the human body, the AR-15, most certainly, qualifies as a weapon of mass destruction.</p>
<p>Around <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/assault-weapons-deaths_us_5763109de4b015db1bc8c123" type="external">30,000 Americans die annually</a> through suicides, homicides and accidents involving firearms. You’re about 10 times more likely to be killed with a gun in this “beacon of democracy” than are people in other developed nations. Sounds plausible. After all, with 300 million to 400 million civilian firearms on our streets, the United States is by far the most heavily armed nation in the world. A distant second is Yemen, that basket case of a country many describe as the “Wild West” of the Arab world. So, yeah, we’re in good company.</p>
<p>Firearms have particularly pernicious effects on children. They’re <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/08/trump-muslim-terrorists-gun-violence-america-deaths" type="external">the biggest killer</a> of young black people and second biggest killer of all children (after auto accidents). It’s not only assault rifles, of course, but guns more generally that pose the problem. Handguns cause the vast majority of firearms deaths. Still, assault rifles and high-capacity magazines are conspicuous for <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-ar-15-americas-rifle-or-illegitimate-killing-machine/2018/02/15/743e66ca-1266-11e8-9065-e55346f6de81_story.html?utm_term=.c6e4a8d5fcf0" type="external">their increasing use</a> in mass murder incidents—you know, like the one in Vegas where an <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/11/23/las-vegas-massacre-gunman-fired-more-than-1100-rounds-sheriff-says.html" type="external">elevated shooter fired</a> some 1,100 rounds into a country music crowd, killing 58 and wounding 500. Now that’s efficiency, brought to you by the assault rifle (or rifles) and a simple little <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4624208/bump-stock-work-las-vegas-shooter-stephen-paddock-banned-donald-trump/" type="external">bump stock</a> variant that shifted the guns’ setting from semi- to fully automatic.</p>
<p />
<p>Through it all, the AR-15 remains—in the NRA’s cheeky language—“America’s rifle,” the country’s most popular variant of assault weapon. You can understand why. Four out of five high school boys play video games, and so-called “first-person shooters” are among the most popular. And, of course, the AR-15 makes regular appearances in such games. Besides, these firearms look and feel cool. Heck, I’ve held them and felt the thrill. To carry a military-style assault weapon seemingly imbues a man with power and status. Besides, they just look badass.</p>
<p>They’re not going anywhere either, it seems. Despite <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/26/politics/trumps-base-still-skeptical-gun-control/index.html" type="external">regular public polling</a> in favor of commonsense gun control, an alliance of Trump’s loyal base and Republican politicians bought off by the NRA will block any action, pray away the latest tragedy and wait for Parkland to fade from the headlines. Then they’ll be another massacre. Rinse and repeat.</p>
<p>Gun enthusiasts (a funny term when you think about it) pivot between exclamations of constitutional protections and harmless “hunting” explanations to assert their incontestable rights to bear arms. Of course, we all know it’s so much BS. The AR-15 fetish ain’t about hunting. Rounds fired from assault rifles aren’t best suited for hunting game. They’re designed to obliterate human flesh. Florida Sen. Bill Nelson <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MlGkXf1hS4" type="external">recently stated</a> that he’d “hunted all [his] life … but an AR-15 is not for hunting. It’s for killing.”</p>
<p>That sounds about right. Soldiers under my command killed a whole lot of Iraqis and Afghans with the same rifles. The aftermath isn’t pretty. Still, that was a battlefield, where one expects to see such carnage. And that, right there, is what the cheap and all-too-accessible AR-15 was designed for: the battlefield.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>As the troop commander of a cavalry reconnaissance unit, I had ultimate authority and financial liability for hundreds of M4s, pistols, machine guns and grenade launchers. We used them for training on Fort Riley, Kan., and then turned each and every weapon back into the armory on base. Soldiers don’t take their lethal tools home with them. Those stayed in the meticulously locked unit “arms room,” under the care of a specially appointed and trained armorer who worked directly for the troop commander. No one went home from a long day (or week) of training until a commissioned officer did a 100 percent inventory—by serial number—of each weapon. And if a soldier wanted to check out a weapon for some reason, he’d need express permission, a valid reason and the approval of the armorer, who, incidentally, followed precise legal and unit standard operating procedures to ensure there was a legitimate military necessity for the weapon checkout.</p>
<p>Similar systems pervade every U.S. Army unit. That’s commonsense gun control. And it works.</p>
<p>So why, one might ask, are the deadly weapons my soldiers toted in downtown Baghdad available for domestic purchase—and deadly use—by boys too young to legally purchase a can of Coors Light? It comes down to two words: prioritization and militarization.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Luckily for us Americans, President Trump has promised to “defeat terror,” and in that spirit has “protected” us from refugees, immigrants and visitors from evil (“shithole”) countries crammed with brown folks. Ah, yes, the ban, and, eventually, the wall.</p>
<p>When it comes to gun violence and terrorism, American pundits, politicians and the public lack any perspective. We shake off real threats, panic over statistically insignificant dangers and ignore the hyper-militarism which has captured our culture and imperiled the republic. It’s quite the system, and the NRA loves it. When we excuse the real crisis (domestic gun violence) and demonize an inflated phony threat (brown, immigrant, Muslim terrorists) everyone, it seems, wins. At least, everyone who looks like me and doesn’t step into the wrong school, or workplace, or church, on the wrong day at the wrong time.</p>
<p>The data, of course, is indisputable. We always have been more likely to be <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2017/10/2/16396612/las-vegas-mass-shooting-terrorism-islam" type="external">killed by white men</a> than anyone associated with Islam. Terrorism deaths are themselves exceedingly rare (about a one in 3.6 million chance), and even these attacks are less likely to be perpetrated by a Muslim than a white male. Between 2001 and 2015, domestic right-wing extremists killed more Americans (by a factor of three) than Islamist terrorists. You can bet most of those perps were white and male and citizens.</p>
<p>The threat from Islamist or refugee terrorists is still there, of course, but it is so remote that it is statistically nearly insignificant. Homegrown gun violence (even of an absurd character) is a far greater threat. You’re twice as likely to be <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/08/trump-muslim-terrorists-gun-violence-america-deaths" type="external">shot by a toddler</a> than killed by a terrorist. Since 9/11, an <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/death-risk-statistics-terrorism-disease-accidents-2017-1" type="external">average of six Americans</a> annually die at the hands of Islamist terrorists. In 2014, some 30 Americans <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-biggest-threat-to-americans-other-americans-with-guns" type="external">murdered one another</a>—daily. The real mortality crisis, besides chronic diseases, comes from violence—gun violence—that leads to more suicides, accidents and murder. Parkland is the symptom, not the cause.</p>
<p>Nothing will change until Americans call gun violence by its true name: terrorism. In current usage, we define “terror” based on the race and religion of the victims and perpetrators. Brown, vaguely Arab, nominally Muslim shooter? Terrorist. Skinny, pimply, outcast, young white boy guns down some folks? Mentally ill murderer. Same goes for the victims and the amount of media coverage an attack garners. White, middle-class teen victims? Easy: a tragedy. Hundreds of brown shredded and broken bodies somewhere between Morocco and Pakistan? Just another day in the chaotic Mideast, worthy of a quick pass on the news ticker at the bottom of the screen.</p>
<p>The hypocrisy is staggering.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Who we honor is who we are. Our ceremonies are instructive. Forget other public servants—even those who more closely hew to the values of a peaceful, Nazarene carpenter worshiped in this purportedly “Christian nation.” This is America, after all. There’s no room on the 50-yard line for Detroit social workers or South Bronx public school teachers.</p>
<p>America’s favored symbols have always been militarized: from Minutemen, to Wild West gunslingers, to today’s Spec Ops warriors. We parade them, adulate them, worship them and do not pause to question our national priorities.</p>
<p>Make way. Stand and cheer for the men with guns. For those armed with the real weapons of mass destruction: the ubiquitous assault rifles and handguns saturating this country.</p>
<p>As for the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/02/14/injuries-reported-after-shooting-florida-high-school/338217002/" type="external">young victims at Stoneman Douglas High School</a> and a thousand other mass-shooting tragedies, all that is offered are thoughts, prayers and excuses. Sigh with despair, change the channel and flip on the game.</p>
<p>All hail militarism, lionized violence and a crumbling republic.</p>
<p>The views expressed in this article are those of the author, expressed in an unofficial capacity, and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense or the U.S. government.</p> | And Terrorism for All | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/slavery-injustice-terrorism/ | 2018-02-28 | 4 |
<p>Midterm elections are right around the corner and the fight on both sides of the aisle is getting ugly. House Minority Leader John Boehner called for the firing of President Obama’s entire economic team, while Democrats fired back calling the GOP “just the party of no.”</p>
<p>The fight continued today on “Varney &amp; Co.” with Republican Representative Marsha Blackburn saying the administration’s policies meant too much government intervention “What we know is there has been plan after plan, bureaucracy after bureaucracy” Blackburn said. “Washington needs to get out of the way.”</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Despite the name calling, Rep. Blackburn did lay out a Republican plan to fix the economy. She echoed the call for the firing of the president's economic team, called for the extension of all the Bush tax cuts, pushed for a repeal of the new health-care law, and urged President Obama and the Democrats to cut back on reckless spending.</p>
<p>While these calls are nothing new from the Republican party, Representative Blackburn was adamant that the solutions being trumpeted by Boehner would only serve to bolster the private sector. “What we are saying is real world experience tells you that if you reduce taxes, if you get Washington out of the way the private sector is going to work” Blackburn said.</p> | Economic Showdown | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2010/08/25/economic-showdown.html | 2016-03-18 | 0 |
<p>After the Eurogroup agreement in February, Germany’s position concerning the conditions Greece must&#160;meet seemed to have&#160;relaxed.</p>
<p>The initial conditions were basically identical to those agreed to with the preceding Greek government: pension reductions, privatizations, tax increases on basic goods, and continued liberalization of the labor market.</p>
<p>However, during the negotiations, Germany appeared to have backed down on these stipulations and accepted a better (if not perfect) deal for Greece, in which pensions would not be cut, the minimum wage would be allowed to increase, privatizations would be re-evaluated, and there would apparently be no tax hike — leaving other measures (like the structure of the labor market) untouched and as matter of national decision and sovereignty.</p>
<p>However, now that June (the month in which the Eurogroup agreement expires and a new bailout plan must be reached) is dangerously close, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a5713a56-e447-11e4-a4de-00144feab7de.html" type="external">suddenly changed</a> her attitude. The four pillars of the agreement with the former Greek&#160;government are to be kept, without German concessions. No more time and no more money.</p>
<p>Well aware that the Greek state is running out of money — and that the debt, exacerbated by austerity, is unpayable — Germany is again forcing the Greek government to choose between accepting the continuation of austerity or going into bankruptcy.</p>
<p>The architecture of the eurozone favors Germany by positioning it — primarily via the introduction of the euro, which devalued&#160;the Deutsche Mark in comparison to all other national currencies — to export cheap manufactured goods to periphery economies. Seen in this light, the German government’s intransigent position toward Greece, and seeming equanimity in relation to a possible Greek exit ( <a href="" type="internal">Grexit</a>) from the eurozone and collapse of the monetary union as we know, seems quite illogical. But is it really?</p>
<p>In fact, there is no irrationality in Germany’s position. Its inflexible stance is the only one that can save German political elites and induce a collapse of the only anti-austerity government that has had the courage to try to shift the pillars upon which the European project has been built.</p>
<p>Since the beginning of the crisis, Germany’s position has been one of defending austerity as the only way out of it. This meant “sacrifices” for everyone in Europe: not only for the southern European populations with neoliberal bombs dropping in their backyards, but also for the German working class, which has witnessed a strong deregulation of the labor market, precarization of labor relations, and a loss of purchasing power.</p>
<p>The ideological story sold to the German working class was that the European project would collapse if they bailed out southern Europeans, whose plight was self-inflicted through over-spending and poor productivity. However, it soon became obvious that austerity does not solve any economic and financial problems — it deepens them (debt has grown in relation to GDP in all countries that have tried&#160;the austerity remedy).</p>
<p>When Syriza came to power in Greece, there was finally one voice inside the European institutions that could prove this fact and eventually challenge the hyper-neoliberalization of Europe.</p>
<p>But for Germany to accept Syriza’s demands would be to acknowledge that austerity was not a solution but a problem — that Germany’s political and economic agenda over the last seven years was wrong and has completely failed to provide the results&#160;it promised. More than this, it would be a concession that the sacrifices imposed on the German working class were actually in vain, and only served to further tilt the balance of power away from labor and toward capital.</p>
<p>German elites are thus willing to let the euro crash (or transform it into something else — an exclusively center and northern European currency, for example) to guarantee their political survival.</p>
<p>There is also nothing irrational about the way they are playing the “blame game.” If Germany forces Greece into bankruptcy (which is bound to happen sooner or later), this would create a domino effect that destabilized the European economy for a period of time. The blame would then be placed on the “stubborn” Greek government that refused to negotiate and to accept the “help” and “aid” that Germany was willing to give them.</p>
<p>In addition,&#160;political tension in Europe is polarizing. The past several years have seen the simultaneous rise of far-right parties and movements — <a href="" type="internal">Golden Dawn</a> in Greece, the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/14/world/europe/jean-marie-le-pen-says-he-will-not-run-as-a-national-front-candidate-in-france.html?_r=0" type="external">National Front</a> in France, <a href="" type="internal">Pegida</a> in Germany — and anti-austerity, <a href="" type="internal">left-wing formations</a>.</p>
<p>Accepting that a left-wing government is correct&#160;and that austerity was never a solution would open additional political space for left-wing movements across Europe. Taking even a small step back from the pro-austerity narrative would forever weaken the political position of German political elites. It might&#160;even their sacrifice their existence as such.</p>
<p>Moreover, it is important to remember that Germany has already been expanding their trade partnerships for some years (probably in preparation for the political situation that is now starting to happen in the eurozone), <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/11/business/international/germany-and-china-to-seal-meeting-with-business-deals.html" type="external">especially with China</a>. Even if Germany’s economy would suffer from a Grexit and the effective end of the economic and monetary union, they have already been building the foundations for an economic recovery in the medium term.</p>
<p>But there is a second layer to the&#160;intransigence of the German government: they know that the danger of bankruptcy and the inability of a left-wing government to fulfill their electoral program would likely bring down that government, as well as destroy any other possible left solutions throughout Europe.</p>
<p>Forcing the Greek government to step on the red lines they have imposed in the negotiations (pensions, wages, taxes, privatizations, liberalization of the labor market) in order to avoid an economic collapse will engender strong discontent and opposition inside Greece and Syriza itself. Germany’s tactic is, in this sense, to try to demolish a <a href="" type="internal">left solution</a> from within.</p>
<p>If there is a way out of this, it will <a href="" type="internal">only come</a> through popular struggle. Nothing else can enable Syriza to carry out their electoral program and end the humanitarian crisis still plaguing Greece. Any path the government takes, must answer to the demands for democracy, dignity, and justice that the Greek people have voted for. For their future and their sake. And for the sake of all of us.</p> | Is Merkel Being Irrational? | true | https://jacobinmag.com/2015/04/greece-syriza-euro-merkel-austerity/ | 2018-10-04 | 4 |
<p>ANAHEIM, Calif. — Olympic gymnastics champion Simone Biles is back in the gym. Just don’t call it a comeback. At least, not yet.</p>
<p>Biles, who won four gold medals at the 2016 Summer Games, says she is just testing the waters as she considers a return to competition. The 20-year-old has spent the year since Rio de Janeiro taking a break from the sport and says she is in no hurry to make any sort of concrete decision.</p>
<p>Biles joked she has done little more than walk her dog since she left Brazil, though that’s hardly true. She competed on “Dancing With the Stars” and wrote a book while crisscrossing the country on a post-Olympic tour.</p>
<p>If she gets serious about a return, Biles will have to search for a new coach after longtime mentor Aimee Boorman took a job in Florida last fall.</p> | Olympic Champ Simone Biles Back in Gym as She Weighs Options | false | https://newsline.com/olympic-champ-simone-biles-back-in-gym-as-she-weighs-options/ | 2017-08-19 | 1 |
<p>SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A post-election salary hike of 10 percent is being contemplated for New Mexico’s governor, attorney general, secretary of state and several other statewide elected officials, as the Legislature weighs more modest pay raises for rank-and-file state workers and teachers.</p>
<p>Outgoing Republican Gov. Susana Martinez vowed Wednesday to veto any bill that only focuses on raises for politicians — leaving the door open to the inclusion of top-tier elected officials in a broader package of pay increases for public employees.</p>
<p>Members of the Legislature’s lead budget-writing committee this week endorsed the proposal to increase annual pay for seven statewide elected officials and members of the Public Regulation Commission come Jan. 1, 2019.</p>
<p>The last time those salaries were increased was in 2002, while state workers and teachers have received sporadic pay increases.</p>
<p>New Mexico government income for the coming fiscal year is expected to surpass annual spending by at least $200 million as the state climbs out of a budget crisis.</p>
<p>The governor’s current salary is $110,000. Martinez cannot run for re-election in November.</p>
<p>Democratic Attorney General Hector Balderas earns $95,000. Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver receives $85,000.</p>
<p>Proponents of the changes say compensation for jobs such as state auditor, treasurer and land commissioner have not kept pace with responsibilities over multibillion dollar financial portfolios and the state’s vast public oil and natural gas reserves.</p>
<p>“The demands of the office have increased,” said Rep. Patty Lundstrom, chairwoman of the Legislative Finance Committee, referring to the state treasurer job, which pays $85,000 a year. “You have to have some salary that’s commensurate with responsibility.”</p>
<p>Martinez spokeswoman Emilee Cantrell said Wednesday in an email that the governor wants to focus state spending on public school classrooms, employment programs and a crackdown on crime.</p>
<p>Martinez and the Democrat-led Legislature have proposed more modest pay increases for rank-and-file state workers and public school teachers and staff.</p>
<p>The Legislature is calling for a 1.5 percent average increase for state workers, a $2,000 base pay raise for teachers and additional targeted increases.</p>
<p>The governor would increase pay by 1 percent for state workers, 2 percent for teachers, with more substantial increases for the judiciary, state police and corrections workers in response to concerns about rising crime rates in cities including Albuquerque and low staffing levels at public and private prisons.</p>
<p>The governor has proposed performance-based bonuses of as much as $10,000 a year for teachers who rapidly boost student academic proficiency, and for placing limits on school administration spending as a percentage of spending. It was unclear how many teachers would qualify for bonuses.</p>
<p>Democratic Sen. John Arthur Smith of Deming said he plans to introduce bill to boost pay for statewide officeholders, and that salary increases also are overdue for Cabinet-level posts in order to compete with private sector jobs for highly qualified candidates.</p>
<p>SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A post-election salary hike of 10 percent is being contemplated for New Mexico’s governor, attorney general, secretary of state and several other statewide elected officials, as the Legislature weighs more modest pay raises for rank-and-file state workers and teachers.</p>
<p>Outgoing Republican Gov. Susana Martinez vowed Wednesday to veto any bill that only focuses on raises for politicians — leaving the door open to the inclusion of top-tier elected officials in a broader package of pay increases for public employees.</p>
<p>Members of the Legislature’s lead budget-writing committee this week endorsed the proposal to increase annual pay for seven statewide elected officials and members of the Public Regulation Commission come Jan. 1, 2019.</p>
<p>The last time those salaries were increased was in 2002, while state workers and teachers have received sporadic pay increases.</p>
<p>New Mexico government income for the coming fiscal year is expected to surpass annual spending by at least $200 million as the state climbs out of a budget crisis.</p>
<p>The governor’s current salary is $110,000. Martinez cannot run for re-election in November.</p>
<p>Democratic Attorney General Hector Balderas earns $95,000. Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver receives $85,000.</p>
<p>Proponents of the changes say compensation for jobs such as state auditor, treasurer and land commissioner have not kept pace with responsibilities over multibillion dollar financial portfolios and the state’s vast public oil and natural gas reserves.</p>
<p>“The demands of the office have increased,” said Rep. Patty Lundstrom, chairwoman of the Legislative Finance Committee, referring to the state treasurer job, which pays $85,000 a year. “You have to have some salary that’s commensurate with responsibility.”</p>
<p>Martinez spokeswoman Emilee Cantrell said Wednesday in an email that the governor wants to focus state spending on public school classrooms, employment programs and a crackdown on crime.</p>
<p>Martinez and the Democrat-led Legislature have proposed more modest pay increases for rank-and-file state workers and public school teachers and staff.</p>
<p>The Legislature is calling for a 1.5 percent average increase for state workers, a $2,000 base pay raise for teachers and additional targeted increases.</p>
<p>The governor would increase pay by 1 percent for state workers, 2 percent for teachers, with more substantial increases for the judiciary, state police and corrections workers in response to concerns about rising crime rates in cities including Albuquerque and low staffing levels at public and private prisons.</p>
<p>The governor has proposed performance-based bonuses of as much as $10,000 a year for teachers who rapidly boost student academic proficiency, and for placing limits on school administration spending as a percentage of spending. It was unclear how many teachers would qualify for bonuses.</p>
<p>Democratic Sen. John Arthur Smith of Deming said he plans to introduce bill to boost pay for statewide officeholders, and that salary increases also are overdue for Cabinet-level posts in order to compete with private sector jobs for highly qualified candidates.</p> | New Mexico legislative proposal would hike governor’s pay | false | https://apnews.com/99de57d46bdf484eb3867d8f70c844ca | 2018-01-18 | 2 |
<p>Tragedy struck Manhattan yesterday when city officials shut down a vibrator giveaway sponsored by Trojan. The condom company planned to give out 10,000 of their new vibes from pushcarts at three tourist-heavy locations: Rockefeller Center, South Street Seaport, and the Flatiron District, which is near The Frisky’s offices. New Yorkers congregated f0r free $40 Trojan Tri-Phoria vibes (two thumbs up, says I!) or a free $30 Trojan Pulse. &#160;Yet less than an hour into the event, an unnamed city official pooh-poohed the crowds and told Trojan’s Pleasure Carts to pack up and go home.</p>
<p>Horny area woman Linda Postell was irate about the shutdown, huffing to The New York Post, “I’m 57-years-old. I should be able to get a vibrator! I have a problem with the smoking ban and the soda ban — and now this!”</p>
<p>In a written statement, New York City officials denied its increasingly-nanny-state behavior was to blame for the buzzkill:</p>
<p>This activity promoting Trojan products, which impeded pedestrian and street traffic, did not have a permit. The production company affiliated with the event is currently in discussions with the Mayor’s Office to hold a promotional event with proper permits at a later date.</p>
<p>First they came for the smokers, and I did not speak up because I was not a smoker.</p>
<p>Then they came for <a href="" type="internal">the soda drinkers</a>, and I did not speak up because I don’t drink much soda.</p>
<p>But if you are going after sex toys, New York City, then YOU ARE MESSING WITH THE WRONG WOMAN.</p>
<p>[ <a href="https://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/city_kos_good_vibrations_Rtc8Up7hrIGqlC63E3J1fK" type="external">New York Post</a>] [ <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/09/nyc-mayor-shuts-down-pleasure-carts-that-distributed-free-vibrators/" type="external">Raw Story</a>]</p>
<p>Contact the author of this post at [email protected]. Follow me on <a href="https://www.twitter.com/jessicawakeman" type="external">Twitter</a> and <a href="http://jessicawakeman.tumblr.com" type="external">Tumblr</a>.</p>
<p>[Photo: Thinkstock]</p> | NYC Officials Shut Down Free Vibrator Carts | true | http://thefrisky.com/2012-08-09/nyc-officials-shut-down-free-vibrator-carts/ | 2018-10-07 | 4 |
<p>CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Kelly Olynyk thought he was fouled. Dwight Howard clearly disagreed.</p>
<p>Charlotte coach Steve Clifford was more concerned about the way his Hornets “butchered” the fourth quarter.</p>
<p>Olynyk scored 14 of his 16 points in the fourth quarter, including a free throw with 0.2 seconds left following Howard’s disputed foul, to help the Miami Heat erase a five-point deficit in the final 34 seconds and stun Charlotte 106-105 on Saturday night.</p>
<p>The foul came after Charlotte’s Kemba Walker missed on a drive to the basket. Olynyk grabbed the rebound and drove the length of the floor, and Howard appeared to hook Olynyk’s right arm on the way to the basket just as Olynyk started to lose control of the ball. Olynyk fell to the ground as the whistle blew, enraging the home crowd.</p>
<p>Olynyk missed the first free throw, but calmly made the second to give the Heat the lead.</p>
<p>Charlotte’s inbound heave was deflected away as time expired.</p>
<p>“He had already lost the ball and was falling before I even pushed him,” Howard said. “I just thought that it was something that shouldn’t have been called at that point in the game. They should have just let the clock run out and let the teams duel it out in overtime.”</p>
<p>Olynyk saw it a little different.</p>
<p>“We were just trying to push the ball and make a play and they fouled,” Olynyk said.</p>
<p>Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said his team has worked on that scenario in practice with his point guards, but never with the 7-foot Olynyk.</p>
<p>“I think it surprised them,” Spoelstra said.</p>
<p>The crowd stood shouting and booing as officials left the floor.</p>
<p>Clifford was more upset by the fourth-quarter collapse. He called out his team for a “total lack of concentration, intensity and technique” in his opening statement following the game.</p>
<p>Wayne Ellington had 26 points on six 3-pointers and Joe Johnson added 22 points for the Heat.</p>
<p>Nic Batum scored a season-high 26 points and Walker had 22 for Charlotte, which had a two-game winning streak snapped. Howard had 14 points and 15 rebounds.</p>
<p>With Miami trailing 105-100, Johnson got free for a dunk. The Hornets inbounded the ball to Batum, but Josh Richardson stripped the ball and passed it to Johnson, who knocked down a 3-pointer from the wing to tie it.</p>
<p>“I didn’t see him,” Batum said. “I was facing the (inbounder) and he came in from behind. I had no idea he was behind me. I barely touched the ball. ... I don’t have eyes in the back of my head.”</p>
<p>The Hornets trailed by eight in the third quarter before Batum got hot. The French shooting guard scored 14 points during a 16-6 run to give the Hornets their first lead since 2-0.</p>
<p>Charlotte stretched the lead to 10, outscoring the Heat 35-17 in the third quarter.</p>
<p>“They just lit us up,” Spoelstra said. “It looked a lot like last night. Guys took ownership of it. Our defensive intensity in the fourth quarter was the best part and the most consistent part of it during the game.”</p>
<p>Down 10 to start the fourth quarter, Olynyk made three 3-pointers to help cut the lead to three.</p>
<p>TIP-INS</p>
<p>Heat: Goran Dragic sat out with a bruised knee. ... The Heat shot 51 percent from the field in the first half to build a 57-48 lead.</p>
<p>Hornets: Howard had 14 points and 15 rebounds for the Hornets.</p>
<p>UP NEXT</p>
<p>Heat: Wrap up a five-game road trip on Monday night at Houston.</p>
<p>Hornets: Host Sacramento on Monday night.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>More AP basketball: <a href="" type="internal" /> <a href="" type="internal">https://apnews.com/tag/NBAbasketball</a></p>
<p>CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Kelly Olynyk thought he was fouled. Dwight Howard clearly disagreed.</p>
<p>Charlotte coach Steve Clifford was more concerned about the way his Hornets “butchered” the fourth quarter.</p>
<p>Olynyk scored 14 of his 16 points in the fourth quarter, including a free throw with 0.2 seconds left following Howard’s disputed foul, to help the Miami Heat erase a five-point deficit in the final 34 seconds and stun Charlotte 106-105 on Saturday night.</p>
<p>The foul came after Charlotte’s Kemba Walker missed on a drive to the basket. Olynyk grabbed the rebound and drove the length of the floor, and Howard appeared to hook Olynyk’s right arm on the way to the basket just as Olynyk started to lose control of the ball. Olynyk fell to the ground as the whistle blew, enraging the home crowd.</p>
<p>Olynyk missed the first free throw, but calmly made the second to give the Heat the lead.</p>
<p>Charlotte’s inbound heave was deflected away as time expired.</p>
<p>“He had already lost the ball and was falling before I even pushed him,” Howard said. “I just thought that it was something that shouldn’t have been called at that point in the game. They should have just let the clock run out and let the teams duel it out in overtime.”</p>
<p>Olynyk saw it a little different.</p>
<p>“We were just trying to push the ball and make a play and they fouled,” Olynyk said.</p>
<p>Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said his team has worked on that scenario in practice with his point guards, but never with the 7-foot Olynyk.</p>
<p>“I think it surprised them,” Spoelstra said.</p>
<p>The crowd stood shouting and booing as officials left the floor.</p>
<p>Clifford was more upset by the fourth-quarter collapse. He called out his team for a “total lack of concentration, intensity and technique” in his opening statement following the game.</p>
<p>Wayne Ellington had 26 points on six 3-pointers and Joe Johnson added 22 points for the Heat.</p>
<p>Nic Batum scored a season-high 26 points and Walker had 22 for Charlotte, which had a two-game winning streak snapped. Howard had 14 points and 15 rebounds.</p>
<p>With Miami trailing 105-100, Johnson got free for a dunk. The Hornets inbounded the ball to Batum, but Josh Richardson stripped the ball and passed it to Johnson, who knocked down a 3-pointer from the wing to tie it.</p>
<p>“I didn’t see him,” Batum said. “I was facing the (inbounder) and he came in from behind. I had no idea he was behind me. I barely touched the ball. ... I don’t have eyes in the back of my head.”</p>
<p>The Hornets trailed by eight in the third quarter before Batum got hot. The French shooting guard scored 14 points during a 16-6 run to give the Hornets their first lead since 2-0.</p>
<p>Charlotte stretched the lead to 10, outscoring the Heat 35-17 in the third quarter.</p>
<p>“They just lit us up,” Spoelstra said. “It looked a lot like last night. Guys took ownership of it. Our defensive intensity in the fourth quarter was the best part and the most consistent part of it during the game.”</p>
<p>Down 10 to start the fourth quarter, Olynyk made three 3-pointers to help cut the lead to three.</p>
<p>TIP-INS</p>
<p>Heat: Goran Dragic sat out with a bruised knee. ... The Heat shot 51 percent from the field in the first half to build a 57-48 lead.</p>
<p>Hornets: Howard had 14 points and 15 rebounds for the Hornets.</p>
<p>UP NEXT</p>
<p>Heat: Wrap up a five-game road trip on Monday night at Houston.</p>
<p>Hornets: Host Sacramento on Monday night.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>More AP basketball: <a href="" type="internal" /> <a href="" type="internal">https://apnews.com/tag/NBAbasketball</a></p> | Olynyk’s late FT after disputed foul helps Heat stun Hornets | false | https://apnews.com/147c6de30c6448709aebe9789e509f19 | 2018-01-21 | 2 |
<p>A new Amnesty International report on Friday highlighted the "hundreds" of abductions and incidents of torture by pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine, and also criticized the excessive force used by government forces.</p>
<p>"They beat me with their fists, a chair, anything they could find. They stubbed out cigarettes on my leg and electrocuted me. It went on for so long, I couldn't feel anything anymore. I just passed out," Sasha, a 19-year-old kidnapped in the eastern city of Lugansk, told the rights group in the report.</p>
<p>Sasha had been a member of pro-Kiev "self-defence forces" in the eastern separatist stronghold. He said he was only released after his father paid a $60,000 (45,000-euro) fine, after which he fled to the capital.</p>
<p>Amnesty's report paints a grim portrait of rampant kidnapping, extortion and torture in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian forces seized control of key cities earlier this year and are currently engaged in a desperate battle against government forces.</p>
<p>The rights group said it was impossible to provide reliable statistics amid the chaos, with no attempt by authorities to create a single register of incidents or victims.</p>
<p>But the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission for Ukraine has logged 222 credible cases of abduction, while Ukraine's interior ministry puts the figure at 387 between April and June 7 alone, including 39 journalists.</p>
<p>Amnesty also noted reports of unlawful detention by pro-Kiev forces.</p>
<p>It focused on video footage from May that appeared to show a member of parliament, Oleg Lyashko, and several armed men interrogating two separatist leaders in the back of a car, reportedly in the eastern city of Mariupol.</p>
<p>Both captives were blindfolded and one — a former defence minister of the self-styled Donetsk People's Republic — was almost completely naked and bleeding from two cuts, Amnesty said.</p>
<p>The group also raised concerns about excessive force used by pro-Kiev forces as they sought to regain control of the east, including an incident on April 24 when they reportedly shot dead five armed men at a roadblock near Slavyansk, and the reported killing of two civilians when troops fired into a crowd in the town of Krasnoarmeisk on May 11.</p>
<p>"The lawless situation in eastern Ukraine has been facilitated by the erosion of the rule of law over the past six months which has seen repeated amnesties for perpetrators of crimes," said Amnesty, calling for the immediate release of all hostages and investigations into rights abuses on both sides of the conflict.</p>
<p>23 servicemen killed in 24 hours of fighting</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Ukraine's military on Friday reported the death of 23 servicemen in fighting in the separatist east that threatened to shatter slim Western hopes of a truce in the three-month insurgency.</p>
<p>"In the past 24 hours, while performing special assignments in various regions where the active phase of anti-terrorists operation is underway, 23 servicemen from the Ukrainian armed forces and state border service were killed," spokesman Vladyslav Seleznyov wrote in a Facebook post, adding that 93 troops had been wounded.</p>
<p>New EU sanctions</p>
<p>The European Union on Friday slapped a travel ban and asset freeze on 11 people allegedly linked to separatist violence in eastern Ukraine.</p>
<p>The decision brings the total number of people on an EU sanctions blacklist to 72, with two firms in Crimea also subject to an asset freeze, an EU statement said.</p>
<p>"In view of the gravity of the situation in eastern Ukraine, the Council has today expanded the list of persons subject to targeted sanctions for actions undermining Ukraine's territorial integrity," it added.</p>
<p>The EU declined to name those concerned, whose identities will be released in the EU Official Journal on Saturday when the sanctions enter into force.</p>
<p>EU diplomats told AFP however that the majority were Ukrainians, with some holding dual Ukraine-Russia nationality, and were relatively "small fry."</p>
<p>There were sharp divisions this week between members of the 28-nation bloc over the list, with some nations — notably Britain, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden — calling for sanctions against higher-level officials.</p>
<p>"Some of us questioned whether this was an adequate response," said a diplomat from one of the five nations, speaking on condition of anonymity.</p>
<p>EU leaders late last month had demanded Russia change tack on Ukraine or face the prospect of tougher sanctions.</p>
<p>The EU has so far balked at outright sanctions on economic sectors despite strong pressure from Washington.</p> | Today in Ukraine: Reports of torture, fresh sanctions, and dozens more dead | false | https://pri.org/stories/2014-07-11/today-ukraine-reports-torture-fresh-sanctions-and-dozens-more-dead | 2014-07-11 | 3 |
<p>White House spokesman Jay Carney declined to weigh in Tuesday on the accuracy of allegations that the CIA may have illegally spied on Senate staff members, but he said that the president has “great confidence” in the CIA director and agrees with his call to “get to the bottom” of the claim if inappropriate activity occurred.</p>
<p>“You saw the CIA director say today that if there was any inappropriate activity by CIA or by [Senate Intelligence Committee] staff, he would of course want to get to the bottom of it and certainly the president would agree with that,” Carney told reporters.</p>
<p>Carney added that the White House supports declassification of the Senate panel's findings on enhanced interrogation techniques. He said the White House takes Senate Intelligence Committee chief Dianne Feinstein's allegations "very seriously."</p>
<p>Feinstein <a href="" type="internal">said earlier Tuesday</a>that the CIA searched Senate computers and may have violated the Constitution by doing so.</p>
<p>Brennan told Andrea Mitchell that Feinstein's claim is " <a href="" type="internal">beyond the scope of reason</a>."</p>
<p>The CIA inspector general is investigating and has referred the matter to the Department of Justice.</p> | White House: Obama Has ‘Great Confidence’ in CIA’s Brennan | false | http://nbcnews.com/storyline/cia-senate-snooping/white-house-obama-has-great-confidence-cias-brennan-n50021 | 2014-03-11 | 3 |
<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — Five officers involved in two Navy ship collisions last year that killed a total of 17 sailors are being charged with negligent homicide, the Navy said Tuesday.</p>
<p>A Navy spokesman, Capt. Greg Hicks, said the charges, which also include dereliction of duty and endangering a ship, will be presented to what the military calls an Article 32 hearing to determine whether the accused are taken to trial in a court-martial.</p>
<p>The disciplinary actions were decided by Adm. Frank Caldwell and are the latest in a series of moves the Navy has made in the aftermath of the deadly collisions, which investigators concluded were avoidable. It fired several top leaders, including the commander of the 7th Fleet, Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin, and several other senior commanders in the Pacific.</p>
<p>The Navy has been reeling from tough questions arising from the two collisions. The destroyer USS Fitzgerald struck a commercial ship off the waters of Japan in June, killing seven U.S. sailors. The destroyer USS John S. McCain collided with an oil tanker in coastal waters off Singapore in August, killing 10 U.S. sailors.</p>
<p>The Navy said it is filing at least three charges against four officers of the Fitzgerald, including the commanding officer, who was Cmdr. Bryce Benson at the time. Benson suffered a head injury in the collision and was airlifted to the U.S. Naval Hospital at Yokosuka, Japan. A Navy investigation found that Benson left the ship’s bridge before the collision. Also facing charges are two lieutenants and one lieutenant junior grade, whose names were not disclosed. The Navy said all four face criminal charges, including negligent homicide, dereliction of duty and endangering a ship.</p>
<p>Fewer officers from the McCain are being charged. The Navy said the ship’s commander at the time, Cmdr. Alfredo J. Sanchez, is being charged with negligent homicide, dereliction of duty and endangering a ship. A chief petty officer, whose name was not disclosed, faces a charge of dereliction of duty.</p>
<p>In a statement, Hicks said the announcement of charges Tuesday is “not intended to and does not reflect a determination of guilt or innocence related to any offenses. All individuals alleged to have committed misconduct are entitled to a presumption of innocence.”</p>
<p>Hicks said that in addition to the criminal charges, additional administrative actions are being taken against unidentified members of both crews, including non-judicial punishment for four from the Fitzgerald and four from the McCain.</p>
<p>As a result of the two deadly accidents, at least eight top Navy officers, including the 7th Fleet commander, were fired from their jobs last year, and a number of other sailors received reprimands or other punishment that was not publicly released. Among the senior officers relieved of duty, in addition to Aucoin, were Rear Adm. Charles Williams and Capt. Jeffrey Bennett. Williams was the commander of Task Force 70, which includes the aircraft carriers, destroyers and cruisers in the 7th Fleet, and Bennett was commander of the destroyer squadron.</p>
<p>In a report released last November, the Navy concluded that the two crashes, as well as a third collision in May and a ship grounding, were all avoidable, and resulted from widespread failures by the crews and commanders who didn’t quickly recognize and respond to unfolding emergencies.</p>
<p>A second report called for about 60 recommended changes to address the problems. They ranged from improved training on seamanship, navigation and the use of ship equipment to more basic changes to improve sleep and stress management for sailors.</p>
<p>The extensive training and leadership failures prompted the top Navy officer, Adm. John Richardson, to order all naval commanders around the world to review their staffs and ships to see if they had similar problems.</p>
<p>The Navy’s investigation of the two collisions found that in addition to bad judgment, the crews were not adequately prepared.</p>
<p>“In the Navy, the responsibility of the Commanding Officer for his or her ship is absolute,” it said. “Many of the decisions made that led to this incident were the result of poor judgment and decision making of the Commanding Officer. That said, no single person bears full responsibility for this incident. The crew was unprepared for the situation in which they found themselves through a lack of preparation, ineffective command and control, and deficiencies in training and preparations for navigation.”</p>
<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — Five officers involved in two Navy ship collisions last year that killed a total of 17 sailors are being charged with negligent homicide, the Navy said Tuesday.</p>
<p>A Navy spokesman, Capt. Greg Hicks, said the charges, which also include dereliction of duty and endangering a ship, will be presented to what the military calls an Article 32 hearing to determine whether the accused are taken to trial in a court-martial.</p>
<p>The disciplinary actions were decided by Adm. Frank Caldwell and are the latest in a series of moves the Navy has made in the aftermath of the deadly collisions, which investigators concluded were avoidable. It fired several top leaders, including the commander of the 7th Fleet, Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin, and several other senior commanders in the Pacific.</p>
<p>The Navy has been reeling from tough questions arising from the two collisions. The destroyer USS Fitzgerald struck a commercial ship off the waters of Japan in June, killing seven U.S. sailors. The destroyer USS John S. McCain collided with an oil tanker in coastal waters off Singapore in August, killing 10 U.S. sailors.</p>
<p>The Navy said it is filing at least three charges against four officers of the Fitzgerald, including the commanding officer, who was Cmdr. Bryce Benson at the time. Benson suffered a head injury in the collision and was airlifted to the U.S. Naval Hospital at Yokosuka, Japan. A Navy investigation found that Benson left the ship’s bridge before the collision. Also facing charges are two lieutenants and one lieutenant junior grade, whose names were not disclosed. The Navy said all four face criminal charges, including negligent homicide, dereliction of duty and endangering a ship.</p>
<p>Fewer officers from the McCain are being charged. The Navy said the ship’s commander at the time, Cmdr. Alfredo J. Sanchez, is being charged with negligent homicide, dereliction of duty and endangering a ship. A chief petty officer, whose name was not disclosed, faces a charge of dereliction of duty.</p>
<p>In a statement, Hicks said the announcement of charges Tuesday is “not intended to and does not reflect a determination of guilt or innocence related to any offenses. All individuals alleged to have committed misconduct are entitled to a presumption of innocence.”</p>
<p>Hicks said that in addition to the criminal charges, additional administrative actions are being taken against unidentified members of both crews, including non-judicial punishment for four from the Fitzgerald and four from the McCain.</p>
<p>As a result of the two deadly accidents, at least eight top Navy officers, including the 7th Fleet commander, were fired from their jobs last year, and a number of other sailors received reprimands or other punishment that was not publicly released. Among the senior officers relieved of duty, in addition to Aucoin, were Rear Adm. Charles Williams and Capt. Jeffrey Bennett. Williams was the commander of Task Force 70, which includes the aircraft carriers, destroyers and cruisers in the 7th Fleet, and Bennett was commander of the destroyer squadron.</p>
<p>In a report released last November, the Navy concluded that the two crashes, as well as a third collision in May and a ship grounding, were all avoidable, and resulted from widespread failures by the crews and commanders who didn’t quickly recognize and respond to unfolding emergencies.</p>
<p>A second report called for about 60 recommended changes to address the problems. They ranged from improved training on seamanship, navigation and the use of ship equipment to more basic changes to improve sleep and stress management for sailors.</p>
<p>The extensive training and leadership failures prompted the top Navy officer, Adm. John Richardson, to order all naval commanders around the world to review their staffs and ships to see if they had similar problems.</p>
<p>The Navy’s investigation of the two collisions found that in addition to bad judgment, the crews were not adequately prepared.</p>
<p>“In the Navy, the responsibility of the Commanding Officer for his or her ship is absolute,” it said. “Many of the decisions made that led to this incident were the result of poor judgment and decision making of the Commanding Officer. That said, no single person bears full responsibility for this incident. The crew was unprepared for the situation in which they found themselves through a lack of preparation, ineffective command and control, and deficiencies in training and preparations for navigation.”</p> | Navy filing homicide charges against 2 ship commanders | false | https://apnews.com/198231053afb463485ea620367cf4306 | 2018-01-17 | 2 |
<p>The Baptist General Association of Virginia's religious liberty committee marks its 50th anniversary this year.</p>
<p>The BGAV is the only Baptist state convention with a standing committee focused on religious liberty, according to Fred Anderson, executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society.</p>
<p>This year the committee has targeted a bill in the General Assembly that attempted to amend the state constitution to provide religious expression on public school property, which committee members believed actually endangered religious freedom.</p>
<p>“Many members were contacting state senators and delegates,” said Dorothy Lewis, a committee member from Penhook. “Due to some quick work this measure was defeated.”</p>
<p>The committee plans to visit the Baptist Joint Committee on Religious Liberty and attend its separation of church and state convocation in Washington, D.C., April 13-14.</p>
<p>Special to the Herald</p> | Religious liberty panel observes 50th year | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/religiouslibertypanelobserves50thyear/ | 3 |
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<p>Aug. 30 (UPI) — The National Hurricane Center said the center of Tropical Storm Harvey is moving further inland over southwestern Louisiana, where the storm is expected to cause flooding.</p>
<p>A tropical storm warning is in effect from High Island, Texas, east to Grand Isle, La. In <a href="http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCPAT4+shtml/301447.shtml" type="external">its latest update</a>, the NHC said Harvey made landfall near Cameron, La., overnight with maximum sustained winds of 45 mph.</p>
<p>The storm is located 30 miles north-northwest of Lake Charles and is moving north-northeast at 8 mph. Harvey is expected to weaken to a depression Wednesday night.</p>
<p>The storm hit Texas Friday as a Category 4 hurricane and has slowly moved in a northeast direction since. It’s expected to move across the Lower Mississippi Valley and Tennessee Valley through Thursday.</p>
<p>The expected heavy rains spreading northeastward from Louisiana into western Kentucky may also lead to flash flooding and increased river and small stream flooding, the NHC said.</p>
<p>“While the threat of heavy rains has ended <a href="https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2017/08/29/Trump-calls-for-Harvey-recovery-better-than-ever-before-during-briefing-in-Texas/3471504004328/?utm_source=fp&amp;utm_campaign=ls&amp;utm_medium=1" type="external">in the Houston/Galveston area</a>, catastrophic and life threatening flooding will continue in and around Houston eastward into southwest Louisiana for the rest of the week,” the NHC said.</p>
<p>Texas continues to deal with damage from Harvey — both human and structural. Several people have died as a result of the storm.</p>
<p>Meteorologists also warned that tornadoes are possible Wednesday over parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, southern Alabama and southeast Arkansas.</p>
<p>Harvey <a href="http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/E23.html" type="external">was the first major hurricane</a> to make landfall in the continental United States since <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Hurricane_Wilma/" type="external">Hurricane Wilma</a> in 2005. It was also the first hurricane to hit Texas <a href="https://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/09/15/Pelosi-pledges-aid-for-Ike-victims/83861221507646/" type="external">since Ike in 2008</a>.</p>
<p>Also Wednesday, the NHC said <a href="http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCPAT1+shtml/301449.shtml?" type="external">Tropical Storm Irma</a> has formed in the far eastern open Atlantic Ocean.</p>
<p>That storm, which is 420 miles west of the Cabo Verde Islands, has maximum sustained winds of 50 mph. It’s unclear whether Irma will make land, although <a href="http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at1+shtml/145752.shtml?gm_track#contents" type="external">projections through Monday</a> put the center of the storm near Puerto Rico.</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/GOES16?src=hash" type="external">#GOES16</a> spied Trop. Storm Irma in the eastern Atlantic today. Irma could become a hurricane on Friday. More info @ <a href="https://t.co/cSGOfrM0lG" type="external">https://t.co/cSGOfrM0lG</a> <a href="https://t.co/zY6TFpmyqd" type="external">pic.twitter.com/zY6TFpmyqd</a></p>
<p>— NOAA Satellites (@NOAASatellites) <a href="https://twitter.com/NOAASatellites/status/902934542633316352" type="external">August 30, 2017</a></p> | Tropical Storm Harvey moves further into Louisiana | false | https://newsline.com/tropical-storm-harvey-moves-further-into-louisiana/ | 2017-08-30 | 1 |
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<p>LAS CRUCES — The Aggies shot better than they did in a Saturday loss to the Lobos.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>They defended better on their home court.</p>
<p>They fought harder four days after a 15-point loss to their instate rivals.</p>
<p>None of it mattered.</p>
<p>The No. 16 New Mexico Lobos took New Mexico State’s best shot Wednesday night and still came away with a 68-63 victory in front of 8,177 in the Pan American Center, improving to 12-0 on the season.</p>
<p>The reason? It was pretty simple in the mind of NMSU head coach Marvin Menzies.</p>
<p>“It was the Kendall Williams show tonight,” Menzies said, shaking his head.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The Lobos’ junior guard, who was helped off the court with a right ankle injury just 1 minute, 6 seconds into the game, tied a career high with 24 points and willed UNM to its fifth-consecutive rivalry victory in Las Cruces.</p>
<p>“The ankle was maybe a wake up call,” Williams said. “Once the adrenaline started rolling, I hit some shots, made some plays.”</p>
<p>New Mexico State (5-6) took its biggest lead of the game at 25-14 on a Tyrone Watson 3-pointer with 8:52 remaining in the first half.</p>
<p>Then Williams took over. The 6-foot-4 guard scored nine points in an 11-0 UNM run to tie the game at 25-25 with 4:40 remaining in the first half.</p>
<p>“I don’t think panic is in our nature,” Williams said. “A lot of poise, a lot of veteran leadership, which leads to some good plays.”</p>
<p>Williams’ layup with 44 seconds left in the half gave the Lobos a 34-32 advantage at the break.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“He came back and was just terrific,” UNM head coach Steve Alford said. “He was the best player on the floor. Kendall Williams is extremely talented and he had a big game for us both offensively and defensively. He was a great leader for us tonight.”</p>
<p>The Lobos’ halftime advantage came despite NMSU hitting 6-of-7 3-pointers, a surprising state for an Aggies team that was just 4-of-16 from beyond the arc in a 73-58 loss in the Pit on Saturday.</p>
<p>By the end of the game, NMSU had drained a season-high 10 3-pointers on 17 tries (58.8 percent), by far the best performance from beyond the arc of any of UNM’s opponents this season.</p>
<p>“I feel very fortunate,” Alford said. “I thought our guys battled again. We did what we do. We didn’t shoot the ball particularly well. That’s kind of been the case all year long. But we just battle. We guard. We compete. And we make plays.”</p>
<p>The Aggies’ seventh 3-pointer of the game, off the hand of point guard K.C. Ross-Miller, gave NMSU a 37-36 lead with 18:09 remaining in the game. It was their final lead.</p>
<p>Williams immediately answered with one of his two 3-pointers and his assist on a Nick Banyard dunk later in the half capped an 8-0 Lobos run at 49-41.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“He fought through his injury and he came back and he played well,” NMSU forward Tyrone Watson said. “Definitely tip our hats to him. He was shooting the ball good and he was making plays for his team.”</p>
<p>The Aggies were able to use a zone defense in the second half to slow the Lobos’ offense and keep it close. But their ineptitude at the free throw line never allowed them to tie the game.</p>
<p>In one 90 second stretch in the final 8 minutes of the game, the Aggies misses five free throws — three from 7-5 Sim Bhullar (he missed two but was given a third try — and miss — after a Lobos lane violation) and one a piece from Watson and Bandja Sy, both of whom missed the front ends of 1-and-1 opportunities.</p>
<p>Those three possessions for NMSU resulted in zero points while UNM was in the midst of one of its worst offensive droughts of the game.</p>
<p>Tony Snell scored nine of his 11 points in the second half, helping the Lobos hold off the charging Aggies.</p>
<p>“We really challenged Tony at half,” Alford said. “Tony is too unselfish. I keep trying to tell him you’re our shooting guard, you’re not our screener.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>NMSU out-rebounded UNM 39-35 and was led by 13 points from Daniel Mullings, followed by 12 from Kevin Aronis, all on four 3-pointers.</p>
<p>GREAT EIGHT: After Wednesday’s night games, UNM was one of eight Division I programs left in the nation without a loss. Joining UNM among the unbeatens are Arizona, Duke, Illinois, Michigan, Syracuse, fellow Mountain West team Wyoming and Cincinnati, which hosts the Lobos on Dec. 27.</p>
<p>LOBOS LINKS: <a href="" type="internal">Roster</a> | <a href="" type="internal">Schedule/Results</a> | <a href="" type="internal">Geoff Grammer’s blog</a></p>
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<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6V2VqSuACw" type="external">Watch Kendall Williams</a> post game after career best effort.</p>
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<p /> | Lobos Sweep Aggies | false | https://abqjournal.com/30988/sweep-for-lobos.html | 2 |
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<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on investigations of links between Russia and Donald Trump's presidential campaign (all times local):</p>
<p>6:35 p.m.</p>
<p>President Donald Trump is rejecting criticism of his Russia probe counter-attacks.</p>
<p>"You fight back, oh, it's obstruction," Trump says mockingly of his critics.</p>
<p>Speaking to reporters, Trump says "We're going to find out" if he gets a fair shake from Robert Mueller. The special counsel's probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election has expanded to include potential misdeeds by Trump and his aides.</p>
<p>"There's been no collusion whatsoever," Trump says. "There's no obstruction whatsoever. And I'm looking forward to it."</p>
<p>He says the Mueller interview could come in "two or three weeks."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>6 p.m.</p>
<p>President Donald Trump says he's "looking forward" to being interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller.</p>
<p>Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Trump says he'd be willing to answer questions under oath. Mueller is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, but his probe has expanded to include potential misdeeds by those in Trump's orbit and the president himself.</p>
<p>Trump also says he doesn't recall asking then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe last year about whom he voted for in 2016.</p>
<p>__</p>
<p>2 a.m.</p>
<p>Attorney General Jeff Sessions was questioned for hours in the special counsel's Russia investigation, the Justice Department said, as prosecutors moved closer to a possible interview with President Donald Trump about whether he took steps to obstruct an FBI probe into contacts between Russia and his 2016 campaign.</p>
<p>The interview with Sessions last week makes him the highest-ranking Trump administration official, and first Cabinet member, known to have submitted to questioning. It came as special counsel Robert Mueller investigates whether Trump's actions in office, including the firing of FBI Director James Comey, constitute improper efforts to stymie the FBI investigation.</p>
<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on investigations of links between Russia and Donald Trump's presidential campaign (all times local):</p>
<p>6:35 p.m.</p>
<p>President Donald Trump is rejecting criticism of his Russia probe counter-attacks.</p>
<p>"You fight back, oh, it's obstruction," Trump says mockingly of his critics.</p>
<p>Speaking to reporters, Trump says "We're going to find out" if he gets a fair shake from Robert Mueller. The special counsel's probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election has expanded to include potential misdeeds by Trump and his aides.</p>
<p>"There's been no collusion whatsoever," Trump says. "There's no obstruction whatsoever. And I'm looking forward to it."</p>
<p>He says the Mueller interview could come in "two or three weeks."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>6 p.m.</p>
<p>President Donald Trump says he's "looking forward" to being interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller.</p>
<p>Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Trump says he'd be willing to answer questions under oath. Mueller is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, but his probe has expanded to include potential misdeeds by those in Trump's orbit and the president himself.</p>
<p>Trump also says he doesn't recall asking then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe last year about whom he voted for in 2016.</p>
<p>__</p>
<p>2 a.m.</p>
<p>Attorney General Jeff Sessions was questioned for hours in the special counsel's Russia investigation, the Justice Department said, as prosecutors moved closer to a possible interview with President Donald Trump about whether he took steps to obstruct an FBI probe into contacts between Russia and his 2016 campaign.</p>
<p>The interview with Sessions last week makes him the highest-ranking Trump administration official, and first Cabinet member, known to have submitted to questioning. It came as special counsel Robert Mueller investigates whether Trump's actions in office, including the firing of FBI Director James Comey, constitute improper efforts to stymie the FBI investigation.</p> | The Latest: Trump says fighting back isn't obstruction | false | https://apnews.com/amp/372f9cab67444fac995f0db69c0c0c5f | 2018-01-24 | 2 |
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<p>Taos Mesa Brewing Co. created the “Rio Grande del Norte National Monument Pale Ale” to celebrate the new federal designation for the wildlands spanning Taos and Rio Arriba counties, and it’s tried to arrange delivery of some bottles to Obama, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and others.</p>
<p>The locally made beer was only one example of the celebrations and hopes for an economic boost that followed Friday’s announcement that the 240,000 acres are being upgraded to monument status.</p>
<p>The president is expected to sign the proclamation creating the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument today.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“Taos has yet to scratch the surface of its eco-tourism potential,” said Brad Malone, chairman of the board of directors of the Taos Chamber of Commerce. “We believe this could potentially be huge.”</p>
<p>The effects of the announcement should be clear within a couple years, he said, as people around the country – and even the world – perhaps hear about the area for the first time through the monument announcement.</p>
<p>“Like the ski set watches the snow reports, eco-tourists watch to see ‘what new things are there that I haven’t seen?’ ” Malone said.</p>
<p>Taos Mayor Darren Córdova predicted a jump as soon as this summer because of the national publicity. “You can’t put a price on that kind of free press,” he said. “I think we’ll start seeing results.”</p>
<p>“I really believe it will bring more people to the area,” said Kolshorn. “It couldn’t hurt.”</p>
<p>Noting that his brew-pub, in business now for seven months, is located three miles from the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge on U.S. 64, he even envisioned the possibility of a new visitors center being built by the gorge and bringing even more traffic past their doors.</p>
<p>“The whole area north of Taos is really growing,” he said, adding that preserving the land should continue to attract visitor interest.</p>
<p>Malone agreed. “Our infrastructure is not highways and railroads, it’s river and wilderness, our land,” he said, adding that it needs to be preserved and promoted. “Frankly, the freeways and railways are not going to happen here.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>A study done by BBC Research &amp; Consulting, based in Denver, estimated that the monument designation should bring $15 million in increased economic activity and 279 new jobs to the area. Much of the impact is expected to be seen through increased demand for lodging, restaurant meals, groceries, gasoline and other activities offered in the area. Rafting, fishing, hunting, hiking, camping and more already are popular, and the interest is expected to grow.</p>
<p>The report estimates that the area designated monument already accounts for about 312 jobs and $17.2 million in economic activity.</p>
<p>Since regional residents already are familiar with Rio Grande del Norte, the analysis did not predict an increase in usage by local people. However, it estimated non-local visitation could double from current levels, bringing total annual visitation up from 325,100 to 488,300.</p>
<p>“One of the things that attracts tourists to northern New Mexico is the natural beauty and the lay of the land,” Córdova said. “This will promote those to another level. … It will preserve our heritage and our culture.”</p>
<p>Cisco Guevara of Los Rios River Runners noted, “When a national monument is designated, it achieves a higher status in guidebooks and travel blogs, luring people who might otherwise be just passing through to stay a while longer …</p>
<p>“In fact, the BBC study noted that some similar regions which received a national monument designation in 2001 experienced approximately 500 percent growth in visitation from 2003 to 2007. If Rio Grande del Norte experiences a visitation growth anywhere close to that number it will do wonders for our local economy.” — This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal</p> | Rio Grande monument signing today | false | https://abqjournal.com/181988/rio-grande-monument-signing-today.html | 2013-03-25 | 2 |
<p>Thursday is World Poetry Day according to UNESCO, the United Nations' education and culture agency.</p>
<p>UNESCO is celebrating the poems of William Butler Yeats, Pablo Neruda and Aime Cesaire and also some lesser-known authors from Azerbaijan and Greece.</p>
<p>Anchor Marco Werman talks to Don Share, a poet, translator and the senior editor of Poetry magazine.</p>
<p>Share says Greek poet Constantine Cavafy was a late bloomer, but still made his mark.</p> | UNESCO Celebrates World Poetry Day | false | https://pri.org/stories/2013-03-21/unesco-celebrates-world-poetry-day | 2013-03-21 | 3 |
<p>Mother Jones illustration; Shutterstock</p>
<p>During his decades in the real estate world, Donald Trump famously shortchanged <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/06/09/donald-trump-unpaid-bills-republican-president-laswuits/85297274/" type="external">many small businesses</a> on the money he owed them. The list includes companies that worked on Trump’s properties or supplied him with chandeliers, pianos, marble, and other luxury touches. But Trump also tried to underpay <a href="" type="internal">the very same lawyers</a> who helped him save money, and some ended up suing their former client.</p>
<p>As our own Hannah Levintova <a href="" type="internal">reported in March</a>, the Atlantic City law firm of Levine Staller saved one of Trump’s companies tens of millions of dollars in taxes—and then sued the company, Trump Entertainment, after the business tried to pay Levine Staller $1.25 million less than the firm was owed.</p>
<p>In 2012, Levine Staller won a settlement that returned $35 million in overpaid taxes and cut $15 million from the company’s future liabilities, leading to a total savings of $50 million for the corporation. Trump agreed to pay $7.25 million to the law firm in legal fees, but then only paid Levine Staller $6 million before trying to claim the rest as unsecured debt in ongoing bankruptcy proceedings. In response, Levine Staller sued its former client, Trump Entertainment, and in 2014, a judge rejected Trump Entertainment’s request to be absolved of this debt and told the company to pay up.</p>
<p>It wasn’t an isolated case. Trump underpaid at least four law firms or lawyers who worked for him, according to <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/06/09/donald-trump-unpaid-bills-republican-president-laswuits/85297274/" type="external">various</a> <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-bills-specialrepor-idUSKCN0T214Q20151113" type="external">news</a> <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trumps-business-plan-left-a-trail-of-unpaid-bills-1465504454" type="external">outlets</a> that looked into Trump’s history of cheating his contractors. One of them, Morrison Cohen LLP of New York City, had represented Trump in a lawsuit against a construction contractor that Trump claimed had overcharged him for work on a golf course. According to USA Today, <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/06/09/donald-trump-unpaid-bills-republican-president-laswuits/85297274/" type="external">Trump sued Morrison Cohen</a> for using the case to help promote its work, and the firm countersued for almost $500,000 in unpaid bills. The case was settled in 2009.</p>
<p>It wasn’t just big amounts Trump tried to get out of paying, either. Bill Scherer, a lawyer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, had to sue Trump in 1994 to collect $5,000 in unpaid legal bills from a case Scherer won for the billionaire. The lawyer <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-bills-specialrepor-idUSKCN0T214Q20151113" type="external">told Reuters</a> last year that he had offered Trump a low rate to “curry favor” with the mogul, but still had to sue. “He’s a deadbeat,” <a href="http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-trump-mayocol-b071615-20150715-column.html" type="external">Scherer told</a> South Florida’s Sun-Sentinel newspaper. Trump told Reuters that he couldn’t remember Scherer or the case at all.</p>
<p>Read the rest of <a href="" type="internal">“The Trump Files”</a>:</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | The Trump Files: Trump’s Long History of Getting Sued by His Own Lawyers | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/trump-files-time-trumps-lawyers-sued-trump/ | 2016-10-27 | 4 |
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<p>Campos announced two weeks ago that most county employees would take unpaid furlough days on July 3 and July 28, the first two of 24 planned furlough days expected to save the cash-strapped county $1.5 million during the fiscal year that begins today. But Thursday, following a County Commission meeting described by one commissioner as having gotten “heated,” Campos sent an email to county staff saying that the July furloughs were being canceled “due to commissions (sic) nonconcurrence with management.”</p>
<p>Campos told employees that calling off the furlough days planned for this month doesn’t mean there won’t be furloughs in the future.</p>
<p>Campos responded to a Journal request for an interview with a statement sent by email: “All can say is ‘county (manager) yields to pressure from the County commission’ The furloughs for month of July are waived.” He added that he will push for furloughs in August.</p>
<p>But Commissioner Alex Naranjo said in a phone interview Friday that the three-member commission doesn’t want to furlough employees at all. But if it has to, it would like to put them off until at least October.</p>
<p>“I think what we’re doing is just prolonging the agony of defeat, hoping the financial climate will change by then,” he said. “We’re trying to figure out how to get money into the coffers.”</p>
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<p>Naranjo said the county used to get more than $10 million in oil and gas revenue annually but had only collected about $2.5 million this past fiscal year. He also noted that the county spends about $4 million per year on the detention center in Tierra Amarilla, which accounts for more than one-quarter of the county’s annual expenditures.</p>
<p>More than 200 county staff members would be subject to furloughs. Some employees, such as sheriff’s deputies, correction workers, and some health clinic and drug abuse prevention program personnel paid through grant funding would be exempt from taking furloughs. But county offices, as well as all senior centers and the swimming pool in Tierra Amarilla were scheduled to be closed.</p>
<p>Rio Arriba County submitted a preliminary budget to the state Department of Finance and Administration that had the cost-savings furloughs built-in in an effort to close a $3.6 million budget deficit during the 2018 fiscal year.</p>
<p>The proposed budget also includes spending cuts for libraries, the county fair, some senior programs and acequias.</p> | Rio Arriba County manager calls off furloughs… at least for now | false | https://abqjournal.com/1026678/rio-arriba-county-manager-calls-off-furloughs-at-least-for-now.html | 2 |
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<p>The spokesman of Hungary's governing Fidesz party said that the party will likely submit a new law regulating non-governmental organizations within two weeks. The new Law will require agent organizations seeking to influence Hungarian politics to reveal the sources of any foreign funding. It's without a doubt that this Law will target groups that are backed by Hungarian-born U.S. financier George Soros.</p>
<p>The Hungarian government is seeking to keep organizations such as the Hungarian Committee and the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union out of the country, this is after realizing the true nature of their agenda which is totally different from the guise of offering legal aid and other services to migrants and refugees.</p>
<p>Fidesz party spokesman, Janos Halasz said that Brussels and the Soros organizations have launched an intense attack on Hungary, adding that the organizations supporting migration are aiding and abetting the migrants, encouraging them to migrate illegally, confront authorities and break law and hence he emphasized that the country will not tolerate that.</p>
<p>The ultra-nationalist Jobbik party and Fidesz approved a new set of rules limiting the rights of asylum-seekers, measures which have been strongly criticized by the United Nations refugee agency, the Council of Europe and some of the NGOs that are partly funded by George Soros.</p>
<p>One of the lawmakers of Fidesz party said that the Soros-backed organizations need to be swept out of the country. This move has also been supported by an Open Society Foundations representative who said that Soros and his foundation are becoming convenient scapegoats for politicians across the region.</p>
<p>The director of the Open Society Initiative for Europe made a statement to the Associated Press saying that in Romania, the foundation is labeled as pro-Hungarian and undermines Romanian statehood.</p>
<p>George Soros made a statement in which he pointed out that his motivation for supporting civic groups was the same as during the communist era, which apparently ended back in 1990. He also said that their goal is to hold governments accountable to the people, the majority of whom are motivated by the same impulse that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall.</p>
<p>Source :</p>
<p><a href="http://dailywesterner.com/news/2017-03-09/hungary-vs-soros-lawmakers-prepare-law-targeting-soros-backed-groups/" type="external">dailywesterner.com/news/2017-03-09/hungary-vs-soros-lawmakers-prepare-law-targeting-soros-backed-groups</a></p> | George Soros VS Hungary: Law Targeting Soros-Backed Groups To Be Unleashed | true | http://thegoldwater.com/news/1670-George-Soros-VS-Hungary-Law-Targeting-Soros-Backed-Groups-To-Be-Unleashed | 2017-03-09 | 0 |
<p />
<p>Hello Pluto, and no we're not talking about our long forgotten lovable puppy pal, it's that long forgotten planet pal</p>
<p>way out in the solar system.</p>
<p>We didn't forget it was deemed to not be a planet long ago but in most of our minds it still is.</p>
<p>Apparently now it has been found to have a large ocean hiding beneath the surface, which is really no surprise.</p>
<p>Are you shocked? Neither are we. Stuff like this doesn't usually hit mainstream media and doesn't get spoken of</p>
<p>unless one is so inclined to seek it out themselves. Let's quit the mumbo-jumbo then and see what's going on outside</p>
<p>of the spectrum of our petty political arguments as of late.</p>
<p />
<p>Scientists have been formulating this theory of an underground ocean lying in the left section of her heart-shaped basin.</p>
<p>Pluto's moon, Charon, has been the main determining factor of this discovery, as it is observed swinging in an orbit to</p>
<p>suggest a gravitational pull out of the norm. Scientists speculate that the cause of this gravitational abnormality is water.</p>
<p>Or at least an icy or slushy material under the surface. It's pretty cold way out there.</p>
<p />
<p>Richard Binzel is an MIT professor who has been studying Pluto since the 80s. He said, "We're trying to understand what it is</p>
<p>that could contribute that mass. And the answer we come to is maybe there's this dense subsurface layer of liquid water,</p>
<p>or a slushy layer. pushing up in the region. "You can find a full article with more comments at</p>
<p><a href="http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2016/11/16/13643674/pluto-underground-ocean" type="external">vox.com/science-and-health/2016/11/16/13643674/pluto-underground-ocean</a></p>
<p>or traverse to another source at <a href="http://www.space.com/34179-plutos-heart-hints-at-deep-underground-ocean.html" type="external">space.com/34179-plutos-heart-hints-at-deep-underground-ocean.html</a></p>
<p>to get more information.</p>
<p />
<p>There's loads of info out there and on NASA's website as well. This is serious stuff, guys. If there's water and ice out there</p>
<p>in the far reaches of our solar system, isn't that perhaps evidence of possible alien life? Or at least life that once was?</p>
<p>It opens up the doors to new possibilities of thinking. We are not alone, ladies and gentleman. There are missions to be done</p>
<p>and we have a lot of work to do if we don't want to stay in the dark. In the galactic sense however, half of the time we are</p>
<p>truly doomed to be in the dark literally and figuratively.</p>
<p />
<p>Regardless, this new evidence and information can prove to be a tidbit towards expanding our knowledge of the universe around</p>
<p>us. Check out the links aforementioned and do your own research further. see for yourself. What do you think?</p>
<p>Is there other life out there that's worth talking about, other than what's inside our little bubble?</p>
<p>I suppose we shall have to wait and find out.</p> | Scientists discover vast underground water ocean on Pluto | true | http://thegoldwater.com/news/528-Scientists-discover-vast-underground-water-ocean-on-Pluto | 2016-11-18 | 0 |
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<p>Roy Slezak</p>
<p>In our great wisdom as a progressive municipality and a vision for the future, the Rio Rancho City Council in the early 1990s decided that we should regulate pets that didn’t meet the normal dog and cat pet stereotype.</p>
<p>So we decided, at staff’s recommendation, to allow for exotic-type pets by issuing exotic animal permits in certain circumstances. The permits would have to be approved by the council and certain animals would be excluded from the city proper.</p>
<p>The first case that I remember was whether we should allow Vietnamese pigs within the city limits. The discussion was not very long and I even made a joke about it and had the quote of the week, according to the Observer, when I stated that, “Once you let the pigs in, you never know what will follow.” After we voted not to allow the pigs to take over our city, we promptly took a break.</p>
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<p>During the break, a young girl, no more than 12, came to Councilor Tony Popper and I in tears because she owned a pot-bellied pig and we had just made it illegal to have one within the city limits. My joke wasn’t so funny to me anymore as this girl pleaded her case with tears running down her cheeks. Councilor Popper was the first to respond and said what I was thinking: “Young lady, we really don’t want to know that you have a pig, just don’t tell anyone” and he winked at her. She got the message and her tears stopped.</p>
<p>Councilor Popper saw how bad I felt about making the young lady cry over her pig and got even with me at the next meeting by presenting me with a piggy bank filled with nickels. Councilor Popper always liked practical jokes and since he sat next to me, I often bore the brunt of his jokes. I always appreciated Tony as he was often times presenting a view we never thought of on an issue, and he could also laugh at himself. Tony worked hard to make our city better and when we lost him, we lost a gem and someone who really cared about his community.</p>
<p>A second incident with exotic animal permits involved a gentleman who was raising boa constrictors at his home in my district, District 5. We asked all the questions we had, but I was not satisfied and wanted to inspect the property and see how he kept the snakes contained.</p>
<p>Councilors Cal Mowry, Popper and I visited the home of the applicant and he showed us his setup. I have to say we were quite impressed. Although I am not a fan of snakes, it was obvious that this applicant took great care in making sure that snakes could not get loose and had built the enclosures himself.</p>
<p>Then I asked the million dollar question. I asked the gentleman what he fed the snakes. He promptly went to his freezer and pulled out what he said was a frozen rat that he bought from a supplier. He then stated that he also fed the snakes live rats. I asked the obvious question, “Where do you get the live rats?”</p>
<p>The applicant took us to the garage and I think we all looked at each other as we saw a cage that contained hundreds of live rats. All I could picture in my mind was this cage being knocked over and rats running all over the neighborhood. I promptly let the applicant know that the rats had to go but that the snakes could stay pending a vote by the council, with an inspection of the property every six months.</p>
<p>These were a couple of the more interesting things that came before us on the council and reminded me of the story I heard about chickens being released in Mayor Grover Nash’s backyard a few years earlier.</p>
<p>I was just hoping that the rats wouldn’t show up in my backyard after the vote.</p>
<p>(Roy Slezak, a former Rio Rancho city councilor, returned to the City of Vision after living in the Grand Canyon State for a decade or so. He has authored several books.)</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Exotic rule: Dealing with pot-bellied pigs and snakes | false | https://abqjournal.com/410699/exotic-rule-dealing-with-pot-bellied-pigs-and-snakes.html | 2 |
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<p>LONDON (AP) — A British driver has survived a major crash in his Ferrari, an hour after he bought it. Local police called it a “miracle escape,” but the car was not so lucky.</p>
<p>South Yorkshire Police posted Twitter photos of the smoking, wrecked car, saying it “went airborne (and) burst into flames” beside a highway in northern England.</p>
<p>The Ferrari 430 Scuderia, worth about 200,000 pounds ($260,000) new, ended up a burning heap in a field.</p>
<p>The police said in a Facebook statement that the driver “only had minor cuts and bruises” after Thursday's smash, but they also detected “a sense of damaged pride.”</p>
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<p>The force said the driver told officers: “I've only just got it, picked it up an hour ago.”</p>
<p>Police urged local drivers to take care on the roads.</p>
<p><a href="#242e5d36-9573-49bd-9f60-4e037f2763f6" type="external">© 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</a> Learn more about our <a href="http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/privacy" type="external">Privacy Policy</a> and <a href="http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/terms" type="external">Terms of Use</a>.</p> | British driver totals Ferrari an hour after purchase | false | https://abqjournal.com/1039801/british-driver-totals-ferrari-an-hour-after-purchase.html | 2017-07-28 | 2 |
<p>The song met the town. Last Sunday night James McMurtry performed “We Can’t Make It Here” (see <a href="" type="internal">counterpunch.org 9/30/05 for all the lyrics</a>) at the Canal Street Tavern in Dayton, Ohio. Dayton gets mentioned in the song as the hollowed-out shell of manufacturing that it is.</p>
<p>The crowd of 100 punctuated “We Can’t Make It Here” with hoots, hollers, claps, “yeah’s” and “right on’s.” The man was testifyin’. The song, which came midway through the show, received the longest ovation I’ve ever seen for a song that wasn’t a regular-show closer or an encore.</p>
<p>Dayton’s 5,700 Delphi automotive workers will lose their jobs unless they agree to have their wages slashed by 60-70%. Had a Delphi executive been in the bar that night he would have been ripped to pieces and thrown out on the street without a twinge of remorse. The crowd’s joy of hearing the truth, mixed with anger at capitalist reality, was palpable all through “We Can’t Make It Here.” Think anybody’s going to clap for the lies, irrelevancies and misdirections of CNN, Fox News or the New York Times?</p>
<p>Stephen King has called “We Can’t Make It Here” the best protest song since Dylan’s “Masters of War.” I think of it as a companion piece to Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “The Message.” A crack world book-ended with a crank world. Not much has changed — don’t push us because we are close to the edge and we can’t make it here anymore. God, how I wish we’d get pushed over that edge.</p>
<p>The day before McMurtry played, the Dayton Daily News told us:</p>
<p>1) Ohio leads the nation in bankruptcy filings</p>
<p>2) Ohio leads the nation in mortgage failures and home foreclosures with Montgomery County (Dayton) tops in the state</p>
<p>3) the Dayton Metro area is second only to the Detroit Metro area for employment declines in the past year</p>
<p>One day the American working class is going to exercise, in Henry Miller’s words, our “legitimate bloodlust.” One day workers won’t be freezing their asses off in a picket line outside of a factory; they’ ll be occupuying the factories and they’ll have their spouses and lovers and brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and children and guns and dogs with them. And they’ll be daring the cops to take them on. And the cops will back down. And if it happens at just one plant it will spread like wildfire all over the country and the working class will announce that things are going to be different from this moment on. The world can’t get well until the American working class gets well; the whole world waits for us to ignite a revolution and dispossess the capitalist class.</p>
<p>The day after McMurtry played, the DDN reported on the last minute record-setting crush of bankruptcy filings. Clerk of Courts Michael Webb for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court covering Dayton, Cincinnati and Columbus said his staff was “excited about it. They think it’s a part of history.”</p>
<p>That’s the only kind of history that capitalist America is capable of making. One day the 50 millionth American will have no health insurance. One day soon the 2,000th American soldier will be killed in Iraq. One day $1 trillion of our taxes will have been spent on the Iraq crime. And more and more of us “can’t make it here anymore.” Thanks, James McMurtry, for giving this country its true national anthem.</p>
<p>After reading the bankruptcy article I was out the door to my no-benefit driving job where the cost of fuel is killing us worse than the wage cuts we’ve also eaten in the past year and where most drivers can’t afford health insurance and most have either been through bankruptcy or should go through it but are too proud to file but who all happen to be the hardest working, hustling people I’ve ever worked with in my life… It’s time for me to drive up and down I-75 and move your shit, capitalist tapeworms. One day, we won’t be moving; you will. You’ll be shagging your asses to Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, one step/jet ahead of a bullet, a blade or bare hands.</p>
<p>RANDY SHIELDS lives in Vandalia, Ohio. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | James McMurtry Makes It in Dayton | true | https://counterpunch.org/2005/10/20/james-mcmurtry-makes-it-in-dayton/ | 2005-10-20 | 4 |
<p>“It is important we don’t get ahead of ourselves,” President Obama said Friday as he weighed in on BP’s latest attempt at containing the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill with a “larger, more sophisticated cap.” Though this new device may seem to be doing the job for now, the president put the kibosh on any premature back-slapping by sounding a warning: “One of the problems with having this camera down there is, is that when the oil stops gushing, everybody feels like we’re done,” he said, “and we’re not.” –KA</p>
<p>BBC:</p>
<p>A new cap was used on Thursday to stop the flow for the first time since 20 April, as part of a 48-hour test of the well’s integrity.</p>
<p>Eleven workers were killed in the Deepwater Horizon explosion, and the oil spill has raised fears of an environmental catastrophe.</p>
<p />
<p>Spilled oil has affected hundreds of miles of Gulf coastline since April, with serious economic damage to the region.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10669006" type="external">Read more</a></p> | Obama Contains His Optimism About BP's Latest Cap Trick | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/obama-contains-his-optimism-about-bps-latest-cap-trick/ | 2010-07-17 | 4 |
<p>When Lord Goldsmith, the British attorney general, pounced on the Daily Mirror tabloid newspaper last week, threatening it and the rest of the media with the nation’s Official Secrets Act, he was accused of imposing censorship to save prime minister Tony Blair, and his master George W Bush, from embarrassment. This was likely the intention, but the result could become not a savior, but the ultimate confirmation of Bush’s bomb-crazed reckless folly.</p>
<p>The case, opening today (Nov 29) in Bow Street magistrates’ court opposite the Opera House in London’s Covent Garden, has the promise of extravagant theater. Such could be its revelations, that the authorities might wish to scuttle it entirely — or at least hope that trumped-up secrecy requirements render it incomprehensible. Whatever happens however, the case is dynamite of an unwelcome kind for Bush.</p>
<p>The reason is that it is not really about national security, but about Bush’s reported remark to Blair in a Washington meeting 18 months ago, that he would like to bomb or otherwise incinerate the worldwide Arab television network Al Jazeera, for its effrontery in broadcasting news reflecting poorly on the USA. The only consolation, the Mirror reported, was that Blair managed to talk him out of it.</p>
<p>The paper broke the news on its front page under the headline Bush Plot to Bomb His Ally — for Al Jazeera’s headquarters are in the Middle-East nation of Qatar, not only a US and British friend, but recently host to the US regional military command. As we would expect, the mainstream media have done little to check the truth of this, preferring the defensive explanation that the remark, if it was made, was a joke. (If so, why elevate its importance with the Official Secrets Act?)</p>
<p>It has already been observed that, “Needless secrecy in government leads to arrogance in governance and defective decision-making. The perception of excessive secrecy has become a corrosive influence in the decline of public confidence in government. Moreover, the climate of public opinion has changed: people expect much greater openness and accountability from government than they used to.” Exactly, and a sentiment expressed by the new Labor government in 1997 in an official paper discussing the merits of a Freedom of Information Act.</p>
<p>However, the Bow Street proceedings are going ahead. Technically, the two men charged under the act, Leo O’Connor, 42, the former political researcher for the British ex-Member of Parliament Tony Clarke, and civil servant David Keogh, 49, a former cabinet official, are accused of improperly taking a British government document marked Top Secret, and making a “damaging” disclosure of its contents, the reported Bush remark about his designs on Al Jazeera. The second of those two articles of the Official Secrets Act, under which they are being prosecuted, is the one Lord Goldsmith used to silence the media.</p>
<p>The secret five-page memo surfaced one Friday afternoon in early June last year in the pigeon-hole of MP Clarke’s constituency office. It was instantly obvious this was not campaign literature but a reported private conversation between the two leaders when the US army was engaged in a ferocious, and much criticized, assault on the city of Falluja in Iraq. The Bush remark was contained in only 10 lines but other parts of the memo, written by a Blair aide, made it clear that the British premier was not pleased with US military actions there. Clarke, who had voted against the war, made haste to inform Blair’s office of his find. Next day officers of Scotland Yard’s Special Branch interviewed him and O’Connor. Soon they talked to Keogh, who lived nearby.</p>
<p>But what the world wants to know now is not whether Keogh and O’Connor misused official paper but whether its allegation about Bush was correct, and whether the US president risked appalling repercussions from such a provocative attack. “An act that would have led to countless retaliatory attacks on Western states,” as the Mirror leader described it. The secrecy imposed by Lord Goldsmith’s legal threat makes these questions more urgent, not less likely.</p>
<p>The case has even turned some of the war’s proponents into doubters. Witness the pre-court performance of Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, known in the satirical magazine Private Eye as Boris the Menace, a voluble conservative Member of Parliament, editor of the right-wing Spectator magazine. Johnson, who supported the Iraq invasion, is so incensed about the now enforced secrecy on the Al Jazeera memo that he has made a valiant offer. But first he airs the lamentations he and his fellows feel so keenly these days.</p>
<p>“I would love to think,” he writes, “that Dubya was just having one of his little frat-house wisecracks, when he talked of destroying the satellite TV station. Maybe he was only horsing around. Maybe it was a flippant one-liner, of the kind that he delivers before making one of his dramatic exits into the broom-closet. Perhaps it was a kind of Henry II moment: you know, who will rid me of this turbulent TV station? Maybe he had a burst of spacy Reagan-esque surrealism, like the time the old boy forgot that the mikes were switched on, and startled a [radio audience] with the announcement that he was going to start bombing Russia in five minutes.”</p>
<p>Boris asks: “Who knows? But if his remarks were just an innocent piece of cretinism, then why in the name of holy thunder has the British state decreed that anyone printing those remarks will be sent to prison? If there is an ounce of truth in the notion that George Bush seriously proposed the destruction of Al Jazeera, and was only dissuaded by the prime minister, then we need to know, and we need to know urgently.”</p>
<p>Then, the Boris everyone loves to laugh at, got serious with an extraordinary pledge: “If someone passes me the document within the next few days I will be very happy to publish it in The Spectator, and risk a jail sentence. The public need to judge for themselves. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. If we suppress the truth, we forget what we are fighting for, and in an important respect we become as sick and as bad as our enemies.” In this, Johnson showed more courage than any editor of any British national publication in publicly defying the censorial actions of the bossy Blair.</p>
<p>There is one more likely outcome in this outrageous affair. It is that the Blair government, in trying to banish from public consumption the ill-timed and appallingly judged remark of the world’s most powerful commander-in-chief, will prolong its life — or even give it a new one.</p>
<p>Older commenators are recalling the absurdities of Britain’s Spycatcher scandal of 20 years ago. In that case, a British ex-spy from MI5 called Peter Wright sought to publish a book in which he revealed embarrassing secrets of his former employers, who in turned sought urgently to prevent exactly that. To silence two newspapers that were revealing some of Wright’s spicier stories, the attorney general invoked the Official Secrets Act. He spent much time, energy — and public money — in vain. The book was not only published but became a best-seller because of the publicity. Finally, the British government lost its case before the European Court of Human Rights.</p>
<p>Going back to the 1980s, official British brandishing of its oppressive Official Secrets Act has almost always ended in humiliation for its champions. The present case of Bush and the Arab TV Bombing seems likely to add to these fiascoes.</p>
<p>CHRISTOPHER REED is a journalist living in Japan. He can be reached at: <a href="http://[email protected]/" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | The "Bomb Al Jazeera" Documents Trial | true | https://counterpunch.org/2005/11/28/the-quot-bomb-al-jazeera-quot-documents-trial/ | 2005-11-28 | 4 |
<p>Diane Macedo reports that Deere &amp; Co. has beat expectations with its 3Q earnings.</p>
<p>Deere (NYSE:DE) beat Wall Street expectations with third-quarter earnings that climbed 26%, as sales of farm equipment continued to grow in the U.S. and Canada.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The maker of John Deere tractors also said Wednesday it now expects a full-year profit of about $3.45 billion, up from its prior estimate of $3.3 billion. Deere reiterated its projection for 5% growth in equipment sales.</p>
<p>Deere shares were down about 1.7% at $82.48 in early morning trading, after the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said the company issued a voluntary recall of 7,000 John Deere compact utility tractors. The spring locking pins in the rollover protective system can break and cause the system to fail in the event of a rollover, according to the recall notice.</p>
<p>Deere’s latest results reflect the highest sales and income it has ever reported for the third quarter. Chief Executive Samuel Allen noted that the farm sector showed “considerable strength,” especially in North and South America.</p>
<p>Deere, the world’s largest seller of farm machinery, reported a profit of $996.5 million compared to $788 in the year-ago period. On a per-share basis, earnings rose to $2.56 from $1.98, while analysts expected just $2.17 for the latest period.</p>
<p>Revenue jumped 4.4% to $10.01 billion, exceeding calls for $9.29 billion.</p>
<p>Equipment sales increased 4% to $9.32 billion, more than the company’s prior guidance for 3% growth. &#160;&#160;U.S. equipment sales were up 4%, and international sales climbed 5%.</p>
<p>Sales in the company’s agriculture and turf segment grew 8%, while construction and forestry sales were down 11%.</p>
<p>Revenue from Deere’s financial services business was up 3.9% to $587 million.</p>
<p>The industry as a whole has seen stronger demand for large tractors in spite of economic pressures and weaker corn prices. Tractor sales in the U.S. and Canada increased 12% over the first seven months of the year, according to the Association of Equipment Manufacturers. In July, sales were up 19%.</p>
<p>For the current quarter, Deere cautioned that equipment sales will likely fall 5% due to a tough year-ago comparison.</p>
<p>“Last year’s fourth-quarter sales were particularly strong, in part because our factories were running at a high rate to catch up with customer orders,” Allen said in a statement. “Even with this difficult comparison, our financial guidance implies a healthy level of income for the coming quarter and a third consecutive year of record results.”</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | Deere Harvests a 3Q Beat on Higher Equipment Sales | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2013/08/14/deere-posts-higher-quarterly-profit.html | 2016-03-02 | 0 |
<p>Looks like Sen. John McCain is being endorsed by more than one controversial preacher — the apparent “must-have” of leading presidential hopefuls this election cycle. Meet the Rev. Rod Parsley, whose support McCain sought and won, according to Brave New Films and Mother Jones, which have launched a collaborative effort to expose Parsley’s alarming beliefs about Islam and America’s role on the world stage.</p>
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<p>Jan 17 (Reuters) - Britain's Informa on Wednesday offered to buy events organiser UBM for cash and stock.</p>
<p>UBM shareholders would receive 1.083 Informa shares for each UBM share and 163 pence in cash, the companies said.</p>
<p>Reporting by Arathy S Nair in Bengaluru; editing by Jason Neely</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>LONDON (Reuters) - Takeda Pharmaceutical ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=4502.T" type="external">4502.T</a>) has made a bid for Shire ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SHP.L" type="external">SHP.L</a>) that values the London-listed drugmaker at around $61 billion, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.</p> FILE PHOTO: Takeda Pharmaceutical's signboard is seen on its headquarters building in Tokyo, Japan January 30, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo
<p>The Japanese company's indicative cash-and-stock takeover proposal is worth about 46.50 pounds per share, the sources said.</p>
<p>The moves comes ahead of an April 25 deadline for Takeda to make a firm offer or walk away from the FTSE 100 company. Shares in Shire were up 6.3 percent at 39.90 pounds at 1113 GMT in London.</p>
<p>Takeda confirmed last month it was considering an offer for Shire, which sells treatments for rare diseases and attention deficit disorder.</p> FILE PHOTO: Vitamins made by Shire are displayed at a chemist's in northwest London, Britain, July 11, 2014. REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett/File Photo
<p>A takeover would be transformational for Takeda, which has a market value of about $37.8 billion, making it smaller than its bid target.</p>
<p>Its bid values Shire at approximately 43 billion pounds, or $61 billion, Thomson Reuters data showed.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=4502.T" type="external">Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltd</a> 5095.0 4502.T Tokyo Stock Exchange -3.00 (-0.06%) 4502.T SHP.L
<p>A spokesman for Takeda declined to comment and Shire did not reply to a request for comment.</p>
<p>The bid comes amid a surge in mergers and acquisitions (M&amp;A) in the UK as companies take advantage of cheap debt to pursue dealmaking opportunities.</p>
<p>The value of M&amp;A involving British firms rose by 56.5 percent to $164.3 billion in the first three months of the year, the most since 2007, Thomson Reuters data shows.</p>
<p>Reporting by Greg Roumeliotis and Ben Martin; editing by Jason Neely and Mark Potter</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - Qualcomm Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=QCOM.O" type="external">QCOM.O</a>) has begun cutting jobs as part of its promise to investors to cut annual costs by $1 billion, the chipmaker said on Wednesday.</p> FILE PHOTO: The logo of Qualcomm is seen during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain February 27, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman
<p>"Qualcomm is conducting a reduction of our full-time and temporary workforce," a company spokesperson who declined to be identifies said, without disclosing the exact numbers of job cuts.</p>
<p>Though the company first evaluated non-headcount expense reductions, it concluded that a workforce reduction is needed to support long-term growth and success, the spokesperson said.</p>
<p>Qualcomm said it offered affected employees severance packages. It employed&#160;about&#160;33,800&#160;full-time,&#160;part-time&#160;and&#160;temporary&#160;employees, as of&#160;Sept 24.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=QCOM.O" type="external">Qualcomm Inc</a> 52.835 QCOM.O Nasdaq -2.39 (-4.34%) QCOM.O AVGO.O
<p>Bloomberg, which first reported the layoffs, said the size of the job cuts is large enough that Qualcomm will have to file a WARN notice, or Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, with the state of California.</p>
<p>Qualcomm had in January said it would implement a series of targeted reductions across businesses to save $1 billion in annual costs, as part of its attempt to win over investors support against a hostile bid from rival Broadcom Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AVGO.O" type="external">AVGO.O</a>).</p>
<p>The bid, however, was canceled by the Trump administration on national security grounds.</p>
<p>The chipmaker has been ramping up its operations since then to improve earnings growth.</p>
<p>Reporting by Munsif Vengattil in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Cynthia Osterman</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil futures jumped nearly 3 percent on Wednesday on a decline in U.S. crude inventories and after sources signaled top exporter Saudi Arabia wants to see the crude price closer to $100 a barrel.</p> FILE PHOTO: An oil well is seen near Denver, Colorado February 2, 2015. REUTERS/Rick Wilking
<p>OPEC's new price hawk Saudi Arabia would be happy for crude to rise to $80 or even $100, three industry sources said, a sign Riyadh will seek no changes to a supply-cutting deal even though the agreement's original target is within sight.</p>
<p>Brent crude futures LCOc1 settled at $73.48 a barrel, up $1.90, or 2.7 percent. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures CLc1 gained $1.95, or 2.9 percent, to settle at $68.47 a barrel, their highest since late 2014.</p>
<p>Prices were supported as U.S. oil stockpiles fell across the board last week with gasoline and distillates drawing down more than expected on stronger demand, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.</p>
<p>Crude inventories dropped by 1.1 million barrels as a result of a decline of 1.3 million barrels per day in net crude imports.</p>
<p>"This may be one of the most bullish reports in some time, with the across-the-board declines in inventories," said John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital Management in New York.</p>
<p>"Beyond the headlines, gasoline demand was very strong, virtually summer-like, and crude oil exports are climbed back toward 2 million bpd at 1.75 million."</p>
<p>Buying in anticipation of the report started late Tuesday, said Brian LaRose, a technical analyst with United-ICAP.</p>
<p>The market also found support in expectation that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' production cuts will be sustained. OPEC and 10 rival producers have curbed output by a joint 1.8 million bpd since January 2017 and pledged to do so until the end of this year.</p>
<p>OPEC's ministerial committee tasked with monitoring the group's supply-cutting deal with non-OPEC countries, led by Russia, meets in the Saudi city of Jeddah on Friday.</p>
<p>"Despite an oil price of over $70 per barrel and the fact that the oversupply has been eliminated, a phase-out of the production cuts will not be on the agenda," Commerzbank oil analyst Carsten Fritsch said.</p>
<p>Oil has been supported by the perception among investors that tensions in the Middle East could lead to supply disruptions, including renewed U.S. sanctions against Iran, as well as falling output in crisis-hit Venezuela.</p>
<p>Dutch bank ING said in a note to clients that Brent had risen back above $70 in April "due to geopolitical risks along with some fundamentally bullish developments in the market".</p>
<p>It raised its average 2018 price forecast for Brent to $66.50 from $60.25, and its 2018 WTI forecast to $62.50 from $57.75.</p>
<p>For next year, however, ING expects lower prices due to rising U.S. crude output, which has jumped by a quarter since mid-2016.</p>
<p>(GRAPHIC: Brent, WTI crude futures price curve - <a href="https://reut.rs/2vnKJCe" type="external">reut.rs/2vnKJCe</a>)</p>
<a href="https://reut.rs/2vnKJCe" type="external" />
<p>(GRAPHIC: OPEC members' compliance with crude output cut - <a href="https://reut.rs/2J6lmGZ" type="external">reut.rs/2J6lmGZ</a>)</p>
<a href="https://reut.rs/2J6lmGZ" type="external" />
<p>Additional reporting by Henning Gloystein in SINGAPORE and Amanda Cooper in LONDON; Editing by Marguerita Choy and David Evans</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices hit highs not seen since 2014, but later gave back gains following a swift rally over the last week, built on the ongoing drawdowns in global supply and as Saudi Arabia looks to push prices higher.</p> FILE PHOTO: A pump jack is seen at sunrise near Bakersfield, California October 14, 2014. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/File Photo
<p>OPEC producers told Reuters on Thursday the inventory overhang has largely disappeared, even as production in the United States increases.</p>
<p>Traders said speculators continue to bet on further upside, expecting potential supply disruptions and further drawdowns, driven by strong demand. Investors are eying the $70 level, but said that would likely face resistance, particularly as the speed and magnitude of the recent rally would augur for selling pressure before long.</p>
<p>"I do think we could see $70 pretty quick, but I want to caution that maybe we'll see the market level out a little bit in a few weeks," said Phil Flynn, analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago.</p>
<p>U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures CLc1 were down 15 cents at $68.33 as of 1:27 p.m. EDT (1727 GMT), after earlier hitting $69.56, the highest since Nov. 28, 2014. WTI has gained nearly 8 percent in the last eight days of trading.</p>
<p>More than 700,000 contracts changed hands on CME Group's New York Mercantile Exchange on Thursday, compared with a daily average of about 615,000 contracts.</p>
<p>Brent crude futures LCOc1 were up 96 cents at $74.44. The global benchmark touched $74.74 a barrel, the highest since Nov. 27, 2014 - the day OPEC decided to pump as much as it could to defend market share.</p>
<p>OPEC's Joint Technical Committee, meeting this week in Jeddah, found that inventories in developed nations in March were at just 12 million barrels above the five-year average, according to a source familiar with the matter.</p>
<p>Since the outset of the late 2016 agreement to reduce supply, reached by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and non-members including Russia, the inventory glut has largely been eliminated, OPEC sources said in Saudi Arabia on Thursday.</p>
<p>However, Oman's oil minister, Mohammed bin Hamad Al Rumhi, on Thursday said he still thinks the oil market is oversupplied.</p>
<p>Reuters reported on Wednesday that Saudi Arabia would be happy for crude to reach $80 or even $100 a barrel, viewed as a sign that Riyadh will not seek changes to the supply pact.</p>
<p>In the United States, commercial crude stocks fell close to the five-year average of about 424 million barrels. Gasoline and distillate stocks also fell, and refinery usage has been at highs not seen for this time of year in 13 years, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.</p>
<p>"Product demand was strong, products (inventories) were lower, crude was lower - it was really across the board supportive," said Robert Yawger, director of energy futures at Mizuho.</p>
<p>Also supporting prices is the possibility that the United States might reimpose sanctions on Iran, OPEC's third-largest producer, which could result in further supply reductions from the Middle East.</p>
<p>(GRAPHIC: U.S. crude oil production, storage levels - <a href="https://reut.rs/2J7QJAY" type="external">reut.rs/2J7QJAY</a>)</p>
<a href="https://reut.rs/2J7QJAY" type="external" />
<p>Additional reporting by Shadia Nasralla in London, Koustav Samanta and Henning Gloystein in Singapore, Nina Chestney in London; editing by Marguerita Choy and David Evans</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | Britain's Informa offers to buy events organiser UBM Takeda makes $61 billion bid for drugmaker Shire: sources Qualcomm begins layoffs as part of cost cuts Oil jumps 3 percent on Saudi price target, U.S stockpiles Oil pulls back from gains; OPEC says glut nearly gone | false | https://reuters.com/article/ubm-ma-informa/britains-informa-offers-to-buy-events-organiser-ubm-idUSL3N1PC2OV | 2018-01-17 | 2 |
<p>CHICAGO (Reuters) - Archer Daniels Midland Co’s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ADM.N" type="external">ADM.N</a>) proposed takeover of Bunge Ltd ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BG.N" type="external">BG.N</a>) could signal a change in the company’s strategy on oilseeds, giving the top U.S. grain merchant a much bigger capacity to crush soy just months after ADM’s chief executive said the firm would cut spending on the sector.</p> The world's largest corn mill of global grain company Archer Daniels Midland is pictured in Decatur, Illinois March 16, 2015. REUTERS/Karl Plume
<p>The potential strategic change comes as the world’s biggest agricultural merchants search for new ways to offset four years of bumper harvests that are hurting their ability to make money through the traditional channels of buying, selling and shipping crops.</p>
<p>Consolidation is seen as one remedy, and ADM has proposed a takeover of Bunge, one of the world’s top oilseed processors, a source said on Friday.</p>
<p>ADM and Bunge have declined to comment on the takeover approach.</p>
<p>Both companies crush soybeans to make vegetable oil and livestock feed for customers around the world, including meat producers.</p>
<p>Just three months ago, though, ADM chief Juan Luciano said the company would reduce capital spending on oilseed crushing and increase spending on higher-margin businesses, such as food ingredients, “in support of the growth portion of our strategic plan.”</p>
<p>The company placed its biggest bet on that strategy in 2014 when it acquired natural flavorings company Wild Flavors for about $3 billion.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ADM.N" type="external">Archer Daniels Midland Co</a> 42.74 ADM.N New York Stock Exchange -0.13 (-0.30%) ADM.N BG.N GLEN.L
<p>“A merger would differ from the value-added push that ADM described as its strategy when it bought Wild Flavors,” Credit Suisse analyst Robert Moskow said. “That said, this represents a golden opportunity for ADM to grow its oilseeds division and improve its long-term competitiveness.”</p>
<p>Especially valuable to ADM could be the chance to expand oilseed operations in Brazil, the world’s biggest soy exporter, traders said. Bunge controls 27 percent of the oilseed crush market there, while ADM has 10 percent, according to data from Credit Suisse.</p>
<p>JP Morgan analyst Ann Duignan also said Bunge’s processing capacity outside of the United States would likely be considered “prize assets” for ADM.</p>
<p>ADM and Bunge shares rose 4.4 percent and 5.9 percent, respectively, on Monday.</p>
<p>Bunge had rebuffed an acquisition offer from Glencore Plc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GLEN.L" type="external">GLEN.L</a>) last year, but Heather Jones, analyst for Vertical Group, placed the odds of a Bunge takeover above 50 percent after ADM’s approach.</p>
<p>She said a bigger bet by ADM on oilseeds could pay off as that market grows over time - presenting a simpler path to improved returns than a lengthy strategic overhaul.</p>
<p>“Arguably the most bullish longer-term theme in the agribusiness sector is global vegetable protein demand,” she said.</p>
<p>Reporting by Tom Polansek; Editing by Matthew Lewis</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks stumbled again on Wednesday, as jitters about a U.S.-China trade war and regulatory crackdown on tech firms, such as Facebook ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">FB.O</a>), left investors facing their first quarterly fall in equity markets in two years.</p> Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., March 26, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
<p>The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index opened in the red in the United States and MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe .MIWD00000PUS shed 0.51 percent, all of which was enough to send traders piling back into the safety of bonds.</p>
<p>Safe-haven 10-year U.S. Treasury notes US10YT=RR rose in price to yield 2.75 percent, the lowest yields since early February’s market meltdown, sharply shrinking the closely watched difference between spreads on the 10-year note and two-years at nearly 2.27 percent.</p>
<p>German Bunds, seen as Europe’s most secure asset due to Berlin’s triple-A-rated finances, rallied hard to send 10-year yields DE10YT=TWEB back under 0.5 percent for the first time since early January.</p>
<p>The rout in stocks came after tech woes had given the Nasdaq its worst day since June 2016 on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Losses were extended after China’s state-run Global Times reported that Beijing would soon announce a list of retaliatory tariffs on United States imports.</p>
<p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.DJI" type="external">.DJI</a> rose 33.41 points, or 0.14 percent, to 23,891.12, the S&amp;P 500 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX" type="external">.SPX</a> lost 2.63 points, or 0.10 percent, to 2,609.99 and the Nasdaq Composite <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.IXIC" type="external">.IXIC</a> dropped 54.43 points, or 0.78 percent, to 6,954.37.</p>
<p>The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.FTEU3" type="external">.FTEU3</a> rose 0.20 percent. [.EU] Asia .MIAPJ0000PUS tumbled 1.5 percent overnight, with Japan's Nikkei <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.N225" type="external">.N225</a> ending down 1.3 percent and top Chinese internet stock Tencent ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=0700.HK" type="external">0700.HK</a>) down 4.6 percent.</p>
<p>Since hitting a record on Jan. 26, world stocks have been battered by worries about rising inflation, the pace of U.S. interest rate hikes and the possibility of a global trade war. The 47-country MSCI global index .MIWD00000PUS is down more than 8 percent from its high.</p>
<p>“We are rotating from the old regime of low interest rates and growth stocks like the FAANGs (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google) into a new world where that paradigm is rocked and that creates volatility,” said SEB Investment Management’s global head of asset allocation Hans Peterson.</p> U.S. Dollar banknotes are seen in this photo illustration taken February 12, 2018. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez/Illustration
<p>Amazon.com Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMZN.O" type="external">AMZN.O</a>) fell more than 5 percent after reports that President Donald Trump is looking to target the company by changing its tax treatment.</p>
<p>That came a day after Facebook Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">FB.O</a>) and Twitter Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TWTR.N" type="external">TWTR.N</a>) shares fell on data privacy concerns and Nvidia ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=NVDA.O" type="external">NVDA.O</a>) dropped after the chipmaker temporarily suspended self-driving tests across the globe after an Uber UBER.UL autonomous vehicle killed a woman.</p>
<p>“There is a sense that there will be more regulations on Facebook or FANG and that the cost of compliance will increase,” said Nobuhiko Kuramochi, chief strategist at Mizuho Securities.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">Facebook Inc</a> 154.4802 FB.O Nasdaq +2.26 (+1.48%) FB.O .DJI .SPX .IXIC 0700.HK TRADING BLOWS
<p>The report that Beijing plans to announce retaliatory tariffs against U.S. President Donald Trump’s plans for tariffs on up to $60 billion of Chinese goods was also rekindling worries about a Sino-U.S. trade war.</p>
<p>While the market remains highly vulnerable to news headlines like this, reports of behind-the-scenes talks between Washington and Beijing spurred some optimism.</p>
<p>“It would be in China’s interest to pursue trade rather than taking retaliatory actions. So eventually, they are likely to avert a trade war and strike a deal that will please (U.S. President Donald) Trump and increase trade,” said Hiroshi Watanabe, economist at Sony Financial Holdings.</p>
<p>“The market is still nervous, and there’s a feeling you never know what Trump will do. But excessive wariness is likely to gradually wane,” he added.</p>
<p>In the currency market, the dollar get some respite from its recent sell-off as revised fourth-quarter U.S. economic growth data slowed less than previously estimated and revealed the biggest gain in consumer spending in three years.</p>
<p>The dollar index .DXY rose 0.46 percent, and the Japanese yen weakened 0.81 percent versus the greenback at 106.22 per dollar.</p>
<p>Dollar gains put pressure on commodities. Spot gold XAU= dropped 1.0 percent to $1,331.48 an ounce.</p>
<p>Benchmark Brent oil LCOcv1 was last at $69.08, down 0.55 percent on the day as a report of increasing U.S. crude inventories from industry group American Petroleum Institute (API) surprised many traders.</p>
<p>Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Additional reporting by Marc Jones in London and Hideyuki Sano in Tokyo; Editing by Alison Williams and Nick Zieminski</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - The Nasdaq Composite index was sharply lower on Wednesday, dragged down by losses in Amazon and tech heavyweights such as Apple and Intel.</p> A woman passes by the Nasdaq Market Site in Times Square in New York City, U.S., February 7, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
<p>Amazon fell more than 5 percent after reports that President Donald Trump was looking to target the company by changing its tax treatment.</p>
<p>Apple dropped about 1 percent after Goldman Sachs analyst cut sales estimate for iPhone for March and June quarters, citing weak demand.</p>
<p>Intel was down 3.7 percent and weighed the most on the S&amp;P tech index.</p>
<p>“Tech and discretionary stocks have been strong. Those are two sectors that are up year-to-date and what we’re seeing is profit-taking in the quarter-end,” said Michael O’Rourke, Chief Market Strategist, Jonestrading, Greenwich, Connecticut.</p>
<p>Facebook’s shares rose marginally after days of losses that wiped out more than $100 billion in market value.</p>
<p>The social network said it was giving users more control over their privacy by making data management easier and redesigning the settings menu, following a global outcry over data privacy issues at the company.</p>
<p>At 11:46 a.m. ET (1346 GMT) the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 21.57 points, or 0.09 percent. The S&amp;P 500 was off 1.81 points, or 0.07 percent and the Nasdaq Composite was down 39.67 points, or 0.57 percent.</p>
<p>The main indexes were on track to record their worst month since January 2016, hurt by fears of a trade war between the United States and China as well as rising U.S. interest rates.</p>
<p>Comments from top officials of the two countries had given a sense that they would negotiate over President Donald Trump’s move to impose tariffs on Chinese goods.</p>
<p>However, China’s state-run Global Times reported on Wednesday that the country was expected to soon announce a list of retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports.</p>
<p>Tesla dropped more than 7 percent after the U.S. government said it would investigate a fatal crash and vehicle fire of a Model X in California.</p>
<p>Lululemon Athletica surged more than 11 percent after the Canadian athletic apparel maker posted a surprisingly strong fourth-quarter profit and forecast further growth in the first quarter.</p>
<p>Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 1,472 to 1,316. On the Nasdaq, 1,528 issues fell and 1,272 advanced.</p>
<p>The S&amp;P 500 index showed no new 52-week highs and 7 new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 13 new highs and 92 new lows.</p>
<p>Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - Wall Street closed sharply lower Tuesday, with each of the major U.S. indexes suffering their fourth decline in five sessions, fueled by a selloff in the tech sector.</p>
<p>Tech stocks, among the best performing sectors of the bull market, have been under pressure recently as concerns about government regulation stemming from their strong growth and privacy questions surrounding Facebook ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">FB.O</a>).</p>
<p>“What it really amounts to is a complete lack of knowing what to expect,” said Peter Kenny, senior market strategist at Global Markets Advisory Group, in New York.</p>
<p>“It seems so open-ended, there is a lot of risk here and investors don’t like uncertainty and this is the definition of uncertainty.”</p>
<p>Facebook shares dropped 4.9 percent at $152.22 and is down nearly 15 percent for the month. The Nasdaq Internet index .QNET saw its worst daily percentage drop since June 2016.</p>
<p>Of the 11 major sectors of the S&amp;P 500 only defensive plays such as consumer staples, telecom, real estate and utilities ended the session in positive territory.</p>
<p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.DJI" type="external">.DJI</a> fell 344.89 points, or 1.43 percent, to 23,857.71, the S&amp;P 500 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX" type="external">.SPX</a> lost 45.93 points, or 1.73 percent, to 2,612.62 and the Nasdaq Composite <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.IXIC" type="external">.IXIC</a> dropped 211.74 points, or 2.93 percent, to 7,008.81.</p>
<p>Since hitting a record on Jan. 26, equities have been battered by worries about rising inflation, the pace of interest rate hikes by the U.S. Federal Reserve and the possibility of a global trade war. The S&amp;P 500 is down 9.1 percent from its high.</p>
<p>White House trade adviser Peter Navarro confirmed on Monday top Trump administration officials have asked China to cut tariffs on imported cars, allow foreign majority ownership of financial services firms and buy more U.S.-made semiconductors in negotiations to avoid imposing tariffs on a host of Chinese goods.</p>
<p>A person familiar with the discussions said these were among the asks from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer as they pursue talks with Beijing.</p>
<p>Markets roared back on Monday with their best day since August 2015 on hopes that the world’s two largest economies were willing to renegotiate tariffs and trade imbalances.</p>
<p>But those gains proved temporary as early advances were overcome by the tech sector weakness.</p>
<p>The drop in Facebook continues to put pressure on the tech sector .SPLRCT, which is down 5.2 percent for March and on track for its worst month since April 2016.</p> Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., March 26, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
<p>Privacy concerns for the social media giant were highlighted further on Tuesday when a whistleblower said Canadian company AggregateIQ had developed software to target Republican voters in the 2016 U.S. election.</p>
<p>Alphabet ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GOOGL.O" type="external">GOOGL.O</a>) shares fell 4.5 percent after an appeals courts resurrected a multibillion dollar copyright case brought by Oracle Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ORCL.N" type="external">ORCL.N</a>) against the company.</p>
<p>Nvidia ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=NVDA.O" type="external">NVDA.O</a>) was another weak spot, falling 7.8 percent after the chipmaker temporarily suspended self-driving tests across the globe.</p>
<p>Tesla ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TSLA.O" type="external">TSLA.O</a>) shares were off 8.2 percent after the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board opened a field investigation of last week’s fatal Tesla crash and vehicle fire.</p>
<p>Twitter ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TWTR.N" type="external">TWTR.N</a>) fell 12 percent after short-seller Citron Research called the stock “most vulnerable” to privacy regulations.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">Facebook Inc</a> 154.42 FB.O Nasdaq +2.20 (+1.45%) FB.O .DJI .SPX .IXIC GOOGL.O
<p>Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 2.12-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 3.36-to-1 ratio favored decliners.</p>
<p>Volume on U.S. exchanges was 7.57 billion shares, compared to the 7.37 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Susan Thomas</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | ADM approach to Bunge marks potential U-turn on oilseed strategy Tech problems keep shares shaky, dollar gets GDP boost Nasdaq books losses as Amazon, Apple drag Wall Street closes sharply lower, tech leads late selloff | false | https://reuters.com/article/us-bunge-m-a-archer-daniels/adm-approach-to-bunge-marks-potential-u-turn-on-oilseed-strategy-idUSKBN1FC000 | 2018-01-23 | 2 |
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<p>OCCUPATION: Attorney/hearing officer</p>
<p>RESIDENCE: Albuquerque</p>
<p>PARTY: Democratic</p>
<p>RELEVANT EXPERIENCE: Since being licensed in 1996, the majority of my practice is in the criminal area and has included the former prosecution and now the routine defense of various felony and misdemeanor charges in state and federal courts. Separately, I have represented Bernalillo County since 1998 in various areas including civil appeals, condemnation, foreclosure, quiet title, tax refund lawsuits, general civil litigation, and purchasing/procurement matters. Finally, my quasi-judicial experience includes acting as an administrative hearing officer deciding gaming (casino) type matters formerly for the Pueblo of Isleta (2002-2012) and continuing with the New Mexico Gaming Control Board (2004-present).</p>
<p>EDUCATION: University of New Mexico, juris doctorate, cum laude and honors in clinical law, 1996; New Mexico State University, Bachelor of Accountancy and Bachelor of Business Administration in economics 1992.</p>
<p>CAMPAIGN WEBSITE: <a href="http://davidchaconforjudge.com" type="external">davidchaconforjudge.com</a></p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>CANDIDATE STATEMENT: Last year, I was again encouraged, challenged and reminded by the example of my father, before he passed away, of giving back to my community through public service. It has and will be my role to make Albuquerque a better and safer place for my children to live. I endeavor, as Chief Justice John Roberts once noted, to confront every case with an open mind, to fully and fairly analyze the legal arguments that are presented, to decide every case based on the record, according to the rule of law, without fear or favor, to the best of my ability.</p>
<p>1. Have you or your business, if you are a business owner, ever been the subject of any state or federal tax liens? No.</p>
<p>2. Have you ever been involved in a personal or business bankruptcy proceeding? No.</p>
<p>3. Have you ever been arrested for, charged with, or convicted of drunken driving, any misdemeanor or any felony in New Mexico or any other state? If so, explain. I was stopped for speeding in 1997 but the charge was dismissed. Also, in 2008, an officer was unable to read my license plate and this traffic misdemeanor was also subsequently dismissed.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | 2nd Judicial District, Division 3 (D) — M. David Chacon | false | https://abqjournal.com/457591/2nd-judicial-district-division-3-d-m-david-chacon.html | 2 |
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<p>Yes, I would think they would want to hush this up and make it go away quietly. Hastert's predilections, while not exactly an open secret in D.C., were rumored for years. There's a character clearly based on Hastert in Sibel Edmund's "The Lone Gladio", and let's just say her version of the character's activities in the roman à clef novel are sickening. I don't think the details will ever come out because some government involvement seems likely. But at least he's going to jail, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/10/15/dennis-hastert-ex-house-speaker-is-expected-to-enter-guilty-plea/" type="external">which is better than nothing:</a></p>
<p>Former House speaker J. Dennis Hastert has agreed to a tentative deal with prosecutors to resolve charges that he violated banking laws to cover up hush money payments related to long-buried misdeeds, his lawyer told a federal judge Thursday.</p>
<p>The deal could mean that details of those past misdeeds will never be aired in open court.</p>
<p>Several people familiar with the case have said that the payoffs, to total $3.5 million, were to cover up allegations of sexual misconduct dating to Hastert's days as a teacher and wrestling coach in Illinois.</p>
<p>[...] Those two counts each carry maximum penalties of up to five years in prison and $250,000 in fines. Under a plea deal, Hastert can expect a much more lenient sentence.</p> | In Plea Agreement, Former Speaker Dennis Hastert Will Go To Jail | true | http://crooksandliars.com/2015/10/plea-agreement-dennis-hastert-will-go-jail | 2015-10-15 | 4 |
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<p>Because it’s the dog days of summer, here are some recommended dog reads. They’re not necessarily light lit – well, “What Pete Ate from A to Z” is for kids – so much as tributes to our canine pals by some very talented writers.</p>
<p>These fiction and nonfiction titles are for young readers, for fans of chick lit as well as of Literature, for those who want to experience the classics. What they have in common is the love and appreciation of dogs.</p>
<p>“Old Dogs are the Best Dogs,” by Gene Weingarten. “If you’ve known a favorite old dog, you’ll find him or her on these pages,” says the book description. Pulitzer Prize winner Weingarten, a humor columnist for the Washington Post, hosts this collection, and his own piece about his dog Harry is one of the most moving, most eloquent recollections of what it is to love and lose a dog you’ll ever read.</p>
<p>“What Pete Ate from A to Z,” by Maira Kalman. Pete could be a star on dog-shaming.com, where people post pictures of their misbehaving pets, most of whom eat inappropriately. Pete works his way through the alphabet, starting with an accordion. It’s been named a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year and a Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Book of the Year. It’s for kids 3 to 5.</p>
<p>“The Boss Dog: A Story of Provence,” by M.F.K. Fisher. Essayist and renowned food writer Fisher bases this story on her visit to Aix-en-Provence with her young daughters. Boss Dog, in this telling, is a mongrel who takes on the task of showing the village and its people to the American family, with a remarkable predilection for finding cafes and restaurants. With Boss Dog in the lead, the family gets to know southern France and its charms.</p>
<p>“The Last Dog on Earth,” by Daniel Ehrenhaft. From a review by the School Library Journal: “In this boy-and-his-dog tale with a twist, Logan Moore, 14, doesn’t measure up to the expectations of his mom and stepdad, and is friendless at school. His one interest, inventing electronic gadgets, only gives vent to mischievous impulses. The teen lacks direction and self-esteem until he adopts Jack, a wild and mangy mutt.” And then the adventure begins. For ages 8 and up.</p>
<p>“Anyone But You,” by Jennifer Crusie. “Romance” is the genre in general, but don’t pass best-selling Crusie over for that: She’s smart and funny, as are her heroines. The novel is about a mutt that plays Cupid for a 40-year-old woman and a 30-year-old man. OK, it’s summer. And the dog is a character in more ways than one.</p>
<p>“James Herriot’s Dog Stories: Warm and Wonderful Stories About the Animals Herriot Loves Best.” James Herriot, of course, is the British veterinarian whose books about his practice, such as “All Creatures Great and Small,” portray people and animals with humor, compassion and respect. This is a compilation of his stories about dogs.</p>
<p>“Old Yeller,” by Fred Gipson. “We called him Old Yeller. The name had a sort of double meaning. One part meant that his short hair was a dingy yellow, a color that we called ‘yeller’ in those days. The other meant that when he opened his head, the sound he let out came closer to being a yell than a bark.” So begins one of the most beloved classics ever, which most people know because Disney made a movie of it. It was published in 1956, and the next year won the prestigious Newbery Medal. It’s a must-read for dog lovers ages 10 and up.</p>
<p>“Lassie Come-Home,” by Eric Knight. Another classic, this one from 1938 as a magazine story and as a novel in 1940. It has been reimagined in movies and television, as so many stories about heroic dog are. Lassie, a collie, repeatedly tries to reunite with Joe, her human companion, but every success leads to frustration on the part of her new owners. She’s then sent very far away. … For ages 8 and up.</p>
<p>“Flush: A Biography,” by Virginia Woolf. Yes, that Virginia Woolf, writing a novel about a spaniel. Not just any spaniel, though. Flush was the pet of poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who was confined to her rooms due to illness, possibly tuberculosis. A friend gave her a dog, an affectionate companion. Flush was one of her sources of happiness; the other was Robert Browning, whom she later married. That story is a love story for the ages.</p> | Classic dog reads for the dog days | false | https://abqjournal.com/220181/classic-dog-reads-for-the-dog-days.html | 2013-07-12 | 2 |
<p>Gerald Herbert/AP</p>
<p />
<p>On Thursday, the New York Times carried a front-page story reporting new research that could have a profound impact on the nation’s abortion debate: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/07/health/premature-babies-22-weeks-viability-study.html?_r=0" type="external">a study</a> concluding that a small number of premature infants born at 22 weeks can survive with intensive treatment.</p>
<p>The study, which appears in the New England Journal of Medicine, followed 5,000 infants born between 22 and 27 weeks of gestation. Seventy-eight of those infants were born at 22 weeks and given treatment to increase their chances of survival; 18 of them survived. Of the 18, which the researchers followed up on as toddlers, 6 experienced severe impairments, from blindness to debilitating cerebral palsy, and 7 were relatively healthy.</p>
<p>The news has huge implications for the the medical community, where there has been debate about how much treatment to provide to babies born at this stage of gestation. But it could also have sweeping consequences for the fight against abortion rights—giving abortion opponents new support for a popular abortion ban, while possibly undermining their quest to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that established a right to abortion.</p>
<p>In the immediate future, the news is most likely to impact <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/pulse/gop-leader-promises-vote-redux-on-20-week-abortion-ban-may-7-protest-remain" type="external">the coming congressional debate</a> over House Republicans’ proposed 20-week abortion ban, which many see as a direct challenge to Roe. In that ruling, the justices forbid the states from banning abortion before a fetus was viable outside the womb. A 20-week ban, mainstream medical groups have argued, bars abortion before viability.</p>
<p>But abortion foes may use this new study to argue that 20 weeks is indeed within the range of viability, and a ban on procedures after 20 weeks is legal. (When abortion opponents talk about 20-week bans, technically, they mean 22-week bans. <a href="#correction" type="external">Click here to read a full explanation</a>.)</p>
<p>Viability, however, is not a bright red line. And this new research is less of a breakthrough and more of a rigorous confirmation of what smaller, less systematic studies have already observed. One such study <a href="http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/126/3/443.full.pdf%C2%AC%C2%AC%C2%AC%C2%AC%C2%AC%C2%AC%C2%AC%C2%AC%C2%AC%C2%AC%C2%AC%C2%AC%C2%AC%C2%AC%C2%AC%C2%AC%C2%AC%C2%AC___" type="external">found</a> that 85 percent of infants born at 22 weeks (or 20 weeks, in political parlance) die within 12 hours. Another study <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19491184" type="external">found</a> that 98 percent of 22-week-old infants are born with major health issues such as brain hemorrhaging, and 93 percent die within a year. (The University of California-San Francisco Medical Center, by contrast, <a href="http://www.ansirh.org/_documents/research/late-abortion/Viability.FactSheet.8-2010.pdf" type="external">states</a> that no infants born earlier than 23 weeks have survived.) Some major medical groups have been debating whether to move average viability to 23 weeks from 24 weeks. But there are no signs that the study will cause medical organizations to set 22 weeks as the new average viability.</p>
<p>Abortion foes have always had dual motives for pushing 20-week abortion bans. (About 2 percent of all abortions would be affected by a 20-week abortion ban. About <a href="http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html" type="external">13,000 women</a> sought these abortions in 2011, the most recent year for which there is reliable data.) In public, they insist that these bans are only preventing abortions of viable infants. The majority of the medical community wouldn’t agree, but there is broad public support for the idea of banning abortion on viable pregnancies.</p>
<p>At the same time, as I <a href="" type="internal">reported</a> earlier this year, 20-week bans are designed to bring a challenge to Roe v. Wade before the Supreme Court. In Roe, the justices ruled that states could not set a specific date for viability. (That determination was left up to doctors.) The legal wing of the abortion rights movement is fighting some 20-week bans, which have been <a href="http://www.guttmacher.org/statecenter/spibs/spib_PLTA.pdf" type="external">passed in 10 states</a>, on the grounds that they violate Roe. If one of those cases were to make it to the Supreme Court, it could be an opportunity for the justices to overturn Roe‘s viability standard altogether.</p>
<p>Here’s Samuel Lee, a former lobbyist for Missouri Citizens for Life, explaining how a measure he wrote, requiring doctors to perform viability tests before providing abortions to women who appeared to be at least 20 weeks pregnant, was designed to overturn Roe:</p>
<p>The 20 weeks gestational age was chosen to push the envelope on when the state’s interest in protecting the life of the unborn child could take place. It was designed as an opportunity to attack the Roe trimester framework, while still giving the Court some wriggle room (the statute required a determination of viability, not a prohibition of abortion after viability). It was an opportunity for the Court to discuss an interest by the state in protecting unborn human life earlier than the viability line of demarcation permitted…It was chosen because it was earlier than the earliest limits of viability at the time, but not so early that the unborn child could never be viable.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court upheld Lee’s provision in 1989. Later, Justice Thurgood Marshall’s papers revealed that the conservative majority in Webster had come within one vote of using the 20-week provision to strike down Roe entirely.</p>
<p>If the average age of viability were to inch backward toward 22 weeks—with this study being the first step—then 20-week abortion bans would cease to pose a broad constitutional challenge to Roe. At the time of its ruling, after all, the Supreme Court majority noted that average viability began at 28 weeks (the start of the third trimester), but it was possible that fetuses would someday be viable as early at 24 weeks.</p>
<p>In other words, the medical advances behind this new research don’t automatically undermine Roe—especially when it comes to something as nebulous as viability. But they may fuel the drive for a national 20-week abortion ban.</p>
<p>*Abortion opponents typically count the weeks of pregnancy from the date of fertilization, while the medical community uses the more rigorous method of counting the weeks of pregnancy from the start of a woman’s last menstrual period. In medical terms, then, the House Republicans’ 20-week abortion ban is actually a 22-week abortion ban. Unless we’re talking about the bans, this article uses the medical method of dating a pregnancy.</p>
<p /> | This Study Will Add Fuel to the Abortion Wars | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2015/05/new-study-premature-infants-abortion-20-week-ban/ | 2015-05-07 | 4 |
<p><a href="" type="internal" />Over the weekend, two sources indicated to me that the Chuck Reed/Carl DeMaio pension reform initiative would be pulled, re-written, and re-submitted to the attorney general for a new title and summary. If it is to be re-filed, it is worth considering for which ballot it would be re-submitted.</p>
<p>Whatever a new initiative might declare would be attacked by public employee unions with criticisms real or imagined. But would the placement of the initiative on the 2018 ballot give the measure a higher probability of success?</p>
<p>The 2016 presidential election will bring out a greater turnout of voters, many occasional voters who don’t pay as much attention to public affairs. The profile for the 2016 electorate would contain a larger percentage turnout of Democratic voters who are more closely connected to public employees whose union leaders will rail against any pension reform initiative.</p>
<p>Considering which ballot may be more friendly to a particular measure is common practice in the California initiative world.</p>
<p>Tax increase advocates discussing a plethora of possible tax measures for the 2016 ballot consider the profile of the presidential election voter more friendly to their cause. The Proposition 30 tax extension measure has already been filed, more tax measures may follow.</p>
<p>Another factor proponents of the pension reform effort might consider is who will write the title and summary.</p>
<p>Twice Attorney General Kamala Harris has authored titles and summaries that, according to Reed and DeMaio, were biased in a way that would damage the initiative’s chances of passing. The attorney general emphasized that the pension reform would hurt those who serve in jobs that the voters clearly respect such as police officers, firefighters and teachers. Harris’ summary of the current measure states that it eliminates constitutional protections from public workers that the proponents called misleading.</p>
<p>If the initiative is re-filed soon, Harris will have a third shot at writing the title and summary. However, if the initiative is filed for the 2018 ballot it is possible Harris will no longer be the attorney general.</p>
<p>Kamala Harris is the leading candidate to take the United States Senate seat currently held by the retiring Barbara Boxer. Should Harris win next year, Governor Jerry Brown will appoint an attorney general to fill out her term.</p>
<p>That means a new attorney general will be writing ballot titles and summaries for the 2018 ballot. There is no guarantee that Brown would appoint anyone less sympathetic to public employee unions than Harris has been. However, if Brown appoints a caretaker to the post, someone to fill the term but with no ambition to seek that office or another, then the new attorney general would not be as susceptible to union pressure in an upcoming election.</p>
<p>A roll of the dice, perhaps, for pension reform proponents, but something to consider if they want to take another bite at getting a title and summary they consider fair.</p> | DeMaio/Reed pension reform initiative may be pushed back to 2018 ballot | false | https://calwatchdog.com/2015/09/22/demaioreed-pension-reform-initiative-may-be-pushed-back-to-2018-ballot/ | 2018-09-20 | 3 |
<p>A Milwaukee woman has been convicted of cutting a full-term fetus from its mother's womb in an attempt to steal the baby.</p>
<p>Annette Morales-Rodriguez, 34, was found guilty of two counts of first-degree intentional homicide in the October 2011 deaths of Maritza Ramirez-Cruz and fetus, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/world/woman-convicted-in-foetal-abduction-death-20120921-26a5t.html" type="external">according to the Associated Press</a>.</p>
<p>Morales-Rodriguez reportedly gave a videotaped interview to police in which she explained that she was desperate to give her boyfriend a son but that she couldn't "stay pregnant."</p>
<p><a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/flynn-fetal-abduction-resulted-in-death-of-baby-birth-mother-131393038.html" type="external">The Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel quoted</a> a next-door neighbor, Keila Perez, as saying Morales-Rodriguez had been "talking about pregnancy for months," and buying a car seat, a changing table and baby clothes. She had even shown a sonogram of a boy that she said was in breech position.</p>
<p>While faking pregnancy, she visited a Hispanic community center and there met Ramirez-Cruz, a mother of three and 40 weeks pregnant.</p>
<p>She reportedly lured&#160;Ramirez-Cruz to her home.</p>
<p><a href="http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/09/20/annette-morales-rodriguez-convicted-for-mother-fetus-deaths/#ixzz2734EvQQi" type="external">According to Fox News:</a></p>
<p>Morales-Rodriguez recounted bashing Ramirez-Cruz in the head with a baseball bat, choking her, putting duct tape over her eyes and nose, and wrapping a plastic bag around her head. Then, Morales-Rodriguez used a small blade to cut Ramirez-Cruz and pull out the stillborn baby boy. She called 911 and claimed she gave birth to a child who wasn't breathing.</p>
<p>An examination found Morales-Rodriguez had not given birth and&#160;Ramirez-Cruz's body was later found in the basement.</p>
<p>She died of blood loss and asphyxiation from the involuntary Caesarean section, and her fetus as a result of her death.</p>
<p>Morales-Rodriguez's defense attorneys said Morales-Rodriguez didn't intend for anyone to die.</p>
<p>She faces a mandatory life sentence when she is sentenced on December 14, although a judge could allow for the possibility of parole.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://web1.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/111011/wisconsin-milwaukee-murder-fetus-womb" type="external">Wisconsin woman cut full-term fetus from mother's womb, Wisconsin attorney claims &#160;</a> &#160;</p> | Milwaukee woman convicted of cutting fetus from pregnant woman, killing both | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-09-20/milwaukee-woman-convicted-cutting-fetus-pregnant-woman-killing-both | 2012-09-20 | 3 |
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<p>Making those types of recommendations to police is intended to be at least 50 percent of the board's duties, according to city documents.</p>
<p>The recommendation states that no officer shall have to deal with adverse conduct as a result of his or her exercising lawful duties, supporting a citizen complaint against police or doing an investigation.</p>
<p>The policy also says that police shouldn't retaliate against anyone in the community.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Susanne Brown, a board member who sits on a policy review subcommittee, said a settlement between the city and the U.S. Department of Justice called for the board to work with the Albuquerque Police Department to develop such a policy, which is why it was the first recommendation the board took action on.</p>
<p>The settlement said that Albuquerque police and the police oversight board will make recommendations that lead to a policy that calls for discipline of officers, possibly firing them, if they retaliate against other officers or community members.</p>
<p>Brown said the Albuquerque Police Department doesn't have a policy that specifically prevents retaliation by officers.</p>
<p>Edward Harness, the executive director of the Civilian Police Oversight Agency, said the rules against retaliation eventually will either be put in place or rejected by the federal judge overseeing police reform, which is ongoing as a result of a DOJ investigation into the police department.</p>
<p>Brown said some board members meet weekly with police to discuss policies. She said the board may take action on rules governing use-of-force, internal investigations and lapel cameras in the future.</p>
<p>Thursday's meeting was the first time the board met since Harness took over as executive director of the CPOA, which investigates police shootings and complaints against officers.</p>
<p>The CPOA reports to the oversight board, which had been meeting monthly since March. But the board has taken action on few items, other than creating rules and hiring Harness and an attorney, as it has been getting trained in police matters.</p>
<p>The board has not been reviewing citizen complaints or taking action on them in public while getting training. Board member Moira Amado-McCoy said complaints may be discussed at next month's meeting.</p>
<p>She said board members have been looking at some older complaints.</p>
<p>Leonard Waites, the board chairman, said the board spent about eight months of training and discussing rules to get themselves in order.</p>
<p>"I hope the community sees the results of our hard work," he said.</p>
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<p /> | Oversight board proposes anti-retaliation policy for APD | false | https://abqjournal.com/676394/apd-antiretaliation-policy-proposed.html | 2 |
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — New Mexico State officials confirmed Thursday that head football coach DeWayne Walker is leaving the school to accept an assistant coaching position with the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars.</p>
<p>Walker, 52, was 10-40 over his four seasons at NMSU, including a 1-11 2012. He leaves the school with National Signing Day just around the corner, on Feb. 6.</p>
<p>Look for more on the story here at ABQjournal.com and in Friday’s Journal.</p>
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<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Walker Leaves Aggies for NFL Job | false | https://abqjournal.com/238734/walker-leaves-aggies-for-nfl-job.html | 2 |
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<p>Terry Collingsworth and his colleagues at the International Labor Rights Fund made history in 1996 by filing the first lawsuit against a U.S. multinational for its alleged complicity in human rights abuses committed outside the United States. This spring, a state judge in Los Angeles finally began hearing arguments on the case, with Collingsworth as the lead lawyer for the plaintiffs. If he prevails, human rights activists could be given a remarkably powerful new weapon.</p>
<p>The case contends that Unocal Corp., the massive California-based oil conglomerate, should be held accountable for human rights violations that took place during the construction of its gas pipeline in Burma. Representing 14 Burmese villagers forced by the Burmese army into working on the pipeline, Collingsworth and his colleagues filed suit under the Alien Tort Claims Act, a little-known 18th-century provision originally drafted to protect against piracy. Just getting the matter to trial was a sort legal landmark. The case marks the first time the alien tort law has been used to sue a corporation – in the past, it has been applied only to individuals. Now, if a jury finds that Unocal is responsible for the use of slave labor, the company could be ordered to pay millions in damages and may even be forced to hand over its profits from the pipeline.</p>
<p>On January 23, Unocal prevailed in the initial stage of the argument, convincing Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Victoria Chaney that the parent company must be considered legally separate from the Bermuda-based subsidiary that actually contracted for the pipeline. Still, Collingsworth is confident he will prevail. If he does, human rights activists in this country could be handed a powerful new weapon, one he calls “a step toward a world in which the multinationals can no longer get away with murder by simply moving operations to places where they can get anything they want.”</p>
<p>Mother Jones spoke to Collingsworth during a break in the trial.</p>
<p>MotherJones.com: You’re suing a U.S. oil company in U.S. court on behalf of Burmese villagers for violations committed in Burma. What’s the background?</p>
<p>Terry Collingsworth: Back in 1992, Unocal signed a contract with (the French energy company) Total and the Burmese government for a gas pipeline, with full knowledge of Myanmar’s record of using forced labor. The Burmese military, by contract, was in charge of security for the construction.</p>
<p>The Burmese military started rounding up villagers and forced them to work at gunpoint. They were forced to do tasks like clearing paths in the forest, building bridge embankments, and served as porters for the military. Some people were tortured and executed. Federal courts have found, without exception, that Unocal knowingly benefited from this.</p>
<p>MJ.com: Your case depends on proving that Unocal had knowledge of the situation in Burma. What are you saying they knew?</p>
<p>TC: In 1992, before they signed the pipeline contract, they hired a company, the Control Risks Group, to assess the viability of doing business in Burma. The report issued by Control Risks said that forced labor was rampant in Burma, and that only a very high profit could justify taking the risk of investing in the country. So we think Unocal made a cost-benefit analysis and decided to go ahead.</p>
<p>For years, it was well known that forced labor was endemic in Burma. (The State Department, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the United Nations, and the International Labor Organization all reported this.) Some groups — namely the Burma Forum and the Federation of Trade Unions of Burma — warned specifically about this project. They met with the president of Unocal, John Imle, and they tried to get resolutions passed at shareholders’ meetings.</p>
<p>Unocal also consulted John Haseman, a former military attaché in the U.S. embassy in Rangoon. He sent a report to Imle that said forced labor – and even executions – were in fact taking place on the project, and that Unocal could appear to be a collaborator. Unocal simply put that file away.</p>
<p>MJ.com: The judge has ruled in favor of Unocal in Phase I of the trial. Is that a significant setback for your case?</p>
<p>TC: It’s true that Unocal won Phase I of our trial, which was focused exclusively on whether Unocal Corporation, the parent company, can claim to have a separate legal existence from the subsidiaries it created to hold its interest in the Burma project that used the slave labor of my clients to construct a gas pipeline in Burma. If we had won, then at Phase II, the liability phase of the trial, we would have been able to establish Unocal’s liability simply by showing that ANY Unocal entity was responsible for what happened in Burma. Now, however, we have another step in our proof – we are going to have to prove that Unocal Corporation directed and controlled the activities of its subsidiary, which then participated in the decisions leading to the use of slave labor on the project. We have the evidence to do this, and we will be in front of a jury this time. So, we remain confident of our ultimate victory.</p>
<p>MJ.com: Some say that the way you’re using ATCA betrays the intent of the law. How do you respond to that?</p>
<p>TC: Well, look at actual statute; ATCA applies to “any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” My clients are aliens. Check. There is an actionable tort – torture, execution, and slavery. Check. And it violates the law of nations. Check. The case meets the statute, so we can proceed. It’s as simple as that.</p>
<p>Every appellate court has upheld this. There are two exceptions, which represent extreme views. In a 1984, when he was a member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Robert Bork wrote a concurring opinion in the case of Tel-Oren v. Libyan Arab Republic that challenged the use of the ATCA in human rights suits. The other judges didn’t agree with him, and that’s why he wrote a separate concurring opinion. The same goes for Justice Raymond Randolph of the DC Circuit, who wrote a separate concurring opinion in a recent case in which he argued that the First Congress never meant to create a private right of action in U.S. courts for violations of international law.</p>
<p>MJ.com: What other ATCA cases do you have pending, and what progress in being made?</p>
<p>TC: We have filed a case against ExxonMobil for atrocities in Indonesia, Coca Cola for abuses in Colombia, and both Shell and Chevron for abuses in Nigeria, among others. I’m optimistic about progress because we have good lower court rulings that uphold our right to sue. Progress is stalled on the ExxonMobil case, which is frozen right now because a judge is sitting on a motion filed by the State Department. The administration argues that the case interferes with the war on terrorism by harming relations with Indonesia.</p>
<p>MJ.com: How do you respond to the suggestion that such ATCA cases could discourage investment in developing countries?</p>
<p>TC: That argument is even more ridiculous than the war on terrorism argument. Some argue that governments might not welcome American investors because that might subject them to scrutiny under a future lawsuit. In the future, the thinking goes, Burma would reject foreign investment from a company like Unocal because they don’t want to risk being scrutinized in a case like ours. That’s laughable to argue that Burma, which is desperate for investment, would say, “No thanks, we don’t want your money.” We’ve got expert testimony in the Exxon case to debunk that thinking.</p>
<p>Some, like the State Department, argue American companies are at a disadvantage because they will have to comply with international human rights law, while other companies won’t. The State Department has argued that it would be better to have our upstanding, American values-exporting companies there rather than, say, a Chinese company. But we’re talking about extreme crimes like execution and torture. I showed them a picture of a client who had his forearm hacked off by a machete, with burns all over his body. How much worse can it get? What are we worried about? That the Chinese will come in and chop both forearms off?</p>
<p>MJ.com: Clearly the Bush administration doesn’t like the way you’re seeking to use the provision. What actions are they taking?</p>
<p>TC: There are three things they can do, and they’re doing all of them. First, they can get the State Department to say that it interferes with foreign policy. They’ve done that in the ExxonMobil case, and the judge is still trying to decide whether the case should go forward. We argue that, in our system of government, the executive shouldn’t get to decide which cases go forward, courts do.</p>
<p>They’ve also lobbied Congress to repeal the alien tort claims act. They’re not making much headway on that. Even a conservative Republican doesn’t want to be known as someone who bailed out oil companies by repealing a statute passed by the first continental congress back in 1789.</p>
<p>The third thing they can do – and this is the most worrying for us – is file briefs in ongoing cases arguing that the statute should not apply to the given case. They’ve filed an amicus brief in our case. They’re trying to use the normally considerable prestige of the Justice Department and the Solicitor General’s office to try to convince courts that the statute is wrongly interpreted.</p>
<p>MJ.com: We can make educated guesses, but in your view, why is the Bush administration going after this so fiercely?</p>
<p>TC: Well, I would cite the New York Times editorial from a few months back, when the Bush administration intervened in the case against ExxonMobil for abuses in Aceh, Indonesia – headlined “Oily Diplomacy.” If I say it, it sounds crazy. But even the New York Times – which I consider to be fairly conservative — drew the conclusion that the only interests being advanced by their intervention were those of the oil companies, many of which have been sued under ATCA. The Bush administration argued the case would hinder the war on terrorism. They’re just looking to bail out their friends. These guys didn’t care about the ATCA until the oil companies started getting sued.</p>
<p>MJ.com: Some say it’s arrogant for America’s legal system to rule on wrongs committed elsewhere. What’s your response?</p>
<p>TC: If there is a functioning legal system in a country, then there’s no reason to file the case here. As an advocate of human and labor rights, I would love for every country in the world to have a functioning system so they could handle their own problems. But my clients could not bring this case in Burma. They’d be executed for even trying.</p>
<p>MJ.com: How did you put this particular case together?</p>
<p>TC: In the course of their work interviewing refugees along the Thai border, the Federation Trade Unions of Burma (FTUB) – a group outlawed by the Burmese regime – found that many of the interviewees said people were forced to work on some international project that had them clearing paths for construction. Piecing together the information, they figured out that it was the Unocal/Total pipeline project. A leader of the FTUB called me up. I later made trips to the border area to talk to people and verify their claims. My 14 clients all worked on the Unocal project.</p>
<p>Maung Maung, the head of the FTUB, gathered the information we had, and arranged a meeting with Dennis Codon, Unocal’s Chief Legal Officer. Maung suggested that an independent inspector be allowed into the pipeline corridor. Fearing that an inspector’s observations would be reported all over the news, Maung reasoned, the regime might have stopped the abuse. But after Maung made the suggestion, Codon never returned his calls.</p>
<p>MJ.com: Why did it take people so long to figure out that they could use the law against corporations?</p>
<p>TC: We had so many planets that had to align. We had to have plaintiffs in a repressive regime who had been injured by an agreement that involved a human rights violation between a corporation and a government. Fortunately, there just aren’t many situations like that. Sometimes we would hear of a situation, but there would be no plaintiffs because they were afraid they would be murdered for coming forward. Sometimes it was hard to prove there was an agreement between a corporation and a government. And human rights groups like us just don’t have the resources to go out looking for problems. In this case, we had Burmese activists approach us. It just took time to come across a situation that met all of the strenuous criteria.</p>
<p>MJ.com: You’ve said that this case represents just one part of the issue of corporate responsibility? Where does this fit?</p>
<p>TC: In the human and labor rights community, suing companies is our nuclear weapon – our last resort. We try to talk to companies and negotiate a better way. In the process of debating the alien tort claims statute, I’ve met with and publicly debated the president of the U.S. Council on International Business (USIB). I’ve met with the National Foreign Trade Council, a group that lobbies for multinationals. I’ve said if they don’t like this litigation stuff, let’s talk about alternatives. We’ve suggested mechanisms such as a social clause in the WTO statute that gives puts labor and human rights on the same level as intellectual property, capital investment, and other rights that are protected for companies. Thomas Niles, USIB’s president, said “that’ll never happen in my lifetime.” They’re not serious about alternatives. They want to have it both ways. So we’re going to keep suing them and keep winning. And then we’ll say, “hey, how do you want to do this?”</p>
<p /> | Courting Responsibility | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2004/02/courting-responsibility/ | 2004-02-10 | 4 |
<p>From the LA Times:</p>
<p>After a series of poor debate performances in the early months of his presidential campaign, Texas Gov.&#160; <a href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/government/rick-perry-PEHST001561.topic" type="external">Rick Perry</a>&#160;is backing off the upcoming&#160; <a href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/parties-movements/republican-party-ORGOV0000004.topic" type="external">GOP</a>&#160;debate schedule, committing to just one of the next three events between now and Nov. 15.</p>
<p>Perry has struggled in the five debates he has attended since he joined the race in mid-August. At one, he fumbled an attempt to cast rival&#160; <a href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/government/mitt-romney-PEPLT007376.topic" type="external">Mitt Romney</a>&#160;as a flip-flopper. At another, bickering between Romney and Perry drew criticism that the candidates were acting juvenile.</p>
<p>Perry hinted at his frustration with the debates earlier this week when he told Fox News that participating in them was a “mistake.”</p>
<p>“These debates are set up for nothing more than to tear down the candidates,” Perry said. “…All they’re interested in is stirring it up between the candidates.”</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p><a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/la-pn-perry-debates-20111027,0,6288993.story?track=rss" type="external">(Read Full Article)</a></p> | Rick Perry may skip some debates | false | http://capoliticalreview.com/trending/rick-perry-may-skip-some-debates/ | 2011-10-29 | 1 |
<p>Once the Socialist Francois Mitterrand assumed power, the catchword "transformation" swept France. The term is rather apt, for since Mitterrand's victory there has been a wave of reforms. The new Socialist cabinet has been tackling several important tasks at once. It has nationalized a number of the nation's largest companies, including virtually all banks and savings and loan associations. (These nationalizations have met stiff resistance from the conservative right and the Constitutional Council, which has forced the government to modify its aims somewhat. According to the right, the cabinet has passed legislation to give a share in the management of industrial enterprises to workers and their trade unions. The 39-hour work week has replaced the 40-hour week, and a 35-hour week is planned for 1985; and a law imposing heavy taxes on large fortunes and aiming at a more equitable income tax structure has been adopted by Parliament.</p>
<p /> | The Changing Face of France | true | https://dissentmagazine.org/article/the-changing-face-of-france | 2018-10-05 | 4 |
<p />
<p>Daimler may make batteries and Mercedes-Benz electric cars in China as part of a drive to manufacture more products locally and to try to boost sales, according to board member Hubertus Troska.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Sales of the German company's luxury cars in China have grown 28 percent so far this year after Mercedes spruced up its designs to give its cars a more sporty and upmarket feel, gaining traction with drivers in the world's largest car market.</p>
<p>"I am confident that Mercedes in China will show a decent performance next year," Troska, Daimler's board member responsible for Greater China, told reporters.</p>
<p>Sales in 2016 have been better than expected, reaching 429,000 cars, he said, adding demand for locally manufactured cars had helped boost registrations.</p>
<p>"Sales of the C-Class in the past year were phenomenal and we cannot build enough GLCs," he said, adding the new E-Class would likely add momentum into 2017.</p>
<p>To keep sales going, Mercedes is considering local production of electric cars and batteries.</p>
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<p>Building a battery factory in China is "among the options in the room," Troska said, adding no decision had been made.</p>
<p>Troska declined to say whether Mercedes had set a date to start production of its EQ electric car in China.</p>
<p>Mercedes aims to have more than 10 all-electric vehicles in its portfolio by 2025 and has pledged to produce its EQ model by the end of the decade.</p>
<p>The EQ is based on a C-Class platform which is already being made in China and local authorities are encouraging production in the country.</p>
<p>"The strategic plan by the authorities is to push battery electric vehicles. We continue to invest in both battery electric cars and hybrid," Troska said, adding the lack of battery charging infrastructure meant hybrids would be an alternative in the interim.</p>
<p>Efforts to bring down pollution have led Chinese authorities to come up with a new system of incentives to encourage sales of zero emission cars.</p>
<p>Chinese authorities are considering a system of trading credits for low polluting cars much like one in California, Troska said.</p>
<p>This month, China introduced a 10 percent tax on luxury cars costing more than 1.3 million yuan ($189,000).</p>
<p>But it is not expected to significantly dent sales, as customers were already prepared to pay high prices for some top-end Mercedes models such as the Maybach S-Class, with around 500 of the model selling each month, Troska said.</p>
<p>Overall, Chinese customers still prefer sedans to sport-utility vehicles (SUVs), although there has been a shift towards the smaller C-Class rather than the E-Class. Demand for SUVs continues to grow, Troska added.</p>
<p>Beijing Benz Automotive Co. (BBAC) has been producing Mercedes passenger cars since 2005. In 2015, more than two thirds of Mercedes vehicles in China were produced locally.</p>
<p>($1 = 6.8763 Chinese yuan renminbi)</p>
<p>(Reporting by Edward Taylor and Ilona Wissenbach; Editing by Mark Potter)</p> | Daimler may make electric cars in China to boost sales | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2016/12/06/daimler-may-make-electric-cars-in-china-to-boost-sales.html | 2016-12-06 | 0 |
<p><a href="" type="internal" /> <a href="" type="internal">I’m a Hillary Clinton supporter</a>, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like Bernie Sanders. Believe it or not, it’s entirely possible to like&#160;both&#160;Clinton and Sanders. I am not ashamed to admit that my main goal is&#160; <a href="" type="internal">to make sure Republicans don’t win in 2016</a>.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, there are far too many irrational people out there who seem to believe you can only like one or the other. And make no mistake about it, if Republicans win in 2016 –&#160;those&#160;“all or nothing” liberals are going to be the ones to blame.</p>
<p>That being said, one of the things I like about Sanders is <a href="" type="internal">he’s no-nonsense</a>&#160;– though that can also become a negative from time to time. That’s part of the reason why I have my doubts about how effective he can ultimately be as president, and why I believe he’s much better suited for the Senate.</p>
<p>Well, <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/politics/bernie-blasts-reporters-hair-question-126934490446.html" type="external">during an interview with New York Times Magazine</a>, the Democratic presidential nominee absolutely blasted a reporter for asking him a rather pointless question about Hillary Clinton’s hair:</p>
<p>Cox: Do you think it’s fair that Hillary’s hair gets a lot more scrutiny than yours does?</p>
<p>Sanders: Hillary’s hair gets more scrutiny than my hair?</p>
<p>Cox: Yeah.</p>
<p>Sanders: Is that what you’re asking?</p>
<p>Cox: Yeah.</p>
<p>Sanders: O.K., Ana, I don’t mean to be rude here. I am running for president of the United States on serious issues, O.K.? Do you have serious questions?</p>
<p>Cox: I can defend that as a serious question. There is a gendered reason…</p>
<p>Sanders: When the media worries about what Hillary’s hair looks like or what my hair looks like, that’s a real problem. We have millions of people who are struggling to keep their heads above water, who want to know what candidates can do to improve their lives, and the media will very often spend more time worrying about hair than the fact that we’re the only major country on earth that doesn’t guarantee health care to all people.</p>
<p>And he’s absolutely right. It’s sad to see what constitutes “newsworthy” nowadays in the media. Though, to be fair, that’s not completely the media’s fault. Generally they give their viewers what they want. Based on ratings, website traffic and article clicks – ridiculous questions such as the one Cox asked obviously get a fairly decent amount of attention.</p>
<p>It’s like I’ve said before, as a society we can complain about the decline of our news (complaints that are absolutely valid), but we really <a href="" type="internal">only have ourselves to blame</a>. Cable news is, for better or worse, a business that’s mostly based off advertising revenue. Obviously that revenue is directly related to what we, the “viewers,” tell these various media entities we want to see via television ratings and the types of articles we click on to read most often.</p>
<p>If you doubt me, look no further than The Huffington Post or Buzzfeed&#160;and their seemingly endless streams of stories that are 100 percent “clickbait” and absolutely pointless. Sure, these sites put out&#160;quality content as well, but when you churn out thousands of stories (many of which are rehosted from other news outlets) there’s bound to be decent and worthwhile stuff hidden throughout the sea of trash.</p>
<p>While the NYT Magazine reporter tried to claim the question was valid based on sexism toward Clinton (which can be said&#160;about female politicians in general), the question in and of itself was pointless to ask someone like Sanders. If you want to ask these types of questions, confront those showing sexism toward Clinton. Otherwise, when you mention it during an interview with an individual like Sanders, who has nothing to do with the sexist attacks many female politicians endure about their looks, all you’re really doing is trying to get some sort of soundbite hoping to – say it with me – generate revenue and article clicks.</p>
<p>But I would like to commend Bernie Sanders for not taking the bait and for calling out this reporter’s really idiotic question.</p>
<p />
<p><a href="" type="internal">Exposing Facts About Fanatical 'Pro-Bernie Sanders' Blogger H.A. Goodman</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Let Me Address One of the Biggest Bernie Sanders Conspiracies I Encounter From His Supporters</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Bernie Sanders is great, but some of his most vocal supporters are becoming a problem</a></p>
<p>0 Facebook comments</p> | Bernie Sanders Blasts Reporter for Asking Him Ridiculous Question About Hillary Clinton | true | http://forwardprogressives.com/bernie-sanders-blasts-reporter-asking-ridiculous-question-hillary-clinton/ | 2015-08-18 | 4 |
<p />
<p>Ultimate Fighting Championship’s pay-per-view event at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas will occur on Saturday night as scheduled despite a deadly shooting that left 59 people dead at nearby Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, the organization said.</p>
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<p>“Our focus right now is on supporting the community and those affected by Sunday evening's events. UFC 216 on Saturday, October 7 at T-Mobile Arena will proceed as scheduled until further notice,” UFC said in a statement.</p>
<p>Additionally, UFC President Dana White said the organization will donate $1 million toward the families of the shooting’s victims, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. UFC 216’s main event features an interim lightweight title match between Tony Ferguson and Kevin Lee.</p>
<p>MGM Resorts International owns both T-Mobile Arena and Mandalay Bay. The entertainment company’s shares sank in trading Monday in the hours after the incident.</p>
<p>Authorities say a gunman, identified as Mesquite, Nevada resident Stephen Paddock, opened fire Sunday night on attendees of an outdoor country music festival from a 32nd floor window, killing 59 and injuring more than 500 others.</p>
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<p>Paddock died of a self-inflicted gunshot at the scene. Police have yet to publicly reveal a potential motive for the shooting, which is the deadliest such incident in U.S. history.</p> | UFC 216 in Las Vegas to occur as scheduled despite shooting | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/10/03/ufc-216-in-las-vegas-to-occur-as-scheduled-despite-shooting.html | 2017-10-03 | 0 |
<p>Ozone, which had been considered a minor player in global climate change, is actually a major factor in the dramatic warming of the Arctic zone, <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/environment_arctic_dc;_ylt=Aqn9l9Jlc4FqGjck_b3aLr4DW7oF;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl" type="external">according to NASA</a>. Worse, <a href="http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article351135.ece" type="external">scientists are reporting</a> that climate change is “irreversible,” as Arctic sea ice has failed to re-form for the second year in a row.</p>
<p />
<p>:</p>
<p>Ozone pollution in the Northern Hemisphere, churned out by factories and vehicles that burn fossil fuels, is a major factor in the dramatic warming of the Arctic zone, NASA climate scientists reported on Tuesday.</p>
<p />
<p>This finding is surprising, since ozone has been considered a minor player in the study of global climate change, according to Drew Shindell, a research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City.</p>
<p><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/environment_arctic_dc;_ylt=Aqn9l9Jlc4FqGjck_b3aLr4DW7oF;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl" type="external">Full story</a></p> | Ozone Pollution Is More Harmful Than Realized | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/ozone-pollution-is-more-harmful-than-realized/ | 2006-03-15 | 4 |
<p>Before US President Barack Obama flew to Saudi Arabia on Friday, he spoke to CBS News in Rome about his concerns regarding Russia.</p>
<p>Obama said, "I think it's well known and well acknowledged that you've seen a range of troops massing along that border under the guise of military exercises," referring to the presence of Russian troops near the border it shares with Ukraine.</p>
<p>"It may simply be an effort to intimidate Ukraine," Obama said. "It may be that they've got additional plans."</p>
<p>He urged Russia to de-escalate the situation by moving its troops away from the border with Ukraine and talking directly with Ukraine's interim government.</p>
<p>Although Russia's defense minister reassured his US counterpart that Russia has no plans to move further into Ukraine, fears of a Russian invasion persist.</p>
<p>"The force that is at the Ukrainian border now to the east is very, very sizable and very, very ready," <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/stopping-putin-military-option-238783" type="external">said NATO's Supreme Allied Commander</a>, Gen. Philip Breedlove.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost:&#160; <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/140327/donetsk-ukraine-next-headache" type="external">Ukraine’s next headache</a></p>
<p>US officials <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/28/world/europe/ukraine-crisis/" type="external">told CNN</a> on Thursday that Russia may have up to 40,000 troops near the border it shares with Ukraine. A spokesman for Ukraine's&#160;Council of National Security and Defense <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/28/world/europe/ukraine-crisis/" type="external">gave CNN</a> a much higher estimate of 80,000 troops, based on government figures.</p>
<p>"You would have thought that after a couple of decades that there'd be an awareness on the part of any Russian leader that the path forward is not to revert back to the kinds of practices that you know, were so prevalent during the Cold War," Obama said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Interfax news agency quoted a senior Russian security official as saying to Putin during a Kremlin ceremony, "There has been a sharp increase in external threats to the state."</p>
<p>"The lawful desire of the peoples of Crimea and eastern Ukrainian regions is causing hysteria in the United States and its allies," Alexander Malevany, the deputy head of Russia's Federal Security Service, was quoted as saying.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost:&#160; <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/140328/location-video-donetsk-ukraine-russia-protest-killing" type="external">The stabbing of a pro-Ukraine supporter in Donetsk has forced the movement off the streets</a></p>
<p>GlobalPost Senior Correspondent Dan Peleschuk was in a part of eastern Ukraine that's thought to be especially vulnerable to any potential Russian advance: Donetsk.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/140327/donetsk-ukraine-next-headache" type="external">He wrote</a>:</p>
<p>"Despite recent fears that Russia would move into eastern Ukraine after annexing Crimea, the atmosphere in Donetsk — a bastion of industry and the center of ousted pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych’s support base — is not exactly insurrectionary."</p>
<p>"After last weekend’s mass rally against the new Kyiv authorities, whom many here believe seized power in a 'fascist' coup, a post-revolutionary calm has settled over the city’s wide, Soviet-era boulevards and tree-lined streets."</p>
<p>While it seems unlikely that a Russian invasion would provoke a <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/stopping-putin-military-option-238783" type="external">military response</a> from NATO or the United States, all eyes remain on Ukraine's border with Russia.</p>
<p>Watch an excerpt from CBS' interview with Obama, which will air in its entirety later on Friday:</p>
<p />
<p>Reuters contributed to this report.</p> | Obama tells Russia to pull back its troops from the Ukraine border (VIDEO) | false | https://pri.org/stories/2014-03-28/obama-tells-russia-pull-back-its-troops-ukraine-border-video | 2014-03-28 | 3 |
<p>By Bob Allen</p>
<p>Baptist-owned Hobby Lobby faces fines up to $1.3 million a day for refusing to obey a law that takes effect Jan. 1 requiring employee health care plans to provide insurance coverage for all FDA-approved contraceptives, including methods the business owners believe induce abortion.</p>
<p>The Oklahoma City-based retailer lost a legal battle Dec. 20 when the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals <a href="http://www.becketfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/HL10CD.pdf" type="external">overruled</a> its objections that portions of the Affordable Care Act – also known as Obamacare – violate the religious freedom of employers opposed to “abortion-inducing contraceptive drugs and devices.”</p>
<p>Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/27/us-usa-healthcare-hobbylobby-idUSBRE8BQ00A20121227" type="external">refused</a> to block enforcement of the coverage mandate, saying that if they fail to win their case in lower courts, then the Greens can petition to high court to hear it.</p>
<p>Kyle Duncan, general counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represents Hobby Lobby in the case, <a href="http://www.becketfund.org/statement-regarding-sotomayor-opinion/" type="external">said</a> his clients will continue to provide health insurance to all qualified employees, but, “To remain true to their faith, it is not their intention, as a company, to pay for abortion-inducing drugs.”</p>
<p>Founded in 1970 by David Green, a member of <a href="http://www.councilroad.org/" type="external">Council Road Baptist Church</a> in Bethany, Okla., Hobby Lobby now has <a href="http://www.hobbylobby.com/stores/store_locations_search.cfm" type="external">525 stores</a> across the nation. In addition to its arts-and-crafts business, the firm also runs <a href="http://www.mardel.com/about/" type="external">Mardel</a>, a Christian bookstore chain with 35 stores located in the central region of the United States.</p>
<p>Rick Thompson, pastor of the <a href="http://sbc.net/churchsearch/church.asp?ID=3175%2D73008" type="external">4,800-member</a> Council Road Baptist Church, said in a <a href="http://roadwetravel.blogspot.com/2012/12/hobby-lobby-and-america-we-are-becoming.html" type="external">blog</a> Dec. 29 that what the government is doing to the Green family is “disgusting, frustrating and egregious.”</p>
<p>“Hobby Lobby is not some impersonal corporate conglomerate,” Thompson said. “It is a family owned business. And as a good friend and pastor to many in this family, I know them up close and personal. These are not corporate tycoons. These are not people who fly corporate jets and flaunt their wealth. They are by all appearances an average American family with traditional American values. They are about the least materialistic family you would ever meet. They give most of their money away, pay their taxes, love their family, serve their church. They are patriotic, humble and outstanding role models and servants to their community. They quietly support a multitude of charitable causes around the world.”</p>
<p>Courts have ruled that as a secular corporation Hobby Lobby is not entitled to free exercise of religion protection under the First Amendment. Thompson said that means the government “doesn’t care about your sense of religious freedom if you happen to be a successful business owner.”</p>
<p>Green said in an earlier statement: “Our family is now being forced to choose between following the laws of the land that we love or maintaining the religious beliefs that have made our business successful and supported our family and thousands of our employees and their families. We simply cannot abandon our religious beliefs to comply with this mandate.”</p>
<p>The Hobby Lobby website says, “The foundation of our business has been, and will continue to be strong values, and honoring the Lord in a manner consistent with Biblical principles.” Hobby Lobby stories are <a href="http://www.hobbylobby.com/our_company/our_company.cfm" type="external">closed</a> on Sunday and give a 10 percent <a href="http://www.hobbylobby.com/our_company/considerations.cfm" type="external">discount</a> to churches, schools and national charitable organizations that use an organizational check or credit card.</p>
<p>In addition, Hobby Lobby “partners with organizations working to share the Good News of Jesus Christ to all the world,” the website continues. Ministry <a href="http://www.hobbylobby.com/our_company/ministry.cfm" type="external">partners</a> include <a href="http://www.wycliffe.org/" type="external">Wycliffe Bible Translators</a> and <a href="http://www.oru.edu/" type="external">Oral Roberts University</a>.</p>
<p>The Hobby Lobby case is one of 42 lawsuits <a href="http://www.becketfund.org/hhsinformationcentral/" type="external">filed</a> by more than 110 plaintiffs challenging the contraception mandate. Some, like complaints <a href="culture/politics/item/7875-texas-baptists-schools-challenge-obamacare" type="external">filed</a> by Baptist-affiliated Louisiana College, East Texas Baptist University and Houston Baptist University, contend that religious organizations like schools and hospitals that hire people outside the faith and serve a larger constituency than just church members should be entitled to the same conscience clause that exempts houses of worship from providing coverage that runs contrary to their faith.</p> | Hobby Lobby braces for fines | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/hobby-lobby-braces-for-fines-2/ | 3 |
|
<p>As the sun beats down in another sweltering summer afternoon, a handful of fishing optimists cast lines off the north Skyway fishing pier. With the tide ripping out into the Gulf of Mexico, baits are drifted into the 20- to 25-foot deep water.</p>
<p>Near the end of the pier, Kevin Chiem is using a sabiki rig to catch greenbacks for bait. Chiem, 30, is a Skyway pier regular. He travels from Tampa at least once a week to see what’s biting in some of the most active water a Tampa Bay fishing pier has to offer.</p>
<p>On this day, with the tide going out for another two hours, Chiem is fishing for grouper using live greenbacks on a 130-pound test leader.</p>
<p>“You have to be patient,” Chiem said. “You can catch fish out here, grouper, snapper, mackerel. People don’t think you can catch grouper out here but you can. You just have to know what you’re doing and be patient.”</p>
<p>For those without boats, or those who like the stability of land, piers are one of the best ways to spend a day (or night) wetting a line. And the Skyway is perhaps the best place to start.</p>
<p>The original bridge was destroyed when the freighter Summit Venture collided with a column of the bridge during a storm on May 9, 1980. In 1992, the center spans of the old bridge were demolished and the remaining sections on the Pinellas and Manatee county sides were converted into piers. The south Skyway pier is the longest fishing pier in the world.</p>
<p>Debris from the old bridge was put in the water to form a reef. Because it was a bridge, both piers sit high above the water. It makes for spectacular views not only of the deep blue water, but of the new Skyway bridge just to the east.</p>
<p>“I think this is one of the best places to go,” Chiem said. “I’m not going to give away any secrets, but you can catch fish here.”</p>
<p>The Skyway is not the only place for boat-less souls to land a fish. There is good wade fishing leading up to the bridge, as well as the areas around the Courtney Campbell Causeway and the Gandy Bridge. Fort De Soto Park has good wade fishing, as well as two piers. The Redington Long Pier off Redington Beach has been a go-to spot for pier fishermen for over 50 years.</p>
<p>And Pinellas County doesn’t have a monopoly on piers. In south Tampa, Picnic Island and Ballast Point fishing piers can be hot spots. The Ballast Point pier reaches far out into Tampa Bay. With a picturesque view of the downtown Tampa skyline, it has plenty of room for anglers.</p>
<p>“It’s really relaxing to come out here and fish,” said Jamie Messina, 42, of Tampa. “It’s nice coming out here at night when the lights are on and you have the view of the city. You can catch jacks and angel fish. I’ve even seen some small hammerhead (sharks) caught here.”</p>
<p>On a recent weekday morning, Messina was fishing with 7-year-old son Jamie Jr. and 14-year-old son Thomas. He said he tries to get to the pier two to three times per week.</p>
<p>“It’s best to get here in the morning or in the evening,” Messina said. “It’s too hot at mid-day. But it’s a good alternative to the Skyway. And it’s free.”</p>
<p>In cases where a pier is free to fish, a saltwater fishing license is required. At piers where there are fees, like the Skyway Pier, no fishing license is needed. For exemptions, visit myfwc.com.</p>
<p>&amp;#x2666;&amp;#x2009;Fort De Soto Gulf Pier (Fort De Soto Park, St. Petersburg)</p>
<p>Hours: 7 a.m.-11 p.m., year round</p>
<p>Cost: $5 fee to enter park</p>
<p>About: A T-shaped pier that juts out into the gulf with a view of Egmont Key. Depending on the season, anglers can land mackerel, snapper, pompano, snook and redfish. There is a bait shop with snacks and tackle at the base of the pier.</p>
<p>&amp;#x2666;&amp;#x2009;Fort De Soto Bay Pier (Fort De Soto Park, St. Petersburg)</p>
<p>Hours: 7 a.m.-11 p.m., year round</p>
<p>Cost: $5 fee to enter park</p>
<p>About: This pier is smaller than the Gulf Pier, but can still produce fish. There are several fishing spots at the end of the pier. It is especially good when the mackerel are running in the spring and fall. There is also a bait shop with tackle.</p>
<p>&amp;#x2666;&amp;#x2009;Ballast Point Park Pier (5300 Interbay Blvd., Tampa)</p>
<p>Hours: Pier open 24 hours per day; park from dawn to dusk</p>
<p>Cost: Free</p>
<p>About: The pier juts straight out into Tampa Bay, with areas to cut bait and anchor a pole. It is rocky and shallow at the base of the pier, but gets considerably deeper at the end. The Taste of Boston restaurant - as well as a bait shop - is located at the foot of the pier.</p>
<p>&amp;#x2666;&amp;#x2009;Picnic Island Park Pier (7404 Picnic Island Blvd.)</p>
<p>Hours: 7:30 a.m.-dark</p>
<p>Cost: Free</p>
<p>About: Not as long as Ballast Point, it is nonetheless a good spot for bay fishing. There is no bait shop attached, so be sure to bring everything you need.</p>
<p>&amp;#x2666;&amp;#x2009;Skyway Fishing Pier (4905 34th St. South, Old Skyway Bridge)</p>
<p>Hours: 24 hours per day, year round</p>
<p>Cost: 4 per adult. $2 per child 6-12 years old. Children 5 and under free.</p>
<p>About: There is a north fishing pier and a south pier. Admission is good for both piers for 24 hours. Both piers have bait and tackle shops with live and frozen baits. Water is deep and the piers are high above the water, so heavy tackle is recommended.</p>
<p>&amp;#x2666;&amp;#x2009;Redington Long Pier (17490 Gulf Blvd., Redington Shores)</p>
<p>Hours: Summer: 7 a.m.-midnight; open until 2 a.m. on Saturdays. Winter: 8 a.m.-10 p.m.; open until midnight on Saturdays.</p>
<p>Cost: 20 for VIP fishing, $5 for non-fishing.</p>
<p>About: The pier is 1,200 feet, which is why it’s referred to as a Long Pier. It originally opened in 1962 and was renovated in 2007. The best fishing is at the end of the pier, which is why it costs more. Those spots are coveted, so they are often filled early. Plenty of fish to be caught. It is the highest-priced pier, so plan on staying a while to get your money’s worth.</p>
<p>&amp;#x2666;&amp;#x2009;Merry Pier (801 Pass-a-Grille Way)</p>
<p>Hours: May-August: Sunday-Friday, 7 a.m.-midnight; Saturday, 7 a.m.-2 a.m. September-April: Sunday-Friday, 8 a.m.-10 p.m.; Saturday, 8 a.m.-midnight.</p>
<p>Cost: Free</p>
<p>About: While the pier itself does not jut out very far, there is a lot of space to fish along the sea wall. Pull up a lawn chair, throw out a live bait and wait for some action. Parking can be a little expensive. Meters are 50 cents for 15 minutes, which can add up fast. Fishermen share space on the pier with docked boats, so there isn’t much room to roam.</p>
<p>&amp;#x2666;&amp;#x2009;Pier 60 (1 Causeway Blvd, Clearwater Beach)</p>
<p>Hours: March-November: 24 hours a day, 7 days per week. December-February: Sunday-Thursday, 6 a.m.-9:30 p.m.; Friday-Saturday, 24 hours. Closed on Christmas.</p>
<p>Cost: 5.25 for children 5-15. Monthly and yearly passes available.</p>
<p>About: Right in the center of Clearwater Beach, Pier 60 juts out beyond the usual throng of beach-goers. Fishing can be active, especially at night or in the early morning. Possible to catch snapper, tarpon, mackerel, king fish, trout, snook and redfish.</p>
<p>&amp;#x2666;&amp;#x2009;Anclote Gulf Park Pier (2305 Baillies Bluff Road, Holiday)</p>
<p>Hours: Park is open from dawn to dusk; fishing pier is always open.</p>
<p>Cost: $2 parking fee</p>
<p>About: The pier was renovated three years ago. It is 500 feet, so it can fill up quickly, especially in the winter months. Has a nice view of the Gulf and holds fish like trout, snapper, snook and redfish.</p>
<p>&amp;#x2666; Port Richey Waterfront Park (8119 Old Post Rd., Port Richey)</p>
<p>Hours: 24 hours per day, year round</p>
<p>Cost: Free</p>
<p>About: The pier is 200 feet and has a 50-foot “T” at the end. It is on the Pithlachascotee River and Millers Bayou. There are restrooms but no bait or tackle shop.</p>
<p>&amp;#x2666;&amp;#x2009;Weedon Island Pier (End of Weedon Island Dr. NE, St. Petersburg)</p>
<p>Hours: Daily, 7 a.m.-7 p.m. The cultural center is closed Sunday-Wednesday.</p>
<p>Fee: Free</p>
<p>About: It’s not a very big pier, so at times it may be crowded. The tide whips in and out of pass, so it would be wise to check a tide chart before fishing. Depending on the season, there are snook, trout and redfish to be caught, especially near the mangroves.</p>
<p>As the sun beats down in another sweltering summer afternoon, a handful of fishing optimists cast lines off the north Skyway fishing pier. With the tide ripping out into the Gulf of Mexico, baits are drifted into the 20- to 25-foot deep water.</p>
<p>Near the end of the pier, Kevin Chiem is using a sabiki rig to catch greenbacks for bait. Chiem, 30, is a Skyway pier regular. He travels from Tampa at least once a week to see what’s biting in some of the most active water a Tampa Bay fishing pier has to offer.</p>
<p>On this day, with the tide going out for another two hours, Chiem is fishing for grouper using live greenbacks on a 130-pound test leader.</p>
<p>“You have to be patient,” Chiem said. “You can catch fish out here, grouper, snapper, mackerel. People don’t think you can catch grouper out here but you can. You just have to know what you’re doing and be patient.”</p>
<p>For those without boats, or those who like the stability of land, piers are one of the best ways to spend a day (or night) wetting a line. And the Skyway is perhaps the best place to start.</p>
<p>The original bridge was destroyed when the freighter Summit Venture collided with a column of the bridge during a storm on May 9, 1980. In 1992, the center spans of the old bridge were demolished and the remaining sections on the Pinellas and Manatee county sides were converted into piers. The south Skyway pier is the longest fishing pier in the world.</p>
<p>Debris from the old bridge was put in the water to form a reef. Because it was a bridge, both piers sit high above the water. It makes for spectacular views not only of the deep blue water, but of the new Skyway bridge just to the east.</p>
<p>“I think this is one of the best places to go,” Chiem said. “I’m not going to give away any secrets, but you can catch fish here.”</p>
<p>The Skyway is not the only place for boat-less souls to land a fish. There is good wade fishing leading up to the bridge, as well as the areas around the Courtney Campbell Causeway and the Gandy Bridge. Fort De Soto Park has good wade fishing, as well as two piers. The Redington Long Pier off Redington Beach has been a go-to spot for pier fishermen for over 50 years.</p>
<p>And Pinellas County doesn’t have a monopoly on piers. In south Tampa, Picnic Island and Ballast Point fishing piers can be hot spots. The Ballast Point pier reaches far out into Tampa Bay. With a picturesque view of the downtown Tampa skyline, it has plenty of room for anglers.</p>
<p>“It’s really relaxing to come out here and fish,” said Jamie Messina, 42, of Tampa. “It’s nice coming out here at night when the lights are on and you have the view of the city. You can catch jacks and angel fish. I’ve even seen some small hammerhead (sharks) caught here.”</p>
<p>On a recent weekday morning, Messina was fishing with 7-year-old son Jamie Jr. and 14-year-old son Thomas. He said he tries to get to the pier two to three times per week.</p>
<p>“It’s best to get here in the morning or in the evening,” Messina said. “It’s too hot at mid-day. But it’s a good alternative to the Skyway. And it’s free.”</p>
<p>In cases where a pier is free to fish, a saltwater fishing license is required. At piers where there are fees, like the Skyway Pier, no fishing license is needed. For exemptions, visit myfwc.com.</p>
<p>&amp;#x2666;&amp;#x2009;Fort De Soto Gulf Pier (Fort De Soto Park, St. Petersburg)</p>
<p>Hours: 7 a.m.-11 p.m., year round</p>
<p>Cost: $5 fee to enter park</p>
<p>About: A T-shaped pier that juts out into the gulf with a view of Egmont Key. Depending on the season, anglers can land mackerel, snapper, pompano, snook and redfish. There is a bait shop with snacks and tackle at the base of the pier.</p>
<p>&amp;#x2666;&amp;#x2009;Fort De Soto Bay Pier (Fort De Soto Park, St. Petersburg)</p>
<p>Hours: 7 a.m.-11 p.m., year round</p>
<p>Cost: $5 fee to enter park</p>
<p>About: This pier is smaller than the Gulf Pier, but can still produce fish. There are several fishing spots at the end of the pier. It is especially good when the mackerel are running in the spring and fall. There is also a bait shop with tackle.</p>
<p>&amp;#x2666;&amp;#x2009;Ballast Point Park Pier (5300 Interbay Blvd., Tampa)</p>
<p>Hours: Pier open 24 hours per day; park from dawn to dusk</p>
<p>Cost: Free</p>
<p>About: The pier juts straight out into Tampa Bay, with areas to cut bait and anchor a pole. It is rocky and shallow at the base of the pier, but gets considerably deeper at the end. The Taste of Boston restaurant - as well as a bait shop - is located at the foot of the pier.</p>
<p>&amp;#x2666;&amp;#x2009;Picnic Island Park Pier (7404 Picnic Island Blvd.)</p>
<p>Hours: 7:30 a.m.-dark</p>
<p>Cost: Free</p>
<p>About: Not as long as Ballast Point, it is nonetheless a good spot for bay fishing. There is no bait shop attached, so be sure to bring everything you need.</p>
<p>&amp;#x2666;&amp;#x2009;Skyway Fishing Pier (4905 34th St. South, Old Skyway Bridge)</p>
<p>Hours: 24 hours per day, year round</p>
<p>Cost: 4 per adult. $2 per child 6-12 years old. Children 5 and under free.</p>
<p>About: There is a north fishing pier and a south pier. Admission is good for both piers for 24 hours. Both piers have bait and tackle shops with live and frozen baits. Water is deep and the piers are high above the water, so heavy tackle is recommended.</p>
<p>&amp;#x2666;&amp;#x2009;Redington Long Pier (17490 Gulf Blvd., Redington Shores)</p>
<p>Hours: Summer: 7 a.m.-midnight; open until 2 a.m. on Saturdays. Winter: 8 a.m.-10 p.m.; open until midnight on Saturdays.</p>
<p>Cost: 20 for VIP fishing, $5 for non-fishing.</p>
<p>About: The pier is 1,200 feet, which is why it’s referred to as a Long Pier. It originally opened in 1962 and was renovated in 2007. The best fishing is at the end of the pier, which is why it costs more. Those spots are coveted, so they are often filled early. Plenty of fish to be caught. It is the highest-priced pier, so plan on staying a while to get your money’s worth.</p>
<p>&amp;#x2666;&amp;#x2009;Merry Pier (801 Pass-a-Grille Way)</p>
<p>Hours: May-August: Sunday-Friday, 7 a.m.-midnight; Saturday, 7 a.m.-2 a.m. September-April: Sunday-Friday, 8 a.m.-10 p.m.; Saturday, 8 a.m.-midnight.</p>
<p>Cost: Free</p>
<p>About: While the pier itself does not jut out very far, there is a lot of space to fish along the sea wall. Pull up a lawn chair, throw out a live bait and wait for some action. Parking can be a little expensive. Meters are 50 cents for 15 minutes, which can add up fast. Fishermen share space on the pier with docked boats, so there isn’t much room to roam.</p>
<p>&amp;#x2666;&amp;#x2009;Pier 60 (1 Causeway Blvd, Clearwater Beach)</p>
<p>Hours: March-November: 24 hours a day, 7 days per week. December-February: Sunday-Thursday, 6 a.m.-9:30 p.m.; Friday-Saturday, 24 hours. Closed on Christmas.</p>
<p>Cost: 5.25 for children 5-15. Monthly and yearly passes available.</p>
<p>About: Right in the center of Clearwater Beach, Pier 60 juts out beyond the usual throng of beach-goers. Fishing can be active, especially at night or in the early morning. Possible to catch snapper, tarpon, mackerel, king fish, trout, snook and redfish.</p>
<p>&amp;#x2666;&amp;#x2009;Anclote Gulf Park Pier (2305 Baillies Bluff Road, Holiday)</p>
<p>Hours: Park is open from dawn to dusk; fishing pier is always open.</p>
<p>Cost: $2 parking fee</p>
<p>About: The pier was renovated three years ago. It is 500 feet, so it can fill up quickly, especially in the winter months. Has a nice view of the Gulf and holds fish like trout, snapper, snook and redfish.</p>
<p>&amp;#x2666; Port Richey Waterfront Park (8119 Old Post Rd., Port Richey)</p>
<p>Hours: 24 hours per day, year round</p>
<p>Cost: Free</p>
<p>About: The pier is 200 feet and has a 50-foot “T” at the end. It is on the Pithlachascotee River and Millers Bayou. There are restrooms but no bait or tackle shop.</p>
<p>&amp;#x2666;&amp;#x2009;Weedon Island Pier (End of Weedon Island Dr. NE, St. Petersburg)</p>
<p>Hours: Daily, 7 a.m.-7 p.m. The cultural center is closed Sunday-Wednesday.</p>
<p>Fee: Free</p>
<p>About: It’s not a very big pier, so at times it may be crowded. The tide whips in and out of pass, so it would be wise to check a tide chart before fishing. Depending on the season, there are snook, trout and redfish to be caught, especially near the mangroves.</p> | For the boatless, check out these (mostly free) fishing piers | false | https://apnews.com/3a0b5f2c3efc4d50841007e94d7483d2 | 2016-08-08 | 2 |
<p />
<p>On the way to elevating mood, antidepressants have a very depressing side effect: Up to half of users suffer loss of libido, erection impairment, decreased vaginal lubrication, difficulty reaching orgasm, or loss of pleasure from orgasm.</p>
<p>If antidepressants are killing your sex life, ask your doctor about lowering the dose of the medication you take or about switching to Wellbutrin, the antidepressant least likely to cause sex problems. Or ask about the pros and cons of the method recommended by psychiatrist Anthony Rothschild of the University of Massachusetts Medical Center — drug-free weekends. Rothschild studied 30 couples, each with one partner suffering sexual side effects from Prozac-type drugs. He advised them to go drug-free from Thursday morning to Sunday at noon. Among those taking Paxil and Zoloft, half reported better sex over the weekend. Only two said they felt more depressed. But among those taking Prozac, only one reported sexual improvement, probably because Prozac takes longer to clear from the body.</p>
<p /> | Getting in the Mood | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/1997/05/getting-mood/ | 2018-05-01 | 4 |
<p />
<p>With over a million exhilarated Americans filling the space between the civic shrines of the Capitol and the Washington Monument on the National Mall, President Barack Obama, in the first American inaugural address delivered by a black man, acknowledged the enthusiasm and hope he and his victory have inspired, but his speech was not overly celebratory. Instead, he attempted to guide the nation into what promises, due to circumstances heretofore beyond his control, to be a somber time and a trying presidency.</p>
<p>Underneath clear skies on a crisp, slightly-colder-than-usual day, the 44th president began, “I stand here today humbled by the task before us.” He noted that he had just become one of the few presidents who takes office “amidst gathering clouds and raging storms.” He outlined the obvious problems his administration faces: war, a weak economy (partly due to the “greed and irresponsibility” of “some”), job losses, businesses closed, homes lost, a broken health care system, and failing schools.</p>
<p>Vowing to meet these daunting challenges, the new president offered not policy details but, yes, hope. He praised the unsung workers (including slaves) of America’s past, “obscure in their labor,” who built this country. But, he added, the current challenges “will not be met easily or in a short span of time.” He maintained that Americans “must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.” And that renewal, he said, would demand “bold and swift” action, including the building of roads and bridges, electric grids and digital lines. It also would entail reforming health care, developing alternative energy, and revitalizing schools. He acknowledged this is a big job.</p>
<p>Obama portrayed his response to the moment at hand as ideology-free: “What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them–that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works–whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.” Obama can try to depict his agenda as post-ideological, but these words do convey the opposite sentiment of Ronald Reagan’s <a href="http://www.reaganlibrary.com/reagan/speeches/first.asp" type="external">first inaugural address</a>: “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” And Obama did challenge another fundamental precept of conservatism when he noted that the free market cannot always be trusted: “without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control.” This was a speech of progressive notions–without explicitly championing them.</p>
<p>Obama was obligatorily gracious toward his predecessor, thanking George W. Bush for his “service to our nation.” (When Bush first appeared for the ceremony, parts of the audience sang, “Sha-na-na-nah, hey, hey, good-bye.”) But Obama’s speech contained significant jabs at the Bush-Cheney status quo he aims to undo. He pledged to “restore science to its rightful place.” The audience applauded. Referring to “our common defense,” Obama declared, “we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals”–a direct reference to Gitmo, torture, and the like. He added that the United States will not give up its ideals “for expediency’s sake” and that everyone around the world should know that “we are ready to lead once more.” The crowd cheered. Obama vowed to “responsibly leave Iraq to its people” and “forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan.” (When Bush spoke at his second inauguration, he did not utter the words “Iraq” and “Afghanistan.”) Obama said he would “work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat and roll back the specter of a warming planet.” (Bush spoke of neither threat in either of his two inaugural speeches.) And Obama was not shy in criticizing American self-absorption and over-consumption: “We can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our border, nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect.” In other words, it is time to end the complacency of the Bush-Cheney years.</p>
<p>As Obama did throughout the campaign, he found a way to hail the glories of America’s past while poignantly addressing its sins and flaws. It is precisely because the country has “tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation and emerged from that dark chapter stronger,” he maintained, that it can handle its present troubles. That may or may not be so, but coming from Obama–who had drawn hundreds of thousands of black Americans to Washington to share this historic experience–the sentiment has deep and rich resonance. As he pointed out, “a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.”</p>
<p>Obama now has the unenviable double duty of telling the public the disheartening truths about current crises he inherits and inspiring it to overcome these difficulties. The inauguration ceremony at the Capitol reflected the sensibilities of the Obama culture. Aretha Franklin sang “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.” (Franklin’s performance wowed the crowd, which barely reacted to the invocation of fundamentalist super-pastor Rick Warren, who noted that Martin Luther King Jr. is “shouting in heaven.”) Itzhak Perlmen, Yo-Yo Ma, Anthony McGill, and Garbiela Montero played a version of the Shaker song “Simple Gifts.” Oprah Winfrey, Beyoncé, and Sean Combs sat in the first rows. But at the end of the speech, Obama turned to the original commander-in-chief, George Washington, for inspiration.</p>
<p>During a dark moment of the American battle for independence, when “the enemy was advancing” and “the snow was stained with blood,” Obama recounted, Washington ordered a message be read to the people: “Let it be told to the future world…that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive…that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger came forth to meet it.”</p>
<p>Obama had begun by speaking of ominous storms; he ended referring to a dark winter. It was a speech of bad weather. The rhetoric soared at moments but it never shined. The take-home message was no shocker: we have lots to do below cloudy skies. This was not a speech of surprises, and it remains to be seen if any portion will become a only-thing-to-fear-is-fear-itself catchphrase.</p>
<p>But it was a speech in sync with the moment. During the campaign, Obama issued an invitation to voters: join me in a crusade to change Washington and, then, the nation. That is how to obtain health care reform and how to end the Iraq war, he insisted. It’s not about me, it’s about you, he said. But now that dark clouds have gathered, he’s no longer leading a movement of political change, he’s fighting for the survival of the US economy. And he insisted in this speech that he cannot do it without other Americans pitching in. What they are to do was unclear–other than to stay true to the America values of “hard work, and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism.” Yet what he was signaling was that in the days, weeks, and months ahead–as Obama endeavors to move his far-reaching agenda through Congress–he will need as many Americans as he can rally to push, and perhaps push hard.</p>
<p>Once Obama concluded his address, his fellow citizens began leaving the mall, and dust rose from the cold ground of the capital. As Obama sat and listened to the benediction delivered by the Reverend Joseph Lowery, a veteran of the civil rights struggle (who noted that Obama “has come to this high office at a low moment”), the new president could look out at the Washington Monument and see a haze engulf its base. Thousands were leaving to return to their daily lives. When the dust settles, Obama will begin the most difficult of tasks. Hope and virtue may not be enough.</p>
<p>Front page photo by Ed Homich.</p>
<p /> | Obama’s Inaugural Address: A Bad-Weather Speech for Bad-Weather Times | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2009/01/obamas-inaugural-address-bad-weather-speech-bad-weather-times/ | 2009-01-20 | 4 |
<p>American University Police have released a trio of surveillance videos which show two men suspected of planting anti-immigrant flyers on campus.</p>
<p>The videos show images recorded just after 10 p.m. Sunday, when the men entered AU property near Kerwin Hall, then shows their departure minutes later.</p>
<p>One suspect is described as having a small build and wearing a plaid or flannel coat or shirt, jeans, a dark-colored cap, with a dark-colored cloth covering his face.</p>
<p>The other man has a large build, wearing a green or tan coat, jeans, and a dark-colored cap.</p>
<p>“It’s cowardly,” says Freshman Abigail Bowers, who spotted one of the flyers the next day, and posted an image of it on social media. “We’re allowing this kind of hate to be acceptable in our country. We need to tell everyone that this is not okay.”</p>
<p>The flyers read, “No means no,” over a map of the US, and have a hashtag message below, #MyBordersMyChoice.</p>
<p>The flyers also contain the name and website of a known white supremacist group.</p>
<p>AU sent out email alerts to students, saying the flyers contain “anti-immigration messages attributed to a neo-Nazi organization.”</p>
<p>“This is a nation-wide campaign, it's not just about AU,” declares Doron Ezickson, the director of the regional office of the Anti-Defamation League, based in the District. “It’s about every institute of higher learning where these folks think they can disrupt.”</p>
<p>Administrators say they also don’t think the posters are specifically targeted at the university.</p>
<p>But they believe the placement of the flyers was no accident, following marches in DC about the DACA debate, and the Women’s March this past weekend.</p>
<p>“Seeing that, I’m not shocked at the political atmosphere that we have,” Bowers says. “There are people who see AU as this easy target, because it’s seen as a liberal school.”</p>
<p>Investigators believe the two men posted at least eight flyers, four of which were left in a quad area, with four others in a residence hall.</p>
<p>An on-line search reveals one website which has “game plan” instructions for printing and distributing the posters, and even has PDFs and images for them.</p>
<p>Users of the site get “bonus points” for planting the posters in “feminist-related areas,” at colleges and universities in the US, Canada, the UK, and elsewhere.</p>
<p>“The activity has been a full range of racist, misogynistic, white supremacist activity in a growing number of campuses across the country,” Ezickson declares.</p>
<p>He says the ADL has counted 338 incidents of white supremacist propaganda on American colleges and universities since September of 2016.</p>
<p>The league has tracked 155 incidents this school year alone, triple the number of last year.</p>
<p>“Part of their goal is to disrupt campus life, to intimidate people on campus,” Ezickson says. “They have started also to recruit.”</p>
<p>The third video shows the two men leaving by the Fletcher Gate, just seven minutes after they arrived.</p>
<p>Other people can be seen walking nearby, and police are hoping someone might recognize the suspects.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, AU President Sylvia Burwell released a statement, which says in part:</p>
<p>“These flyers likely represented part of an international, hateful movement attempting to intimidate immigrant communities throughout the world. Let me be very clear: we reject hate, bigotry, intimidation in all its forms.”</p>
<p>In May 2017, AU authorities investigated the discovery of bananas, hung by strings tied with what appeared to be nooses.</p>
<p>That case remains unsolved, on a campus known for diversity and inclusion.</p>
<p>Students and others say they hope whoever was involved in this latest incident is caught.</p>
<p>“The best countering of this is actually to engage in positive conversation about why our diversity is our strength,” Ezickson says.</p>
<p>“It's clear they have a message and want to get it out,” AU student Lex Clary says. “But they're going to have to try harder if they're going to sway this campus in a negative way.”</p>
<p>American University police have released a video Tuesday of two people wanted for posting anti-immigration posters discovered at various locations on the campus.</p>
<p>The posters say "No Means No" on top with a hashtag message that reads "My Country, My Choice." Police say four of the posters were found in an open area of the school, and the other four at a residence hall.</p>
<p>University officials sent out an email to students stating that the flyers contain anti-immigration messages attributed to a Neo-Nazi organization. However, administrators tell Circa's affiliate ABC7 News they don't believe the posters were specifically targeted for the school.</p>
<p>Police released three videos which show two people walking around the campus.</p>
<p>A description of the individuals was released by police. One person has a small build and was wearing a plaid, flannel-style coat/shirt with jeans, and a dark-colored cap with a dark-colored cloth covering the face.</p>
<p>The other person has a large build and was wearing a green/tan coat with jeans and a dark colored cap.</p> | 2 people wanted after anti-immigration posters found on American University campus | false | https://circa.com/story/2018/01/23/nation/2-people-wanted-after-anti-immigration-posters-found-on-american-university-campus | 2018-01-24 | 1 |
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<p>LAKELAND, Fla. — Even for an accomplished veteran like Justin Verlander, the start of spring training can be special.</p>
<p>“I usually sleep pretty well. I woke up early today,” the Detroit ace said Tuesday. “On one hand, you want to appreciate everything as much as you can. It’s not such a whirlwind anymore — you kind of know what to expect. But in the same aspect, every day is pretty much the same thing I’ve done for 12 years, so it also starts going faster.”</p>
<p>Verlander’s Tigers were among 15 teams with their first scheduled workouts for pitchers and catchers Tuesday. As major leaguers took the field in Florida and Arizona, that familiar sound of balls popping into mitts served as a reminder that in baseball at least, winter is finally over.</p>
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<p>While Verlander and the Tigers went through their routine at their newly renovated facility in Lakeland, the Boston Red Sox were about 115 miles to the south, holding their first workout of the post-Papi era. It’s Boston’s first season without David Ortiz since the Red Sox signed him in January 2003, but Big Papi’s retirement may not be too big a blow to a team that added star left-hander Chris Sale.</p>
<p>Over in Arizona, the Cleveland Indians began preparing to defend their American League title. Cleveland won the AL Central comfortably last year and made it to the World Series before losing to the Chicago Cubs in seven games.</p>
<p>“This time of year, everyone is at glass half-full,” Indians manager Terry Francona said. “We have good reason to be.”</p>
<p>Hopes are always high at the start of spring training, but occasionally there’s some injury news on the first day. Baltimore manager Buck Showalter said right-hander Chris Tillman had a platelet-rich plasma injection on his right shoulder and won’t start the season until April 7 at the earliest.</p>
<p>The Kansas City Royals said left-hander Brian Flynn broke a rib and had three minor vertebrae fractures in a bizarre offseason injury. Flynn is expected to miss two months after falling through a barn roof at his Oklahoma residence.</p>
<p>The Royals and Miami Marlins begin this season with heavy hearts following the deaths of pitchers Yordano Ventura last month and Jose Fernandez in September, and Tigers owner Mike Ilitch died Friday at age 87.</p>
<p>“I got to know him as best as an owner and player can know each other,” said Detroit catcher Alex Avila, whose father Al is the team’s general manager. “He was always a very gracious and generous person — very nice to myself, my family. … Very loyal. I know as a family, we always felt we had to kind of reciprocate that loyalty because he’s a tremendous man. They’re a great family.”</p>
<p>The Arizona Diamondbacks have also found themselves dealing with some sobering news. Their bench coach, former Minnesota Twins manager Ron Gardenhire, has prostate cancer and is set to have surgery. He said doctors believe they caught the cancer early.</p>
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<p>The Diamondbacks went 69-93 last year and are one of a few National League teams that started workouts Tuesday amid tepid expectations. The Phillies, Reds and Rockies also finished well out of the postseason picture in 2016, but that doesn’t mean they can’t set goals for themselves.</p>
<p>Philadelphia manager Pete Mackanin said he wants his team to play .500 baseball deeper into the season after the Phillies lost 91 games last year.</p>
<p>For the first time since 2009, the Giants are entering an odd-numbered season without a World Series title to defend. After winning it all in 2010, 2012 and 2014, San Francisco made the playoffs last year as a wild card but lost in the Division Series to the Cubs.</p>
<p>The Giants look like contenders again in 2017, and manager Bruce Bochy had plenty of reasons to be upbeat Tuesday when his pitchers and catchers took the field.</p>
<p>“It’s a day you look forward to, getting a chance to see everybody and hear the sound of the bat, watch these guys work out again,” Bochy said. “So it’s a good day.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>AP Baseball Writer Janie McCauley in Scottsdale, Arizona, contributed to this report.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Noah Trister at <a href="http://www.Twitter.com/noahtrister" type="external">www.Twitter.com/noahtrister</a></p> | High hopes as always in first spring training workouts | false | https://abqjournal.com/949759/first-workouts-underway-for-mlb-pitchers-and-catchers.html | 2017-02-14 | 2 |
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<p>Young People in Recovery President and CEO Justin Riley listens at left as President Barack Obama speaks during a panel discussion at the National Rx Drug Abuse &amp; Heroin Summit at AmericasMart in Atlanta on Tuesday. (Jacquelyn Martin/The Associated Press)</p>
<p>ATLANTA - The trajectory of opioid deaths in the United States is trending in the wrong direction and should be atop the federal government's radar screen along with the threat of terrorism, responding to natural disasters and promoting a strong economy, President Barack Obama said Tuesday.</p>
<p>Obama said more people are being killed from opioid overdoses than from traffic accidents. "I think the public doesn't fully appreciate yet the scope of the problem," Obama told about 2,000 people attending the National Rx Drug Abuse &amp; Heroin Summit.</p>
<p>Obama's appearance at the conference came as his administration issued proposed regulations and announced new funding for states to purchase and distribute the opioid overdose reversal drug, naloxone, and to train first responders and others on its use. The actions also coincide with a commitment from 60 medical schools to heighten training for prescribing opioids.</p>
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<p>Opioids are highly addictive drugs that include both prescription painkillers like codeine and morphine, as well as illegal narcotics, primarily heroin. Deaths linked to opioids soared to more than 29,000 in 2014, the highest number on record.</p>
<p>Congress is attempting to allocate more resources to the problem, one area where bipartisan agreement may be reached during the election year. But the White House is critical of a Senate bill it says lacks critical funding. Obama is seeking $1.1 billion in new money to expand treatment for opioid addiction, which is about triple current levels.</p>
<p>"The problem we have right now is treatment is underfunded," Obama said.</p>
<p>Van Ingram, executive director of Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy, said he was excited to see the problem getting more attention.</p>
<p>"We are in the worst drug epidemic this country has ever seen and it is going to take a lot of resources to turn this around. This ship didn't get this way overnight, and it's not going to get turned around overnight," Ingram said.</p>
<p>Republican senators note that the bill that almost passed the Senate unanimously in early March, along with $400 million appropriated earlier for opioid-specific programs, would still make important strides.</p>
<p>Obama spoke during a panel discussion with doctors and recovered drug addicts. He said drug addiction in the past has been treated as a law enforcement problem, while the public often viewed it as a character flaw. Obama said the opioid epidemic shows that addiction touches everyone.</p>
<p>He alluded to his drug use as a youth, saying he was lucky that addiction "didn't get its claws in me," except for nicotine. Obama is an ex-smoker.</p>
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<p>Obama said the U.S. can cut opioid abuse in the same way it has lowered tobacco use and traffic fatalities.</p>
<p>White House officials said most of the additional $1.1 billion that Obama seeks would fund agreements with states to expand medication-assisted treatment.</p>
<p>Along those lines, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a proposed rule allowing physicians who prescribe Buprenorphine to give it to more patients to help them reduce or quit their use of heroin or other opiates. The proposed rule would expand the limit from 100 patients to 200.</p>
<p>The department also is issuing guidance to programs that allow intravenous drug addicts to trade dirty syringes for clean ones. Congress recently allowed federal money to be used for certain expenses, such as staff and equipment, but not for syringes themselves.</p>
<p>Officials also are focused on better educating prescribers. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently issued new guidelines stating that physical therapy, exercise and over-the-counter pain medication should be used before turning to painkillers like morphine and oxycodone.</p>
<p>Health officials who addressed the conference earlier Tuesday said doctor training will be key.</p>
<p>"Changes must start with us," said Dr. Patrice Harris, chairman of an American Medical Association task force on the crisis. Harris noted that, for the past two years, the total number of prescriptions for opioids has decreased. But she said more must be done.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writer Ryan Phillips contributed to this report.</p> | Obama turns attention to growing opioid abuse problem | false | https://abqjournal.com/748273/obama-turns-attention-to-growing-opioid-abuse-problem.html | 2 |
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<p>Journal Article - Nature</p>
<p />
<p>The journal Nature recently <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/ipcc-the-climate-chairman-1.13755" type="external">profiled</a> <a href="http://www.mcc-berlin.net/en/institute/director.html" type="external">Ottmar Edenhofer</a>, focusing on his leadership role within the <a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/" type="external">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a> (IPCC). Robert Stavins, Director of the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, has worked closely with Edenhofer <a href="http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/20238" type="external">in the IPCC</a> over the last four years. Edenhofer and Stavins co-hosted a <a href="http://belfercenter.hks.harvard.edu/publication/23163" type="external">workshop in Berlin</a> in May 2014 examining options for the ongoing United Nations climate negotiations.</p>
<p /> | IPCC: The Climate Chairman | false | http://belfercenter.org/publication/ipcc-climate-chairman | 2 |
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<p>SANTA FE - The Department of Cultural Affairs says several state museums in Santa Fe will be closed today because the city is making water system repairs.</p>
<p>The Museum of International Folk Art, the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, the Laboratory of Anthropology and the Museum Hill Cafe are expected to reopen on Friday. All are on the east side of Santa Fe in an area referred to as Museum Hill.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Museums closed for repairs today | false | https://abqjournal.com/381649/museums-closed-for-repairs-today.html | 2014-04-10 | 2 |
<p>SAN DIEGO, Calif. — There is a faulty narrative echoing whenever the U.S. media, U.S. elected officials and other institutions on this side of the border talk about the Mexican drug war.</p>
<p>Oops, I did it myself. From this point on, we should call this bloody and historic campaign the American-Mexican drug war. That's because — even though many folks in this country deny it, in part because they want nothing to do with anything Mexican except margaritas and chimichangas — this war is as much America's as it is Mexico's.</p>
<p>Yet, whether through congressional testimony or evening newscasts, the language used to describe what is going on south of the border suggests that Americans are helping to bail out Mexico — as if our neighbor were some Wall Street lending institution. The recurring theme is that the Mexican government is outgunned and outmanned by drug cartels, and so it now needs America's help — either in the form of military aid or the deployment of more U.S. law enforcement officers to conduct southbound interdictions at the border in the hopes of intercepting stashes of guns and money.</p>
<p>A more accurate description of the current situation is that the United States is helping itself by protecting its own security and its own people. This isn't exactly a popular view. Many Americans are in no mood to partner with Mexico to rid that country of drug lords. Besides, as far as many Americans are concerned, it's the corruption and inefficiency of the Mexican government that planted the seeds for the recent violence.</p>
<p>One person who knows better is Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. Last week, on her way to Mexico to attend a gun trafficking conference, Napolitano stopped by for a visit with the editorial board of the San Diego Union-Tribune. As the former governor of Arizona, Napolitano knows her way around the border. And she knows who keeps the cartels in business.</p>
<p>"Demand for drugs on our side is one of the primary causes of the richness that these cartels have," she said. "And quite frankly as a country we need to refocus on how do you reduce that demand."</p>
<p>Napolitano also noted that, with Mexican President Felipe Calderon designating the war on drug cartels his number one priority, the United States has a unique opportunity to eradicate a scourge that afflicts both countries. And it has to move fast in order to take advantage of what is really an unprecedented moment in Mexico.</p>
<p>"That is a window opening that we've not had before," Napolitano said. "In the United States, we have a stake in his success in this endeavor because these cartels, it's not just how they impact safety along the border but it's the huge quantities of drugs they bring over the border and distribute throughout the United States — and that is directed to a lot of violent crime in other places throughout the United States. That's why the Department of Homeland Security is involved, and why the nation needs to be involved."</p>
<p>Napolitano is right about Americans being heavily involved in the demand end of the equation.</p>
<p>But&#160;— when it comes to another illicit commodity — we also provide supply. Not only do we line the pockets of drug lords by buying enormous amounts of illegal drugs at outrageous prices, we arm them by selling — at outrageous prices — every variety of firearm. Regrettably, those guns are then used by narcos to kill Mexican soldiers and police officers.</p>
<p>And as if that weren't enough — in what Calderon and other Mexican leaders consider to be an unforgivable insult&#160;— we then glorify the drug lords on this side of the border as romantic figures and self-made entrepreneurs. Consider that, just last month, Forbes Magazine named Jorge "El Chapo" Guzman, the reputed head of the ruthless Sinaloa drug cartel, one of the richest people in the world alongside internet billionaires and media moguls.</p>
<p>Clearly, the United States is a major actor in this drama from the opening scene to what will someday — perhaps many years from now — be the final curtain. And like it or not, Americans have an enormous investment in the outcome of Calderon's battle against the cartels. The drug war is an ugly baby, but it's America's baby. We might as well claim it.</p>
<p>Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a nationally syndicated columnist, a member of the editorial board of the San Diego Union-Tribune, and a weekly contributor to cnn.com.</p>
<p>&#160;More GlobalPost dispatches on Mexico:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/mexico/090404/meet-the-drug-lords" type="external">Meet the drug lords</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/mexico/090401/investigation-us-retailers-fuel-mexicos-drug-wars" type="external">Investigation: US retailers fuel Mexico's drug wars</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/mexico/090326/clash-the-cartels-guide" type="external">Guide to the cartels&#160;</a></p> | The American-Mexican drug war | false | https://pri.org/stories/2009-04-11/american-mexican-drug-war | 2009-04-11 | 3 |
Berrios Firm’s Lobbying Client Gets Big Tax Break From His Assessor’s Office Illinois Tax Reform Sideshow Long on Gimmicks, Short on Solutions 2018 Illinois Primary Election — Voters Guide and Candidate Questionnaires Pritzker’s Storied Charity Costs Him Little But Taxpayers A Lot What's in Chicago's Newest Union Contracts? Lower Wage Increases, Higher Healthcare Costs Too Many School Districts In Illinois? What You Should Know About School Consolidation | false | https://bettergov.org/home | 2018-03-16 | 2 |
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<p>OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Police say a woman died at an Omaha hospital after her car was struck from behind on U.S. Highway 75 in southeast Omaha.</p>
<p>The collision occurred about 12:20 a.m. Monday. Police say a northbound car struck the rear of another and then crossed two lanes and hit a concrete barrier. The driver was not injured but later was arrested on suspicion of vehicular homicide.</p>
<p>Police say the driver of the car he struck was taken to Nebraska Medical Center, where she died. She’s been identified as 67-year-old Ann Smock, who lived in Omaha.</p>
<p>OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Police say a woman died at an Omaha hospital after her car was struck from behind on U.S. Highway 75 in southeast Omaha.</p>
<p>The collision occurred about 12:20 a.m. Monday. Police say a northbound car struck the rear of another and then crossed two lanes and hit a concrete barrier. The driver was not injured but later was arrested on suspicion of vehicular homicide.</p>
<p>Police say the driver of the car he struck was taken to Nebraska Medical Center, where she died. She’s been identified as 67-year-old Ann Smock, who lived in Omaha.</p> | Police say woman died at hospital after Omaha collision | false | https://apnews.com/2a71cf6177b141879094a7febc327f6e | 2018-01-01 | 2 |
<p>By Noam Chomsky, TomDispatchThis piece originally appeared at</p>
<p>TomDispatch. Read Tom Engelhardt’s introduction <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175539/tomgram%3A_noam_chomsky%2C_a_rebellious_world_or_a_new_dark_age/#more" type="external">here</a>.</p>
<p>The Occupy movement has been an extremely exciting development. Unprecedented, in fact. There’s never been anything like it that I can think of.&#160; If the bonds and associations it has established can be sustained through a long, dark period ahead — because victory won’t come quickly — it could prove a significant moment in American history.</p>
<p>The fact that the Occupy movement is unprecedented is quite appropriate. After all, it’s an unprecedented era and has been so since the 1970s, which marked a major turning point in American history. For centuries, since the country began, it had been a developing society, and not always in very pretty ways. That’s another story, but the general progress was toward wealth, industrialization, development, and hope. There was a pretty constant expectation that it was going to go on like this. That was true even in very dark times.</p>
<p />
<p>I’m just old enough to remember the Great Depression. After the first few years, by the mid-1930s — although the situation was objectively much harsher than it is today — nevertheless, the spirit was quite different. There was a sense that “we’re gonna get out of it,” even among unemployed people, including a lot of my relatives, a sense that “it will get better.”</p>
<p>There was militant labor union organizing going on, especially from the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations). It was getting to the point of sit-down strikes, which are frightening to the business world — you could see it in the business press at the time — because a sit-down strike is just a step before taking over the factory and running it yourself. The idea of worker takeovers is something which is, incidentally, very much on the agenda today, and we should keep it in mind. Also New Deal legislation was beginning to come in as a result of popular pressure. Despite the hard times, there was a sense that, somehow, “we’re gonna get out of it.”</p>
<p>It’s quite different now. For many people in the United States, there’s a pervasive sense of hopelessness, sometimes despair. I think it’s quite new in American history. And it has an objective basis.</p>
<p>On the Working Class</p>
<p>In the 1930s, unemployed working people could anticipate that their jobs would come back. If you’re a worker in manufacturing today — the current level of unemployment there is approximately like the Depression — and current tendencies persist, those jobs aren’t going to come back.</p>
<p>The change took place in the 1970s. There are a lot of reasons for it. One of the underlying factors, discussed mainly by economic historian Robert Brenner, was the falling rate of profit in manufacturing. There were other factors. It led to major changes in the economy — a reversal of several hundred years of progress towards industrialization and development that turned into a process of de-industrialization and de-development. Of course, manufacturing production continued overseas very profitably, but it’s no good for the work force.</p>
<p>Along with that came a significant shift of the economy from productive enterprise — producing things people need or could use — to financial manipulation. The financialization of the economy really took off at that time.</p>
<p>On Banks</p>
<p>Before the 1970s, banks were banks. They did what banks were supposed to do in a state capitalist economy: they took unused funds from your bank account, for example, and transferred them to some potentially useful purpose like helping a family buy a home or send a kid to college. That changed dramatically in the 1970s. Until then, there had been no financial crises since the Great Depression. The 1950s and 1960s had been a period of enormous growth, the highest in American history, maybe in economic history.</p>
<p>And it was egalitarian.&#160; The lowest quintile did about as well as the highest quintile. Lots of people moved into reasonable lifestyles — what’s called the “middle class” here, the “working class” in other countries — but it was real.&#160; And the 1960s accelerated it. The activism of those years, after a pretty dismal decade, really civilized the country in lots of ways that are permanent.</p>
<p>When the 1970s came along, there were sudden and sharp changes: de-industrialization, the off-shoring of production, and the shift to financial institutions, which grew enormously. I should say that, in the 1950s and 1960s, there was also the development of what several decades later became the high-tech economy: computers, the Internet, the IT Revolution developed substantially in the state sector.</p>
<p>The developments that took place during the 1970s set off a vicious cycle. It led to the concentration of wealth increasingly in the hands of the financial sector. This doesn’t benefit the economy — it probably harms it and society — but it did lead to a tremendous concentration of wealth.</p>
<p>On Politics and Money</p>
<p>Concentration of wealth yields concentration of political power. And concentration of political power gives rise to legislation that increases and accelerates the cycle. The legislation, essentially bipartisan, drives new fiscal policies and tax changes, as well as the rules of corporate governance and deregulation. Alongside this began a sharp rise in the costs of elections, which drove the political parties even deeper into the pockets of the corporate sector.</p>
<p>The parties dissolved in many ways. It used to be that if a person in Congress hoped for a position such as a committee chair, he or she got it mainly through seniority and service. Within a couple of years, they started having to put money into the party coffers in order to get ahead, a topic studied mainly by Tom Ferguson. That just drove the whole system even deeper into the pockets of the corporate sector (increasingly the financial sector).</p>
<p>This cycle resulted in a tremendous concentration of wealth, mainly in the top tenth of one percent of the population. Meanwhile, it opened a period of stagnation or even decline for the majority of the population. People got by, but by artificial means such as longer working hours, high rates of borrowing and debt, and reliance on asset inflation like the recent housing bubble. Pretty soon those working hours were much higher in the United States than in other industrial countries like Japan and various places in Europe. So there was a period of stagnation and decline for the majority alongside a period of sharp concentration of wealth. The political system began to dissolve.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1884519016/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external" />There has always been a gap between public policy and public will, but it just grew astronomically. You can see it right now, in fact.&#160; Take a look at the big topic in Washington that everyone concentrates on: the deficit. For the public, correctly, the deficit is not regarded as much of an issue. And it isn’t really much of an issue. The issue is joblessness. There’s a deficit commission but no joblessness commission. As far as the deficit is concerned, the public has opinions. Take a look at the polls. The public overwhelmingly supports higher taxes on the wealthy, which have declined sharply in this period of stagnation and decline, and the preservation of limited social benefits.</p>
<p>The outcome of the deficit commission is probably going to be the opposite. The Occupy movements could provide a mass base for trying to avert what amounts to a dagger pointed at the heart of the country.</p>
<p>Plutonomy and the Precariat</p>
<p>For the general population, the 99% in the imagery of the Occupy movement, it’s been pretty harsh — and it could get worse. This could be a period of irreversible decline. For the 1% and even less — the .1% — it’s just fine. They are richer than ever, more powerful than ever, controlling the political system, disregarding the public. And if it can continue, as far as they’re concerned, sure, why not?</p>
<p>Take, for example, Citigroup. For decades, Citigroup has been one of the most corrupt of the major investment banking corporations, repeatedly bailed out by the taxpayer, starting in the early Reagan years and now once again. I won’t run through the corruption, but it’s pretty astonishing.</p>
<p>In 2005, Citigroup came out with a brochure for investors called “Plutonomy: Buying Luxury, Explaining Global Imbalances.” It urged investors to put money into a “plutonomy index.” The brochure says, “The World is dividing into two blocs — the Plutonomy and the rest.”</p>
<p>Plutonomy refers to the rich, those who buy luxury goods and so on, and that’s where the action is. They claimed that their plutonomy index was way outperforming the stock market. As for the rest, we set them adrift. We don’t really care about them. We don’t really need them. They have to be around to provide a powerful state, which will protect us and bail us out when we get into trouble, but other than that they essentially have no function. These days they’re sometimes called the “precariat” — people who live a precarious existence at the periphery of society. Only it’s not the periphery anymore. It’s becoming a very substantial part of society in the United States and indeed elsewhere. And this is considered a good thing.</p>
<p>So, for example, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, at the time when he was still “Saint Alan” — hailed by the economics profession as one of the greatest economists of all time (this was before the crash for which he was substantially responsible) — was testifying to Congress in the Clinton years, and he explained the wonders of the great economy that he was supervising. He said a lot of its success was based substantially on what he called “growing worker insecurity.” If working people are insecure, if they’re part of the precariat, living precarious existences, they’re not going to make demands, they’re not going to try to get better wages, they won’t get improved benefits. We can kick ’em out, if we don’t need ’em. And that’s what’s called a “healthy” economy, technically speaking. And he was highly praised for this, greatly admired.</p>
<p>So the world is now indeed splitting into a plutonomy and a precariat — in the imagery of the Occupy movement, the 1% and the 99%. Not literal numbers, but the right picture. Now, the plutonomy is where the action is and it could continue like this.</p>
<p>If it does, the historic reversal that began in the 1970s could become irreversible. That’s where we’re heading. And the Occupy movement is the first real, major, popular reaction that could avert this. But it’s going to be necessary to face the fact that it’s a long, hard struggle. You don’t win victories tomorrow. You have to form the structures that will be sustained, that will go on through hard times and can win major victories. And there are a lot of things that can be done.</p>
<p>Toward Worker Takeover</p>
<p>I mentioned before that, in the 1930s, one of the most effective actions was the sit-down strike. And the reason is simple: that’s just a step before the takeover of an industry.</p>
<p>Through the 1970s, as the decline was setting in, there were some important events that took place.&#160; In 1977, U.S. Steel decided to close one of its major facilities in Youngstown, Ohio. Instead of just walking away, the workforce and the community decided to get together and buy it from the company, hand it over to the work force, and turn it into a worker-run, worker-managed facility. They didn’t win. But with enough popular support, they could have won.&#160; It’s a topic that Gar Alperovitz and Staughton Lynd, the lawyer for the workers and community, have discussed in detail.</p>
<p>It was a partial victory because, even though they lost, it set off other efforts. And now, throughout Ohio, and in other places, there’s a scattering of hundreds, maybe thousands, of sometimes not-so-small worker/community-owned industries that could become worker-managed. And that’s the basis for a real revolution. That’s how it takes place.</p>
<p>In one of the suburbs of Boston, about a year ago, something similar happened. A multinational decided to close down a profitable, functioning facility carrying out some high-tech manufacturing. Evidently, it just wasn’t profitable enough for them. The workforce and the union offered to buy it, take it over, and run it themselves. The multinational decided to close it down instead, probably for reasons of class-consciousness. I don’t think they want things like this to happen. If there had been enough popular support, if there had been something like the Occupy movement that could have gotten involved, they might have succeeded.</p>
<p>And there are other things going on like that. In fact, some of them are major. Not long ago, President Barack Obama took over the auto industry, which was basically owned by the public. And there were a number of things that could have been done. One was what was done: reconstitute it so that it could be handed back to the ownership, or very similar ownership, and continue on its traditional path.</p>
<p>The other possibility was to hand it over to the workforce — which owned it anyway — turn it into a worker-owned, worker-managed major industrial system that’s a big part of the economy, and have it produce things that people need. And there’s a lot that we need.</p>
<p>We all know or should know that the United States is extremely backward globally in high-speed transportation, and it’s very serious. It not only affects people’s lives, but the economy.&#160; In that regard, here’s a personal story. I happened to be giving talks in France a couple of months ago and had to take a train from Avignon in southern France to Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris, the same distance as from Washington, DC, to Boston. It took two hours.&#160; I don’t know if you’ve ever taken the train from Washington to Boston, but it’s operating at about the same speed it was 60 years ago when my wife and I first took it. It’s a scandal.</p>
<p>It could be done here as it’s been done in Europe. They had the capacity to do it, the skilled work force. It would have taken a little popular support, but it could have made a major change in the economy.</p>
<p>Just to make it more surreal, while this option was being avoided, the Obama administration was sending its transportation secretary to Spain to get contracts for developing high-speed rail for the United States, which could have been done right in the rust belt, which is being closed down. There are no economic reasons why this can’t happen. These are class reasons, and reflect the lack of popular political mobilization. Things like this continue.</p>
<p>Climate Change and Nuclear Weapons</p>
<p>I’ve kept to domestic issues, but there are two dangerous developments in the international arena, which are a kind of shadow that hangs over everything we’ve discussed. There are, for the first time in human history, real threats to the decent survival of the species.</p>
<p>One has been hanging around since 1945. It’s kind of a miracle that we’ve escaped it. That’s the threat of nuclear war and nuclear weapons. Though it isn’t being much discussed, that threat is, in fact, being escalated by the policies of this administration and its allies. And something has to be done about that or we’re in real trouble.</p>
<p>The other, of course, is environmental catastrophe. Practically every country in the world is taking at least halting steps towards trying to do something about it. The United States is also taking steps, mainly to accelerate the threat.&#160; It is the only major country that is not only not doing something constructive to protect the environment, it’s not even climbing on the train. In some ways, it’s pulling it backwards.</p>
<p>And this is connected to a huge propaganda system, proudly and openly declared by the business world, to try to convince people that climate change is just a liberal hoax. “Why pay attention to these scientists?”</p>
<p>We’re really regressing back to the dark ages. It’s not a joke.&#160; And if that’s happening in the most powerful, richest country in history, then this catastrophe isn’t going to be averted — and in a generation or two, everything else we’re talking about won’t matter. Something has to be done about it very soon in a dedicated, sustained way.</p>
<p>It’s not going to be easy to proceed. There are going to be barriers, difficulties, hardships, failures.&#160; It’s inevitable. But unless the spirit of the last year, here and elsewhere in the country and around the globe, continues to grow and becomes a major force in the social and political world, the chances for a decent future are not very high.</p>
<p>Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor Emeritus in the MIT Department of Linguistics and Philosophy.&#160; A <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175503/noam_chomsky_the_imperial_way" type="external">TomDispatch regular</a>, he is the author of numerous best-selling political works, most recently, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1931859965/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">“Hopes and Prospects,”</a> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0872865371/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">“Making the Future,”</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1884519016/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">“Occupy,”</a> published by <a href="http://www.zuccottiparkpress.com/" type="external">Zuccotti Park Press</a>, from which this speech, given last October, is excerpted and adapted. His website is <a href="http://www.chomsky.info/" type="external">www.chomsky.info</a>.</p>
<p>Follow TomDispatch on Twitter @TomDispatch and join us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/tomdispatch" type="external">Facebook.</a></p>
<p>Copyright 2012 Noam Chomsky</p> | Plutonomy and the Precariat: On the History of the U.S. Economy in Decline | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/plutonomy-and-the-precariat-on-the-history-of-the-u-s-economy-in-decline/ | 2012-05-08 | 4 |
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<p>Boston Beer (NYSE: SAM), Kite Pharma (NASDAQ: KITE), and Skechers (NYSE: SKX) are top stocks that our Motley Fool contributors think an acquirer might find intriguing enough to buy. There are different reasons investors in these company's might benefit from an acquisition, so let's take a closer look at these stocks.</p>
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<p><a type="external" href="">Rich Duprey</a> (Boston Beer): You're not going to find founder and Chairman Jim Koch tacking up a for-sale sign over Boston Beer's corporate offices, though maybe he should. If there's a business that needs to be bought out, it's this leading craft brewer.</p>
<p>IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.</p>
<p>Boston Beer has become a victim of its own success. It's led the craft-brewing charge over several decades, and there are now more than 5,000 breweries in operation, most of them producing craft beer. The proliferation of options for beer drinkers has ended up diluting Boston Beer's Samuel Adams brand.</p>
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<p>The lager's sales are in a downward spiral, and nothing the brewer has tried is helping. It's no longer small enough to be really considered a craft beer -- the industry's Brewers Association has revised the definition to accommodate Boston Beer's growth -- but it's too small yet to compete effectively against its large, mass-brewed rivals. Yet it is such a familiar beer in stores and on tap at restaurants and bars that it has the image of a bigger brewer, which doesn't sit well with many craft-beer drinkers today who are looking for new and local flavors.</p>
<p>Anheuser-Busch InBevhas made a big splash in buying up craft breweries, albeit much smaller ones than Boston Beer, as has Constellation Brands, which bought Ballast Point Brewing for $1 billion, and Heineken, which bought up half of Lagunitas. With Boston Beer's declining fortunes, an investment or purchase by a megabrewer might help its stumbling performance.</p>
<p>Of course, there are a couple of options open to Boston other than getting bought out, such as going private or even buying up small craft brewers itself to reignite growth in its portfolio, which, like its flagship brand, is also suffering from falling sales. For example, its big hard-cider brand, Angry Orchard, is also in a funk, while those few niches that are still selling well -- hard soda and seltzer -- feel more like fads than trends.</p>
<p>But having found itself in an accelerating downward spiral, Boston Beer may have signaled to a bigger brewer that it's ripe for the taking.</p>
<p><a type="external" href="">Keith Speights</a>(Kite Pharma): It's been a great year for Kite Pharma so far. The clinical-stage biotech announced great results on Feb. 28 for its lead candidate,axicabtagene ciloleucel. (I suspect the name came from throwing Scrabble tiles on a Kite scientist's desk.)</p>
<p>IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.</p>
<p>In a phase 2/3 clinical study, thechimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) drug produced astonishing results. Patients with chemorefractory aggressive B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL)who took a single infusion of axicabtagene ciloleucel (let's call it AC for short) experienced an 82% objective response rate. After six months, a full 36% of patients had no signs of cancer.</p>
<p>This was beyond merely good news for Kite. These results were so positive that the biotech is quickly moving forward with pursuing regulatory approval. It also could bode well for AC in treating other types of cancer.</p>
<p>Even with the recent run-up in Kite stock, the biotech still has a relatively low market cap. That makes it readily affordable for a host of larger companies.In my view, Kite is one of the best acquisition targets around right now. I'll be shocked if Kite isn't snatched up by a larger company by the end of the year -- if not much sooner.</p>
<p>Kite is flying high. I expect the stock to go even higher, with the possibility of a bidding war between multiple big biopharmaceutical suitors.</p>
<p>Todd Campbell (Skechers): Robert Greenberg did it. He built not one, but two multibillion-dollar footwear companies. After building L.A. Gear into an '80s fashion icon, he and his son have grown Skechers into a $3.5 billion global footwear leader.</p>
<p>Over their 25 years at Skechers, Greenberg, who is in his mid-70s, and his son, Michael, have a lot to be proud of. In 2015, Skechers was ranked the second largest athletic footwear maker, according to NPD.</p>
<p>However, retail-store closures and bankruptcies make growth tougher to come by nowadays, and tough talk on trade out of D.C. could pose headaches for companies that manufacture their products overseas. If the Greenbergs were willing to entertain an offer from a bigger peer, no one could blame them.</p>
<p>As for an acquirer, a good argument can be made that now's a good time to knock on Skechers' door. The company's profitable, with $244 million in net earnings last year, and it's got a solid balance sheet with over $700 million in net cash, and only $75 million in long-term debt. An acquirer would get a successful distribution model that includes international wholesale, retail, and domestic wholesale, and Skechers' revenue and profit could be heading higher, not lower. Revenue was up 13% last year, and it could approach $4 billion in 2017.</p>
<p>A bigger peer such asVF Corp.could conceivably carve out additional profit by eliminating overlapping costs, too. (Skechers spent $277 million on general and administrative expenses last year.)</p>
<p>Furthermore, Skechers could offer attractive value now, given that its shares are trading at only 13 times forward EPS estimates and 1.1 times sales. For comparison, Nike'sforward P/E ratio is 21, and it's trading at 2.8 times sales. VF Corp. has a 16 forward P/E, and it's valued at 1.8 times sales, whileAdidas AG's forward P/E is 20 and its price-to-sales ratio is 1.7. Clearly, Skechers stock isn't pricey when compared with those of its peers.</p>
<p>Granted, these two industry veterans might not be interested in selling, but even if they aren't, Skechers' potential to grow profit, and its valuation, could make it worth adding to portfolios anyway.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than SkechersWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*</p>
<p>David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the <a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-dyn%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=274c87d2-2a6f-4df9-b18d-ab47fb8d2737&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and Skechers wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.</p>
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<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of February 6, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFFishBiz/info.aspx" type="external">Keith Speights Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFCop/info.aspx" type="external">Rich Duprey Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/EBCapitalMarkets/info.aspx" type="external">Todd Campbell Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned.His clients may have positions in the companies mentioned.The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Anheuser-Busch InBev NV, Boston Beer, Nike, and Skechers. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | 3 Stocks Begging for a Buyout | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/09/11/3-stocks-begging-for-buyout.html | 2017-03-17 | 0 |
<p>CNN's John King told his panel that news of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign still being investigated by the Senate is "bad news for the president."</p>
<p>Really, John?</p>
<p>Senators Burr and Warner held a joint press conference today to discuss their investigation up to this point.</p>
<p>Sen. Burr said, "We have more work to do as it relates to collusion but we're developing a clearer picture of what happened."</p>
<p>He went on to warn every political campaign to be vigilant against possible interference from a very determined Russian government.</p>
<p>After playing that clip, Jake Tapper said, "...that's not a confirmation that the collusion was proven, but it's certainly not a denial."</p>
<p>CNN's John King is not a flamethrower of an analyst by any means, but he made it very clear how this impacts the Trump administration.</p>
<p>King said, "On several occasions, I have at least three in my notes he said that's still an open question. 'Collusion is still an open question. The issue of collusion is still open.' That's bad news for the president."</p>
<p>King said they presented no evidence that collusion did indeed take place.</p>
<p>Then King brings the money quote:</p>
<p>"But the president has said this is a hoax," King said.</p>
<p>And that's the point. Trump can spout "fake news" all he wants, but the Senate Intelligence Committee is finding something, and it's enough to continue.</p>
<p>"If you're the President of the United States, 25 more interviews this month. Some public hearings about the social media. His personal attorney Michael Cohen about to be called before the committee in a public setting. They're trying to interview his son Donald Trump Jr. about the now infamous June 2016 meeting and both of them standing there especially the Republican chairman who won his re-election because of the president's help in North Carolina saying the issue of collusion is still open," he said.</p>
<p>"That's not good news for the president no matter when this ends. It tells you we have months and months and months to go at a minimum a huge distractions over this administration and still the open question of collusion."</p>
<p>Senator Burr will try to tamp down any conjecture on Russian collusion with Trump as much as he can since he was a big supporter, but his words were loud and clear.</p>
<p>At a minimum, Mr. President, " <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston,_we_have_a_problem" type="external">Houston, we have a problem.</a>"</p> | CNN's King: 'Bad News For President': Russia Collusion Still 'Open Question' | true | http://crooksandliars.com/2017/10/cnns-john-king-bad-news-president | 2017-10-04 | 4 |
<p>Pennsylvania lawmakers held an unconventional House session Tuesday that lasted just minutes, was not broadcast as usual and did not include a roll call.</p>
<p>The only business that occurred was to position two bills so that members can vote later this week on the pair of Republican stopgap budget bills that Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf has threatened to veto.</p>
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<p>At least half the 203 members were present, which is the minimum quorum required to conduct business, House Parliamentarian Clancy Myer said. Because there was no roll call, he said, federal rules require members who want to be paid for attending the session to submit a statement saying they were in Harrisburg.</p>
<p>Leaders agreed to the abbreviated session to help members avoid heavy traffic expected because of Pope Francis' visit to Philadelphia this weekend. The final vote on the stopgap, which passed the Senate on party lines last week, is expected to occur Thursday.</p>
<p>"There was concern about the session at the end of the week preventing a number of members getting back to their districts in southeastern Pennsylvania because of traffic restrictions coming along with the pope," House Democratic spokesman Bill Patton said. "That was something both leaders talked about yesterday and made this decision."</p>
<p>Myer said the cameras on the House floor, which could have helped document who was actually there, were not turned on because of the shortness of the session. He said that when no one challenges that at least 102 members are on the floor, it's presumed that a quorum exists.</p>
<p>Myer, who has been with the chamber for decades, said the last time he could recall a similar session was in the late 1980s, when he and two others were the only people present as the House moved bills into position for a conference committee.</p>
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<p>House Republican spokesman Steve Miskin said attendance on Tuesday easily met the quorum standard.</p>
<p>Barry Kauffman, the director of Common Cause Pennsylvania, a nonpartisan watchdog group, said the process used Tuesday "raises cynicism among the public and doubt as to the propriety of the way the House is being operated."</p>
<p>People should know if their representative was on the floor and consented to positioning the bills, he said.</p>
<p>"What we're talking about is arguably the single most important bill that the Legislature works on in a given year, and the only bill that is constitutionally mandated to happen every year - the state budget," Kauffman said. "It certainly gives short shrift to a proper and accountable process."</p> | Pennsylvania House session lasts just minutes after schedule shuffled over pope concerns | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2015/09/22/pennsylvania-house-session-lasts-just-minutes-after-schedule-shuffled-over-pope.html | 2016-03-09 | 0 |
<p>Denunciations of Tony Blair as the evil architect of Britain’s involvement in the Iraq War often dominate discussions of what happened there and many will look to the Chilcot inquiry to provide further evidence of his guilt. But the demonisation of Mr Blair is excessive and simple-minded and diverts attention from what really happened in Iraq and how such mistakes can be avoided in future.</p>
<p>He may have unwisely followed the US into the quagmire of Iraq, but British government policy since 1941 has been to position itself as America’s most loyal and effective ally in peace and war.</p>
<p>There have been significant exceptions to this rule, such as the Suez Crisis and the Vietnam War, but during the last 70 years the UK has generally sought to influence US policy in its formulation and then support it unequivocally once adopted.</p>
<p>This may on occasions be humiliating and out of keeping with the British self-image of robust independence, but it is not as stupid from the point of view of the British state.</p>
<p>In going to war in alliance with the US in Iraq, Mr Blair was not doing anything very different from his predecessors or successors, except that he was more successful than them in establishing close relations with the White House.</p>
<p>Many British politicians, diplomats, academics and journalists have subsequently claimed they were convinced at the time that the invasion would end badly, but they were notably quiet about their forebodings at the time and for most part their wisdom is retrospective. Nor that British opposition to the US venture in Iraq could have done much to stop it happening.</p>
<p>I was in Washington in the first months of 2003, working for a think tank and it was clear that the invasion was going to go ahead whatever London said or did. In the hysterical super-patriotic atmosphere post 9/11, it was difficult for Americans to oppose the war and those who told me that they had doubts about it – one academic expert said he was sure it would be as disastrous for the US as the Suez Crisis had been for Britain – were careful not to say so publicly.</p>
<p>The Bush administration had a lethal combination of hubris, ideological preconceptions and ignorance, which made it impossible to warn them about the multitude of dangers they would face in Iraq; and even if they had been more open-minded, they understandably felt that they had heard similar scepticism prior to the Afghan war in 2001, yet they and their local allies had apparently defeated the Taliban easily and at little cost. The temporary nature of this victory was not yet apparent.</p>
<p>The biggest and most damaging failing of the Americans and the British during the Iraq War, which eventually doomed the whole enterprise, was that they both underrated the importance of how Iraqis and states neighbouring Iraq would respond to the invasion and occupation.</p>
<p>Shortly before I left Washington in early 2003, a senior American journalist spelled out to me US plans for ruling Iraq post-war and I said that I did not believe that these would go down well with Iraqis. “Who cares what Iraqis think?” he replied. “Who cares?” This was the pervasive attitude among those running the war and later during the first disastrous months of the occupation, an overconfidence encouraged by the swift collapse of the Iraqi army which appeared to show that Iraqis were not prepared to resist the foreign presence (in reality, they were not willing to fight for Saddam Hussein).</p>
<p>The occupiers forgot the old nostrum that “the enemy also gets a vote [in determining what happens]”. To this day, British officials engage in retrospective wishful thinking, imagining that all would have been well if the US and Britain had a better plan for ruling Iraq post-invasion or enough troops to guard its frontiers against foreign infiltration, but neither of these would have made much difference in the long term.</p>
<p>The invasion and occupation of Iraq are often mistakenly treated as one event, when in fact they were separate. The invasion might have succeeded if it had been a brief foray limited to getting rid of Saddam Hussein who most Iraqis by this time either hated or regarded as a disaster for his country.</p>
<p>But instead the invasion was followed by occupation in which all power was seized by the invading powers who ruled Iraq directly or through local proxies. They did this because they did not want the political vacuum created by the fall of Saddam Hussein to be filled by Iran or the Shia religious parties in Iraq, but did not see that an occupation was unacceptable to all Iraqis – though the reasons were different for Sunni and Shia – aside from the Kurds who were not occupied.</p>
<p>The US and Britain also underestimated the extent to which the overthrow of Saddam inevitably meant a political, economic and social revolution as the majority Shia population took over from the Sunni as the dominant community.</p>
<p>The occupiers soon found that they were presiding over or participating in a sectarian war of extraordinary savagery. Making this situation even more lethal for the Americans and British was that none of Iraq’s neighbours wanted a Western land army permanently on their doorsteps. Iranian and Syrian leaders heard hawks in the US boast that regime change in Baghdad was only an appetiser for the same thing in Damascus and Tehran, thereby guaranteeing that Syria and Iran would support anybody prepared to fight and keep the US busy in Iraq.</p>
<p>What should Britain have done in these circumstances? What unforced errors did it make? Could they have been avoided and were there alternative policies available? Britain may have traditionally supported the US, but it was unwise to give blank cheques to an administration in Washington so prone to exaggerate its own strength and underestimate that of others. It was inevitable that the invasion would get rid of Saddam, but it should have been foreseeable that the American and British commitment would be open-ended because regime-change would inevitably open the door to sectarian and regional conflicts that would permanently destabilise Iraq.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Such a long war could not be fought successfully with public opinion so divided at home. Even in retrospect, it was astonishing how little the British and Americans felt it necessary to know about the country they were going to invade and occupy.</p>
<p>The Justice Secretary and candidate for leadership of the Conservative Party, Michael Gove, was much criticised during the Brexit campaign for pouring scorn on the value of experts, but he was only repeating an attitude fostered for almost 20 years under Mr Blair and Mr Cameron.</p>
<p>The opposite of the expert is the amateur and, for all the skills as communicators of the two prime ministers, there was always a strong smell of amateurism about their reaction to events in Iraq, Libya and Syria, not to mention the other wars and insurgencies exploding across the Middle East and North Africa.</p>
<p>It was an approach that hobbled Britain’s military and diplomatic effectiveness. The Foreign Office no longer saw expertise in and experience of particular countries as an essential for a diplomat intent on a successful career.</p>
<p>One former diplomat who speaks Arabic and Farsi says that his promotion was delayed because he was deemed over-specialised. British Army generals in Iraq and Afghanistan were moved in and out of the war zones so quickly that they could not get a real grip on what was happening on the ground. British ministers usually appeared ill-informed about the main features of the political and military landscape in which they were sending soldiers to fight.</p>
<p>Experience of war should have been a swift if deadly teacher in Iraq and the US Army did come to understand the human terrain in which it was operating. But the British seemed inhibited from learning from their mistakes on the ground by pretending that they had not happened. Investigations focused narrowly on the misuse of intelligence in justifying the war.</p>
<p>The British Army and the Americans were visibly unprepared for the menu of tactics used by the Iraqi nationalist movements and al-Qaeda clones which included the mass use of suicide bombers and Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDS) mixed in with more regular infantry weapons.</p>
<p>Suicide bombers soon drove foreign embassies into the Green Zone where they remained as cut off from feelings and conditions in the rest of Iraq as if they had been stationed on a space ship hovering over the city. Whatever the level of failure nobody seemed to lose their job.</p>
<p>Security services may have been better informed but, if so, there was little sign of it. When the final scuttle came it attracted little criticism or attention. “We have had no end of a lesson,” wrote Rudyard Kipling of the British experience in the Boer War. “It will do us no end of good.” Iraq provided a similar lesson, but we failed to learn anything from it and it has done us not good at all.</p> | The Real Lesson of Iraq: Nothing Was Learned, No Good Was Done | true | https://counterpunch.org/2016/07/07/the-real-lesson-of-iraq-nothing-was-learned-no-good-has-been-done/ | 2016-07-07 | 4 |
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<p>Victor Matzir, a sushi chef at Shohko Cafe, makes a sashimi combination of yellowfin tuna and salmon during lunchtime. (Eddie Moore/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>Japanese food is simple food, compounded of a very few basic ingredients that combine for different, but subtly related, flavors.</p>
<p>There is none of the baroque exuberance of Thai food, or even the regional variations that lend so much variety to Chinese cuisine. Like its famous gardens and interiors, Japan’s food is restrained.</p>
<p>Still, I do get hungry for it. And, to assuage that craving, Shohko Cafe is an ideal place to go. And lunch might be the ideal meal here if the Thursday we tried it is any indication. It was uncrowded, unhurried and serene.</p>
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<p>I ordered one of my favorites, a bento box – the Japanese version of a cafeteria tray, I guess you might say, with raw fish sashimi ($21). I was disappointed only that it didn’t arrive in an actual bento box, but rather on a giant plate, with various little plates containing the goodies nestled on top.</p>
<p>I chose tuna as my fish, and three large and succulent pink slices arrived atop a tangle of daikon radish threads. Alongside were just-wilted spinach, a seaweed salad and a heap of crisply fried vegetable tempura. It was a nice mix of textures and flavors.</p>
<p>The spinach, heated just past raw, was draped in a tahini dressing that was a nutty complement to what otherwise could be the blandest of dishes. The seaweed salad – by far my favorite – was slightly crunchy and dressed only lightly with a rice-wine vinaigrette.</p>
<p>I should have mentioned that soup – a minimalist bonito broth with miso (fermented soybean paste) and a scattering of tofu – came first. It, too, was tasty and best savored by sipping from the bowl.</p>
<p>As a sort of bonus, my sashimi came with a heap of vegetable tempura, at which Shohko excels. The batter was lighter than light and perfectly crisp. I tasted sweet potatoes – a tempura favorite.</p>
<p>Also a strip of sweet pepper, a couple of onion rings and a wedge of summer squash. And a lone shrimp (I could have added more at $1.50 apiece).</p>
<p>All were excellent, and accompanied by a broth-like and comparatively bland dipping sauce, as well as bright green (and very spicy-hot) wasabi horseradish and plain soy sauce.</p>
<p>My companion asked for a complete order of seafood tempura ($18) and was equally pleased. Calamari, scallops, shrimp, fish and crab were coated with the same light batter and hauled piping hot from the deep-fryer to the plate.</p>
<p>Alongside were more wasabi and soy sauce for dipping. We were impressed not just by the crispy and fresh coating, but also by the ingredients – my guest pounced on the calamari bits and the scallops, leaving the shrimp and fish to wait until round two of sampling.</p>
<p>Shohko has been open for 35 years, making it a veritable institution among Santa Fe restaurants. Yet, here we are, in another age altogether, and the intrigue remains.</p>
<p /> | Japanese restaurant Shohko Cafe intriguing, even after 35 years | false | https://abqjournal.com/862168/taming-the-craving.html | 2 |
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<p>MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Billie Jean King thinks one of the main venues at the Australian Open should be renamed because of Margaret Court's comments about the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.</p>
<p>King, a trailblazer for equality and diversity in tennis, said she had initially been a proponent of having Margaret Court Arena named in 2003 in recognition of the 24-time Grand Slam singles winner's contribution to the sport.</p>
<p>"I was fine until lately when she said so many derogatory things about my community — I'm a gay woman — about the LBGTIQ community," King said at news conference Friday. "That really went deep in my heart and soul.</p>
<p>"I personally don't think she should have (her name on the stadium) anymore."</p>
<p>King is attending the Australian Open for the first time in eight years, marking the 50th anniversary of her win over Court for the Australian title.</p>
<p>King said if she was still competing, she wouldn't play on Margaret Court Arena. King said she wouldn't promote a boycott of the stadium, but encouraged players to "seek their own heart and mind" before making a decision.</p>
<p>Organizers have recognized the American tennis great as the Australian Open Woman of the Year and launched its "Open4All" initiative to promote equality, diversity and inclusion to coincide with King's visit.</p>
<p>King, one of the original professionals in women's tennis and winner of 12 major singles titles in the Open era, said she had regularly met with Court at tournaments in the years since they retired after "we grew up together playing each other."</p>
<p>The 75-year-old Court, who holds the record for most Grand Slam singles titles across the amateur and Open eras, is a Christian pastor who lives in Perth, Western Australia.</p>
<p>Court's negative comments about gay people before Australia voted in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage were heavily criticized last year. Court also has called transgender children the work of "the devil."</p>
<p>Martina Navratilova, an 18-time Grand Slam singles winner, wrote an open letter last year criticizing Court and recommended that tennis officials rename the arena after another Australian great, Evonne Goolagong Cawley.</p>
<p>King said she lobbied on Court's behalf after Melbourne Park's center court was named for Rod Laver in 2000. Her show court was recently upgraded to add a roof and bigger capacity.</p>
<p>Court is a regular at the event, but is not attending this year's Australian Open, which starts Monday.</p>
<p>Tournament director Craig Tiley said Court had a standing invitation to the season-opening major, and would be welcome in the future as she had been in the past.</p>
<p>He said there had been "conversation" among stakeholders of Melbourne Park regarding the issue, but there was no process in place to change the name of the stadium. He said Tennis Australia — a tenant at the venue — would take the lead of the government on the issue.</p>
<p>In 2006, the U.S. Tennis Association named the site of the U.S. Open, located in a public park in New York, the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.</p>
<p>King said she wished Court was in Melbourne so they could continue the conversation.</p>
<p>"You can have discussion around it. I would be very welcome to Margaret," the 74-year-old King said. "It's really important if you're going to have your name on anything that you're hospitable, you're inclusive, you open your arms to everyone that comes. It's a public facility."</p>
<p>MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Billie Jean King thinks one of the main venues at the Australian Open should be renamed because of Margaret Court's comments about the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.</p>
<p>King, a trailblazer for equality and diversity in tennis, said she had initially been a proponent of having Margaret Court Arena named in 2003 in recognition of the 24-time Grand Slam singles winner's contribution to the sport.</p>
<p>"I was fine until lately when she said so many derogatory things about my community — I'm a gay woman — about the LBGTIQ community," King said at news conference Friday. "That really went deep in my heart and soul.</p>
<p>"I personally don't think she should have (her name on the stadium) anymore."</p>
<p>King is attending the Australian Open for the first time in eight years, marking the 50th anniversary of her win over Court for the Australian title.</p>
<p>King said if she was still competing, she wouldn't play on Margaret Court Arena. King said she wouldn't promote a boycott of the stadium, but encouraged players to "seek their own heart and mind" before making a decision.</p>
<p>Organizers have recognized the American tennis great as the Australian Open Woman of the Year and launched its "Open4All" initiative to promote equality, diversity and inclusion to coincide with King's visit.</p>
<p>King, one of the original professionals in women's tennis and winner of 12 major singles titles in the Open era, said she had regularly met with Court at tournaments in the years since they retired after "we grew up together playing each other."</p>
<p>The 75-year-old Court, who holds the record for most Grand Slam singles titles across the amateur and Open eras, is a Christian pastor who lives in Perth, Western Australia.</p>
<p>Court's negative comments about gay people before Australia voted in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage were heavily criticized last year. Court also has called transgender children the work of "the devil."</p>
<p>Martina Navratilova, an 18-time Grand Slam singles winner, wrote an open letter last year criticizing Court and recommended that tennis officials rename the arena after another Australian great, Evonne Goolagong Cawley.</p>
<p>King said she lobbied on Court's behalf after Melbourne Park's center court was named for Rod Laver in 2000. Her show court was recently upgraded to add a roof and bigger capacity.</p>
<p>Court is a regular at the event, but is not attending this year's Australian Open, which starts Monday.</p>
<p>Tournament director Craig Tiley said Court had a standing invitation to the season-opening major, and would be welcome in the future as she had been in the past.</p>
<p>He said there had been "conversation" among stakeholders of Melbourne Park regarding the issue, but there was no process in place to change the name of the stadium. He said Tennis Australia — a tenant at the venue — would take the lead of the government on the issue.</p>
<p>In 2006, the U.S. Tennis Association named the site of the U.S. Open, located in a public park in New York, the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.</p>
<p>King said she wished Court was in Melbourne so they could continue the conversation.</p>
<p>"You can have discussion around it. I would be very welcome to Margaret," the 74-year-old King said. "It's really important if you're going to have your name on anything that you're hospitable, you're inclusive, you open your arms to everyone that comes. It's a public facility."</p> | Billie Jean King backs calls to rename Margaret Court Arena | false | https://apnews.com/amp/0e8d045092c04c28bba60b1265d6bc56 | 2018-01-12 | 2 |
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<p>Last night, Trevor Noah premiered as the new host of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OGZMfVQROY" type="external">Daily Show</a>with a fresh round of jokes about the pope’s recent visit to the United States and John Boehner’s surprise decision to resign as House speaker late last week.</p>
<p>But before diving into the news of the hour, the South African comedian used his opening monologue to thank Jon Stewart for the opportunity and promised to continue fighting his predecessor’s 16-year “war on&#160;bullshit.”</p>
<p>“Jon Stewart was more than just a late-night host,” Noah said. “He was often our voice, our refuge, and in many ways our political dad. It’s weird, because Dad has left and now it feels like the family has a new stepdad—and he’s black.”</p>
<p>“Thank you, John,” he continued. “Thank you for believing in me. I’m not quite sure what you saw in me, but I’ll work hard everyday to find it. And I’ll make you not look like the crazy old dude who left his inheritance to some random&#160;kid from&#160;Africa.”</p>
<p /> | Trevor Noah Debuts on the “Daily Show” With Pledge to Continue “War on Bullshit” | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2015/09/trevor-noah-debuts-daily-show/ | 2015-09-29 | 4 |
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<p>The move signals unresolved tensions between the two rival leaders, Field Marshal Khalifa Hifter and Prime Minister Fayez Serraj, who pledged to cooperate at a meeting outside Paris last week.</p>
<p>In two statements released by Hifter’s LNA on its Facebook page, Hifter directed his command to air forces and eastern naval bases in Benghazi, Ras Lanuf, Tobruk, as well as the capital Tripoli, in the west, after an Italian patrol boat arrived there. The command excluded authorized trade ships.</p>
<p>Italy’s Parliament approved the naval mission to help the Libyan coast guard curb the flow of hundreds of thousands of migrants from Africa and elsewhere crossing the Mediterranean to Europe.</p>
<p>The U.N. migration agency reported in August that the number of migrants and refugees travelling via the Mediterranean exceeded 114,000 since the beginning of 2017 until July 30, with almost 85 percent arriving in Italy.</p>
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<p>Italian Premier Paolo Gentiloni said Italy’s deployment responded to a request by the Tripoli-based government, which later denied striking a deal with the Italians.</p>
<p>Libya’s eastern-based parliament, which is also recognized internationally, is a rival to Tripoli and is allied with Hifter. It saw the move as a “violation of the sovereignty of Libya” that aims at “exporting the illegal migration crisis to Libya” by sending thousands of migrants back to the country.</p>
<p>At the meeting hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron last week, Hiftar and Serraj committed themselves to a ceasefire, to work toward presidential and parliamentary elections, and to establish a roadmap to secure lawless Libya against terrorism and trafficking of all kinds.</p>
<p>Libya has descended into chaos following the 2011 civil war that ended with the overthrow and killing of longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi. The country has been split into two, with the competing institutions in east and west each backed by a set of militias, tribes and political factions.</p> | Libyan general orders navy to confront ships entering waters | false | https://abqjournal.com/1042778/libyan-general-orders-navy-to-confront-ships-entering-waters.html | 2 |
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<p>Part 2 of an interview with Yuval Levin. (View part 1 <a href="" type="internal">here</a>.)</p>
<p>We’re honored to feature an excerpt of an interview of Yuval Levin by Charles Kesler. <a href="http://thefederalist.com/2014/10/14/is-burke-the-right-role-model-for-american-conservatives/" type="external">You can watch and read the first excerpt here</a>. Levin is the Hertog Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the editor of National Affairs, and author of, most recently, The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Left and Right. Charles Kesler is a senior fellow at The Claremont Institute and editor of The Claremont Review of Books.</p>
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<p>Charles Kesler: With Tom Paine, we arrive at a figure who is … Central might be a little bit too strong, but important in two revolutions. I mean, he was the author of Common Sense and The Crisis over here in the American revolution/ then, marvelously found himself in France just at the right time to participate in the opening acts of the French revolution and to get himself thrown in prison.</p>
<p>Paine raises the question, “What is his relation to the American revolution,” and, “What’s the American revolution’s relation to American conservatism these days?” What role should the American founding or the American revolution, call it what you will, play in today’s formulations of conservatism?</p>
<p>Yuval Levin: Well, I think that the order that we as conservatives have been trying to conserve is impossible to understand without the American founding and more than that, it owes itself to the American founding. Paine understood and articulated something very important about the American founding, not everything about it. His idea of the founding was much more radical, I think than the founding itself, more radical than Jefferson even and certainly more radical than the average view of the American living at the time and even of the American founders.</p>
<p>Charles Kesler: What do you mean by that?</p>
<p>Yuval Levin: Well, Paine saw the American founding as a philosophical event. It’s also why he found himself in France when he did and why he had that great timing in the age of revolutions. Paine said himself that he was a revolutionary more than an American. And of course it’s impossible to avoid that. Paine only arrived in America a year and a half before the Declaration of Independence.</p>
<p>Charles Kesler: He had an uncanny eye for revolution.</p>
<p>Yuval Levin: He had an extraordinary ability to find himself in the right place at the right time. What he believed was happening in America was the dawn of a new age, essentially an inevitable age that could only be stopped by the worst kind of despotism, which he thought was what was happening, is what the actions of the British meant in America.&#160;What that age meant was the dawning of a political order that answered the political ideas and especially through enlightenment. It was about equality, about the freedom of the individual. Paine held to I think it’s fair to say, the most radical form of a Lockean liberalism, which is not itself the most radical form of liberalism, by any means.</p>
<p>He found himself at home in America and thought that the American revolution should be understood in terms of the first chapter in an era of revolutions that he spread around the world. He very much connected the American revolution and the French revolution.</p>
<p>The connection between those two was a controversial question in America, was in some sense the controversial question of the error of the French revolution here. For Paine there was no question. It was all about opening this new age of individual liberation, of equality and liberty and democracy.</p>
<p>Of course, that was partially right, so the spirit of Paine is very much alive in anyone who wants to preserve the spirit of the American Revolution. I think it doesn’t account for everything about the revolution. It isn’t everything that conservatives should conserve. Also, Paine’s disposition and Paine’s attitude about knowledge in the role of policy and politics isn’t really what conservatives try to conserve or ever have.</p>
<p>His disposition is radical. That is, he was first and foremost outraged at the bad and believed that it could be undone only by overthrowing the tyranny of the political order that we inherited and starting over on the right foundations. In that sense he was literally a radical. He wanted to go to the core, to the root, to the beginning and thought that you could almost return to a kind of state of nature and from it build in the right way and get to the right kinds of institutions.</p>
<p>That’s not exactly what the American revolution did. The American revolution believed that it had more to draw on than that, so tried to draw the best out of the English tradition and to build new ideas upon that and to build a new political order upon that.</p>
<p>Charles Kesler: Where do you draw the line there? I mean, Paine is in favor of human equality, liberty, natural rights, consent of the governed, social contract, limited government in some large sense of the term just like Jefferson, just like Adams, just like Hamilton or just like Madison.</p>
<p>Yuval Levin: Well, Paine was a believer in absolute democracy. He didn’t believe in the division of powers. He was an opponent of the constitution, though he was very careful not to say too much about it. He certainly didn’t believe in the bicameral legislature and in federalism the way it took shape in the constitution. He was a believer that opening up democracy, allowing it to have its way was the right approach to government and that anything else was a compromise with realities that didn’t need to be compromised with anymore and shouldn’t be compromised with.</p>
<p>I think Paine was much more radical than Jefferson and much less practical than Jefferson and certainly much more so than Madison, let alone Hamilton and Adams.</p>
<p>Charles Kesler: Well, certainly in his later career when he became openly anti-Christian, he far exceeded the bounds of American opinion and even of American radical opinion.</p>
<p>Yuval Levin: Paine, I think also shows you how that radical form of liberalism can lead to a much greater belief in the power and role of government, ultimately, so that you can see in the course of his career a development from what is essentially radical libertarianism to the early roots of welfare state thinking. By 1800, he is writing about creating a system by which government will help the poor. His belief always was that if you liberate the right principles, all these problems should be solved, including poverty, including war.</p>
<p>When it didn’t happen by itself, Paine came to believe that government could help it happen, if it was the right sort of government, if it was a fully democratic government. He writes in an essay called “Agrarian Justice” in 1797, what it essentially kind of description of a proto-welfare state. It provides benefits directly to the public to alleviate poverty. That’s not where Burke was ever headed. The path from radical individualism to safeism is much easier for Paine and I think is much easier for the people who have followed Paine to the more radical approach in the liberal society that followed Paine, because ultimately, a lot of it is about ends.</p>
<p>When the means that Paine believed in didn’t achieve those ends, the followers of Paine and even of Jefferson became open to far different kinds of means because the utopian ends were the point for them. I think you start to see in Paine’s own career, how the belief in limited government is the first thing to give way when it turns out not to work in practice the way that he had hoped.</p>
<p>Charles Kesler: Would he say in defense of himself that both the scheme of agrarian justice and the beginnings of a welfare state and the rights of man are meant for England, I mean meant for a society that has been aristocratic and has been warped by the experience of aristocracy, but not meant for a more natural society, in his terms, as the United States?</p>
<p>Yuval Levin: Well, I wouldn’t say that they were not meant for the United States. Paine, in Agrarian Justice, in one of the later editions of it, in 1802, there’s an American introduction to agrarian justice and he seemed to think it would have some value in America. Now, Paine thought America did have a kind of aristocratic past, at least certain parts of America, that had to be overcome.</p>
<p>I think he would make a form of that case, but ultimately that case amounts to saying that this wouldn’t be necessary in a perfect society, but it is necessary in a real society. That means that it’s necessary. Every society has its history and its limitations. The idea that you can start over and not have to confront the burdens of the past is certainly something Paine always hoped for, but I think it’s fair to say it’s something that is ultimately not possible.</p>
<p>Charles Kesler: Which would you say is the more American debate, though, between Paine and say, Adams or his critics in America, of which he had many, precisely because he was a simple government man, not a complex government man, didn’t really trust or didn’t think checks and balances were really necessary in that kind of thing? French almost in his thinking as far as that goes. Is that the debate or is the Burke-Paine debate the American debate?</p>
<p>Yuval Levin: Well, I think that the Burke-Paine debate is actually a deeper form of that same debate. I think Burke and Paine brought out in each other really their deepest views. They forced one another to think about the roots of their beliefs. The view that Burke is articulating is very similar to the one that Adams make that argues against Paine. Burke is also a believer in complexity.</p>
<p>Ultimately, because he thinks that that complexity arose for a reason and that the reason is probably not entirely knowable to us, so that again, we should start with working institutions, keep those and build on them in ways that try to address their problems. That’s going to result in a very complicated government, in a government that has all sorts of arms and legs.</p>
<p>It’s not clear what its various vestiges are achieving, exactly. Burke was a reformer of some of those when it was clear they were excessive, but he also believed in maintaining them, more or less because they existed and were working. That certainly wasn’t Paine’s view. What the Burke-Paine debate allows you to see – there was no real debate with Adams. Of course, Paine never really quite answered Adams. Adams insulted him in very abusing ways, but it didn’t exactly get down to profound ideas, like the age of Paine. He loved that his name was Paine. It was such a wonderful thing for John Adams.</p>
<p>The Burke-Paine debate gets to ideas and ultimately gets to the question of how we should think about the sources and the roots of politics. For Burke, the key fact is that politics has to begin from the given world. That means that it has to be a politics of generational connections. It has to be a politics of gradual improvement. Paine simply rejected that, including the generational question.</p>
<p>Paine makes explicit something that a lot of other liberal thinkers don’t, which is that the state of nature idea as a source of our understanding of rights, means that there is no importance to the connection between generations. Every person has to be thought of like the first person in the world.</p>
<p>To Burke, this was sheer insanity and it would be impossible to build a society by beginning from that premise. The Burke-Paine debate shows us therefore, that our heritage, our inheritance is very complicated. We want to believe and do in the sort of idea of rights that Paine articulates, but the roots of that idea as Paine lays them out, I think are not ultimately supportable. Those ideas come from somewhere deeper, somewhere further in our intellectual heritage, in British history and in western civilization, in places that a lot of liberals were not comfortable talking about then and are not comfortable talking about now.</p>
<p>The danger of not talking about it or of not seeing those roots, is that it can very easily become utilitarian if you have no roots. It really can be all about ends. At that point you lose the case for limits. That’s exactly what happens in Paine’s own thinking.</p> | How Did Thomas Paine Go From Revolutionary To Welfare Statist? | false | https://eppc.org/publications/how-did-thomas-paine-go-from-revolutionary-to-welfare-statist/ | 1 |
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<p>Republicans are moving a tax reform bill through Congress that could have both short-and long-term impacts on housing prices and trends.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Real estate lobbies are concerned that bills crafted in the House of Representatives and the Senate eliminate incentives for homeownership and put the ability to purchase a home out of reach for many individuals.</p>
<p>Under the House proposal, the mortgage interest deduction (MID) would be capped at $500,000 for homes purchased in the future, as opposed to the current $1 million threshold. The House bill also keeps state and local property tax deductions, while eliminating the rest of the state and local tax (SALT) benefits.</p>
<p>The Senate, on the other hand, keeps the mortgage interest deduction cap steady at $1 million, but eliminates all SALT deductions.</p>
<p>Joseph Perry, partner at tax, accounting and advisory services firm Marcum LLP, told FOX Business that the differentials between the mortgage interest deduction caps are less problematic than eliminating the SALT benefits, which first-time homebuyers rely on.</p>
<p>By doubling the standard deduction to $24,000, as proposed in both versions of the bill, fewer Americans will take advantage of itemized deductions, like the mortgage interest deduction, because it would offer less benefit. Only wealthy people with large mortgages, or those in high-cost coastal states, would likely still profit from itemizing and claiming the mortgage interest deduction, which some see as a pathway to eventually phasing out the deduction entirely.</p>
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<p>The real estate industry argues that with fewer people itemizing, there is less incentive to buy a new home or take out a new mortgage when taxpayers will reap the tax rewards regardless.</p>
<p>“By nearly doubling the standard deduction while eliminating most itemized deductions, the bill would destroy or at least cripple the incentive value of the mortgage interest deduction (MID) for the great majority of current and prospective homebuyers, and sap the incentive value of the property tax deduction for millions more,” the National Association of Realtors wrote in a statement in November.</p>
<p>Jeffrey Geida, who advises high-net worth individuals at Los Angeles-based law firm Weinstock Manion, told FOX Business that wealthy individuals may also put off buying a larger house, or a vacation house, if the proposed changes pass.</p>
<p>Perry said some of his wealthy clients have already discussed moving out of high-tax states into jurisdictions with no income taxes, like Florida, Nevada or Texas. That, he pointed out, could cause these high-earning individuals to put their houses for sale in the states they are exiting, inventory that could in turn sit on the market for quite some time: “Who’s going to be buying a large house in the high-tax states, and it not be deductible?” he asked.</p>
<p>Therefore, Perry said the housing industry could experience a glut in the “first time homebuyer’s [market] because they can’t come up with the money” or “the higher-end market because you’re going to see so much excess potential … inventory.”</p>
<p>However, some homeowners and potential homebuyers could stand to benefit: those living in the middle of the country.</p>
<p>“The middle of the country gets the same, or enhanced, benefits because people actually get more money in their pocket,” Perry said.</p>
<p>The National Association of Realtors said the proposed changes would cause home values “across America” to decline more than 10%, “and likely more in higher cost areas.”</p>
<p>Perry believes the first-time homebuyers market could rebound within a couple of years, if prices declined to a range within reach for prospective buyers.</p>
<p>The House passed its version of a tax reform bill in November and the Senate passed its legislation early Saturday. The two chambers will have to agree on one final bill, which will go through another round of votes before the it reaches President Donald Trump.</p> | How tax reform bill could damage the value of your home | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2017/12/04/how-tax-reform-bill-could-damage-value-your-home.html | 2017-12-04 | 0 |
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<p>For a 60-day period beginning Jan. 17, state lawmakers will attempt to steer their constituents toward prosperity while grappling with a $300 million deficit for the coming fiscal year and another $69 million projected budget deficit still to be dealt with in the current fiscal year. As such, there are no sacred cows: Budget cuts and tax increases are being proposed across the board, with additional recommendations likely to crop up as the session progresses.</p>
<p>Regardless of what the Legislature decides, its actions will affect industries across the state. With that in mind, we’ve compiled a quick guide to what we know so far about the legislation that could impact your business and what to watch for as the session unfolds.</p>
<p>New Mexico’s minimum wage is $7.50. A minimum wage increase will be discussed during New Mexico’s upcoming legislative session. (Marla Brose/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>Minimum wage increase</p>
<p>What it is: The state’s minimum wage is currently $7.50 an hour, with higher wages in cities such as Santa Fe and Albuquerque. Two new proposals have already been filed: A bill sponsored by Sen. William Soules, D-Las Cruces, would raise the state’s minimum to $8.45 an hour, while Rep. Patricia Roybal Caballero, D-Albuquerque, is proposing $15 an hour, which would be the highest state minimum wage in the nation. Both bills still allow local entities to institute minimums beyond that of the state. Currently, Albuquerque’s minimum wage is $8.80 for employees without benefits and Bernalillo County’s is $8.70.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>What to watch: Between the Democratically controlled Roundhouse and minimum wage increases passing in Arizona and Colorado to raise the wage incrementally to $12 by 2020, some kind of modest increase seems likely, though Roybal Caballero said she hopes lawmakers have the “foresight and the courage” to adopt something closer to a living wage. Business organizations such as the New Mexico Association of Commerce and Industry and the Albuquerque Hispano Chamber of Commerce will likely push back against all increases, claiming they will force businesses to cut jobs, and may focus their efforts on disallowing different minimum wages in different localities. Terri Cole, president of the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce, said her organization would be “fully engaged” in the minimum wage debate and “definitely” oppose any increases in the $12 to $15 range because such hikes could have a negative impact on the state’s small businesses.</p>
<p>Other Employment Issues</p>
<p>What it is: The big one is an as-yet-unfiled measure aimed at addressing the “regulatory patchwork” created by city- and county-specific employment law, including the minimum wage issue mentioned above, as well as paid leave and scheduling mandates. Employment law uniformity is a top priority for both ACI and the legislative Jobs Council in the upcoming session. Jason Espinoza, ACI’s president, said consistency is “crucial to businesses,” and is key to creating a more business-friendly and prosperous economic environment.</p>
<p>What to watch: Any effort aimed at reviving the state’s lackluster economy is likely to have legs in a session so focused on fiscal solvency, particularly measures that don’t require appropriations. Espinoza said he’s confident that employment law uniformity is one of the best ways to “help small businesses, which are so important to our state, especially at a time when our economy isn’t where we want it to be.” Watch for critics to argue that the emphasis on homogeneity is meant to stymie workers’ rights campaigns that would have more chance of succeeding locally than statewide. Other workplace issues likely to crop up: workers compensation reform and the employment drug-testing complications likely to arise from the potential legalization of marijuana, particularly in light of the state’s reliance on federal contracts. The Hispano Chamber of Commerce said it will be focusing on a bill aimed at connecting state contracts with historically underutilized businesses.</p>
<p>The upcoming 60-day legislative session is likely to discuss reinstitution of the state’s tax on food. (Marla Brose/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>Tax reform</p>
<p>What it is: An ambitious package of bills being crafted by Rep. Jason Harper, R-Rio Rancho, and Rep. Bill McCamley, D-Mesilla Park, among other lawmakers, aimed in part at lowering the state’s 5.125 percent gross receipts tax rate to 2.25 percent, creating a flat corporate income tax and broadening the tax base. In addition to closing dozens of tax loopholes and deductions, the package would encourage online retailers to collect gross receipts tax from their New Mexico-based customers and reinstitute the state’s food tax. In its current form, the package is meant to be revenue-neutral, redistributing the tax burden as opposed to adding revenue, but that could easily change as lawmakers look for ways to address the budget deficit.</p>
<p>What to watch: Tax reform is inherently controversial, but expect the issue to get especially heated when the food tax comes up for discussion. The tax has attracted criticism from some of the most powerful entities in the state, including Gov. Susana Martinez, as well as the Archbishop of Santa Fe, who argued that a tax affecting New Mexico’s poorest residents has no place in a state with the second-highest child hunger rate in the nation. But New Mexico Tax Research Institute’s Richard Anklam, who provided input on the legislation, said it’s unwise to allow a single element to overshadow the rest of the package, which in his opinion represents “true reform.” “There are a bunch of moving parts, including mechanisms that are meant to help poorer households,” he said. Anklam added that the fiscal crisis may be so bad that lawmakers are forced to build bipartisan bridges to solve the problems, which could in turn mean accord on the tax reform package.</p>
<p>Matt Norman, next to screen, of Facebook’s general contractor Fortis Construction, briefs potential subcontractors and vendors during a meet-and-greet at Los Lunas High School. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>LEDA and JTIP</p>
<p>What it is: Economic developers say Local Economic Development Act funding – incentive money like the $10 million to Facebook for the Los Lunas data center – and the Job Training Incentive Program – reimbursement for training in newly created jobs – are two of the most powerful tools they have to convince businesses to choose New Mexico for expansions and relocations. But politicians are looking for every dollar they can find to sweep back into the general fund or eliminate from the budget, and LEDA’s remaining $35 million and JTIP’s recurring $5 million allotment are looking awfully tempting.</p>
<p>What to watch: Mark Lautman, lead consultant for the Jobs Council, said his sense is that lawmakers generally support maintaining the programs in some form, but the political pressure around the budget situation is such that the council won’t endorse a memorial to keep them intact. “They seem to agree that everything is on the table for cuts, though there is also widespread consensus that LEDA and JTIP should be preserved,” said Lautman. Whether that consensus will remain when lawmakers are choosing between preserving corporate incentives and, say, early education programs remains to be seen. Both incentives have been popular among politicians in recent years, particularly LEDA, which was allotted $50 million in 2015, up from $15 million the year prior. A corollary issue: Two bills have already been filed that would allow local and regional governments to fund broadband infrastructure, such as conduit and trenches, and not be in violation of the state constitution’s anti-donation clause. Businesses often cite the lack of broadband access as a major impediment to expanding in rural communities.</p>
<p>Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the tax reform package being crafted by Rep. Harper, among other lawmakers, would lower the state’s gross receipt tax rate to between 4 and 5 percent. Though the bills have yet to be filed, Rep. Harper said that number reflects the total new rate for the average business once county and municipal taxes&#160;are taken into account, while&#160;the new state gross receipts tax rate would be about 2.25 percent. The article also stated&#160;the issues addressed by two broadband bills&#160;which would be “moot” if the state’s LEDA fund was reduced or eliminated. In fact, the bills do not address how broadband projects would be funded, but instead clarify the language of the Local Economic Development Act itself to permit public entities to engage in such projects. The Journal regrets the errors.</p>
<p /> | Getting down to business | false | https://abqjournal.com/923365/down-to.html | 2017-01-09 | 2 |
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<p>Another advertiser is finished with the National Football League (NFL) after the ongoing kneeling controversy. Players have continued to protest the National Anthem and our police officers, <a href="" type="internal">even after the deadly mass shooting Sunday night in Las Vegas</a>.</p>
<p />
<p>Now, Flemington Car and Truck Country – a massive car dealer in New Jersey – will pull all their ads for the remainder of the football season.</p>
<p />
<p>Owner Steve Kalafer said in a statement the American flag protests are disrespectful, and <a href="http://www.nj.com/hunterdon/index.ssf/2017/10/flemington_business_owner_pulls_tv_ads_over_nfl_pr.html" type="external">he will not support them</a> with his advertising dollars anymore: “The National Football League and its owners have shown their fans and marketing partners that they do not have a comprehensive policy to ensure that players stand and show respect for America and our flag during the playing of the national anthem. We have canceled all of our NFL advertising on the Optimum and Infinity (cable) networks.”</p>
<p>Kalafer is also part of the Somerset Patriots’ ownership group, which is an independent professional baseball team.</p>
<p />
<p>Kalafer added, “As the NFL parses the important nationwide issues of ‘social justice’ and ‘freedom of speech,’ it is clear that a firm direction by them is not forthcoming.”</p>
<p />
<p>He also noted that his customers and employees overwhelmingly agreed that the kneeling and arm-locking was disrespectful. He said, “I’m talking to 99-percent of (my) contacts, and they agree that it’s disrespectful, it’s improper. We couldn’t support the lack of direction.”</p>
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<p>Kalafer supports the players’ freedom of speech and believes the true blame is with the team owners, who have not taken a leadership role in responding to the players’ outrageous displays. The lack of intervention has made the situation worse.</p>
<p />
<p>He suggested that instead of protesting on television in front of police, veterans, and first-responders, “everyone should be involved in true social justice to make sure we’re looking at our communities and seeing how we can make them better, fairer and more equitable.”</p>
<p />
<p>This is a devastating financial loss for the NFL, which is already suffering from low ratings and a <a href="" type="internal">decision by DirecTV</a> to refund subscription fees for the NFL Sunday Ticket package.</p>
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<p />
<p>What do you think about this car dealership pulling their ads from all NFL games? Please leave us a comment (below) and tell us.</p> | Flemington Car and Truck Country Pulls Ads Due to NFL “Take a Knee” Protests | true | http://thepoliticalinsider.com/flemington-car-nfl-advertisement/ | 2017-10-03 | 0 |
<p>It seems more likely the Clinton Foundation will receive less scrutiny from the IRS now that its employees union has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president.</p>
<p>“Throughout her career, Secretary Clinton has been a strong supporter of federal employees. I believe as president she will continue that support on issues from fair pay to protecting retirement benefits and workplace rights,” National Treasury Employees Union National President Tony Reardon says in a <a href="http://nteu.org/PressKits/PressRelease/PressRelease.aspx?ID=6070" type="external">press release</a>.</p>
<p>“Secretary Clinton recognizes the importance of the work done by federal employees and the need to recruit and retain a skilled federal workforce.”</p>
<p>According to the union, Clinton earned a 96% rating when she was in the U.S. Senate.</p>
<p>“The 2016 election will have a huge impact on NTEU members and all federal employees. This election will determine whether our country retains a talented and dedicated workforce with the necessary tools and resources to provide critical services to the American people,” Reardon says.</p>
<p>“Secretary Clinton is a fighter who will ensure that federal employees and all working families get a fair shake and are treated with dignity and respect. I am proud to endorse her candidacy.”</p>
<p>The union regularly supports Democrats for president.</p>
<p>In 2008, the NTEU “strongly endorsed” Obama after he won the nomination over Clinton, Government Executive <a href="http://www.govexec.com/federal-news/fedblog/2008/06/nteu-were-obama-backers/38186/" type="external">reported</a> at the time.</p>
<p>“It is crucial that federal employees support the election of a president who values and understands the work they perform,” then-president Colleen M. Kelley said.</p>
<p>“Sen. Obama will be that president. He has earned our endorsement by his respect and support of federal employees and the work they do for our country.”</p> | IRS workers union endorses Hillary Clinton | true | http://theamericanmirror.com/irs-workers-union-endorses-hillary-clinton/ | 2016-02-11 | 0 |
<p>&lt;img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-22571" src="http://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/obamaCDC-1024x535.jpg" alt="obama" width="1024" height="535" srcset="https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/obamaCDC-1024x535.jpg 1024w, https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/obamaCDC-300x157.jpg 300w, https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/obamaCDC-768x401.jpg 768w, https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/obamaCDC.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /&gt;</p>
<p>One of President Obama’s favorite lies to tell is that Congress <a href="http://www.out.com/news-opinion/2016/6/13/obama-congress-will-not-allow-cdc-study-gun-violence" type="external">is preventing the CDC from studying gun violence</a>…</p>
<p>We are not allowed to use any of that when it comes to guns because when you propose anything it is suggested that we are trying to wipe away gun rights and promote tyranny and martial law. Do you know that Congress will not allow the Center of Disease Control to study gun violence? They are not allowed to study it because the notion is that by studying it, the same way we do with traffic accidents, somehow that is going to lead to everyone’s guns being confiscated. If you buy a car and want to get a license—first of all you have to get a license, people have to know you know how to drive—you don’t have to do any of that in respect to buying a gun.</p>
<p>An irony here, is that you actually do need a drivers license to purchase a firearm (or sometimes a comparable state-issued ID, but I’ve never been to a firearms dealer that didn’t require a drivers license).&#160;But that’s not the issue here. The issue is the oft regurgitated claim that Congress is refusing to allow the CDC to study gun violence. Okay? Okay. Is that true?</p>
<p>The Congress <a href="http://www.gunsandammo.com/politics/cdc-gun-research-backfires-on-obama/" type="external">lifted the ban on the CDC studying gun violence</a>. In 2013. When Obama was President.</p>
<p>The results?</p>
<p>“Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was ‘used’ by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.”</p>
<p>“The number of public mass shootings of the type that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School accounted for a very small fraction of all firearm-related deaths. Since 1983 there have been 78 events in which 4 or more individuals were killed by a single perpetrator in 1 day in the United States, resulting in 547 victims and 476 injured persons.” The report also notes, “Unintentional firearm-related deaths have steadily declined during the past century. The number of unintentional deaths due to firearm-related incidents accounted for less than 1 percent of all unintentional fatalities in 2010.”</p>
<p>“There is empirical evidence that gun turn in programs are ineffective, as noted in the 2005 NRC study Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review. For example, in 2009, an estimated 310 million guns were available to civilians in the United States (Krouse, 2012), but gun buy-back programs typically recover less than 1,000 guns (NRC, 2005). On the local level, buy-backs may increase awareness of firearm violence. However, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for example, guns recovered in the buy-back were not the same guns as those most often used in homicides and suicides (Kuhn et al., 2002).”</p>
<p>&lt;img class=" wp-image-15851 aligncenter" src="http://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/GaryBuseyOhMy.gif" alt="GaryBuseyOhMyReaction GIF" width="539" height="292" /&gt;</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nap.edu/read/18319/chapter/1" type="external">Keep reading</a>. I highly recommend it.</p>
<p>So Mr. President has harped on a verifiable lie. He (and his leftist cronies) shout from the rooftops that Congress is blocking the CDC from studying gun violence. We know that’s a lie. Okay? Okay. So then, the question becomes… why? Why would Obama lie about that?</p>
<p>Answer: in order to vilify firearm-owners and political opposition by slandering them as pro-gun violence. The only way to do that is to lie about the information at hand. Why? Because according to the CDC’s own research (the research that Obama claims doesn’t exist), Obama’s proposed solutions would not work.</p>
<p>OBAMA: Republicans need to stop blocking research on gun crime!</p>
<p>CDC: We’ve done research. Your proposals wouldn’t work at all.</p>
<p>OBAMA: … REPUBLICANS NEED TO STOP BLOCKING RESEARCH ON GUN CRIME!!</p>
<p>Are we supposed to believe that The President of the United States didn’t get this memo? Either he is functionally retarded, or he is lying. I leave both possibilities open.</p>
<p>Finally, Isn’t it odd how&#160;leftists claim to be open-minded? Would open-mindedness include the willingness to alter your opinion in the face of the irrefutable evidence that you asked for? Isn’t that the definition of “open-mindedness”?&#160;Then again, this guy still publicly decries the&#160;use of “semi automatic assault rifles” which were never even used in these “mass shootings”…</p>
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<p /> | FACT CHECK: Obama Claims Congress is Blocking a Gun Violence Study. False… | true | http://louderwithcrowder.com/22570-2/ | 2016-06-15 | 0 |
<p>( <a href="https://www.naturalnews.com/" type="external">Natural News</a>) It looks like more trouble in paradise&#160;for the socialist utopia of Venezuela.</p>
<p>The list of issues includes food rationing and widespread starvation, skyrocketing unemployment, rampant crime and social unrest, political corruption and suppression of opposition parties, state-controlled media, hyperinflation, and gasoline shortages despite the country having the world’s largest oil reserves. All this is the legacy of the Hugo Chavez dictatorial regime, whose policies continue under President Nicolas Maduro. The anti-American Chavez nationalized most industries, with devastating consequences.</p>
<p>Many Venezuelan citizens looking for an exit strategy appear to be trapped inside the country, the&#160;Sovereign Man&#160;website explained in an&#160; <a href="https://www.sovereignman.com/plan-b/on-the-ground-in-venezuela-this-country-is-being-cut-off-from-the-rest-of-the-world-22431/" type="external">on-the-ground report</a>.</p>
<p>Nearly every major regional and international carrier has discontinued service to/from Caracas…&#160;Overall,&#160;Venezuela is being systematically cut off from the rest of the world…&#160;Foreign governments are starting to put up barriers to prevent Venezuelans from coming to their countries…&#160;Moreover, the visas are becoming harder to acquire…</p>
<p>This is a simple supply/demand issue. There are hardly any airlines flying out of Venezuela, and a whole ton of people who want to get out. So the price goes through the roof…&#160;</p>
<p>For a place that used to be one of the wealthiest countries in the region, Venezuela is now completely destitute.</p>
<p>According to an airline expert, given that most&#160;air carriers are abandoning Venezuela because of the ongoing uncertainty, the country is reaching the point where it is almost “disconnected from the rest of the world” and being removed from the international travel map,&#160; the&#160; <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/south-america/venezuela/articles/venezuela-is-it-safe-to-travel-why-go/" type="external">London Telegraph reported</a>.</p>
<p>United and Delta suspended flights to Venezuela earlier this year.</p>
<p>In July, the U.S. State Department issued a travel advisory that warned U.S. citizens against visiting Venezuela and implemented security measures for U.S. government employees still there. In addition to the all the byproducts of economic and political anarchy, the State cautioned about the street crime epidemic, including murder, carjacking, kidnapping, and robbery.</p>
<p>Making matters worse, if that’s possible,&#160;Natural News&#160;reported earlier this year that Venezuela is experiencing&#160; <a href="https://www.naturalnews.com/2017-02-16-thousands-of-people-trapped-in-venezuela-as-passport-shortage-creates-lockdown.html" type="external">a shortage of the materials</a>&#160;needed to produce passports. Thousands of citizens have been waiting for months to obtain travel documents, which has given rise to black market bogus passports. The dictatorial government is also preventing dissidents and others from leaving the country.</p>
<p>To the surprise of no one, the limousine liberal cohort that dominates the U.S. mainstream media&#160; <a href="https://www.naturalnews.com/2017-06-01-mainstream-media-wont-cover-failing-socialist-nightmare-venezuela.html" type="external">is downplaying the chaos</a>&#160;in Venezuela. (Related: Read more about the situation in Venezuela at&#160; <a href="http://collapse.news/" type="external">Collapse.news</a>.)</p>
<p>“This means there are millions… and millions… of people trapped here. And they’re suffering immeasurably,”&#160;Sovereign Man&#160;added in its report about Venezuela’s increasing isolation.</p>
<p>While capitalism obviously has many flaws, particularly in connection with crony capitalism that was very much in play under the Obama administration, the Venezuelan model proves that socialism is no solution to society’s shortcomings, whether here or abroad. Many far-Left, redistributionist Democrats still don’t get it, however.</p>
<p>Sources include:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.sovereignman.com/plan-b/on-the-ground-in-venezuela-this-country-is-being-cut-off-from-the-rest-of-the-world-22431/" type="external">Sovereignman.com</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/south-america/venezuela/articles/venezuela-is-it-safe-to-travel-why-go/" type="external">Telegraph.co.uk</a></p>
<p><a href="https://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/alertswarnings/venezuela-travel-warning.html" type="external">Travel.state.gov</a></p>
<p>Courtesy of <a href="https://www.naturalnews.com/2017-10-09-venezuela-rapidly-collapsing-into-another-north-korea-nearly-all-flights-halted-media-controlled-citizens-blocked-from-escaping.html" type="external">Natural News</a></p>
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<p /> | Venezuela rapidly collapsing into another North Korea; nearly all flights halted, media controlled, citizens blocked from escaping | true | http://dcclothesline.com/2017/10/12/venezuela-rapidly-collapsing-into-another-north-korea-nearly-all-flights-halted-media-controlled-citizens-blocked-from-escaping/ | 2017-10-12 | 0 |
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<p>FILE - This image provided by the Utah Department of Corrections shows inmate Ramon C. Estrada. Utah prison officials have fired two workers and disciplined three others after investigating the death of Estrada, an inmate who went without dialysis for days when providers failed to show up for treatment. The Utah State Prison has settled a wrongful-death lawsuit in the case, court documents filed Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015 show. The family of inmate Ramon C. Estrada, 62, is still suing the provider, a University of Utah clinic. He died of an apparent heart attack related to kidney failure on April 5, after dialysis technicians switched shifts and nobody came for his appointment. (Utah Department of Corrections via AP, File)</p>
<p>SALT LAKE CITY - Utah State Prison settled a wrongful death lawsuit involving an inmate who died after a dialysis provider didn't show up to give him treatment for two days, according to court documents filed Tuesday.</p>
<p>Inmate Ramon C. Estrada, 62, had been in prison since 2005 on a rape conviction. He died less than three weeks before he was set to be paroled.</p>
<p>Lawyers for the state and the family of Estrada declined to discuss details of the settlement, citing a confidentiality agreement.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Alyson McAllister, a lawyer for Estrada's son, said it has helped bring the family closure.</p>
<p>"They are happy to have some answers," she said, pointing to a prison investigation that led to the firing of two workers and the discipline of three more as well as policy changes to prevent a similar situation from happening again.</p>
<p>The prison also released Estrada's remains so the family could hold funeral services, McAllister said.</p>
<p>Prison officials didn't acknowledge legal responsibility for Estrada's death.</p>
<p>Utah attorney general's office spokeswoman Camille Anderson said officials are happy the case has been resolved and wanted to publicly express sincere condolences to the family.</p>
<p>Estrada died of an apparent heart attack related to kidney failure on April 5.</p>
<p>The family is still suing the provider, a University of Utah clinic.</p>
<p>Estrada's son, Jose Estrada, of Edcouch, Texas, alleges that staff at Sandy-based South Valley Dialysis, a University of Utah medical clinic, acted with reckless disregard when technicians switched shifts and one forgot about the prison appointments.</p>
<p>University of Utah Health Care spokeswoman Kathy Wilets said in April that the university deeply regretted the mistake and would take the necessary steps to ensure a scheduling mix-up would not happen again.</p>
<p>The two technicians were disciplined but not fired, she has said. Wilets could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.</p>
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<p>This story has been corrected to show Ramon C. Estrada died on April 5, not April 19.</p> | Utah prison settles suit after inmate missed dialysis, died | false | https://abqjournal.com/684261/utah-prison-settles-suit-after-inmate-missed-dialysis-died.html | 2 |
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<p>This new study reveals that global warming threatens nearly half of the regularly occurring bird species in the United States and Canada with extinction, including many of New Mexico’s birds: the burrowing owl, the black rosy-finch, the lesser prairie-chicken, the red-faced warbler and the western bluebird.</p>
<p>Of 588 bird species examined in the seven-year study, 314 species are at risk. Of those, 126 species are at risk of severe declines by 2050 and a further 188 species face the same fate by 2080, with numerous extinctions possible if global warming is allowed to erase the havens birds occupy today.</p>
<p>One bird that is facing potential devastation is the black rosy-finch, a denizen of the high mountains in the western United States.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Every winter, birders flock to Sandia Crest outside of Albuquerque for a chance to see this stunning little rosy-finch. If they’re lucky, they may come across clouds of them, with the other two rosy-finch species mixed in.</p>
<p>I have been studying the winter ecology of rosy-finches at Sandia Crest for the past 10 years and have noticed a significant decrease in overall population size. Whereas some bird species can easily move to new areas when the climate gets too hot, mountain specialists like the black rosy-finch, whose entire life-cycle is dependent on cool temperatures and snow-covered mountain tops, will have nowhere else to go.</p>
<p>Audubon’s new model paints the worst possible picture for this species in winter: a complete loss of available climate space. If the black rosy-finch can’t adapt to new climates and habitats, it may be in serious trouble.</p>
<p>This new study should sound the warning siren; business as usual could mean devastation for many iconic bird species. If we do nothing, many birds could disappear in our children’s lifetimes. That alone – to lose such a beautiful piece of our natural heritage – is devastating, but we know that losing our birds is not the only consequence of global warming. Extreme weather, fierce wildfires, agricultural disruptions, sea level rise and greater threats to our health are consequences we’re already experiencing today.</p>
<p>Although the news seems dire, all is not lost. There is still an opportunity to change the course of this story, but that will require action at a local, state and federal level to reduce the severity of global warming, and that action needs to start today.</p>
<p>We may not be able to make it rain nor can we take back the greenhouse gases we’ve already emitted into the atmosphere, but we can work to become more sustainable as individuals, communities, states and as a nation. If we ignore the warning, we not only risk the beautiful birds we enjoy, but our own future as well.</p>
<p>We can start by protecting birds at a local level in our own backyards. As natural habitats for birds continue to decrease, properly managed urban environments, rural and agricultural lands are becoming more and more important to the continued existence of birds, especially neotropical migrants that may use your backyard as a safe haven during travel between breeding and wintering grounds.</p>
<p>By using fewer pesticides on your land, pledging to keep your cats indoors, replacing non-native vegetation with native plants from your region, and by offering water, food and nest boxes, you can help protect billions of birds each year.</p>
<p>For more ways to help birds at home, visit <a href="http://athome.audubon.org" type="external">athome.audubon.org</a>.</p>
<p>I hope in 2080, when I’m a 90-year-old man, I will be able to stand atop the Sandia Mountains, snow crunching beneath my feet, watching as the rosy-finches wheel about overhead in a misty mountain sky – but we’ve got our work cut out for us.</p>
<p>Raymond VanBuskirk is owner of BRANT (Birding, Research and Nature Tours).</p>
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<p /> | Study: Many NM birds may be extinct by 2080 | false | https://abqjournal.com/466130/study-many-nm-birds-may-be-extinct-by-2080.html | 2 |
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