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<p>Bill Banowsky of Violet Crown Cinemas promised not to implement a “clearance” zone around his theater, a mechanism where one cinema can prevent nearby competitors from showing the same film.</p>
<p>Banowsky also said the Center for Contemporary Arts and The Screen, both nonprofits, show different types of films than Violet Crown. Violet Crown’s programming at the Railyard will be a mixture of mainstream and “crossover” art films, while The Screen and CCA are focused more on “high art” films, he said.</p>
<p>“I certainly don’t see us taking business away from The Screen and CCA,” Banowsky told an audience of around 50 people Thursday night at an early neighborhood notification meeting at Warehouse 21.</p>
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<p>Violet Crown “wants to grow the audience for film” and the two competitors show movies that tend to have “a very small audience,” he said.</p>
<p>Banowsky did say Violet Crown could affect the Regal theater at DeVargas Mall, which shows mostly mainstream-leaning art films.</p>
<p>The impact of the new Violet Crown on The Screen and CCA, as well as a new venture by author George R.R. Martin to revive the Jean Cocteau Cinema, has been on the minds of many Santa Feans since the Santa Fe Railyard Community Corp., the nonprofit that runs the Railyard for the city, selected Violet Crown last month to build and operate a cinema in the Railyard.</p>
<p>Jason Silverman of CCA said Thursday he doesn’t have enough information to either support or oppose Violet Crown but is skeptical that the Santa Fe market can handle so many screens.</p>
<p>Peter Grendle of The Screen said he believes Banowsky’s promises.</p>
<p>The plan from Violet Crown calls for a 600-seat theater with 10, 50-seat screens and one, 100-seat screen. The building will also include a 3,200-square-foot restaurant that would face the Santa Fe Farmers Market.</p>
<p>Overall, the project will be around 16,042 square feet and be entirely contained within the now-empty parcel next to the Flying Star restaurant.</p>
<p>SFRCC chose Violet Crown over three competitors, ruffling a few feathers by turning down a bid from California-based Maya Cinema, in particular. Maya had garnered some community support for its plan to work with the financially precarious El Museo Cultural, located next door to the cinema site.</p>
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<p>There wasn’t much controversy at Thursday’s meeting, however.</p>
<p>“We want to be very much immersive and part of the community in a positive way and this is a wonderful opportunity for us,” Banowsky told the crowd.</p>
<p>“We feel a real sense of duty to deliver to the community (a theater) that everyone will be proud of and everyone will be grateful we were here as opposed to wishing we were not,” he said.</p>
<p>Violet Crown’s goal is to deliver a “higher experience” to cinema-goers, Banowsky said. That means affordable ticket prices with amenities such as good food and drink, free online ticket purchasing and seat reservation options and auditoriums where “every seat is a great seat,” including the front row.</p>
<p>Patrons will get four free hours of parking in the Santa Fe Railyard garage. SFRCC is paying for the parking under a deal still being worked out with the city.</p>
<p>The Violet Crown design won’t require any variances from the city, though the project will eventually need approval from the city’s Planning Commission. Banowsky’s team estimated the project will take 10 to 12 months to build. Banowsky said he hopes to have the theater up and running by the 2014 holiday season.</p> | Theater operator: We’ll all compete | false | https://abqjournal.com/200032/theater-operator-well-all-compete.html | 2013-05-17 | 2 |
<p>Boston HeraldJudge Ernest B. Murphy says he wasn't aware that using court stationery for letters sent to Boston Herald's publisher was unlawful. The Herald's lawyer says: "The real problem is the content of the letters themselves, not just the stationery. The letters speak for themselves and must be read to understand his forceful attempt to bully the Herald into dropping its appeal." Murphy won a $2 million libel verdict against the Herald in February.</p> | Judge apologizes for using court stationery for Herald letters | false | https://poynter.org/news/judge-apologizes-using-court-stationery-herald-letters | 2005-12-21 | 2 |
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<p>TRENTON, N.J. — Gov. Chris Christie, by his own admission, entered lame-duck territory on Tuesday, signing his final budget after a bruising three-day state government shutdown that included a viral photo of him lounging on a state beach that was closed to the public because of a budget impasse.</p>
<p>The two-term Republican governor signed the $34.7 billion budget early Tuesday and sounded an unapologetic tone over the aerial photos snapped by NJ.com that showed him at the state governor’s residence at Island Beach State Park.</p>
<p>The pictures sparked a global reaction: countless memes featuring a Photoshopped cutout of Christie in a beach chair, headlines on international news sites and a full-scale media blitz from Christie’s spokesman.</p>
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<p>“If they had flown that plane over that beach and I was sitting next to a 25-year-old blonde in that beach chair next to me that’s a story,” he said. “I wasn’t sitting next to a 25-year-old blonde. I was sitting next to my wife of 31 years.”</p>
<p>The photos are part of a bruising finale for the term-limited governor, who had been a regular on late-night TV and a Republican superstar after Superstorm Sandy hammered his state in 2012.</p>
<p>Christie’s job approval in New Jersey has sunk to 15 percent, tumbling after the convictions of three former aides in a scheme to deliberately cause traffic jams at the George Washington Bridge, his failed presidential run and his backing of President Donald Trump.</p>
<p>He’s become such a political liability in New Jersey that his top deputy, Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, running to succeed him, hammered him over the beach photos: “Beyond words,” she said.</p>
<p>People in New Jersey and beyond seized on what many saw as a let-them-eat-cake gesture by the state’s chief executive.</p>
<p>“Taxpayers can’t use the parks and other public sites they pay for, but he and his family can hang out at a beach that no one else can use?” asked Mary Jackson, a Freehold resident. “Doesn’t he realize how that looks, how people will see it as a slap in the face?”</p>
<p>Christie acknowledged his lame-duck status on Tuesday after the budget signing but predicted that if Guadagno wins he still might have some influence with lawmakers — but less if Democrat Phil Murphy wins. The Legislature is expected to leave Trenton to campaign since all 120 seats are up this year.</p>
<p>Christie denied the beach photos played a role in how he negotiated with lawmakers and said it was “the pressure of a shutdown” that contributed to the budget resolution. He also has said he only worries about polls when he’s running for office — and he’s not.</p>
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<p>But experts said they think the pictures all but did him in.</p>
<p>“The photos are likely the nails in Christie’s political coffin that drive his approval ratings into the single digits,” Montclair State University political science professor Brigid Harrison said.</p>
<p>The deal Christie struck late Monday with Democratic Senate President Steve Sweeney and Democratic Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto calls for a $34.7 billion budget that includes more than $300 million in Democratic spending priorities and is part of an agreement to overhaul the state’s largest health insurer, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield.</p>
<p>The Horizon legislation calls for annual audits of the nonprofit’s reserve level, sets a range for reserves and requires excess to be spent on policyholders. The budget stalemate centered on Christie’s desire for legislation to overhaul Horizon, but the deal includes none of the initial use of Horizon’s surplus for opioid treatment that he set out to get in February.</p>
<p>Without a budget, state parks were shut down along with other nonessential state services, including state courts and the motor vehicle offices where people go to get driver’s licenses. Tens of thousands of state workers were furloughed.</p>
<p>Christie said he requested to give state workers a paid holiday on Tuesday and would discuss back pay with lawmakers.</p>
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<p>Contact Catalini at https://twitter.com/mikecatalini</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writers Bruce Shipkowski, in Trenton, and Wayne Parry, in Atlantic City, contributed to this story.</p> | Christie ends shutdown, but beach pictures left an imprint | false | https://abqjournal.com/1027789/christie-ends-shutdown-but-beach-pictures-left-an-imprint.html | 2017-07-04 | 2 |
<p>Faith leaders across the country and in Texas wrote letters May 3 urging state legislators to reject proposed “bathroom bills” similar to North Carolina’s controversial HB2, a measure partially repealed due to pressure from economic boycotts.</p>
<p>Clergy gathered Wednesday morning at the Texas Capitol to pray, protest and hand deliver a letter opposing <a href="ftp://ftp.legis.state.tx.us/bills/85R/billtext/html/house_bills/HB02800_HB02899/HB02899I.htm" type="external">HB2899</a>, which forbids cities and counties from adopting ordinances barring discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, and <a href="http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/85R/billtext/html/SB00006I.htm" type="external">SB6</a>, requiring students in public schools to use the restroom corresponding to the sex designated on their birth certificate if it differs from their “internal sense of gender.”</p>
<p>Griff Martin, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Austin; Larry Bethune, senior pastor of University Baptist Church in Austin; and Valda Jean Combs, associate minister at Brentwood Baptist Church in Houston, were among 209 Texas clergy opposing “discriminatory laws masquerading as ‘religious freedom’ or any other attempts to treat Texas’ LGBT community as second-class citizens.”</p>
<p>State Rep. Ina Minjarez (D-San Antonio) thanks clergy showing support for LBGT Texans May 3 in Austin.</p>
<p>“We will continue to speak out against all attempts to use religion to demonize, discriminate against or bring harm to our LGBT sisters and brothers,” the Texas letter <a href="http://texasbelieves.org/letter.pdf" type="external">said</a>. “And we encourage you, as leaders in our state, to support policies that treat all Texans equally under the law, including the LGBT community.”</p>
<p>Baptists also were among more than 100 national faith leaders issuing a <a href="http://religiousinstitute.org/national-faith-statement-anti-lgbtq-bills/" type="external">statement</a> May 3 opposing legislation “that seeks to stigmatize and marginalize transgender people in particular, legitimize discrimination against all lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people or abuse the notion of religious freedom to deny basic rights and protections to others.”</p>
<p>The clergy said such bills “further false narratives and lead to greater hostility and violence toward transgender and gender non-conforming people” and “threaten the dignity and equal treatment of LGBTQ people in general and violate the very tenets of love and justice that are the backbone of our religious traditions.”</p>
<p>Michael Castle, president of the Alliance of Baptists; Catherine Chapman, executive director of the Association of Welcoming &amp; Affirming Baptists; and LeDayne McLeese Polaski, executive director of Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America/Bautistas por la Paz, are among Baptists signing the national letter.</p>
<p>Others include Miguel De La Torre, professor of social ethics and Latinx studies at Iliff School of Theology; David Gushee, distinguished university professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University; and Larry Greenfield, executive director of the Parliament of the World’s Religions and former executive director of American Baptist Church of Metro Chicago.</p>
<p>The letters come on the heels of last month’s <a href="http://uspastorcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Legislative-Open-Letter-on-SB-6_final-with-list.pdf" type="external">letter</a> from the Texas Pastor Council voicing concern “about the public narrative” portraying legislation such as HB2899 and SB6 in a negative light.</p>
<p>“It is a duty of the Texas legislature to protect all citizens equally,” said clergy signers including pastors Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church in Dallas, Gregg Matte of First Baptist Church in Houston, Dwight McKissic of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington and former Southern Baptist Convention President Ed Young of Second Baptist Church in Houston.</p>
<p>“Women and children should not be subjected to a biological male, whether clothed or unclothed, entering their restroom, shower or locker room in the great state of Texas,” the conservative clergy said. “Neither should our businesses and churches be threatened with criminal punishment for exercising their long held beliefs and standards of decency.”</p> | Progressive clergy oppose ‘bathroom bills’ in Texas | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/progressive-clergy-oppose-bathroom-bills-texas/ | 3 |
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<p>Warner Bros.’ sci-fi thriller, “Geostorm” blew away the competition in its first weekend on release in Japan.&#160;&#160;For the Jan. 20-21 frame the film earned $2.2 million on 171,000 admissions to take the number one box office spot. Placing second, with $1.4 million, was “The Lies She Loved,” Toho’s drama about a woman who discovers her […]</p> | Japan Box Office: ‘Geostorm’ Blows Away Competition In Weekend Win | false | https://newsline.com/japan-box-office-geostorm-blows-away-competition-in-weekend-win/ | 2018-01-23 | 1 |
<p>Norsk Hydro ASA (NHY.OS) said Wednesday that its net income rose in the third quarter, as underlying earnings fell due to higher raw material costs and negative currency effects.</p>
<p>The Norwegian aluminum supplier generated net income of 2.18 billion Norwegian kroner ($272.7 million) in the quarter, up 40% from the second quarter.</p>
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<p>However, underlying earnings before interest and tax were down 17% to NOK2.45 billion on quarter. Earnings before financial items, tax, depreciation and amortization fell 13% to NOK3.77 billion.</p>
<p>Norsk Hydro said its cost-savings plan is behind schedule due to ongoing challenges in its rolled-products program. The company doesn't expect to hit its year-end target of NOK500 million in savings, but said this won't impact its 2019 target of NOK2.90 billion.</p>
<p>Write to Adam Clark at [email protected]; @AdamDowJones</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>October 25, 2017 02:16 ET (06:16 GMT)</p> | Norsk Hydro 3Q Net Income Up 40%, but Earnings Fall on Higher Costs | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/10/25/norsk-hydro-3q-net-income-up-40-but-earnings-fall-on-higher-costs.html | 2017-10-25 | 0 |
<p>Despite the popular myth, lemmings don’t really hurl themselves off a cliff to reduce their numbers. That sort of behavior is seen only among Republicans in the Senate, who gave us a demonstration when they torpedoed legislation to bail out the auto industry.</p>
<p>To state the obvious, no one is eager to use hard-earned taxpayer dollars to bail out the bozos of Detroit. Yes, I know that American cars are better than they used to be, and yes, I know that the much-heralded Chevy Volt is on the way. But our domestic auto industry has been thoroughly out- thought and out-hustled by the foreign competition, and no infusion of public funds is likely to change this established pattern.</p>
<p>It may be that General Motors, Chrysler and Ford are lumbering, Jurassic beasts that deserve their looming extinction. But only a free-market fundamentalist, a lunatic or a Senate Republican — perhaps I’m being redundant — would conclude that now is the moment to hasten Detroit’s demise.</p>
<p>To recap: We’re in the midst of a global financial crisis. The housing bubble has burst and prices have collapsed. The economy has been in recession for a year. Unemployment has risen to 6.7 percent, and if “marginally attached” workers are included — those who have given up even looking for a job — along with those who want to work full time but are forced to accept fewer hours, the rate is 12.5 percent.</p>
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<p>Even if the Big Three deserve to die, they shouldn’t die now. Economic theory notwithstanding, it would be insanity to throw hundreds of thousands of auto company employees, and maybe a few million others in the supply and sales chains, out of work — leaving them and their families at the mercy of an economy that has no replacement jobs for them. Public funds would end up supporting these people anyway, except that we would have lost our domestic auto industry — which, despite its many failings, is the only domestic auto industry we’ve got.</p>
<p>What the auto companies need is something on the order of $14 billion, which will allow them to survive until the Obama administration takes office and is able to address the crisis in a more systematic way. That sounds like a lot of money, but it’s a rounding error in the context of the ongoing financial meltdown. We’ve already agreed to spend $700 billion to bail out Wall Street.</p>
<p>The thing to do is give the automakers the money to buy some time. This is obvious to the current administration, the incoming administration, a majority in the House of Representatives and the Democrats in the Senate — but not to the Senate Republicans. They killed the bailout measure by demanding that the United Auto Workers agree to sharp, almost immediate cuts in wages and benefits.</p>
<p>Funny, I don’t recall a cry from Senate Republicans for salary caps on the stockbrokers whose jobs were saved in the Wall Street bailout — nor, to my knowledge, have they demanded that white-collar workers in the auto companies take pay cuts. I do recall lectures from some Republicans in the Senate about how inadvisable it is for government to meddle in the workings of the free market. In my book, renegotiating labor contracts qualifies as meddling.</p>
<p>Some of the most vocal critics of a Detroit bailout — Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., for example — happen to have foreign-owned auto plants in their home states. This has led to accusations that they are deliberately trying to sabotage the Big Three to help foreign automakers, but I think it’s more likely that they’re just being doctrinaire and ultimately self-defeating.</p>
<p>They have managed to position their party as against unions, against America’s domestic industrial patrimony, against the blue-collar working class — and also, incredibly, against the Rust Belt states, such as Michigan and Ohio, that are home to UAW-represented auto plants and that also regularly tip the balance of presidential elections.</p>
<p>And for what? The Republican senators who voted to kill the bailout knew full well that the White House was determined to find some way to tide the automakers over. It was as if they couldn’t help themselves. Even lemmings must be shaking their heads in dismay.</p>
<p>Eugene Robinson’s e-mail address is eugenerobinson(at)washpost.com.</p>
<p>© 2008, Washington Post Writers Group</p> | Killing the Big 3 Would Be Nuts | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/killing-the-big-3-would-be-nuts/ | 2008-12-16 | 4 |
<p>DENVER (AP) — Jake Pemberton scored 13 points to lead four Denver starters in double figures and the Pioneers beat Western Illinois 70-58 on Thursday night.</p>
<p>Joe Rosga and Daniel Amigo scored 12 points each and Ade Murkey 10 for the Pioneers (9-12, 3-4 Summit League), who shot 56 percent, making 8 of 12 3-point attempts, and won their second straight.</p>
<p>Kobe Webster, who scored all 22 of his points in the second half, got the Leathernecks (10-9, 1-5) within 57-53 on a jumper. But Murkey made two free throws, Donovan Carlisle had a 3-point play and Pemberton made two more free throws for a 64-53 lead with 2:39 remaining. WIU didn't get closer than 10 thereafter.</p>
<p>Webster scored 14 straight points, including three consecutive treys, to give WIU a 47-46 lead before Rosga put Denver up for good at 50-47 with a 3-pointer.</p>
<p>Isaac Johnson added 12 points and C.J. Duff 11 for WIU.</p>
<p>DENVER (AP) — Jake Pemberton scored 13 points to lead four Denver starters in double figures and the Pioneers beat Western Illinois 70-58 on Thursday night.</p>
<p>Joe Rosga and Daniel Amigo scored 12 points each and Ade Murkey 10 for the Pioneers (9-12, 3-4 Summit League), who shot 56 percent, making 8 of 12 3-point attempts, and won their second straight.</p>
<p>Kobe Webster, who scored all 22 of his points in the second half, got the Leathernecks (10-9, 1-5) within 57-53 on a jumper. But Murkey made two free throws, Donovan Carlisle had a 3-point play and Pemberton made two more free throws for a 64-53 lead with 2:39 remaining. WIU didn't get closer than 10 thereafter.</p>
<p>Webster scored 14 straight points, including three consecutive treys, to give WIU a 47-46 lead before Rosga put Denver up for good at 50-47 with a 3-pointer.</p>
<p>Isaac Johnson added 12 points and C.J. Duff 11 for WIU.</p> | 4 starters in double figures as Denver beats WIU 70-58 | false | https://apnews.com/amp/6b1829e9752545f78b7509eb02cac004 | 2018-01-26 | 2 |
<p>On Tuesday, David Cassidy of Partridge Family fame, passed away from organ failure at just 67 years old. He is survived by his children, Katie and Beau, as well as his brothers, Shaun, Patrick, and Ryan.</p>
<p>On Friday, three days after her father’s passing, Katie Cassidy published the following tweet:</p>
<p>So much wasted time — a sentiment many people fear they will express as they pass away. As Katie Cassidy aptly noted, however, her father’s words have reminded her to share her gratitude with her loved ones, and not waste a single minute of her life.</p>
<p>Following the success of the Partridge Family musical television show, which ran from 1970 to 1974, David Cassidy had a lengthy singing career. He also starred in the Broadway musicals "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," and "Blood Brothers."</p>
<p>While always putting on a happy face, Cassidy struggled in his personal life. He married and divorced three times, and from 2010 to 2015, Cassidy <a href="https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/david-cassidy-charged-in-florida-hit-and-run-details-2015310/" type="external">racked up</a> three DUIs, as well as a hit-and-run. The singer also filed for bankruptcy in 2015.</p>
<p>In February, Cassidy announced that he was battling dementia, a disease his mother had also dealt with.</p> | Katie Cassidy Shares Her Dad’s Last Words: ‘So Much Wasted Time’ | true | https://dailywire.com/news/23943/katie-cassidy-shares-her-dads-last-words-so-much-frank-camp | 2017-11-25 | 0 |
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<p>Billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn said on Monday he planned to sell his shuttered Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, likely bringing an end to his troubled relationship with the city.</p>
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<p>Icahn, a special adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, the original owner of the casino, will sell the Taj Mahal - possibly at a loss - instead of investing the $100 million to $200 million it needs to keep going, according to a statement on his website.</p>
<p>Icahn closed the 26-year-old Taj Mahal in October 2016 after failing to reach a new contract with union employees.</p>
<p>New Jersey legislators accused him of planning to close the casino only briefly in order to reopen it shortly after with lower wages and benefits for employees.</p>
<p>In an attempt to prevent that, the state's legislature last year passed a bill that would disqualify individuals who closed a casino since January 2016 from holding a gambling license in the state for five years.</p>
<p>That legislation was vetoed on Monday by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Republican, who called it a ���transparent attempt to punish the owner of the Taj Mahal casino."</p>
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<p>Despite the fact Christie vetoed the bill, Icahn railed against the sponsor of the legislation, New Jersey Senate President Stephen Sweeney, a Democrat, on his website on Monday.</p>
<p>���I believe other large investors will similarly have no interest in investing significant amounts in Atlantic City or New Jersey as long as Sweeney is in control of the Senate,��� he said.</p>
<p>In a statement later on Monday, Sweeney criticized Icahn and Christie's decision to veto.</p>
<p>���The only person who will benefit from this veto will be billionaire investor Carl Icahn," said Sweeney. The veto "will allow Icahn to exploit and manipulate bankruptcy laws and casino licensing regulations in ways that would enrich himself at the expense of regular casino workers and the families who depend on them."</p>
<p>The Taj Mahal was once the flagship of Trump���s casino empire, which at its peak had four properties, three of them in New Jersey. Trump lost control of the casinos through a series of bankruptcies with Icahn ultimately emerging as the sole owner of the Taj Mahal. The casino is owned by Icahn Enterprises , the investment firm controlled by Icahn.</p>
<p>Trump named Icahn as a special adviser to his administration in December, tasked with helping him overhaul federal regulations.</p>
<p>(Reporting By Jennifer Ablan; Editing by Bill Rigby)</p> | Icahn to sell closed Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/02/06/icahn-to-sell-closed-trump-taj-mahal-casino-in-atlantic-city.html | 2017-02-06 | 0 |
<p>In late January, the Department of the Army issued a set of regulations governing the U.S. military’s use of the death penalty. “This publication is a major revision,” said Sandra Riley, an administrative assistant to the secretary of the army. “This regulation establishes responsibilities and updates policy and procedures for carrying out a sentence of death as imposed by general courts-martial or military tribunals.” This “little-noticed move,” as the Reuters news service described it, is the first public announcement by the military of a policy that it has been quietly implementing for several years-slowly placing soldiers on its version of death row.</p>
<p>While the civilian death penalty is coming under greater scrutiny and several states are considering a moratorium on executions, the U.S. military is gearing up to carry out its first execution since 1961. The death penalty was restored in the U.S. military in 1984, but it is only recently that death sentences for American soldiers related to the war in Iraq have been imposed. In March 2005, Sgt. Hasan Akbar was sentenced to death for the “fragging” death of two officers in Kuwait on the eve of the Iraq War in March 2003. National Guard Sgt. Alberto Martinez also faces a possible death sentence in another fragging case stemming from the death of two officers in Iraq in June 2005. The military is clearly testing the waters to see what it can get away with.</p>
<p>The totalitarian world of “military justice” would even shock opponents of the civilian death penalty. Last year, Irene Khan, secretary general of Amnesty International, described the treatment of Arab and Muslim prisoners at the U.S. naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as “the gulag of our time.” A similar gulag also exists for rank-and-file soldiers who get entangled in the spider’s web of the military justice system, especially for those facing the death penalty. The shrouded world of American military injustice needs to be exposed for all to see.</p>
<p>The “Castle”</p>
<p>For millions of Americans just hearing the word Leavenworth jolts something in the back of the brain, producing an uncomfortable feeling of dread. For the many thousands of soldiers, who have been incarcerated over the years at the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, it is known by the nickname the “Castle.” Castles, of course, have dungeons full of hideous instruments of torture. The military’s death row is located in the basement of the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks (formerly known as the U.S. Military Prison) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. While hanging was the preferred form of execution for most of its history, lethal injection is now the method employed.</p>
<p>The Castle is the only long-term prison operated by the Department of Defense, as distinct from prisoner-of-war (POW) camps that were meant to operate only during wartime. The prison was established by an act of Congress in 1874 and has been in continuous operation since 1875, when the Castle was built by prisoners from gray stone blocks cut from the bluffs above the Missouri River. A new modern prison was completed in 2002. It incarcerates members from all branches of the armed forces-the U.S. Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, and the Coast Guard.</p>
<p>The last prisoner to be executed at the Castle was African American Army Private John Bennett, by hanging, in 1961. The last American soldier executed during wartime for desertion was Private Eddie Slovik, shot by a firing squad in Europe in 1945. In both cases, the hero of that war and beloved president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, signed the death warrants-the first time as the supreme allied commander in Europe and the second time as president of the United States. There is a perception that Slovik was the only American soldier executed during the Second World War, but there were dozens of others.One hundred thirty-five soldiers have been executed by the U.S. military since 1916.</p>
<p>Currently there are eight men on death row at the Castle: six African-Americans, one white, and one Asian of Filipino descent. There are no women on military death row. These numbers are all the more stark when it is recalled that Black men make up 6 percent of the entire U.S. population, and that Blacks as a whole make up 30 percent of enlistees. The only white inmate on death row is the former senior airman Andrew Witt convicted last October for the double murder of two people in the summer of 2004. To say that racism plays a role in who gets death in the military justice system is an understatement.</p>
<p>While some may argue that the small number on the Castle’s death row doesn’t allow us to draw any definitive conclusions about the role of race in sentencing, the numbers parallel racial disparities in sentencing outside the military and are no accident. As Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky wrote many years ago in his History of the Russian Revolution, “An army is always a copy of the society it serves-with this difference, that it gives social relations a concentrated character, carrying both their positive and negative features to an extreme.” The extreme racism, sharp class divisions, and corrupt judicial system of U.S. society are starkly reflected in the American military today. Currently, 75 percent of federal death row prisoners are non-white, while 43 percent on death row nationally are African American. It’s not surprising, then, that the racial disparity on military death row is far greater.</p>
<p>Last man executed</p>
<p>This becomes abundantly clear when looking at the last man executed by the U.S. military-Private John A. Bennett. He was executed at the Castle in 1961 for rape, a crime that is no longer punishable by the death penalty in civilian courts. Bennett’s case is a stark example showing the wrong then and now of the death penalty, in civilian life and in the American military.</p>
<p>Bennett came from an extremely poor Black Virginia sharecropping family; he dropped out of school at an early age. His family had a long history of mental illness-his grandfather and great-uncle were both institutionalized, and his first cousin committed suicide. Bennett was later diagnosed with epilepsy. Throughout his life he complained of dizziness, chronic headaches, and blackouts. He joined the army in the early 1950s and was assigned the dirtiest, hardest, and most dangerous jobs, which Blacks were traditionally given in the military, working first as an ammunition handler and then as a truck driver.</p>
<p>According to the few documented accounts of his life, John Bennett had no trouble in the army until December 1954, when he was charged with raping an eleven-year-old white girl in Austria, where he was stationed. Because Bennett was an active duty GI, and because of treaties signed by the Austrian and U.S. governments, the U.S. Army tried him rather than the Austrian courts. Such treaties have been the focus of protest and opposition wherever American forces occupy a country. Had Bennett been tried in an Austrian court, he would certainly not have faced death, the death penalty having been outlawed there in 1950.</p>
<p>While the evidence presented against Bennett seemed overwhelming, he always claimed he had been forced to confess at gunpoint. What is not in dispute is that his court-martial, held in Austria, lasted only five days. His defense counsel didn’t put up much of a fight, issues of mental illness were dismissed as irrelevant, and the jury deliberated for just twenty-five minutes before finding him guilty. He was eventually sentenced to death by hanging and moved to the Castle to await execution.</p>
<p>The issues surrounding Bennett’s conviction come into sharper focus when his fate and those of other Black defendants are compared to white defendants charged with similar or worse crimes during the Eisenhower era. According to Los Angeles Times reporter Richard Serrano:</p>
<p>During the six years between [Bennet’s] trial and death, eight other soldiers were executed, all of them Black. Six white prisoners were on death row during those years. Some had killed little girls or had killed more than once. None were executed. President Dwight Eisenhower commuted the sentences of four. Two were spared by the courts.</p>
<p>“In the 1950s,” explains Serrano, “black soldiers routinely were hanged while whites were spared. Between the passage of the Uniform Code of Military Justice in 1950 and the suspension of military executions in 1961, eight of the nine soldiers put to death were black; one was white.” The military was one of the few integrated institutions in 1950s America, and because of this was held in relatively high regard by many African Americans. During the Vietnam War, however, the racist treatment of Black soldiers by the military’s judicial system would become a major political controversy.</p>
<p>A last-ditch effort was made to get clemency for Bennett from the newly elected Democratic President John F. Kennedy. Despite the opposition to the death penalty by key Kennedy advisers and pleas from Bennett himself, his family, and the family of his victim, Kennedy allowed the execution to go ahead in April 1961. For a president who had been labeled a civil rights supporter, his inaction may seem odd, but after several foreign policy failures, his new administration was already seen as weak. Even more importantly, Southern supporters of Jim Crow dominated his party. Kennedy wasn’t going to open himself to further attack by taking a courageous stand in the Bennett case. His handling of the Bennett case may remind many of a political controversy in 1992, when the then-governor of Arkansas and Democratic candidate for president Bill Clinton, allowed the severely brain-damaged Ricky Ray Rector to be executed, to prove that he wasn’t “soft on crime.”</p>
<p>Who gets death in the military?</p>
<p>“It is one of the ironies of patriotism,” declares Robert Sherrill in the opening of his searing 1970 book Military Justice is to Justice as Military Music is to Music, “that a man who is called to the military service of his country may anticipate not only the possibility of giving up his life but also the certainty of giving up his liberties.” The Bill of Rights doesn’t exist in the military. Military justice has never been about “justice”-that is, the most elementary efforts to protect the rights of the individual, the presumption of innocence, a jury of one’s peers, or a fair and speedy trail. It has always been about one thing: discipline, the power of the officer corps to command and control soldiers, which has been upheld by the Supreme Court time and time again. Chief Justice Earl Warren said the military was “an enclave beyond the reach of the civilian courts.” This “enclave” has had a predictable record of injustice.</p>
<p>During the First World War, millions of Americans for the first time served in the various branches of the armed forces, including a large number of Black soldiers who were stationed in Southern military bases near large cities. At Fort Bliss in Texas, Black soldiers protested the constant harassment by the white officers and soldiers. In 1917, several Black soldiers protested their condition by not reporting to a drill formation and were court-martialed for mutiny, found guilty, dishonorably discharged, and sentenced to ten to twenty years in Leavenworth. A full-scale rebellion broke out in late August 1917, in Houston. Over one hundred Black soldiers from the highly decorated Third Battalion of the Twenty-fourth Infantry marched with their weapons on a police station holding imprisoned comrades, believing them to have been beaten or killed by the police. In the battle that ensued, fifteen whites (five of them cops) and four Black soldiers were killed. In December 1917, sixty-three Black soldiers were court-martialed with forty-eight sentenced to long prison terms and thirteen sentenced to death. According to Luther West, veteran military lawyer and critic, “Two days after the completion of the trial, and some four months before their records of trial were received in Washington, D.C., for ‘appellate’ review, the thirteen Blacks sentenced to die were executed.”</p>
<p>During the Second World War, the same backward, racist, and arcane system of justice prevailed in the U.S. military. Alvin “Tommy” Bridges, a military policeman during the war and a future police chief, recounted his very bitter memories of “military justice” to Studs Terkel in the Good War: “They shot some of those same guys up there that were-if you’d go to a municipal court, they’d dismiss the case. Depending a lot upon the commanding officer.”</p>
<p>Near the end of his narrative, Bridges makes clear the extent of summary “justice” and who was responsible:</p>
<p>Eisenhower says that’s the only guy [Eddie Slovik] that was ever executed for it [desertion]. That’s what burns me up, when a gross of them that I know were executed for probably more minor things than what Slovik was. They said he was the only one. We had to make a show of it. The son-of-a-bitches.</p>
<p>Eddie Slovik was a Polish working-class kid from Detroit who had a minor criminal record and spent some years in a youth reformatory. His draft classification was originally 4-F (unfit for military service) and therefore not eligible to be drafted. He married and got a decent paying job in the auto industry, whereupon he was reclassified 1-A. The army was then drafting anybody it could get its hands on in preparation for the invasion of Europe. It was also clear that Slovik couldn’t kill a living thing and was terrified of combat. In his “confession” after he deserted he said, “I’ll run away again if I have to go their.” (He misspelled “there,” and by “there” he meant going into combat). Over 40,000 other deserters tried by lesser courts-martial were punished by confinement to disciplinary centers or dishonorably discharged. Another 2,864 were tried by general courts-martial. Most were sentenced to long terms in prisons (many left prison soon after the war was over), but forty-nine were sentenced to death. All the sentences for desertion were commuted except Slovik’s.</p>
<p>Slovik’s story is recounted in William Bradford Huie’s book The Execution of Private Slovik. Why Slovik? It seems likely that the reason Slovik was singled out was because he deserted at the time of stiffening German resistance in late 1944, when the Allied forces came dangerously close to collapsing on the Western front. Yet, curiously, the army never publicized his execution beyond his company, never told his wife, and buried him in a secret cemetery. It would be nearly a decade after Slovk’s death before Huie began investigating the strange circumstances surrounding it. Despite the efforts of many people, Slovik’s wife never received the paltry $10,000 plus interest she asked for in GI life insurance. Slovik’s remains were finally returned to the U.S. in 1987, to be buried beside the grave of his deceased wife.</p>
<p>While many people believe that Slovik was the only American soldier executed during the war, that is not true. Many were executed on charges other than desertion, and African American soldiers once again bore the brunt of these executions. During the war, the United States virtually occupied Great Britain, and the Visiting Forces Act (VFA) gave exclusive power to the American military to prosecute American soldiers for criminal acts committed in Britain. Among the criminal acts that could be punished by death was rape, which was not a capital crime in Britain. Authorities and vigilantes in the Jim Crow South used the charge of rape in particular to persecute and terrorize Black men. Most charges of rape by white women against Black men were fabrications. Guilty or not, Black men were lynched or sent to the gallows or electric chair, while few white men suffered the same fate. Of the sixty-two men executed by the state of Georgia for rape between 1930 and 1977, for example, only four were white, and the rest (94 percent) were Black.</p>
<p>Jim Crow segregation was transferred to Britain during the war by the U.S. military, replete with segregated bars, clubs, theaters, barracks, even whole towns. When Black heavyweight champion Joe Louis toured Britain in early 1944, he was told he had to sit in a “special” section-colored only. Louis exploded, “Shit! This wasn’t America, this was England. The theatre manager knew who I was and apologized all over the place. Said he had instructions from the Army.” The U.S. military carried out seventy executions from 1942 to November 1945 in Europe, and of these fifty-five were Black, 79 percent of those executed. Eighteen of those executions took place in Great Britain, with nine convicted of murder, six of rape, and three of both. Of the eighteen executed, eleven were Black, three were Latino, and four were white. Yet Blacks made up only 8 percent of U.S. military forces stationed in Europe during the war.21 According to historians Robert Lily and David Thomson, the sentencing disparities were based on class as well as race:</p>
<p>Whites represented 27.8 percent of the executed soldiers, with African-Americans accounting for 55.56 percent, and Mexican-Americans the remaining 11.1 percent of the 18 casessoldiers of color are selected far beyond their share of the ranks for this ultimate sanction. The executed men were overwhelmingly from the lowest rank(s)many of them uneducated, and suffering from a mental disorder or other mitigating factors. No man above the rank of corporal was executed. This suggests that the military do not punish randomly, but selectively, especially to its lowest ranks, and most socially disadvantaged.</p>
<p>Things actually got worse after the war was over. “After President Truman ordered an end to the armed forces’ segregation in 1948,” according to journalist Dwight Sullivan. “This racial disparity actually increased. The military carried out 12 executions from 1954 until the most recent one in 1961. Eleven of the 12 executed service members were African-American.”</p>
<p>Why? One can only speculate, but the answer may be that it was one way that the officer corps of the U.S. military expressed its opposition to desegregation by deepening the persecution of Black soldiers in its ranks.</p>
<p>Out of the clamor came the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), which Congress passed into law in 1950. The separate services would no longer each have their own judicial system but one that would govern all. The code still included capital punishment. While there were changes, such as the defendant’s right to a trained lawyer, or a civilian lawyer, a jury, the presence of enlisted men on courts-martial, and a right to appeal court-martial verdicts, the content remained the same. As the case of John Bennett and the increase in the proportion of Black soldiers executed shows, these changes meant very little. It was still a system dominated by the officer corps. As veteran army lawyer and critic, Luther West, put it,</p>
<p>The military commander was still in chargeHe still decided what charges to prosecute, what offenses were to be investigated, and what offenses were to be covered up. He still picked military juriesalso picked the prosecution and defense lawyers as well as the military judge.</p>
<p>These issues, however, virtually disappeared from public sight for a decade-and-a-half until the U.S. invaded Vietnam in 1965.</p>
<p>The “mere gook rule”</p>
<p>One major political issue that arose during the Vietnam War was the sharp contrast in the treatment of American soldiers accused of killing their officers versus those who murdered Vietnamese civilians. The starkest contrast was between the case of Lt. William Calley, who was accused and convicted of the murder of Vietnamese civilians, and that of Pvt. Billy Dean Smith, an antiwar GI, whom the army attempted to frame for the murder of two of his officers. While they were not the only cases of their kind, they illustrate the hypocrisy and racism of the military judicial system.</p>
<p>On March 16, 1968, the soldiers of Charlie Company of the Americal Division, led by Capt. Ernest Medina and Lt. William Calley, entered the village of My Lai. During a four-hour period the soldiers of Charlie Company massacred around 400 unarmed, elderly men, women, and children, including babies. A cover-up followed involving as many as thirty officers, including the future secretary of state Colin Powell. Despite the cover-up, the massacre became public in the fall of 1969. Eventually, four members of Charlie Company were indicted, but only Calley was found guilty-of killing twenty-two civilians. The court sentenced him to life in prison at hard labor. During the time of his arrest and trial, Calley was under “house arrest” at his apartment on base at Fort Benning, Georgia. He had the run of the base and was treated as something of a celebrity. After his conviction, President Richard Nixon ordered Calley released from the stockade and returned to his apartment. Nixon eventually pardoned him.</p>
<p>In sharp contrast, Army Pvt. Billy Dean Smith, a Black soldier from California, was accused of killing or fragging two officers and held in solitary confinement for a year before his trial. Fragging refers specifically to the killing of an officer or non-commissioned officer by throwing a fragmentation grenade into his tent, an event that happened usually at night. Fragging was almost always directed at officers who sent into combat soldiers who no longer wanted to fight. In 1969, the Associated Press reported that the army investigated ninety-six alleged fraggings, and 209 in 1970, totaling 101 deaths. The number of fraggings actually grew as the U.S. rapidly drew down troop numbers after 1970. Not all fraggings were expressions of antiwar sentiment; some had to do with covering up criminal activity (drug dealing in particular) or personal vendettas, another sign that the army was disintegrating.</p>
<p>On March 15, 1971, at Bien Hoa, a U.S. Army base in South Vietnam, a fragmentation grenade exploded-this time in an officer’s barracks for an artillery unit, killing two lieutenants and wounding a third. All were white. The unit commander Captain Rigby and First Sergeant Willis decided they knew who did it-Billy Dean Smith. Smith was an outspoken critic of the rampant racism in the army and particularly objected to the segregated bars and clubs in Vietnam. Without any evidence, Smith was charged with two counts of murder, two counts of resisting arrest, one count of assault, and two counts of attempted murder. Smith proclaimed his innocence and pled not guilty to all the charges. If found guilty he would have faced the death penalty.</p>
<p>Smith’s lawyer, civilian Luke McKissack, went to Vietnam and investigated the situation, and petitioned to have the trial moved to Fort Ord in California. After a change in venue was granted, McKissack wrote directly to the president complaining of the treatment of his client.</p>
<p>I wrote a letter to (then President Richard) Nixon asking him to intervene on Billy’s behalf and also asking why Calley (who had been convicted of 22 counts of murder by this time) was living it up in a bachelor type pad while my guy, who hadn’t been tried yet, was confined to a 6 x 9 cage, seeing daylight one hour a day. I asked if it was because Billy was Black and Calley white, because Billy was an enlisted grunt and Calley an officer, and then I invoked the “mere gook rule.” My guy had allegedly killed white people, Calley had blown away “mere gooks.”</p>
<p>McKissack was stunned when he received a reply from a Nixon aide agreeing with him. “As you pointed out in your petition, the issues of Private Smith’s case are in no way similar to the issues inherent in Lieutenant Calley’s case,” wrote Nixon aide General Lawrence Williams. The only “evidence” the army had against Smith was that he had hand grenade pins in his pocket when arrested. “I put G.I. after G.I. on the stand who not only said they routinely carried around grenade pins, but that they also saw what they felt was an ongoing need in their unit for drastic actions like fragging,” said McKissack.</p>
<p>After McKissack’s vigorous defense and a campaign organized by G.I.s and antiwar activists, Smith was acquitted on all charges. After he left the military, Smith became an organizer for the American Servicemen’s Union (ASU), one of the most serious attempts at organizing a trade union for military personnel. There were many more Calley-like cases, such as the Green Beret murder case and the Son Thang massacre. What is true in all of them is that if an American soldier murdered Vietnamese civilians, they were far less likely to be punished, or punished very severely, for their crimes.</p>
<p>The war in Iraq and capital punishment</p>
<p>The last soldier to be executed by the U.S. military was a mentally ill Black soldier from a very poor family. The first soldier to be sentenced to death during the Iraq War is a mentally ill Black soldier from a very poor family, who also suffered religious persecution during his time in the army. In the forty years since the last military execution nothing has changed.</p>
<p>Sgt. Hasan Akbar was found guilty in March 2005 of murdering two officers and wounding fourteen others on the eve of the invasion of Iraq; he was sentenced to death. Akbar was born Mark Fidel Kools, but his parents changed his name after the family converted to Islam. Like many, Akbar enlisted in the army to help defray his college loan payments after he graduated with an engineering degree from the University of California at Davis. But from his earliest teenage years Akbar felt the heavy weight of poverty, racism, and religious bigotry on his shoulders. It is even possible that he was sexually abused as a child. According to statements made to the press by Akbar’s family, his problems seem to have gotten worse after he joined the Army in the late 1990s, exacerbating his loneliness and withdrawal symptoms that were noticed at a young age, including-as revealed in his diary-his harboring of homicidal thoughts.</p>
<p>John Akbar, his father, testified during the court-martial that his son claimed that other members of his platoon wore Nazi, KKK, and Confederate-flag tattoos. “They would mock him while he prayed,” the father said. Akbar, according to testimony at his court-martial, suffered racist insults by soldiers who denigrated his fellow Muslims on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, and after the war and occupation of Afghanistan. His brother Bilal left the air force soon after 9/11 for similar reasons. After Akbar was arrested, the military police claim he voiced his fear that American forces were going to rape and kill Muslim women in Iraq. These very justifiable fears seem to have pushed Akbar over the edge. “He’s mentally ill,” said Maj. Dan Brookhart, one of Akbar’s defense lawyers. His lawyers argued that Akbar should not have been in the army, much less in an army invading a country whose population is predominately Muslim.</p>
<p>Army prosecutor Lt. Col. Michael E. Mulligan’s closing arguments are what anyone would call thinly veiled religious bigotry. Mulligan declared, “He is the enemy,” calling his murders “Akbar’s war,” and that “this is the hatred that lies in his heart.” He displayed, according to media accounts, excerpts from Akbar’s thirteen-year-old computer diary on two screens along with pictures of his victims. “Caucasians, I will kill as many of them as possible,” Akbar wrote in 1992. In 1996, Akbar wrote: “Anyone who stands in front of me shall be considered the enemy and dealt with accordingly,” and “destroying America was my plan as a child, and as a juvenile and in college. Destroying America is my greatest goal.”</p>
<p>Compare Akbar’s case to white soldiers who committed similar crimes but with victims of different ranks and races. This year Sgt. Aaron Stanley was sentenced to life in prison on two counts of premeditated murder for the deaths of Staff Sgt. Matthew Werner and Specialist Christopher D. Hymer in 2004 at Stanley’s farmhouse in Clay Center, Kansas, about thirty miles west of Fort Riley. “These were extraordinarily violent and senseless murders,” according to Maj. John Hamner, lead prosecutor.</p>
<p>Army Capt. Rogelio Maynulet was found guilty of the “mercy killing” of an Iraqi civilian. In May 2004, when U.S. troops were pursuing suspected militiamen supporting Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr near the Iraqi city of Najaf, Maynulet and others fired on a car, wounding the driver and a passenger. Maynulet said he then shot the driver. “He was in a state I didn’t think was dignified. I had to put him out of his misery,” Maynulet said. Maynulet’s victim was a local rubbish collector. “He was sentenced with dismissal from the United States Army…there will be no confinement time,” a military spokesman said.</p>
<p>On January 21, 2006, Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer, a U.S. Army interrogator, was convicted of causing the death of Iraqi Major General Abed Hamed Mowhoush during a round of questioning in November 2003. Welshofer killed him by putting a sleeping bag over the head of the Iraqi general, sitting on his chest, and covering his mouth. A court-martial jury of six officers decided the officer was not guilty of murder but of negligent homicide. He was fined $6,000, given a letter of reprimand, and confinement to base for six months.</p>
<p>Can there be any doubt that Akbar has been given a death sentence because he is Black, a Muslim, and a self-proclaimed hater of the U.S. Army? That his victims were officers insured a death sentence.</p>
<p>Lifting the veil on military injustice</p>
<p>Over the past several years, support for the death penalty has begun to wane in the United States. A Gallup poll last fall showed that support for the death penalty has fallen to 64 percent, from a high of 80 percent in 1994. When life without parole is offered as an alternative, support for the death penalty drops to 50 percent. There are many reasons for this important shift in public opinion, not the least of which has been the release of more than 100 innocent people (some who came dangerously close to execution) from death row since 1976. There have also been frightening revelations of police torture, judicial corruption, frame-ups, and bad forensics. The whole machinery of death is under more scrutiny than it has been in a generation.</p>
<p>For the still relatively small number of anti-death penalty activists in the United States, the long hard work of many years has begun to payoff. This doesn’t mean that the supporters of the death penalty are in an irreversible retreat. The execution of Stan “Tookie” Williams by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in December 2005, despite significant support for clemency, is one example of this. Another is the pledge by one Republican candidate for governor of Illinois to lift the moratorium on executions that former Governor Ryan decreed in 2000. The fact that the U.S. military is gearing up for its first execution in over forty years contradicts the trend, but it also represents something deeper-the huge strain the war and occupation of Iraq is having on the U.S. military.</p>
<p>Military justice has always been first and foremost about disciplining the troops. The U.S. military is facing its biggest crisis since the Vietnam War, with thousands of troops deserting, going AWOL, and wounding themselves in order to avoid combat. It is no accident that, facing this crisis of command, the military wants the death penalty restored as a regular feature of military punishment. Antiwar activists, advocates for soldiers’ rights, and anti-death penalty activists have an opportunity to work together, linking the criminal occupation of Iraq with the military’s unjust treatment of the men and women whom they have spent billions of dollars turning into professional killers.</p>
<p>JOE ALLEN is a member of Teamsters Local 705 in Chicago and a frequent contributor to CounterPunch. He can be reached at <a href="" type="internal">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>This article appears in the May­June print issue of the International Socialist Review.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Death Row at the "Castle" | true | https://counterpunch.org/2006/05/06/death-row-at-the-quot-castle-quot/ | 2006-05-06 | 4 |
<p>“I am in control here in the White House.” — Secretary of State Alexander Haig, 1981</p>
<p>Ah, the good old days when even a big shot like Gen. Al Haig could get in trouble for such mavericky declarations that defy basic constitutional precedents.</p>
<p>In the 21st century, that’s ancient history. We’ve so idealized cowboy-style rebellion in matters of war and law enforcement that “going Haig” is today honored as “going rogue.” Defiance, irreverence, contempt — these are the moment’s most venerated postures, no matter how destructive or lawless.</p>
<p>The Bush administration’s illegal wiretapping and torture sessions were the most obvious examples of the rogue sensibility on steroids. But then came McCain-Palin, a presidential ticket predicated almost singularly on the rogue brand. And now, even in the Obama era, that brand pervades.</p>
<p />
<p>It began re-emerging in September with Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s Afghan escalation plan. McChrystal didn’t just ask President Barack Obama for more troops — protocol-wise, that would have been completely appropriate. No, McChrystal went rogue, pre-emptively leaking his request to the media, then delivering a public address telling Obama to immediately follow his orders.</p>
<p>Incredibly, few politicians or pundits raised objections to McChrystal’s behavior. Worse, rather than firing McChrystal, Obama meekly agreed to his demands, letting Americans know that when it comes to foreign policy, the rogue general — not the popularly elected president — is in control in the White House.</p>
<p>Of course, while McChrystal’s insubordination was extra-constitutional in spirit, he at least made the effort to obtain the commander in chief’s rubber-stamp approval. The same cannot be said for the rogues inside Obama’s Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).</p>
<p>Recall that one year ago, Obama instructed the DEA to follow his campaign pledge and respect local statutes legalizing medicinal marijuana. When the DEA kept raiding pot dispensaries in states that had passed such laws, Attorney General Eric Holder reiterated the cease-and-desist decree, stating, “What [Obama] said during the campaign is now American policy.”</p>
<p>As even more raids nonetheless continued, the Justice Department then issued an explicit memo ordering federal agents to refrain from prosecuting those who are in “compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana.”</p>
<p>And yet the DEA has recently intensified its crackdown. Here in Colorado — where voters enshrined medical marijuana’s legality in our state constitution — the feds not only raided two dispensaries, but did so in a way that deliberately humiliated their superiors.</p>
<p>In January, the DEA stormed a company that performs cannabis quality tests. The firm’s alleged infraction? Following protocol and formally applying for a federal equipment license. DEA rogues responded to the request not with thanks or — heaven forbid — approval, but instead with the gestapo.</p>
<p>This was topped last week when DEA agents arrested a medical marijuana grower who dared discuss his business with a local news outlet. Sensing a PR opportunity, DEA agent Jeffrey Sweetin used the spectacle to insist that he will not listen to stand-down directives from his bosses.</p>
<p>“The time is coming when we go into a dispensary, we find out what their profit is, we seize the building and we arrest everybody,” Sweetin menacingly intoned.</p>
<p>Once again, a rogue going wild and, once again, tacit acceptance. Rather than personnel changes reining in the out-of-control agency, the president has nominated the acting Bush-appointed DEA administrator, Michele Leonhart, to a full term.</p>
<p>The message, then, should be clear: If you’re looking for who is “in control” of our military and police forces, don’t look to the established chain of command and don’t look to constitutional provisions that mandate civilian authority over the government bayonet. Look to the most reckless rogues — it’s a good bet they’re the ones running the show.</p>
<p>David Sirota is the author of the best-selling books “Hostile Takeover” and “The Uprising.” He hosts the morning show on AM760 in Colorado and blogs at OpenLeft.com. E-mail him at [email protected].</p>
<p>© 2010 Creators.com</p>
<p /> | Rogues Gone Wild | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/rogues-gone-wild/ | 2010-02-19 | 4 |
<p>A former political director for the Culinary Union, a Department of Veterans Affairs project manager and a Las Vegas-based law firm’s director of marketing and technological services have applied to Clark County in hopes of filling Ruben Kihuen’s recently vacated state Senate seat.</p>
<p>The most-prominent applicant is Yvanna Cancela, 29, who led political outreach for the Culinary Union’s 57,000 members from November 2010 until she resigned earlier this month. She is now executive director at the Citizenship Project, a local nonprofit working to increase the number of immigrant families that naturalize.</p>
<p>“There is more work to do now than ever to make sure regular people have a voice in this country,” Cancela said. “I know what it takes to represent people and their families, and I don’t take that responsibility lightly.”</p>
<p>Commissioners are expected to vote on who will fill the Senate District 10 seat at their Tuesday meeting. Applications were due earlier this week.</p>
<p>The appointee will serve until the November 2018 election.</p>
<p>Kihuen, 36, had held the seat since 2010. He vacated it last month when <a href="" type="internal">he was elected to the U.S. House of</a> <a href="" type="internal">Representatives</a>.</p>
<p>Another applicant, 34-year-old Melissa Clary, has spent six years working for the VA.</p>
<p>Since June 2013, she’s been a project manager for its office of information technology and has, in addition to other projects, overseen the design, procurement and installation of IT infrastructure for a 2.2 million square foot, $800 million hospital campus in Denver.</p>
<p>“As a bureaucrat, I’ve had to work with everyone over my career, so I’m confident in my ability to reach across the aisle to work with members of the other party,” Clary said. “I want to have a hand in improving (Senate District 10) and I think my academic background, combined with my professional background, would get the job done.”</p>
<p>The Las Vegas Review-Journal was not able to immediately contact the third applicant, Justin Campese.</p>
<p>According to his application, the 36-year-old works as Anderson Business Advisors’ director of marketing and technological services. Before that, he was general manager of the Fortune Hotel and Suites.</p>
<p>If chosen, Campese wrote in his application that he’d advocate for partnering with large technology companies, allocating more funding for education and raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour.</p>
<p>“Legislation needs to be passed to bring Nevada together, whether it’s mending the trust between police and citizens, transparency of government or helping with social services,” he wrote.</p>
<p>As required by state law, all applicants are Democrats — as was Kihuen — and live in District 10.</p>
<p>Some 122,000 people reside in the district, which encompasses the Strip, McCarran International Airport and the UNLV campus. A potential site for a planned $1.9 billion stadium is also inside the district.</p>
<p>The 2017 session of the Nevada Legislature will begin Feb. 6 with Democrats in control of both the state Senate and Assembly.</p>
<p>LEGISLATIVE GOALS</p>
<p>During her time with the Culinary Union, Cancela served as a lobbyist at three sessions of the Nevada Legislature.</p>
<p>She worked with issues including healthcare transparency, education funding and raising the minimum wage. Cancela called Kihuen an “essential component of the Democratic caucus.”</p>
<p>“I want to be a team player in the same way that he was,” she said. “I think Democrats have an opportunity to really take advantage of having the majority in both houses again and working with the governor to pass meaningful legislation.”</p>
<p>Cancela graduated from Northwestern University in 2010 with a bachelor’s degree in communication studies. During the summer of 2009, she interned for U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid’s office, writing daily briefings for the senator’s Spanish language website and social media accounts.</p>
<p>She moved to Las Vegas in summer of 2010 to work as a field organizer for Reid’s re-election campaign.</p>
<p>Cancela was named a White House Champion of Change in 2013 and the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada’s 2014 Civil Libertarian of the Year for helping coordinate a statewide campaign for comprehensive immigration reform.</p>
<p>“I’m interested in talking about things like healthcare affordability, education…” she said. “You have to understand what your constituents need and want, and know how to fight for those things through the legislative process.”</p>
<p>A resident of Nevada since 2005, Clary worked as a business specialist for the city of Las Vegas’ parks and recreation department until 2010. In 2013 she completed Nevada Emerge training for Democratic women interested in running for office.</p>
<p>Citing her experience in federal and municipal government, Clary said she would aim to find more funding for expanding public services inside her district.</p>
<p>“Senate District 10 is ground zero for homeless and mental health (issues) and addictions,” she said. “We need to be working with the experts in mental health much more.”</p>
<p>Clary graduated from UNLV with a master’s degree in public administration in 2008 and holds a paralegal certificate in business and environmental law from University of San Diego. She said she would also focus on increasing resources for college students and universities.</p>
<p>Clary said she would fight to bring economic development to the least wealthy areas of District 10 and raise the state’s minimum wage.</p>
<p>“The district has a lower median household income by approximately $20,000 less than the rest of the state and a below poverty level of 25 percent compared to the state’s 15 percent,” she said. “We cannot look the other way on the systemic issues leading to poverty here.”</p>
<p>Contact Michael Scott Davidson at [email protected] or 702-477-3861. Follow <a href="http://www.twitter.com/davidsonlvrj" type="external">@davidsonlvrj</a> on Twitter.</p> | 3 apply for Ruben Kihuen’s vacant Senate District 10 seat | false | http://reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/nevada/3-apply-for-ruben-kihuens-vacant-senate-district-10-seat/ | 2016-11-30 | 1 |
<p>A review of <a href="" type="internal">Refinery Town:&#160; Big Oil, Big Money, and the Remaking of an American City</a>, by Steve Early, Forward by Senator Bernie Sanders, Beacon Press, 2016.</p>
<p>In the otherwise bleak landscape of American politics, a few oases exist. &#160;One of the most hopeful is the Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA), a now almost 15-year old electoral effort in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Richmond.&#160; In <a href="" type="internal">Refinery Town</a>, activist-author and recently-arrived Richmond resident Steve Early tells its story.&#160; It is a tale well-told, and a good antidote for the despair that now runs rampant among many American progressives.</p>
<p>RPA was built by people on the left.&#160; In its politics, it departed from much of what has been the more mainstream progressivism:</p>
<p>+&#160;It is multi-issue, not single issue.</p>
<p>+ It raises money from individuals and organizations like unions; it isn’t foundation dependent, and it accepts no funds from corporations.</p>
<p>+ It is multi-ethnic and racial; its members are young and old, and they come from a variety of backgrounds: environmental groups, unions, interest and “identity” organizations, senior clubs and more; it is thus forced to deal with ‘contradictions among the people’ in its internal deliberations, candidate selection and policy formulations.</p>
<p>+ Its focus is on economic justice and environment issues, not identify politics.</p>
<p>+ While its focus is electoral, it joins issue campaign coalitions with a variety of organizations, including the Saul Alinsky/Fred Ross-tradition Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) (heir to ACORN) and the Alinsky-tradition Contra Costa [county] Interfaith Supporting Community Organization (CCISCO), a local affiliate of the PICO National Network, unions (particularly the Steel Workers local at Chevron and public employee unions like AFSCME and SEIU, interest and constituency organizations (environment, human rights, GLBTQ), and others—thus giving it a more-than-election time relationship with organizations whose members include the voters it wants to reach.</p>
<p>As well, Early describes the transformation of what was a Chevron company town to one that now talks back to its patron, and forces it to become more accountable—particularly on local tax, pollution/health and safety issues that in past uncontested Chevron formulations denied resources to the city and threatened the well-being of both residents and workers.</p>
<p>Because he is a member of RPA, Early is also able to give an insider’s view of an important change in the composition of the organization’s leadership—from older to mixed young-and-old, from “Anglo” to multi-ethnic and racial, and from left politicos to a more eclectic body whose roots are in a variety of experiences and left-of-center points of view.</p>
<p>He further illuminates a major internal debate that took place over the character of <a href="" type="internal" />the organization, and its successful transition to an age and racial/ethnic mix and a variety of progressive backgrounds.&#160; I will deal later with both.</p>
<p>These, and other strengths, are all present in Early’s book.&#160; He successfully combines lively anecdotes, easy to read narrative, skillful analysis of often-complex issues, portraits of local leaders including the engaging Green Party former Richmond mayor Gayle McLaughlin, and commentary that places RPA in the larger context of American society and politics. &#160;A lot is packed in these pages. &#160;The importance of the book for these times is attested to by a Bernie Sanders foreward, and “blurbs” from such progressive and left notables as Immanuel Ness, Larry Cohen, Robert Reich, Annie Leonard and Kshama Sawant.</p>
<p>The politics of RPA’s growing influence and displacement of the city’s old guard is another of Early’s themes.&#160; An older African-American community leadership made its accommodation with Chevron, and was the beneficiary of its plantation economy paternalism:&#160; money for community-based nonprofits, and for black politicians who had the view, epitomized by veteran council member Nat Bates, that Richmond should be thankful for Chevron’s presence and not challenge any of its prerogatives.</p>
<p>The ins-and-outs of electoral politics, and the bitterness of the conflict among politicians, are told in a lively and often entertaining manner.&#160; When Bates runs for mayor, and no likely centrist emerges to oppose him, RPA leader Mike Parker reluctantly decides to challenge him.&#160; At the last minute, veteran council member Tom Butt—who RPA had earlier urged to run—decides that Parker isn’t electable and enters the race.&#160; An agonizing internal discussion in RPA leads to the conclusion that Parker should withdraw.&#160; The story of the campaign is, itself, worth the price of the book.</p>
<p>Early deals with the broad range of issues that are part of RPA’s agenda, including environment, taxation and public services, immigration, public health (a defeated soda tax campaign), the loss of a nearby public hospital, poverty and more, and, of course, the arrogance and power of Chevron. In this review, I want to focus on affordable housing and police, and RPA’s internal governance discussion, and comment on some strategic questions that, from my perspective, are unfortunately not part of the book.</p>
<p>That Chevron arrogance and power, by the way, had an interesting positive to it:&#160; RPA could make the environment a mass-based issue because Chevron was shitting on everybody, without regard to race, ethnicity, class, age or gender.</p>
<p>Urban Policing</p>
<p>Fifteen years ago, Richmond had one of the highest rates of violence, including homicide, in the country. It was overwhelmingly in the city’s black community, and involved drugs and gangs. The police department that was supposed to deal with crime was, itself, corrupt. Even before RPA’s arrival on the scene, urban reformers in Richmond were trying to get a handle on the problem.</p>
<p>Enter America’s most unlikely urban police chief, Chris Magnus, “a fair-haired Midwesterner,” gay and openly married, son of a university professor father and piano teacher mother, and most recently chief in lily-white Fargo, North Dakota. Magnus turned the department around, demonstrating what administrative leadership in a public agency, backed by elected and appointed public officials and an engaged citizenry, can do.&#160; He weeded out the worst of the cops; put the entire force through intensive technical policing and cultural awareness training; moved his officers from their cars and headquarters onto the streets and bicycles, and more generally implemented a full program of “community policing” that went far beyond the slogan (as Magnus put it, “If you’re really committed to community policing, you have to make structural changes within your organization.”).&#160; He choose to live in a modest Richmond neighborhood, and made himself available to whomever it was in the community who wanted to talk with him.</p>
<p>Magnus bucked heads with the police union. Early presents the dilemma facing pro-labor liberals, progressives and leftists:&#160; police, firefighter, correctional officer, building trades and other unions have been bastions of resistance to reform and to hiring minorities and women. Too often, the good old boys like what they’ve got and want to keep it that way. RPA dealt with the problem too, taking a clear stand for reform.&#160; In so doing, they on occasion also had to oppose the city’s black political establishment, including its captive local branch of the NAACP.&#160; RPA was among those instrumental in providing a political vehicle for a new generation of minority activists, some of whom are now elected members of the city council, and others leaders of RPA itself.</p>
<p>Magnus choose Operation Ceasefire as his vehicle to de-militarize the gangs and refocus their energies on peaceful activities.&#160; Unfortunately, there are two ceasefire programs in the country, and Early doesn’t tell us which one Magnus used. No matter:&#160; urban police reformers need to read David M. Kennedy’s <a href="" type="internal">Don’t Shoot: One man, a Street Fellowship, and the End of Violence in inner-city America</a>. I think Magnus used this one. Thompson is worth quoting at some length because he is not “left” in any usual sense of the word:</p>
<p>[Ceasefire is] still not welcome in some quarters.&#160; It’s too soft for some, too hard for others.&#160; This is a variation on the theme of enforcement vs. social services, but with philosophical roots.&#160; There’s the camp that believes in individual accountability, thinks crime is about bad character and bad choices, society has to take a stand about right and wrong.&#160; There’s that in what we do—We’ll stop you if you make us—but it’s not just that.&#160; It means that it doesn’t work to say, any longer, Those are terrible people, hold them accountable, lock them up.&#160; There’s the camp that believes in social accountability, thinks crime is about history and neglect and oppression, society has to take a stand about what it has done to troubled communities.&#160; There’s that in what we do—We’ll help you if you let us—but it’s not just that.&#160; It means it doesn’t work to say, any longer, Those people are victims, they’re not responsible, they need programs, support.</p>
<p>The old duality is simple, and it may be comforting, but it’s wrong.&#160; We need to find a new, more complicated logic, and we have.&#160; It’s a logic that says no amount of law enforcement will ever work, that law enforcement as we’ve been practicing it is part of the problem.&#160; It’s a logic that says no amount of traditional social investment will ever work, that the programs don’t help very much, that treating people doing terrible things as “clients” is part of the problem.&#160; It’s a logic that says, someone can be doing terrible things and still be a victim; someone can have done wrong and still deserve help; someone can have been the victim of history and neglect and it’s still right to demand that they stop hurting people.&#160; Not even remotely radical ideas:&#160; a good parent says, all the time, You’ve broken the rules, and I’m going to do something about it, and I love you and of course I will continue to care for you and hold you close.&#160; But radical when it comes to talking about crime, where commitment to accountability seems to crowd out room for caring, and commitment to caring seems to crowd out room for accountability.</p>
<p>The long and short of it is that violence dramatically declined in Richmond, and even some of his bitterly critical initial opponents have come around to give credit to Magnus for his program. He has since moved on to the larger police department in Tucson, AZ.&#160; But before he left, the dramatic decline in violence suffered a reversal, a warning that reform at the local level takes place in a context beyond its control.</p>
<p>Gentrification and Affordable Housing</p>
<p>For a brief period, Richmond became a livable city that was below the region’s radar.&#160; Thus it was both affordable and a nice place to be.&#160; And there was the bonus of a 40-minute BART (rapid transit) commute to San Francisco’s Civic Center and downtown.&#160; Low-income service industry workers, artists, a shrinking but still substantial African-American community (devastated by the housing speculation crash of 2007-09), newcomer Latinos, a more substantial working class in good union jobs, and a professional middle class all lived there.&#160; It was too good to last.</p>
<p>Early takes us through the crisis in affordable housing that now plagues the greater San Francisco Bay Area.&#160; The dramatic growth of hi-tech, from Santa Clara County’s Silicon Valley (45 minutes south of San Francisco) to San Francisco itself, resulted in skyrocketing home purchase and rental costs.&#160; In San Francisco, a $600,000 single-family home that doesn’t require massive repair is considered a bargain, and a two-bedroom rental at $3,500 is a pretty good deal too.&#160; (Median one-bedroom units are now $3,590; two bedrooms, $4,870.) The resulting “market forces” make it necessary for low-to-middle income renters, unless they’re fortunate enough to qualify for and find subsidized housing, to look elsewhere.</p>
<p>What happened in San Francisco then spread across the bay to Oakland.&#160; No place is immune; I know people who leave their homes in Tracy at 4:00 a.m. to beat rush-hour traffic, drive an hour to their jobs, sleep in their cars until the beginning of their work day, and don’t get home until 7:00 p.m. or later.</p>
<p>Finally, it caught up with Richmond. &#160;Over the last five years, home purchase prices almost tripled.&#160; Affordable rental housing is a thing of the past.&#160; Tenants whose landlords were interested in short-term maximization of profit experienced $600 and up a month rent increases.&#160; (A two-bedroom unit that cost $1100 a month in 2012 now rents for $2000.)</p>
<p>Compounding the affordability problem is the shrinkage of federal funding to build affordable units or subsidize rentals in market housing.&#160; This is a national crisis, not simply a Bay Area one.</p>
<p>All this is noted by Early. The book provides a context for the Richmond housing fight, making it more understandable.</p>
<p>San Francisco has strong rent control, but it is limited in what it can do, and is sometimes unfair to small landlords in its implementation. State law preempts what local rent control law can do. When a unit is vacated, it can seek market rate, and only returns to control after a new tenant moves in at the current market price. New construction is exempt (a book typo incorrectly says the law only applies to newer housing—the reverse is true); owner “move-ins” are exempt as well. Smaller landlords decide to get out of the business, leading to greater concentration of rental housing ownership, and more power for corporate owners. Landlords interested in making a buck have strong incentives to push long-term tenants out of their units, and they are ingenious at doing so. Their tactics range from buying people out of their apartments to intimidation. Foreign investors living in politically volatile countries see the housing market as a safe haven for their dollars. High land costs make it impossible to build affordable housing without subsidies to do so, and few are available. Negotiated “offsets”—the builder sets aside some units for below-market rental or puts money into a city-administered fund for affordable housing construction—in exchange for building permits and planning commission approval are insufficient to balance the loss of affordable places to live.&#160; All these are likely to soon make their appearance in Richmond.</p>
<p>Absent in the Richmond discussion is a strategy of nonviolent direct action:&#160; rent strikes, public shaming of unscrupulous landlords, disruption of business as usual at owner’s places of work or business, places of worship, social gatherings and wherever else leverage might be found, and, perhaps most likely to provide relief, efforts to negotiate housing subsidy funding from the region’s major corporations with mass action against them in the absence of agreements.</p>
<p>The obvious source of the region’s housing problem is the booming hi-tech and genetic engineering industries. Shouldn’t Twitter, Salesforce, Apple, Google, Yelp, Genentech and others be making substantial contributions to a regional housing affordability fund? But successful nonviolent direct action against them should negotiations fail to be productive requires thousands, if not tens of thousands in the streets. No such movement now exists in the Bay Area or elsewhere. Can a campaign create it?&#160; Might RPA be the catalyst for it?</p>
<p>In the low-to-moderate income neighborhoods that are most heavily hit by rent increases, direct action might be especially effective. I know that from my experience as a community organizer in San Francisco’s Mission District in the mid-1960s to early-1970s. Mission Coalition Organization (MCO) created an atmosphere inhospitable to investment.&#160; It put some landlords out of business. It made others think twice, and decide against, jacking up their rents. (For details, see my <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1597141186/counterpunchmaga" type="external">A Community Organizer’s Tale:&#160; People and Power in San Francisco</a>.)</p>
<p>Governance and Composition</p>
<p>RPA’s founders viewed it as a cadre organization:&#160; a disciplined body of organizer-leaders who mobilized the Richmond electorate in support of candidates they supported and from whom they demanded accountability, and in support of issue campaigns they endorsed or led.&#160; In this they were not unlike Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), whose minister-leaders were chosen by a self-perpetuating internal nominating process, and who mobilized through the mass-based black churches of the south.&#160; In one election, RPA’s steering committee simply announced an endorsement to a membership meeting. Rumblings from the membership broadened both how the organization’s leadership is selected, and the role of the membership selecting candidates for public office—members now must endorse leadership recommendations.</p>
<p>Early considers these “democratic” rumblings. Perhaps this characterization is unfair. Is it more “democratic” for an activist membership numbering at the maximum in the few hundreds to make decisions, or for a self-selected cadre that is regularly touching base with its constituency and the voluntary associations comprising it to make decisions and let the chips fall where they may when their nominees or issues face the acid test of wider public support at election time?</p>
<p>After serious internal discussions, the organization transformed itself from its cadre form and a body of older, left activists to an internally democratic membership organization that is increasingly representative of Richmond’s demography—no small feat.&#160; Its voter education and other accomplishments deserve notice as well.&#160; Early provides it.</p>
<p>At times, Early is guilty of overreach in his aspirations for RPA.&#160; The creation of community, for example, requires a vast shift of Americans from consumerism and its culture to participation in civic life and a very different culture.&#160; That, in turn, requires the renewal of civil society’s unions, congregations, interest groups and other voluntary associations.&#160; Neither participatory budgeting and other government reforms nor “greater personal connection to voters” are a substitute for a vital civil society, which I believe is the necessary underpinning of a democratic society.&#160; None of which is to underestimate RPA’s importance.</p>
<p>From my perspective, the missing piece of the RPA representativeness puzzle is an annual or bi-annual convention that might gather a couple of thousand representative delegates from newly-formed RPA house meetings to supportive congregations and unions (and with everything in between) to adopt a platform, endorse candidates and elect RPA’s leadership.&#160; Such a gathering would provide a base of support and legitimacy that would make RPA’s claim to be the voice of the people uncontestable.</p>
<p>When I was a boy growing up in San Francisco, come election time I knew how my parents would vote:&#160; according to the recommendations of the International Longshoremen’s &amp; Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU) Political Action Committee “slate card”.&#160; No matter what the amount of money spent by the adversaries of those recommendations, or the editorial recommendations of the several daily newspapers, the word of this then-left union was enough.&#160; And my father wasn’t even a member!</p>
<p>RPA offers the possibility of that kind of alternative to big money.&#160; Its multi-issue character, growing record of public integrity, attention to diversifying its membership and leadership all bode well.&#160; The road ahead will have many pot-holes.&#160; We should wish RPA well in avoiding them.</p>
<p>Conclusion</p>
<p>Early takes us on an important digression—a look at the limits of urban reform in a hostile state government environment.&#160; Specially, he looks at the battles between New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo, the former a progressive Democrat, the latter a corporate Democrat.&#160; He notes, “Amid continuing academic and journalistic celebration of municipal innovation and mayoral leadership, the Cuomo-de Blasio rift provides a good reality check on the constraints faced by elected leaders in cities large and small.”&#160; He’s right.&#160; For Richmond, the situation is even worse because it doesn’t even control its schools (they’re part of a larger school district) or its public health delivery system. And the problem in the Trump era will expand exponentially!</p>
<p>The book’s epilogue vividly portrays the financial squeeze Richmond faces, and the dilemmas faced by reformers who want to preserve and extend public services, pay adequate wages and benefits to their employees, and implement progressive taxes. Whether RPA can wend its way through these contradictions remains to be seen.&#160; In the meantime, Early properly warns, “[A]s RPA’s experience in Richmond demonstrates, even successful electoral work conducted at the local level over many years does not by itself build year-round, multi-issue political organization.&#160; That takes an unconventional approach to politics, before, during, and after any election.”</p>
<p>Indeed!</p>
<p>In the interest of transparency, I should note that both Steve Early and RPA leader Mike Parker are friends.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | The Dilemmas of Progressive Electoral Politics | true | https://counterpunch.org/2016/12/30/the-dilemmas-of-progressive-electoral-politics/ | 2016-12-30 | 4 |
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<p>The city of Albuquerque postponed the third and final public forum that was scheduled for June 25 until July 15. City Chief Operations Officer Michael Riordan said this will give city staff a chance to flesh out the design concepts.</p>
<p>The city wants to build a waste transfer station on a 22-acre property it owns near the corner of Edith and Griegos. The design team presented four proposals to the public in April, of which two plans, referred to as options C and D, were preferred by the community and local businesses. The plans, he said, designate Rankin Road, which provides a direct route to Interstate 25, as an access point for the property.</p>
<p>David Wood, vice president of the North Valley Coalition, is one of the community members selected to sit on the design team. He said the idea of using Rankin Road to funnel traffic to the site was something that came directly from neighbors. Wood said many neighbors would like to see the project stopped completely but if the city gets approval to move forward, it's these two designs neighbors prefer.</p>
<p>"Of the two remaining designs, both have some elements of Rankin Road," Wood said. "We are somewhat pleased with that. It takes some pressure off the already overburdened area."</p>
<p>In Option C, which Riordan said most local businesses prefer, trucks would alternate between Edith and Comanche to access the site and employees would use Rankin Road. In Option D, all truck traffic would use Rankin Road.</p>
<p>Riordan said the city has done a traffic count on Rankin Road and is evaluating the cost of making improvements. The road would most likely need to be widened to upgrade it to a collector road.</p>
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<p>Dump trucks would drop-off the garbage they have collected in an enclosed building. Tractor-trailers would then pick up the trash and haul it to the city dump on the west side of town. The city has said the project will save millions in fuel costs and wear and tear on their trucks.</p>
<p>However, the idea has been met less than favorably by neighbors who have accused to city of involving them when the project was already far along in the planning stages. The city must still get approval from the Environmental Planning Commission before starting construction. The city had hoped to submit its proposal to the commission in July but Riordan said that could be pushed back until August.</p>
<p>He said the city hopes to use the third meeting to gather input on the remaining designs so it can be narrowed down to a final choice.</p>
<p>"We encourage people to attend the meeting and give feedback," he said. "It's clear we are listening to the comments from the public. These two designs include elements that came directly from the community."</p>
<p /> | Forum on waste station design now on July 15 | false | https://abqjournal.com/607816/forum-on-waste-station-design-now-on-july-15.html | 2 |
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<p>President Trump <a href="https://twitter.com/foxandfriends/status/894858253573738496" type="external">retweeted</a> a story Tuesday that UN Ambassador Nikki Haley said contained “classified information.”</p>
<p>When asked about the <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/08/07/us-spy-satellites-detect-north-korea-moving-anti-ship-cruise-missiles-to-patrol-boat.html" type="external">report</a>&#160;from Fox News that U.S. spy satellites captured North Korea moving anti-ship cruise missiles to patrol boats, Ms. Haley said she couldn’t comment.</p>
<p>“I can’t talk about anything that’s classified. And if that’s in the newspaper that’s a shame. I have no reason to comment on it,” she said on Fox News.The story was not in a newspaper, but rather was a report on Fox News’ website.</p>
<p>But earlier this morning, Mr. Trump retweeted the article from the “Fox &amp; Friends” twitter feed. He did not add any addition comments to the retweet.</p>
<p>The story from Fox News reports that despite U.S. efforts to halt North Korean missile tests the country deployed more missiles in the past few days, showing the country has no intention of stopping it’s nuclear testing.</p>
<p>Copyright © 2018 The Washington Times, LLC. <a href="http://license.icopyright.net/3.7280?icx_id=/news/2017/aug/8/president-trump-retweets-story-containing-info-nik/" type="external">Click here for reprint permission</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Trump retweets story containing info Haley called ‘classified’ | true | http://washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/8/president-trump-retweets-story-containing-info-nik/ | 2017-08-08 | 0 |
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<p>Toyota’s long-running Tacoma owns a big chunk of it, but now there’s fresh competition. General Motors unleashed its ground-up redesigns of Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon for the 2015 model year, instant hits with truck buyers.</p>
<p>More proof of the profit potential arrives via Ford, which will resuscitate its Ranger midsizer as an all-new 2019 model in late 2018 after pulling the plug on the previous version in 2011. And Fiat Chrysler is prepping a Wrangler-based pickup to join the fray.</p>
<p>But Toyota wears the sales crown, and based on its customer loyalty, should continue its dominance thanks in large part to the Tacoma’s legendary reliability and durability.</p>
<p>In order to squeeze every ounce of payback out of the Tacoma, Toyota offers its top-of-the-line TRD Pro model. Targeting serious off-road enthusiasts, the Pro’s suspension is fitted with special Fox shocks and retuned springs; a stainless-steel cat-back exhaust; an aluminum front skid plate to protect engine and suspension parts; and 16-inch black alloy wheels shod with aggressive Goodyear Kevlar-reinforced off-road tires.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" />In conjunction with the performance goodies, the truck’s exterior sports several blackout trim and styling details. The cabin gains some slight upgrades as well, including red-stitched black leather heated front seats, a leather steering wheel, and an Entune touchscreen nav/audio system with backup camera. There’s a GoPro camera mount on the top of the windshield for those who like to video their adventures.</p>
<p>The TRD Pro’s new-for-2017 V-6 and six-speed automatic transmission operate smoothly, and deliver a slight increase in fuel eonomy.</p>
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<p>On the highway, the truck glides along fairly quietly. The steering exhibits a bit of typical pickup-truck slack; around-town maneuvering requires extra care due to the truck’s size.</p>
<p>But this is a machine designed for life in the boonies, where it will undoubtedly be extremely competent. Our test time was unfortunately limited to mostly urban environs, but it’s unimaginable this beast wouldn’t be a top-notch off-roader.</p>
<p>Let’s face it – for $45 grand, it better be.</p>
<p /> | TRICKED-OUT TRUCK: Toyota slathers on off-road upgrades, appearance add-ons to create top-of-the-line 2017 Tacoma TRD Pro | false | https://abqjournal.com/932478/tricked-out-truck-toyota-slathers-on-off-road-upgrades-appearance-add-ons-to-create-top-of-the-line-2017-tacoma-trd-pro.html | 2 |
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<p>Alphabet's Google said it would pay $1.1 billion in cash to acquire the division at Taiwan's HTC that develops the U.S. firm's Pixel smartphones, its latest push into hardware manufacturing.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Google has sought to beef up its hardware capability with deals and product launches, and last year hired Rick Osterloh, a former Motorola executive, to run its hardware division.</p>
<p>"For Google, this agreement further reinforces its commitment to smartphones and overall investment in its emerging hardware business," the search giant said in a statement.</p>
<p>Under the deal, Google will also receive a non-exclusive license for HTC's intellectual property. The Taiwanese firm will continue to run its remaining smartphone business.</p>
<p>HTC is a long-time partner of Google and some analysts estimate that Pixel smartphones account for 20 percent of HTC's smartphone shipments.</p>
<p>But the Taiwanese firm, which once sold one in 10 smartphones globally, has seen its market share dwindle sharply due to competition from Apple, Samsung Electronics and Chinese rivals.</p>
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<p>Its sharp decline had some analysts questioning the wisdom of the deal.</p>
<p>"HTC is past its prime in terms of being a leading hardware design house, mainly because of how much it has had to scale back over the years as because of declining revenues," said Ryan Reith, an analyst at research firm IDC.</p>
<p>"Unless Google really wants to control hardware for its other businesses like Home and Chromebooks in addition to smartphones, then I don’t see this as being a bet that pays off."</p>
<p>The deal marks Google's second major foray into smartphone manufacturing. It purchased Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion in 2012 and sold it off to China's Lenovo Group for less than $3 billion two years later.</p>
<p>"It’s still early days for Google’s hardware business," Osterloh said in a blog post, adding it is focused on bringing together the best of Google software and hardware for a suite of its core products.</p>
<p>Other hardware initiatives include its acquisition of thermostats maker Nest for $3.2 billion in 2014, while product launches include voice-controlled speaker Google Home and virtual-reality device Daydream View.</p>
<p>Google's strategy of licensing Android for free and profiting from embedded services such as search and maps has made Android the dominant mobile operating system with some 89 percent of the global market, according to IDC.</p>
<p>But it has long been frustrated by the emergence of many variations of Android and the inconsistent experience that has produced. Pushing its own hardware will likely complicate its relationship with Android licensees, analysts said.</p>
<p>HTC shares were on a trading halt on Thursday. The stock has suffered steep declines over the past couple of years. It has fallen 12 percent so far this year and the company is worth around $1.9 billion.</p>
<p>HTC's worldwide smartphone market share declined to 0.9 percent last year from a peak of 8.8 percent in 2011, according to IDC. Google's Pixel had less than 1 percent market share since it was launched a year ago, with an estimated 2.8 million shipments, IDC estimates.</p>
<p>The transaction, which is subject to regulatory approvals, is expected to close by early 2018.</p>
<p>Evercore served as financial advisor to HTC and Lazard served as financial advisor to Google.</p>
<p>(Additional reporting by Lee Chyen Yee in Singapore, Kane Wu in Hong Kong and Paresh Dave in San Francisco; Writing by Miyoung Kim; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)</p> | Google to acquire HTC's Pixel smartphone division in $1.1 billion deal | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/09/20/google-to-buy-part-htcs-smartphone-operations-for-around-1-billion-source.html | 2017-09-21 | 0 |
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The Roman Catholic archbishop of Santa Fe is urging Albuquerque parishioners to vote for a proposed ban on late-term abortions.</p>
<p>The Most Rev. Michael Sheehan said during a Sunday evening Mass that the congregation should vote for the measure that includes a ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.</p>
<p>Sheehan said a vote would for the ban would “say yes to the unborn child.”</p>
<p>Anti-abortion groups gathered more than double the signatures necessary to force a Nov. 19 election on the issue in New Mexico’s largest city.</p>
<p>It’s an attempt to shutter Southwestern Women’s Options, one of the few clinics in the country offering abortions into the third trimester of pregnancy.</p>
<p>Critics say the proposed ban would be an unconstitutional government intrusion into a woman’s privacy.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Archbishop urges ‘yes’ vote on abortion measure | false | https://abqjournal.com/294201/294201.html | 2013-11-04 | 2 |
<p>If Washington rips up Iran’s nuclear deal, it will send the wrong message to North Korea and shake its faith in diplomacy, Russia’s UN envoy Vassily Nebenzia said at the UN meeting on non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.</p>
<p>“Iran did find itself linked to DPRK [North Korea] because if the United States leaves the JCPOA [nuclear deal] this will be the worst signal we can send to North Korea,” Nebenzia said.</p>
<p>Read more</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/403510-unsc-north-korea-missile/" type="external" /></p>
<p>He also called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – the landmark deal between five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany with Iran – a “symbol of the triumph of multi-party diplomacy.”</p>
<p>Nebenzia went on stress that the deal serves as an example that even the most complex international issues can be solved through negotiations, provided there is enough political will.</p>
<p>He lamented that “recently, we have seen irresponsible, unilateral attempts to derail this breakthrough, collective agreement,” while expressing hope that the “reason prevails” and the JCPOA will stay intact and be implemented in full.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/402201-un-ambassador-nebenzia-sophieco/" type="external">READ MORE:&#160;Moscow has become ‘very convenient scarecrow’ for US – Russia’s UN envoy</a></p>
<p>Responding to US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s allegations that Russia is impeding efforts aimed at the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, including by “seeking to weaken the International Atomic Energy Agency’s independence in investigating clandestine nuclear programs,” Nebenzia said the claims took him aback.</p>
<p>“It was a surprise today to learn from the Secretary of State that Russia is undermining the IAEA, this is of course something new to us,” he said.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2017/09/274362.htm" type="external">Speaking</a> at the meeting, Tillerson accused Moscow of intention to “weaken global norms and undercut efforts to hold nations accountable.” With that he did not specify what nations Moscow allegedly helped.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/401974-unsc-approves-resolution-north-korea/" type="external">READ MORE:&#160;Peace in serious jeopardy; no military solution to Korean peninsula crisis – Russia’s UN envoy</a></p>
<p>The US top diplomat further called on the Russian government to abide by its commitments on nuclear security and arms control, if “Russia wants to restore its role as a credible actor in resolving the situation with North Korea.”</p>
<p>For his part, Nebenzia pointed out that the situation on the Korean Peninsula is at risk of spinning out of control at any minute, adding that diplomatic efforts are needed immediately to stop the crisis.</p>
<p>“It’s time to start now, without losing any time, not waiting when the logic of confrontation prevails,” he said. The diplomat argued that the lack of a common security mechanism in northeastern Asia, the nuclear program development by Pyongyang, as well as rampant military activity in the region justified by it, are all to blame in the current flare-up of tensions.</p>
<p>Read more</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/usa/403810-trump-first-speech-unga/" type="external" /></p>
<p>Meanwhile, North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, fired back at US President Donald Trump’s belligerent rhetoric on North Korea. In a speech at the UN General Assembly earlier this week, Trump threatened to totally destroy North Korea in case of military confrontation between the two countries, while labelling Kim a “rocket man… on a suicide mission.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/403908-nkorea-threatens-us-strike/" type="external">READ MORE:&#160;N. Korea threatens US with ‘horrible nuclear strike and miserable and final ruin’</a></p>
<p>Trump’s warmongering speech only persuaded Kim that he is on the right course, the North Korean leader was <a href="https://kcnawatch.co/newstream/1506033115-921520320/statement-of-chairman-of-state-affairs-commission-of-dprk/" type="external">quoted</a> as saying.</p>
<p>“His [Trump] remarks which described the US option through straightforward expression of his will have convinced me, rather than frightening or stopping me, that the path I chose is correct and that it is the one I have to follow to the last,” Kim said in a statement, distributed by the country’s state-run KCNA news agency, calling Trump’s behavior “mentally deranged” and vowing to respond to “the most ferocious declaration of war in history” with the “highest level of hardline countermeasure in history.”</p> | US potential withdrawal from Iran deal to send ‘worst signal’ to Pyongyang – Nebenzia | false | https://newsline.com/us-potential-withdrawal-from-iran-deal-to-send-worst-signal-to-pyongyang-nebenzia/ | 2017-09-21 | 1 |
<p>Many years ago, I read a book called “The Quiet American” by Graham Greene. Its central character is a high-minded, naive young American operative in Vietnam. He has no idea about the complexities of that country but is determined to right its wrongs and create order. The results are disastrous.</p>
<p>I have the feeling that this is happening now in Lebanon. The Americans are not so high-minded and no so naive. Far from it. But they are quite prepared to go into a foreign country, disregard its complexities, and use force to impose on it order, democracy and freedom.</p>
<p>Civil war: Lebanon. Lebanon is a country with a peculiar topography: a small country of high mountain ranges and isolated valleys. As a result, it has attracted throughout the centuries communities of persecuted minorities, who found refuge there. Today there are, side by side and one against the other, four ethno-religious communities: Christians, Sunnis, Shiites and Druse. Within the Christian community, there are several sub-communities, such as Maronites and other ancient sects, mostly hostile to each other. The history of Lebanon abounds in mutual massacres.</p>
<p>Such a situation invites, of course, interference by neighbors and foreign powers, each wanting to stir the pot for its own advantage. Syria, Israel, the United States and France, the former colonial master, are all involved.</p>
<p>Exactly 50 years ago a secret, heated debate took place among the leaders of Israel. David Ben-Gurion (then Minister of Defense) and Moshe Dayan (the army Chief-of-Staff) had a brilliant idea: to invade Lebanon, impose on it a “Christian major” as dictator and turn it into an Israeli protectorate. Moshe Sharett, the then Prime Minister, attacked this idea fervently. In a lengthy, closely argued letter, which has been preserved for history, he ridiculed the total ignorance of the proponents of this idea in face of the incredibly fragile complexity of the Lebanese social structure. Any adventure, he warned, would end in disaster.</p>
<p>At the time, Sharett won. But 27 years later, Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon did exactly what Ben-Gurion and Dayan had proposed. The result was exactly as foreseen by Sharett.</p>
<p>Anyone who follows the American and Israeli (there is no difference) media, gets the impression that the present situation in Lebanon is simple: there are two camps, “the supporters of Syria” on the one side, the “opposition” on the other. There is a “Beirut Spring”. The opposition is a twin sister of yesterday’s Ukrainian opposition, and loyally imitates all its methods: demonstrations opposite the government building, a sea of waving flags, colorful shawls, and, most importantly, beautiful girls in the front row.</p>
<p>But between the Ukraine and Lebanon there exists not the slightest similarity. The Ukraine is a “simple” country: the east tends towards Russia, the west towards Europe. With American help, the west won.</p>
<p>In Lebanon, all the diverse communities are in action. Each for its own interest, each plotting to outfox the others, perhaps to attack them at a given opportunity. Some of the leaders are connected with Syria, some with Israel, all are trying to use the Americans for their ends. The jolly pictures of young demonstrators, so prominent in the media, have no meaning if one does not know the community which stands behind them.</p>
<p>Only thirty years ago these communities started a terrible civil war and all of them massacred each other. The Christian Maronites wanted to take over the country with the help of Israel, but were defeated by a coalition of the Sunnis and Druze (the Shiites played no significant role at that time). The Palestinian refugees, led by the PLO, who formed a kind of fifth “community”, joined the battle. When the Christians were in danger of being overrun, they called on the Syrians for help. Six years later, Israel invaded, with the aim of evicting both the Syrians and the Palestinians and imposing a Christian strongman (Basheer Jumail).</p>
<p>It took us 18 years to get out of that morass. Our only achievement was to turn the Shiites into a dominant force. When we entered Lebanon, the Shiites received us with showers of rice and candies, hoping that we would throw out the Palestinians, who had been lording it over them. A few months later, when they realized that we did not intend to leave, they started to shoot at us. Sharon is the midwife of Hizbullah.</p>
<p>It is difficult to foresee what will happen if the Syrians accede to the American ultimatum and leave Lebanon. There is no indication that the Americans are concerned with the creation of a new fabric of life for the Lebanese communities. They are satisfied with babbling about “freedom” and “democracy”, as if a majority vote could create a regime acceptable to all. They do not understand that “Lebanon” is an abstract notion, since for almost all Lebanese, belonging to their own community is vastly more important than loyalty to the state. In such a situation, even an international force will be of no help.</p>
<p>The re-ignition of the bloody civil war is a distinct possibility.</p>
<p>Civil war: Iraq. If a civil war breaks out in Lebanon, it will not be the only one in the region. In Iraq, such a war ­ if almost secret – is already in full swing.</p>
<p>The only effective military forces in Iraq, apart from the occupation army, are the Kurdish “Peshmerga” (“Those who face death”). The Americans use them whenever they are fighting the Sunnis. They played an important role in the battle of Faluja, a big town that was totally destroyed, its inhabitants killed or driven out.</p>
<p>Now the Kurdish forces are waging a war against the Sunnis and Turkmens in the north of the country, in order to take hold of the oil-rich areas and the town of Kirkuk, and also to drive out the Sunni settlers who were implanted there by Saddam Hussein.</p>
<p>How can such a war be practically ignored by the media? Simple: everything is swept under the carpet of the “war against terrorism”.</p>
<p>But this small war is nothing compared to what may happen in Iraq, once the time comes for deciding the future of the country. The Kurds want complete autonomy, or independence by another name. The Sunni would not dream of accepting the rule of the Shiite majority, which they despise, even if came about in the name of “democracy”. The outbreak of a full-fledged civil war may only be a question of time.</p>
<p>Civil war: Syria. If the Americans succeed, with Israel’s discreet help, in breaking the ruling Syrian dictatorship, there is no assurance at all that it will be replaced by “freedom” and “democracy”.</p>
<p>Syria is almost as splintered as Lebanon. There is a strong Druze community in the south, a rebellious Kurdish community in the north, an Alawite community (to which the Assad family belongs) in the west. The Sunni majority is traditionally divided between Damascus in the south and Aleppo in the north. The people have resigned themselves to the Assad dictatorship out of fear of what may happen if the regime collapses.</p>
<p>It is not likely that a full-scale civil war will break out there. But a prolonged situation of total chaos is quite likely. Sharon would be happy, though I am not sure that it would be good for Israel.</p>
<p>Religious fervor: Iran. The main American objective is, of course, the overthrow of the Ayatollahs in Iran. (It is a little bit ironic that at the same time the Americans are helping to install the Shiites in power in neighboring Iraq, where they insist on introducing Islamic law.)</p>
<p>Iran is a much harder nut to crack. Unlike to Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, this is a homogenous society.</p>
<p>Israel is now openly threatening to bomb the Iranian nuclear installations. Every few days we see on our TV screens the digitally blurred faces of pilots boasting of their readiness to do this at a moment’s notice.</p>
<p>The religious fervor of the Ayatollahs has been flagging lately, as happens with every victorious revolution after some time. But a military attack by the “Big Satan” (the US) or the “Little Satan” (us) may set fire to the whole Shiite crescent: Iran, South Iraq and South Lebanon.</p>
<p>And here, too. Israel, too, has recently witnessed a tiny civil war.</p>
<p>In the Galilean village Marrar, where a Druze and an Arab Christian community have been living side by side for generations, a bloody incident suddenly erupted. It was a full-fledged pogrom: the Druze fell upon the Christians, attacking, burning and destroying. By a miracle, nobody was killed. The Christians say that the Israeli police (many of whose members are Druze) stood aside. The immediate reason for the outbreak: some doctored nude pictures on the Internet.)</p>
<p>It is easy to ignite a civil war, whether out of fanaticism or out of intolerable naivete. George Bush, the (not-so-) Quiet American, runs around the world hawking his patent medicines, “freedom” and “democracy”, in total ignorance of hundreds of years of history. Hard to believe, but he draws his inspiration from a book by our own Nathan Sharansky, a very small genius, to say the least.</p>
<p>Every human being and every people has a right to freedom. Many of us have shed their blood for this aim. Democracy is an ideal that every people has to realize for itself. But when the banners of “freedom” and “democracy” are hoisted over a crusade by an avaricious and irresponsible super-power, the results can be catastrophic.</p>
<p>URI AVNERY is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is one of the writers featured in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/156584789X/counterpunchmaga" type="external">The Other Israel: Voices of Dissent and Refusal</a>. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch’s hot new book <a href="" type="internal">The Politics of Anti-Semitism</a>. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p> | The Next Crusades | true | https://counterpunch.org/2005/03/07/the-next-crusades/ | 2005-03-07 | 4 |
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<p>UNM’s Niko Hansen, 23, drives and makes a goal in the first half of the exhibition game against Grand Canyon at the UNM Soccer Complex on Saturday, August 17, 2013. (Greg Sorber/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>Long after nearly everyone else had gone, but when there was still a hint of morning cool, Niko Hansen was still kicking.</p>
<p>The freshman on the New Mexico men’s soccer team listened intently to UNM assistant Paul Souders, pushing through the drills, soaking in the information as best he could.</p>
<p>“You’ve got to be careful with young players,” Souders says. “There’s so much more to come from them. It’s being happy with them, but knowing there’s much more to come.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>So it is with Hansen. In five games (four as a starter), Hansen happily has three goals.</p>
<p>Impressive? Nah, UNM head coach Jeremy Fishbein says.</p>
<p>“He’s scored two goals in a 7-2 win and got a goal when we were down 3-1,” Fishbein says.</p>
<p>Still, Fishbein is not displeased. There’s more to come.</p>
<p>“He’s a class act,” Fishbein says. “He’s an excellent student, a great teammate. He’s everything you could ask for.”</p>
<p>Hansen is from Sacramento, Calif., a prep all-American at Jesuit High School, where he scored 35 goals as a senior.</p>
<p>“There have been some growing pains,” Hansen admits. “It was different coming into college soccer. I’m still adjusting, getting used to the game. It’s much faster. I’m trying to get better every day.”</p>
<p>Hansen was already ahead of the game when the Lobos first saw him. He was a sophomore in high school, playing in a national under-19 tournament in Dallas – Souder’s hometown.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“They saw me playing against (high school) seniors and freshmen in college,” Hansen says.</p>
<p>Says Fishbein, “He was the youngest player on the team, and he kind of caught our eye.”</p>
<p>And New Mexico caught his. He committed to the Lobos his junior year.</p>
<p>“The program was unbelievable,” Hansen says of UNM. “The coaches, the players. Just a great environment all around. The community, the fans, the facility.</p>
<p>“But it was mostly about the team and the focus and the goals behind the team.”</p>
<p>Hansen’s family was in town last weekend to help him celebrate his 19th birthday. They played a little miniature golf and thoroughly enjoyed their time together.</p>
<p>“We just like to have fun,” Hansen says. “We’re kind of a bunch of goofs.”</p>
<p>This week, there’s no goofing off. He and his teammates are looking to regroup following a 3-2 loss at home to Cal State Northridge (now ranked third). The 14th-ranked Lobos (3-1-1) face Drake (1-2-1) today at 7 p.m.</p>
<p>“It’s a tough loss, of course,” Hansen says. “We’re just moving forward.”</p>
<p>Hansen, who is fascinated by the mechanics of the human body, is studying exercise science.</p>
<p>“I love sports and I wanted to do something with the body,” Hansen says of his academic choice. “I want to do something in sports science, learning how the muscles work, why some athletes are better than other athletes due to physical attributes.”</p>
<p>So he was out there the other morning, working on some muscle memory, trying to refine his kicking touch.</p>
<p>“I’m doing as much as I can, doing what the coaches says,” Hansen says. “The coaches know a lot, and I take a lot from them.”</p>
<p>“What makes it easy with Niko is he’s humble,” Souders says. “He works for the team first and foremost, and that’s good. But also, as a striker, he needs to learn to take his chances and be a bit selfish at times, too.</p>
<p>“You try to train both the technical side and the mental side. And for a young player, the mental side takes a little bit longer.”</p>
<p>Hansen understands that already.</p>
<p>“We get trained very well physically,” he says. “We shouldn’t be tired physically. It’s a lot more mental than it is physical. Tell yourself, go, make that early run, get back on defense, get in the right position.”</p>
<p>So he’s putting in extra time, trying to soak it all in.</p>
<p>“He’s a pretty impressive young man,” Fishbein says of his young project. ” … He’s from a great family, has great values and he’s going to make good decisions. There’s no reason not to expect a very good season out of him. And, most importantly, he’s a very good teammate.”</p>
<p />
<p /> | UNM men’s soccer: Freshman Hansen gets it | false | https://abqjournal.com/266085/freshman-makes-strides.html | 2013-09-20 | 2 |
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<p>PHOENIX (AP) — A northern Arizona man has been resentenced in the rape and murder of a woman who was hitchhiking near Steamboat on the Navajo Nation.</p>
<p>Branden Pete, of Greasewood, had been serving a life sentence in the 2002 death of Charlotte Brown.</p>
<p>He argued for a more lenient punishment after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that juveniles convicted of murder shouldn’t face mandatory life sentences without the possibility of parole.</p>
<p>Pete was 16 when Brown was killed.</p>
<p>Federal prosecutors say Pete and three other men raped Brown before she was beaten to death with rocks. They urged U.S. District Judge Stephen McNamee this week to re-impose a life sentence.</p>
<p>McNamee noted the crimes’ brutality in resentencing Pete to 59 years in prison with credit for nearly 12 years served.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Arizona man resentenced in rape, murder of woman | false | https://abqjournal.com/435277/arizona-man-resentenced-in-rape-murder-of-woman.html | 2 |
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<p>SANTA FE (AP) — The state Game and Fish Department is asking a federal court to lift a decades-old order preventing the agency from providing New Mexico residents with more licenses to hunt bighorn sheep, ibex and oryx.</p>
<p>The department wants the U.S. District Court to lift an injunction in place since 1977. The court determined that New Mexico discriminated against out-of-state hunters by setting quotas on how many licenses would be issued to them.</p>
<p>A 1997 state law established license limits for out-of-state residents to hunt big game, including elk, deer and antelope. But the department can’t give New Mexicans a preference for ibex, oryx and bighorn sheep licenses because of the court order.</p>
<p>The department said a 2005 federal appeals court ruling upheld license allocations in Wyoming similar to New Mexico’s system.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Ruling sought on hunting license quotas | false | https://abqjournal.com/198789/ruling-sought-on-hunting-license-quotas.html | 2 |
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<p>BOSTON (AP) — Rene Rancourt, the tuxedoed troubadour who has sung the national anthem before Boston Bruins games for more than 40 years, announced on Wednesday that he will retire at the end of the season.</p>
<p>The 78-year-old trained opera singer began singing the “Star-Spangled Banner” at Red Sox games and took over the U.S. and Canadian anthems at Bruins games during the 1975-76 season. He ends his performance with a signature fist pump he modeled after Bruins forward Randy Burridge.</p>
<p>Rancourt got a big hand when he came onto the ice to perform the both anthems.</p>
<p>“It’s wonderful, the fan reaction,” he said in a press conference during the first intermission. “Every time I sing the anthem, I imagine it’s for the last time.”</p>
<p>Rancourt performed the anthem on April 17, 2013, for the first sporting event in the city after the Boston Marathon bombing. He sang the first few words and then allowed the crowd to take over.</p>
<p>“Nothing comes close to that,” he said. “I was petrified to get out there. I had planned to stop singing in the middle of it. I was very afraid to do that. The reaction was something.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>More AP NHL hockey at <a href="" type="internal">https://apnews.com/tag/NHLhockey</a></p>
<p>BOSTON (AP) — Rene Rancourt, the tuxedoed troubadour who has sung the national anthem before Boston Bruins games for more than 40 years, announced on Wednesday that he will retire at the end of the season.</p>
<p>The 78-year-old trained opera singer began singing the “Star-Spangled Banner” at Red Sox games and took over the U.S. and Canadian anthems at Bruins games during the 1975-76 season. He ends his performance with a signature fist pump he modeled after Bruins forward Randy Burridge.</p>
<p>Rancourt got a big hand when he came onto the ice to perform the both anthems.</p>
<p>“It’s wonderful, the fan reaction,” he said in a press conference during the first intermission. “Every time I sing the anthem, I imagine it’s for the last time.”</p>
<p>Rancourt performed the anthem on April 17, 2013, for the first sporting event in the city after the Boston Marathon bombing. He sang the first few words and then allowed the crowd to take over.</p>
<p>“Nothing comes close to that,” he said. “I was petrified to get out there. I had planned to stop singing in the middle of it. I was very afraid to do that. The reaction was something.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>More AP NHL hockey at <a href="" type="internal">https://apnews.com/tag/NHLhockey</a></p> | Longtime Boston Bruins anthem singer Rancourt to retire | false | https://apnews.com/47f62241b74e4ff2922709252b5860f9 | 2018-01-18 | 2 |
<p>Donald Trump is making false and grossly inflated claims about an alleged “quid pro quo” between the State Department and the FBI regarding one of Hillary Clinton’s emails.</p>
<p>Trump insists in campaign appearances that newly released documents show that a State Department official offered a deal to the FBI if it would declassify one of Clinton’s emails, and that this reveals “how corrupt she is.”</p>
<p>What the FBI documents actually show is that:</p>
<p>Furthermore, our reporting shows the deal would have involved one short sentence in <a href="https://foia.state.gov/Search/results.aspx?searchText=*&amp;caseNumber=F-2015-04841" type="external">a single email</a> that was forwarded to Clinton, <a href="http://www.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/" type="external">then secretary of state</a>, regarding arrests of suspects in the Benghazi attacks of Sept. 11, 2012.</p>
<p>But to hear Trump <a href="https://youtu.be/d3drgNz7jGA?t=1h40m28s" type="external">describe it</a>, this amounts to a massive, illegal cover-up. At an Oct. 18 campaign stop in Grand Junction, Colorado, he said:</p>
<p>Trump, Oct. 18: You heard about the newly released FBI documents? They reveal just how corrupt [Clinton] is and [Washington] is. Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy illegally pressured – really, illegally pressured the FBI to unclassify emails from Hillary’s illegal server.</p>
<p>It’s true that the documents revealed that a former Clinton aide at the State Department, <a href="http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/95199.htm" type="external">Patrick F. Kennedy</a>, argued at length that the FBI’s counterterrorism division should reverse its decision to classify the sentence — and he lost the argument. But there’s nothing illegal about that. And Trump (like some news organizations) got it wrong <a href="https://youtu.be/d3drgNz7jGA?t=1h44m30s" type="external">when he said</a>:</p>
<p>Trump, Oct. 18: The FBI documents show that Patrick Kennedy made the request for altering classification as part of a quid pro quo.</p>
<p>That’s false. It wasn’t Kennedy who made the request. One of the two FBI employees whose interviews were summarized in the documents took responsibility for offering the deal. Neither document points to Kennedy as initiating such an offer.</p>
<p>The two interview summaries are among&#160; <a href="https://vault.fbi.gov/hillary-r.-clinton/hillary-r.-clinton-part-04-of-04/view" type="external">100 pages</a> of documents that the FBI released Oct. 17 relating to its investigation of Clinton’s use of a private email server for her official communications while she was secretary of state.</p>
<p>One memo (starting on page 25) stated that an unnamed FBI documents manager interviewed at FBI headquarters in Washington on July 30, 2015, said he had been “pressured” — by another FBI official — to remove the classification as part of a “quid pro quo.”</p>
<p>FBI interview summary, July 30, 2015: [The documents manager said the other FBI official] indicated he had been contacted by Patrick Kennedy, Undersecretary of State, who had asked his assistance in altering the email’s classification in exchange for a “quid pro quo.” …[I]n exchange for marking the email unclassified, State would reciprocate by allowing the FBI to place more agents in countries where they are presently forbidden.</p>
<p>Note that the documents manager didn’t say who proposed the “quid pro quo.” Trump (and to be fair, some careless reporters) have made an incorrect assumption that Kennedy made the offer. In fact, as made clear in the second FBI interview, it was not.</p>
<p>The second FBI memo (starting on page 28) summarizes an interview that agents conducted Sept. 3, 2015, with the man who allegedly “pressured” the documents manager. That official wasn’t named in the edited FBI interview summary but is now known to be Brian McCauley, the FBI’s deputy assistant director for international operations from 2012 to 2015. He had retired by the time of the interview.</p>
<p>McCauley told the FBI interviewers that Kennedy had contacted him to ask his assistance in getting the email marked unclassified.</p>
<p>FBI memo:&#160;Not yet knowing the email’s content, [McCauley said he] told Kennedy he would look into the e-mail matter if Kennedy would provide authority regarding the FBI’s request to increase its personnel in Iraq.</p>
<p>So the FBI documents show McCauley, not Kennedy, first proposed the idea of an exchange of favors.</p>
<p>McCauley confirmed that when the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/i-need-a-favor-fbi-official-at-center-of-alleged-clinton-email-quid-pro-quo-speaks-out/2016/10/18/dd872948-9538-11e6-9b7c-57290af48a49_story.html" type="external">Washington Post</a> and&#160; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/19/us/politics/ex-fbi-official-hillary-clinton-email.html" type="external">New York Times</a> tracked him down and separately interviewed him. In accounts published Oct. 18, the newspapers quoted McCauley as saying he had agreed in a telephone call with Kennedy that he would try to help with the classification of Clinton’s email if Kennedy would help get the State Department to restore two spots that the FBI had lost in the Baghdad embassy.</p>
<p>McCauley (in Washington Post): He said: “Brian. Pat Kennedy. I need a favor,” … I said: “Good, I need a favor. I need our people back in Baghdad.”</p>
<p>McCauley (in New York Times): I’m the one that&#160;threw that out there. …[I]t was a quid pro quo; I don’t deny it.</p>
<p>In his FBI interview, McCauley said he soon discovered that the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division had declared the email classified, and that he then called Kennedy back and “informed him that there was no way he could assist Kennedy in declassifying the information contained in the e-mail.”</p>
<p>McCauley elaborated on that in his Post and Times interviews. After learning that the email involved the Benghazi attack, he said, he called Kennedy back immediately and said he could not help.</p>
<p>McCauley (in Washington Post): I said, “Absolutely not, I can’t help you,” and he took that, and it was fine.</p>
<p>McCauley (in New York Times): It was off the table; the quid pro quo was not even close to being considered.</p>
<p>Kennedy didn’t stop trying to get the material declassified, according to the FBI interview with the unnamed documents manger. The manager said he met Kennedy personally and that Kennedy spent “15 minutes debating the classification of the email and attempting to influence the FBI to change its markings.”</p>
<p>The documents manager said he “continued to assert that the email was appropriately marked SECRET//NOFORN” (meaning “no foreign dissemination”). He said Kennedy then appealed in a conference call to the FBI’s <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/about/leadership-and-structure/fbi-executives/steinbach" type="external">Michael Steinbach</a>, who was then assistant director of the agency’s counterterrorism division.</p>
<p>According to the FBI documents manager: “Kennedy continued to pressure the FBI to change the classified markings on the email to unclassified. Steinbach refused to do so.”</p>
<p>That seems to have ended the matter. Both the FBI and the State Department have officially denied any deal took place.</p>
<p>After the Oct. 17 release of these memos, the <a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cu-9IWpWgAEl2nZ.jpg" type="external">FBI issued a statement</a> saying “the classification of the email was not changed, and it remains classified today.”</p>
<p>The FBI statement added, “Although there never was a quid pro quo, these allegations were nonetheless referred to the appropriate officials for review.” That review resulted in the two FBI interview memos already mentioned.</p>
<p>In a <a href="http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2016/10/263212.htm" type="external">press briefing Oct. 17,</a> Mark Toner of the State Department said the FBI didn’t get the extra slots in Baghdad, and the email was <a href="https://foia.state.gov/Search/Results.aspx?collection=Clinton_Email_May_Release" type="external">released in May 2015</a> with the “secret” classification intact.</p>
<p>That’s when&#160;the&#160;State Department&#160; <a href="https://foia.state.gov/Learn/New.aspx" type="external">published a set of 296 documents</a>&#160;that previously had been provided in February 2015 to the House Select Committee on Benghazi. Toner did not specify which of these was the subject of Kennedy’s conversations, but only one of them had any material deleted because it was found to be classified. This was a brief message forwarded to Clinton on Nov. 18, 2012, by an aide regarding news that Libyan police had arrested several people who “may have some connection to the Benghazi attack.”</p>
<p>The message was forwarded to Clinton by Jacob Sullivan, then her deputy chief of staff. He in turn had received it from Beth Jones, the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs at the time. In forwarding it, Jones noted, “FBI in Libya fully involved.”</p>
<p>Just how the FBI was involved in the arrests isn’t known. There’s no mention of the FBI in the heavily edited portions of the original message that&#160;Jones had forwarded from the author, <a href="http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/237201.htm" type="external">William V. Roebuck</a>, then-director of the State Department’s office of Magreb affairs.</p>
<p>One sentence of what Roebuck wrote, half a line long, is blotted out citing exemption B1 to the Freedom of Information Act, which is the exemption for classified information. A notation says that sentence was classified “Secret/Noforn” on May 22, 2015.</p>
<p>Not clear in any of this is why Kennedy took even 15 minutes to dispute the classification of this sentence. The sentence is scheduled to be declassified on Nov. 18, 2032.</p>
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<p /> | A Deal That Never Happened | false | https://factcheck.org/2016/10/a-deal-that-never-happened/ | 2016-10-19 | 2 |
<p>CAIRO — On a backstreet on the east side of this sprawling city, a ragged crowd chanted in unison: "The people demand the fall of the regime."</p>
<p>The small group shouted vociferously, united by a desire to oust a repressive ruler and hasten Egypt's progress to democracy. The “people” have been taking this demand to the streets a lot here in the last two and a half years.</p>
<p>On this Friday last week, the chants were not for the toppling of Hosni Mubarak, as the streets demanded in early 2011 after three decades of corruption and brutality. They were not directed to President Mohamed Morsi, who replaced Mubarak to become the first democratically elected president in the country’s history but was unseated in a military-led takeover after millions went back to the streets to protest failures of governance.</p>
<p>These protesters were directing their demands to step down toward General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the leader of a military coup that ousted Morsi, and the man who now presides as the military commander in an interim government.</p>
<p>Welcome to Cairo in 2013, where the people have had a voice in the street since Egypt's popular uprising made headlines around the world. In a cover story this summer, Time magazine labelled them: “World’s Best Protesters; World’s Worst Democrats.”</p>
<p>Two years after hundreds of thousands of Egyptians revolted against the dictatorship of Mubarak, the country’s military-backed authorities, headed by the popular Gen. al-Sisi are accused of stifling dissent and overseeing what Human Rights Watch has labeled the “most serious incident of mass unlawful killings in modern Egyptian history.”</p>
<p>Yet unlike in 2011, protests against the authorities are small these days, like the gathering on Cairo’s east side. That’s because the majority of Egyptians seem to support the July 3rd coup, and see the sweeping and furious military crackdown as a necessary price to pay for democracy.</p>
<p>Egypt-watchers believe the army’s role in Morsi’s overthrow has rehabilitated the military’s reputation in the eyes of many Egyptians.</p>
<p>“There is a cult of personality around the head of the military now,” says Issandr El Amrani, a Cairo-based analyst and North Africa project director at the International Crisis Group. "The atmosphere is pro-military in a way that we simply did not see in 2011.”</p>
<p>Posters of Gen. al-Sisi’s face — sometimes smiling and fatherly and sometimes strong and silent with his signature sunglasses -— are plastered across Cairo. Many now want him to run for president.</p>
<p>“In 2011, the vast majority of people had a positive image of the army, but there was also a strong feeling that they should not be allowed to remain in power. Today there is a much wider acceptance of a forceful role for the military in politics,” says Amrani.</p>
<p>Although Egypt has a new interim government, led by President Adly Mansour, his power and the interim government remains secondary to that of the military. By most accounts, it’s al-Sisi who is charge.</p>
<p>“This government is shaped into three cones: the security cone, the economy cone and the explicitly political cone,” says Amrani. “Although each operates fairly separately, it’s almost certain that General Sisi and the head of the security cone has veto power over the other decisions.”</p>
<p>And security has become the issue of the day.</p>
<p>On August 14, military and police forces forcibly dispersed two pro-Morsi sit-ins in Cairo, killing more than 600 in what Human Rights Watch has called “the most serious incident of mass unlawful killings in modern Egyptian history”.</p>
<p>Bloodshed in the capital catalyzed spasms of violence across the country. At least 1,089 people died in political violence between August 14 and 18.</p>
<p>The involvement of Islamists in the unrest has allowed the government to cast this as a ‘war on terror’, stoking fears that Egypt may see a return to the militant violence of the 1990s.</p>
<p>The resulting security crackdown has decimated the group’s organizational capacity, pushing the group underground. Its leadership is behind bars and up to 3,000 of its rank-and-file supporters have been arrested.</p>
<p>“I can’t see any of the leadership anymore, they’re all in jail” says Amr Darrag, one of the highest-ranking members of the Brotherhood’s political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), to remain a free man.</p>
<p>Darrag says the detentions are politically motivated, presenting a convenient way to erase the group from political life. Although he denies any wrongdoing, he still fears waking up to a knock on his own door.</p>
<p>Revolutionaries who galvanized the original 2011 uprising now say that the police state they fought against is emerging from the shadows.</p>
<p>“I feel like we just stepped back two years,” April 6 movement co-founder Ahmed Maher told GlobalPost last week. “This is a major setback, it feels like the old regime is back again.”</p>
<p>His trepidation was justified. On September 11, the April 6 offices were raided without a warrant and a number of its activists detained. Although they were released without charge, the fate of Egypt's most famous revolutionary group is now as uncertain as the Brotherhood’s.</p>
<p>Maher and other Egyptians who occupy a rapidly shrinking middle ground say they want to find a third political route way that does not involve the army or Islamists.</p>
<p>“We don’t agree with military rule, but we cannot back the radicals,” he said wearily. “But there is no alternative at the moment. I hope that one day Egypt can have a leader that will just look out for the country’s interests, and not just for those of his clique.”</p>
<p>Egypt’s military-backed interim government has promise to hold fresh parliamentary and presidential elections within six months. But the Brotherhood may not be involved, says Darrag.</p>
<p>“If they are serious about having elections, how can we get involved with most of our leaders and potential candidates in jail? It is very difficult to imagine any sort of free political activities in this context.”</p>
<p>Almost three years after Egypt’s 2011 uprising, activists could be forgiven for feeling that their revolution has come full circle.</p>
<p>But according to Maher, it's not over yet.</p>
<p>“People ask if I have lost hope, and I haven’t,” he says. “I never imagined that things would reach this level of violence, of hatred and of complications. The situation is chaotic, a lot of people have died. But we have to hope.”</p>
<p>This summer GlobalPost partnered with FRONTLINE for the documentary “ <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/egypt-in-crisis/?utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=&amp;utm_campaign=" type="external">Egypt in Crisis</a>” airing September 17, 2013 on PBS. &#160;</p>
<p>This story is presented by <a href="http://thegroundtruthproject.org/" type="external">The GroundTruth&#160;Project.</a></p> | In Egypt 2013, democracy means military rule | false | https://pri.org/stories/2013-09-16/egypt-2013-democracy-means-military-rule | 2013-09-16 | 3 |
<p>While the criminal witch hunt against our President continues apace over the nonexistent collusion between Trump with Russia, here’s a blockbuster front page news story virtually ignored by the elite enemedia. The FBI offered a Russian hacker cash and citizenship if he would confess to hacking Hillary Clinton’s email for Trump. There was just one problem: he hadn’t.</p>
<p>These rogue Obama plants within the FBI and other agencies, who are even trying to fabricate evidence to frame Trump, must be removed and prosecuted, or they could be the death of the American republic.</p>
<p>A Russian citizen accused of being a hacker by both Russia and the U.S. has claimed U.S. officials offered to cut him a deal if he admitted to interfering in the 2016 presidential election.</p>
<p>Yevgeniy Nikulin, 29, has found himself in the middle of an international dispute between Washington and Moscow, at the very center of which lies U.S. allegations that Russia sponsored a series of hacks targeting Democratic Party candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in favor of Republican candidate and current President Donald Trump. On October 5, 2016, days before U.S. intelligence publicly accused Russia of endorsing an infiltration of Democratic Party officials’ emails, Nikulin was arrested in Prague at the request of the U.S. on separate hacking charges. Now, Nikulin claims U.S. authorities tried to pin the email scandal on him.</p>
<p>Nikulin was detained in the Czech Republic for allegedly hacking the servers of major sites LinkedIn, Dropbox and Formspring between 2012 and 2013. While awaiting trial, he claims in an undated letter reportedly given to U.S. Russian-language news site Nastoyashchoe Vremya by Nikulin’s lawyer, Martin Sadilek, that the FBI visited him at least a couple of times, offering to drop the charges and grant him U.S. citizenship as well as cash and an apartment in the U.S. if the Russian national confessed to participating in the 2016 hacks of Clinton campaign chief John Podesta’s emails in July.</p>
<p>Trump initially dismissed allegations of Russian involvement in the election, but has since reversed his position, while denying any personal connection to the hacks. Moscow has vehemently denied interfering in the 2016 election.</p>
<p>“[They told me:] you will have to confess to breaking into Clinton’s inbox for [U.S. President Donald Trump] on behalf of [Russian President Vladimir Putin],” Nikulin wrote, according to The Moscow Times.</p>
<p>Nikulin said he refused the deal, but U.S. officials threatened to return. He claims the visits occurred in mid-November 2016 and on February 7 of this year. Czech television has reported at least one FBI visit earlier this year, according to The Guardian, which cited an FBI spokesperson as saying the agency was “aware of the situation,” but declining further comment. The FBI is seeking to extradite Nikulin to face trial in the U.S., something he and his lawyers are trying to fight.</p>
<p>While the U.S. has not publicly acknowledged any connection between Nikulin and the Russian election hacking controversy, Nikulin’s arrest did attract the attention of Moscow. Nikulin is accused by Russia of hacking into and stealing from online WebMoney accounts. The Moscow-based online money transfer system claims 31 million users around the world and Nikulin is charged with stealing $3,450 in 2009, according to the state-owned Tass Russian News Agency. Moscow has also filed an extradition request.</p>
<p>Nikulin, a self-described used car salesman who claims he does not work with computers, denies the charges raised against him by both the U.S. and Moscow. His Czech lawyer, Adam Kopecky, said in January he and Nikulin believed the Russian national was being used as a “political pawn” amid an international feud between Washington and Moscow, according to The Guardian….</p>
<p>Pamela Geller is the President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), publisher of <a href="http://pamelageller.com/2017/06/fbi-bribe-trump.html/" type="external">PamelaGeller.com</a> and author of The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America and Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance.</p>
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<p /> | FBI Dem Party Operatives Offered Russian Hacker Bribes to Say He Hacked the DNC Email for Trump | true | http://dcclothesline.com/2017/06/18/fbi-dem-party-operatives-offered-russian-hacker-bribes-to-say-he-hacked-the-dnc-email-for-trump/ | 2017-06-18 | 0 |
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<p>The decider rides again. From George W. Bush’s <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,226645,00.html" type="external">“interview” with Sean Hannity</a> a couple days ago:</p>
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<p>I enjoy making decisions. You know, there’s something exciting about reading and studying history and realize you’re making history with it. And one of the lessons, by the way, about when you read history is that, after your presidency, you know, it’s going to take a while for the historians to fully understand the decisions you made, if you’re making big decisions, and so therefore you don’t worry about history.</p>
<p>I like to say there’s a portrait of George Washington in the Oval Office. I often look at him. I’ve read three history books about him. And if they’re still analyzing the No. 1 guy’s presidency, old No. 43 needs to not worry about it.</p>
<p>In short, Bush seems to hope that his legacy will rest on a solid foundation of inscrutability. Take that, eggheads!</p>
<p /> | History Don’t Know Much About Bush | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2006/11/history-dont-know-much-about-bush/ | 2006-11-03 | 4 |
<p>Companies vying for the final contract to build President Donald Trump's border wall are undergoing a "dress rehearsal" in the California desert this week.</p>
<p>Eight companies who made it through the first round of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office's vetting process have to build their own replica border wall by October 26 in order to make it to the final round of bidding. So far at least five companies are well on their way to completing their "small wall" on the border between San Diego, California and Tijuana, Mexico.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/border-issues/2017/10/18/first-look-8-possible-versions-president-donald-trump-border-wall/747998001/" type="external">The Arizona Central got a sneak peek</a> at the eight tiny walls, two of which are being built by Arizona companies (all of the competitors had to agree to do most of their manufacturing and goods-sourcing from within the United States' borders, and verify that their builders were American citizens). All eight involve reinforced concrete, but some companies were more creative than others.</p>
<p>All of the border walls must be at least thirty feet high, and extend into the ground for stability. According to the original call for bids, the walls must "make a statement" to possible border-crossers, but also be "visually appealing" to anyone who lives on the U.S. side of the wall. Imposing, but pretty.</p>
<p>So far, <a href="http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/border-issues/2017/10/18/first-look-8-possible-versions-president-donald-trump-border-wall/747998001/" type="external">according to a slideshow on the AZ Central website</a>, most of the walls are definitely imposing — but "pretty?" Well, that's largely based on your definition of pretty. If you find concrete slabs enticing, all eight of the companies' ideas will, no doubt, strike your fancy.</p>
<p>The wall itself will be a dynamic challenge for any builder. Most of the official border between the U.S. and Mexico falls on land that is hardly flat, though the border wall prototypes are all built in a nearly level desert environment. The border crosses canyons and rock formations, several different types of rocky landscape, as well as bodies of water (including the massive Rio Grande).</p>
<p>So far, U.S. Customs and Border Protection is staying mum on which choice they prefer. According to reports south of the border, Mexicans aren't impressed by any of them.</p>
<p>But these eight companies are eager to show they have what it takes to keep Americans and Mexicans completely separate — or, at least, they're excited to get the multi-billion dollar government contract that proves they have the ability to try.</p> | Developers Build Eight Border Wall Prototypes In the California Desert | true | https://dailywire.com/news/22481/developers-build-eight-border-wall-prototypes-emily-zanotti | 2017-10-19 | 0 |
<p>Rihanna, DJ Khaled and Bryson Tiller will perform their smash hit “Wild Thoughts” on the Grammy Awards, Khaled announced in his characteristically low-key manner on social media Friday night. #FANLUV! IT’S GO TIME!,” he wrote. “I’m performing #WILDTHOUGHTS at the #GRAMMYS !!!! with the ICON @rihanna AND @brysontiller !! @RecordingAcad! I’M so #GRATEFUL for this […]</p> | Rihanna to Perform at Grammys With DJ Khaled and Bryson Tiller | false | https://newsline.com/rihanna-to-perform-at-grammys-with-dj-khaled-and-bryson-tiller/ | 2018-01-20 | 1 |
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<p>There is some good news regarding the jet fuel spill that has been contaminating groundwater near Kirtland Air Force Base.</p>
<p>New preliminary test results indicate that after drilling an array of 116 test wells on the base and in Albuquerque’s southeast heights, the Air Force may have identified how far a plume of fuel-tainted water has spread. And — if the plume were to continue acting as it has been — it appears to be decades away from affecting the city’s drinking water supply.</p>
<p>Jim Davis, head of the New Mexico Environment Department’s Resource Protection Division, said “the probability the wells will be affected by this contamination plume is relatively small.”</p>
<p>This is important because it could buy the Air Force time to continue its cleanup efforts — which should remain a top priority. The Air Force has taken ownership of the problem and is close to activating a large pump system that will suck fuel out of the ground. Smaller pumps have been burning off fuel for several years.</p>
<p>In 1999, the Air Force discovered that jet fuel had been leaking, possibly for several decades, from an underground pipe at its storage depot. The leak was stopped, and the entire system has since been replaced. Estimates for lost fuel range from a few million gallons to 24 million gallons. In 2007, Air Force officials discovered the fuel had reached the aquifer, 500 feet below ground. The Air Force set aside $50 million for current efforts to identify the size of the plume.</p>
<p>An Air Force spokeswoman described the new results as “encouraging” but said further tests are needed to ensure the results are accurate.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority was also cautiously optimistic.</p>
<p>“We’re happy that the first sampling looks clean, but I think we need to have more sampling events,” said John Stomp, the utility’s chief operating officer.</p>
<p>Clearly, water sampling and testing will become a routine part of Kirtland’s mission for many years, as will the continued removal of the fuel and its contaminants.</p>
<p>But if these latest preliminary test results prove reliable, there is less reason to fear the loss of pristine drinking water for the city.</p>
<p>This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.</p> | Editorial: New Test Results Offer Hope on Jet Fuel Spill | false | https://abqjournal.com/151025/new-test-results-offer-hope-on-jet-fuel-spill.html | 2012-12-05 | 2 |
<p>Women may be more susceptible to the health risks of stress than men, says new study.</p>
<p>The study discovered that during periods of mental stress, blood flow in the heart increases in men, but does not change in a woman's heart.</p>
<p>According <a href="http://www.medicaldaily.com/news/20120425/9672/mental-stress-heart-problems-gender-women-men-blood-pressure.htm" type="external">to Medical Daily</a>, researchers measured the blood pressures and heart rates of 17 men and women when at rest and when participating in a mentally stressful activity.</p>
<p>They used ultrasound scans to measure blood flow into the heart during the tests.</p>
<p>Typically, blood flow to the heart will increase with a rise in heart rate or blood pressure.</p>
<p>"However, in this case, even though the work of the heart went up, the blood flow to the heart did not go up in women, like in the men," said Chester Ray, professor of medicine and cellular and molecular physiology at Penn State's College of Medicine <a href="http://women.webmd.com/news/20120424/mental-stress-may-be-harder-on-womens-hearts" type="external">to WebMed</a>.</p>
<p>Indeed, during a mental arithmetic task, both genders showed an increase in heart rate and blood pressure.</p>
<p>Yet, while men saw increased blood flow to the heart, women did not.</p>
<p>"Stress reduction is important for anyone, regardless of gender," Ray said, <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/04/25/stress-is-hard-on-woman-heart-study-suggests/" type="external">reported Fox News</a>.</p>
<p>"But this study shines a light on how stress differently affects the hearts of women, potentially putting them at greater risk of a coronary event."</p>
<p>Heart disease takes about 600,000 lives each year and is the number one killer of men and women in the United States, <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-57421188-10391704/stress-more-harmful-to-womens-hearts-study-finds/" type="external">said CBS News</a>.&#160;</p> | Stress may be more harmful to women's health than men's, says study | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-04-25/stress-may-be-more-harmful-womens-health-mens-says-study | 2012-04-25 | 3 |
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<p>Elizabeth Dwyer Sandlin will perform in “The Ugly Sweater Revue.” (SOURCE: Cyd Dubois)</p>
<p>This fractured feast combines bawdy cabaret with magic and belly dancing in a Dean Martin-TV-special-meets-vaudeville hybrid opening Thursday, Dec. 7 at the Tricklock Performance Lab. Think of it as the ultimate spike in your December eggnog.</p>
<p>“We started it last year, and has become a big hit,” artistic director Amelia Ampuero said. “By the end of the run, we were adding seats.”</p>
<p>Frustrated by failing to find a holiday play the actors could stomach, the troupe designed the revue as a series of original sketches combining both outside and company performances.</p>
<p>“We’re like this island of misfit toys,” Ampuero said. “If people are tired of the holiday standards, this is the show for them.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Expect a whole lot of naughty amid the nice; the show is not recommended for those under 18.</p>
<p>Local burlesque performers Rozalyn Le Chaton and Annie O’Roar will bring both flesh and satire; former class clown and magician Bryan Lambe will add his wizardry to the show.</p>
<p>“They’re going to see a lot of skin from the burlesque acts,” Ampuero said . “It’s not your normal holiday fare. It’s really blue; there’s a lot of cussing; there’s a lot of nudity. If people are tired of seeing the holiday shows, this is the show for them.”</p>
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<p /> | ‘Ugly Sweater Revue’ spikes holidays | false | https://abqjournal.com/1100882/ugly-sweater-revue-spikes-holidays.html | 2 |
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<p>Fox News editor Adam Shaw is quite cross with Pope Francis. In fact he's so incensed that he equated Pope Francis' popularity with that of President-elect Barack Obama, <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/12/04/pope-francis-is-catholic-churchs-obama-god-help-us/" type="external">and not in a very nice way.</a></p>
<p>Pope Francis is undergoing a popularity surge comparable to the way Barack Obama was greeted by the world in 2008. And just as President Obama has been a disappointment for America, Pope Francis will prove a disaster for the Catholic Church.</p>
<p>My fellow Catholics should be suspicious when bastions of anti-Catholicism in the left-wing media are in love with him. -- Just like President Obama loved apologizing for America, Pope Francis likes to apologize for the Catholic Church, thinking that the Church is at its best when it is passive and not offending anyone’s sensibilities. In his interviews with those in the left-wing media he seeks to impress, Francis has said that the Church needs to stop being ‘obsessed’ with abortion and gay marriage, and instead of seeking to convert people, “we need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us.”</p>
<p>This softly-softly approach of not making a fuss has been tried before, and failed. The Second Vatican Council of the 1960’s aimed to “open the windows” of the Church to the modern world by doing just this.</p>
<p>The result was the Catholic version of New Coke. Across the West where the effects were felt, seminaries and convents emptied, church attendance plummeted, and adherence to Church doctrine diminished.</p>
<p>John Paul II and Benedict XVI worked hard to turn this trend around, but now Pope Francis wants the bad old days to resume.</p>
<p>Shaw is actually calling Pope Francis a Catholic apologist to the left like conservatives called President Obama an American apologist to the Muslim brotherhood. This man is very sick and angry. Where's the outrage from the religious right over all these nasty comments that are erupting from conservatives like Rush Limbaugh, Stuart Varney and many others? Bill O'Reilly has been pretty mute on the topic of pope bashing and he's never stopped trashing liberals if he thought they were being unkind to Catholics. Where's Bill Donohue of the Catholic League? Remember when <a href="http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/catholic_league_president_points_out_anticatholic_views_of_candidates_team/" type="external">Donohue's group attacked a Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan</a> as being anti-Catholic which resulted in them having to leave the Edwards campaign? Howard Kurtz was <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/12/AR2007021201632.html" type="external">all over that story.</a></p>
<p>Shaw is saying that the new Pope will destroy the Catholic church and I'd say attacking the a sitting Pope like this has been unheard of since the religious right took over the GOP.</p>
<p>John Cassify of the New Yorker has an interesting read on what Pope Francis said in his papal exhortation and what it means. <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2013/12/pope-francis-is-no-marxist-hes-a-marian.html" type="external">POPE FRANCIS’S CHALLENGE TO GLOBAL CAPITALISM</a></p>
<p>Here's some of it.</p>
<p>In asserting the primacy of the underdog, and the need to interpret scripture from the underdog’s perspective, Pope Francis was echoing arguments made by left-leaning Latin American priests during the nineteen-seventies, such as the Peruvian Gustavo Gutierrez, and Leonardo Boff, of Brazil. But the pontiff also goes beyond old-school liberation theology. The poor aren’t the only victims, he argues. The system’s prosperous winners also get dehumanized and debased, albeit in a more subtle way.</p>
<p>To sustain a lifestyle which excludes others, or to sustain enthusiasm for that selfish ideal, a globalization of indifference has developed. Almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own. The culture of prosperity deadens us; we are thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase. In the meantime all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle; they fail to move us.</p>
<p>This is incendiary stuff, especially in a country like the United States, where moral assaults on the market are rare in mainstream discourse. Even the tribunes of Occupy Wall Street rarely rose to the rhetorical heights of the new Pope, who goes on:</p>
<p>While the earnings of the minority are growing exponentially, so, too, is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few. The imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation…. A new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules…. The thirst for power and possessions knows no limits. In this system, which tends to devour everything that stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market, which become the only rule.</p>
<p>With the Pope bandying about phrases like “a new tyranny,” I am not surprised that Limbaugh and other defenders of the established order have labeled him a Marxist. In its recognition of the universality and power of the market, its self-sustaining ideology, its association with rising inequality, and its dehumanizing aspect, parts of the Pope’s analysis do resemble those of the man his friends called the Moor, and his cohort Friedrich Engels. But the Argentine Pope isn’t just a priest who swallowed bits of “The Communist Manifesto”—the more acute bits. Parts of his argument also hark back to the anti-growth and anti-consumerism movements of the sixties and seventies, which have recently seen a rebirth in many parts of the advanced world, particularly among the young.The core of the Pope’s critique is moral and theological rather than economic, and that is what gives it its power. Referring once again to the idolatry of money, he writes:</p>
<p>Behind this attitude lurks a rejection of Ethics and a rejection of God. Ethics has come to be viewed with a certain scornful derision. It is seen as counterproductive, too human, because it makes money and power relative. It is felt to be a threat, since it threatens the manipulation and debasement of the person. In effect, Ethics leads to a God who calls for a committed response which is outside the categories of the marketplace.</p>
<p>What might that response be? Once again, the latest heir to St. Peter doesn’t hold back:</p>
<p>Money must serve, not rule! The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but he is obliged in the name of Christ to remind all that the rich must help, respect, and promote the poor. I exhort you to a generous solidarity and to the return of economics and finance to an ethical approach which favors human beings.</p> | Fox Columnist: Pope Francis A 'Disaster' For Catholic Church | true | http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/fox-news-columnist-negatively-compares | 2013-12-06 | 4 |
<p>Fear of flying? It will only get worse according to a new study that says climate change is making flights more turbulent.</p>
<p>Researchers at the University of Reading <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=warming-planet-means-bumpier-flight-13-04-08" type="external">found that CO2 emissions</a> will increase the prevalence of clear-air turbulence along flight routes in the years to come.</p>
<p>Turbulence is caused by columns of air moving vertically.</p>
<p>It cannot be spotted by satellites or radars and is more than just a pain for travelers.</p>
<p>"Air turbulence does more than just interrupt the service of in-flight drinks," study author Paul Williams, an atmospheric researcher at the University of Reading, <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=warming-planet-means-bumpier-flight-13-04-08" type="external">said in a statement</a>.</p>
<p>"It injures hundreds of passengers and aircrew every year -- sometimes fatally. It also causes delays and damage to planes."</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/science/130313/canadas-north-greening-world-gets-warmer" type="external">Canada's north greening as world gets warmer</a></p>
<p>Researchers used <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/08/climate-airlines-turbulence-idUSL5N0CQ3CA20130408" type="external">a number of climate models</a>spanning into the future with turbulence-predicting algorithms to test for the results.</p>
<p>They mainly looked at the busy North Atlantic corridor where 600 planes pass each day.</p>
<p>CO2 emissions are said to be heating up the lower atmosphere.</p>
<p>The gas also changes the atmosphere making the air more unstable - a bad thing for airplanes.</p>
<p>The findings of the study were published in the journal <a href="http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1866.html" type="external">Nature Climate Change</a>.</p> | Fear of flying? It will only get worse due to climate change | false | https://pri.org/stories/2013-04-09/fear-flying-it-will-only-get-worse-due-climate-change | 2013-04-09 | 3 |
<p>Cargill Inc., the privately-held agricultural and commodity trading company, reported Thursday a fiscal fourth-quarter net profit that rose to $347 million from $15 million a year ago, while adjusted operating earnings were $460 million, compared with last year's adjusted operating loss of $19 million. Revenue rose 4% to $28.3 billion. The company said results for the animal nutrition and protein business, the biggest contributor to operating earnings, were "up significantly," given "exceptional performance" in global protein. The second-biggest contributor to earnings, food ingredients and applications, also posted improved results. "The structural improvements we've made, as well as favorable conditions in some markets, have yielded strong results," said Chief Executive David MacLennan. "Although the environment continuously changes, we feel good about our underlying progress."</p>
<p>Copyright © 2017 MarketWatch, Inc.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p> | Cargill Swung To An Operating Profit In The Second Quarter As Sales Rose | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/07/13/cargill-swung-to-operating-profit-in-second-quarter-as-sales-rose.html | 2017-07-13 | 0 |
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<p>This year’s Chicago Matters–the award-winning multimedia public affairs series made possible by The Chicago Community Trust with programming from WTTW 11, Chicago Public Radio, the Chicago Public Library, and The Chicago Reporter–will examine how the choices we make today impact our environment and the future of our region.</p>
<p>For more information, visit www.chicagomatters.org.</p>
<p>On a one-acre vegetable farm in Chicago, a bearded, 6 foot, 3 inch-tall black man squats before a bed of green, leafy radishes. Unlike most produce, these have been grown without toxic chemicals.</p>
<p>As he reaches into the dense foliage to harvest them, an oversized black t-shirt hangs on his thin square shoulders and red basketball shorts skim his calves.</p>
<p>Sunglasses shield his eyes, and a Bluetooth rests on his right ear. He sees a red, tennis ball-sized bulb and grabs its plume, plucking the radish from the ground.”That’s a big boy,” said Arthur King, 36, smiling as he pinches the stringy roots and threads them between his fingers to remove the dirt.</p>
<p>King is proud of his large radishes but prouder of what they represent. Unlike the bulk of organic, or low- to no-chemical food in Chicago, these radishes are not headed to white neighborhoods, an upscale grocery or gourmet farmers market. Growing Home, the Chicago nonprofit that runs this organic farm, is one of the few growers who markets its organic food to people of all races and incomes.</p>
<p>The roughly 10 pounds King gathers–”just enough to gauge buyer interest for the rest of the season–”will be taken to the grand opening of the Englewood Farmers Market the next day, along with several bunches of organic collard greens and kale.</p>
<p>Englewood is a predominantly black, low-income community that, like most black Chicago neighborhoods, offers residents few groceries where they can buy organic food. Organic food is healthier and environmentally friendly, but rarely found on store shelves in Chicago’s black neighborhoods. “It’s easier to find a semi-automatic weapon in our communities than it is to find a tomato, much less an organic tomato,” said LaDonna Redmond, a food justice activist at the Frederick Blum Neighborhood Assistance Center, a Chicago State University urban planning think tank.</p>
<p>No one has proven that residue from the carcinogens and neurotoxins–”cancerpromoting and nerve-damaging toxins–”used to grow most produce in the U.S. makes healthy adults sick, according to a March report by the Organic Center, a nonprofit, pro-organic research and education foundation. But a recent study suggests probable links between adult exposures to pesticides and diabetes, cancer, birth defects, premature birth and several neurological diseases associated with aging, such as Alzheimer’s disease, according to the report.</p>
<p>The environmental benefit of organic farms is also compelling, said Jerry DeWitt, director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University. Fertilizer that runs off into the Mississippi River has helped destroy the fish habitat in an 8,000 square-mile section of the Gulf of Mexico. The nitrogen in the runoff promotes excessive algal growth, suffocating marine life. Organic farms pollute less because their soil better traps the nitrogen, reducing the amount entering the water, DeWitt said.</p>
<p>“People are going organic because it is better for the soil, better for water, better for animals and better for humans,” DeWitt said.</p>
<p>But few grocery stores in black neighborhoods give residents the option to buy organic. As the black population increases, the number of stores selling organics in a community area decreases, according to a Chicago Reporter analysis. The Reporter surveyed 209 grocery stores spread across nine of the city’s 77 community areas. They were the three most populous black, white and Latino neighborhoods:</p>
<p>–¢ The population of the white neighborhoods was less than one-third of the total population of the communities examined, but were home to nearly two-thirds of the stores that carried organics.</p>
<p>–¢ Ten percent of stores in black communities carry organics, compared to 24 percent in Latino communities and 63 percent in white areas.</p>
<p>The Midwest’s largest distributor of organic food, Goodness Greeness, is located in Englewood. The company ships organic produce to 1,200 to 1,500 grocery stores across the nation. Ironically, none of them are in Englewood. Because the company doesn’t sell to the public, its neighbors can’t get its food without leaving their community.</p>
<p>One of the company’s 15 Chicago retail outlets is in a black community. One is in a Latino community, three are in mixed communities, nine are in white communities and one is accessible through the Internet. When the owners tried to interest local grocers in selling organics, the grocers in black communities said no. “African Americans are just as educated on the issues and more than willing to pay the money,” said Bob Scaman, president of Goodness Greeness. “They just have to drive four miles to get it.”</p>
<p>In West Garfield Park, a predominantly black community on Chicago’s West side, access to organic food is so limited that when a doctor diagnosed Redmond’s son with severe food allergies nine years ago, the food activist resorted to growing organic produce in her backyard. The closest place she could buy organics was at Whole Foods in west suburban River Forest.</p>
<p>Residents of black communities who want organic food can leave their neighborhoods to get it or attend a farmers market. More than one-third of Chicago’s 27 black community areas have a farmers market that sells some organics, according to a Reporter analysis of the city’s list of farmers markets. There are 10 farmers markets in black communities, compared to nine found in white communities. Just one farmers market is located in a Latino neighborhood. There are 13 in mixed communities.</p>
<p>Another way residents of black communities can get organics is through delivery, directly from the farm to their neighborhood. But fewer organic farms deliver to Chicago’s black communities. The Reporter found that there are just three drop-off points in Chicago’s 27 black communities, compared to four in Latino neighborhoods, 11 in white neighborhoods and 21 in mixed neighborhoods.</p>
<p>What some people want is an actual organic grocery store, and not having them is inconvenient and unfair, said Inez Teemer, founder of Chicago’s Black Vegetarian Society. Teemer, who lives in Chatham and has no car, said that her neighborhood Jewel carries a small selection of organics, but she travels 10 miles to get groceries. “Why do I have to travel all the way to the North Side to go to Trader Joe’s?” she said.</p>
<p>Origins in the U.S.</p>
<p>Nineteenth-century American farmers didn’t have man-made fertilizers, but their farms were far from organic. Many used lead and arsenic as pesticides, said Warren Belasco, professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. When a German scientist revealed the chemistry to make fertilizer in 1840, most U.S. farmers continued to use animal manure for another century. But it wasn’t because they were environmentalists or health enthusiasts. Manure was cheaper. Plus, the equipment to spread man-made fertilizer didn’t come into use until the 1940s, said Fred Kirschenmann, a distinguished fellow at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University.</p>
<p>Between the 1930s and the 1940s, U.S. commercial farms more than doubled their average annual consumption of commercial fertilizer. Around 1947, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture argued that fertilizers would help farmers grow more food per acre, farmers began spreading it on their fields because they saw it as simple and a way to raise profits.</p>
<p>The widespread use of fertilizer and pesticide revolutionized the U.S. food system. Farmers started growing a single crop because the fertilizer and pesticides allowed for mechanization, which allowed them to plant, harvest and raise even more food. But without multiple species of crops and animals, the farms lacked natural predators, fertilizers and decomposers, which healthy ecosystems require. Soils grew thin, dry and infertile. Pest outbreaks and epidemics of infectious disease emerged. Instead of diversifying the species they grew, farmers added more toxic chemicals. A few soil scientists condemned these changes, arguing fertilizers and pesticides were harmful. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a smattering of U.S. farmers and grocers began to listen and ¬stopped using them. Many were hippies who moved from cities into the countryside and ¬taught themselves to grow food without chemicals. As this agrarian reform movement materialized in Chicago, it bypassed black neighborhoods. One of the first organic grocers in Chicago, Rainbow Grocers, opened on the North Side. Orrin Williams, 59, an African American, lived at 69th and Indiana in the Park Manor neighborhood at the time and remembers carpooling to Rainbow and buying groceries in bulk to share with his friends. “Since the earliest days of organic agriculture evolved it never has paid any attention to our community,” Williams said.</p>
<p>Today’s disparity</p>
<p>Organic farmers, meat and poultry packers, manufacturers and distributors said they don’t discriminate. “We’ll sell to anybody, as long as you have a health food store and that’s your primary focus,” said Michele Raddatz, a sales representative for NOW Foods, a manufacturer of organic dietary supplements and organic dried goods. NOW Foods supplies 18 ¬stores on Chicago’s South Side, Raddatz said. Few independent grocers in black communities have expressed an ¬interest in organics, said Raddatz and Jessica Cohen, marketing manager for Sommers Organic, an organic beef and poultry processor in Northwest suburban Wheeling.</p>
<p>Despite market research to the contrary, the grocers in predominantly black communities don’t believe their customers will buy organics, said Wes Jarrell, a professor of sustainable agriculture and natural resources at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and co- owner of Prairie Fruit Farms in Champaign. “A big part of [the limited access to organic food in black communities] is the pre-conception by suppliers that no one will pay more, that there’s no appreciation for what it takes to raise food,” Jarrell said.</p>
<p>It’s not just a pre-conception, said Erika Allen, who manages the Chicago branch of Growing Power, a Milwaukee-based nonprofit working to establish a healthy and equitable food system. Selling organic is labor intensive, Williams said. A grocer has to go to a market, buy the food, power a freezer to store it and regularly inspect it and discard what’s rotten. It can be a risky proposition with low profit margins, said Sherri Tillman, co-owner of A Natural Harvest Health Food Store &amp; Deli, a 26-year¬-old South Shore grocer and café. Produce spoils easily without aggressive marketing, Tillman said. Her store sells organic vitamins, supplements, and packaged foods and plans to start selling organic produce this fall.</p>
<p>Major chain groceries–” which carry organics in all their Chicago stores–”have a larger customer base and enough staff to rotate their organic produce, said Redmond.</p>
<p>But they also have more stores in white neighborhoods than black ones. There are 13 Jewel food stores in predominantly white community areas, six in predominantly black communities and four in majority Latino communities. Dominick’s has six stores in predominantly white communities, seven in mixed communities, two in black communities. Spokespeople for Dominick’s and Jewel declined to explain the disparity.</p>
<p>David Vite, president and CEO of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, said disposable income, not race, determines which communities get grocery stores. “We acknowledge there are places in Chicago where there are issues with access to fresh food,” Vite said. For every dollar that a typical grocery store earned in 2007, 98 and 99 cents of it covered the cost of running the business, which means only one to two cents of it was profit, Vite said. With such a low profit margin, he said, gro¬cery stores cannot afford to experiment with opening stores in locations with low disposable incomes.</p>
<p>African Americans don’t have as much money as white people, but no one can deny that they buy groceries, even organics, Williams said.</p>
<p>“There’s this business model afoot that said [major grocers] don’t have to serve this community,” he said. “–˜I’m gonna sit back and put my store in a place where the economic and demographic profile said that I want to place my store,’ and then the gravy is all those black folk who show up and shop.”</p>
<p>What is being done?</p>
<p>In the spring of 2009, Redmond intends to break ground on Good Food Market, a 20,000-square-foot grocery store at Pulaski Road and Washington Street in West Garfield Park. Redmond intends to franchise Good Food Market in cities with similar access disparities. Orrin Williams has similar aspirations for the projects he’s coordinating at the Center for Urban Transformation, a nonprofit that he founded in 2000 to address food justice issues. The nonprofit plans to open a mobile grocery store, deploying street vendors with carts of produce, and supply staff to refresh and restock organics at independent grocers.</p>
<p>It could be years before either project spreads. “My paternal grandmother would tell you, –˜Don’t shop in the black community’, because she knew that the quality in white communities was better,” Williams said. Williams’ grandmother would be 109 if she were alive today. “We’re still in the same situation.”</p>
<p>Contributing: Madelaine Burkert, Alex Campbell, Stacie Johnson, Beth Wang and Matt Hendrickson</p> | Buy Organic* (Some Restrictions And Limitations Apply) | false | http://chicagoreporter.com/buy-organic-some-restrictions-and-limitations-apply/ | 2008-09-17 | 3 |
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<p>Yeah, no.</p>
<p>What’s next from these moral equivalence-challenged Leftists?</p>
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<p>Stay tuned.</p>
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<p><a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/kareem-abdul-jabbar-compares-nfl-protests-american-revolution-conservatives" type="external">Via IBT.</a></p>
<p>Weighing in on the simmering debate over football players kneeling during the national anthem, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar slammed President Trump and those who have criticized high-paid players for their apparent lack of gratitude.</p>
<p>“That’s pretty much what the British said about the leaders of the American Revolution — the wealthy were making money by colluding with the British, so they should just be grateful. Fortunately, those leaders couldn’t be bought off,” Abdul-Jabbar said.</p>
<p>“The implication here is that black athletes should be grateful that they’ve been invited to dine with the white elites and if they want to keep their place at the table, they should keep dancing and smiling and keep their mouths shut. The myth of the Happy Negro needs to be dispelled once and for all.”</p>
<p>In two interviews with International Business Times, the NBA legend said that he is encouraged that athletes are unifying in protest against racism that is “getting worse under the current administration” and against “the attempt to curtail the First Amendment by a rich, entitled white man who thinks only he should be allowed to speak freely.”….</p>
<p>Race relations are “getting worse” under the Trump Administration?</p>
<p>CNN: <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/05/politics/obama-race-relations-poll/index.html" type="external">Most say race relations worsened under Obama, poll finds</a></p> | true | http://tammybruce.com/2017/09/kareem-abdul-jabbar-compares-nfl-protests-to-american-revolutionary-war.html | 0 |
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<p>Republicans are starting to line up behind their nominee, including the president, who officially gave his blessing at the White House on Wednesday, along with an offer to help John McCain campaign. That couldn't make Democrats happier, who long to depict McCain as what Howard Dean called "another out-of-touch Bush Republican."</p>
<p>AP via Google:</p>
<p>Bush's praise of McCain as the party's next standard-bearer came a day after the senator sealed the GOP nomination by gaining the required 1,191 delegates. Republicans won't officially nominate McCain until early September at the party's national convention in St. Paul, Minn.</p>
<p>Hoping to spoil the GOP party, Democrats wasted no time in tagging McCain's candidacy as a continuation of the Bush presidency.</p>
<p />
<p>"John McCain just doesn't get it," said Howard Dean, the Democratic Party chairman. "All he offers is four more years of the failed Bush economy, an endless war in Iraq and shameless hypocrisy on ethics reform. The fact is, the American people want change, not another out-of-touch Bush Republican, and Democrats welcome the opportunity to draw this contrast for voters."</p>
<p><a href="http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iE2JCSH5p9r2GBkQWS9TWAMzmuvQD8V7HPFG0" type="external">Read more</a></p> | Bush Backs McCain | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/bush-backs-mccain/ | 2008-03-06 | 4 |
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<p>Myopic stock investors, apparently relieved that a measure of uncertainty has been lifted from the markets, are cheering the tax deal that -- temporarily at least -- prevents the U.S. from falling over the so-called fiscal cliff.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The Dow Jones Industrial average surged higher Wednesday, closing up 308 points.</p>
<p>But much like many members of Congress -- quite a few of whom are acting as if the last-minute deal to raise taxes on wealthy Americans was an act of political heroism -- investors are reacting to an alternative narrative.</p>
<p>Under that substitute storyline the agreement reached early New Year's Day and hastily approved by both the Senate and the House of Representatives unfolded in much the same manner as a James Bond movie, with the hero saving the world from destruction at the last minute.</p>
<p>In this scenario heroic Congressmen saved the U.S. from across-the-board tax increases and Draconian mandated budget cuts, the combined impact of which was certain to throw the struggling U.S. economy back into recession.</p>
<p>The difference between a James Bond movie and Congressional reality, however, is that James Bond never builds the doomsday bombs he regularly defuses, and the super villains he battles in each new 007 installment are not himself.</p>
<p>By repeatedly putting off any hard decisions on America’s long-term fiscal problems Congress and President Obama created the crisis that became the fiscal cliff. Instead of working on solutions, both sides have attempted to use the issue for political leverage, leaving U.S. tax payers and businesses twisting in the wind.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, investors who were understandably nervous about the U.S. falling over the fiscal cliff are now relieved that’s apparently not going to happen. But the market "relief" rally is sure to be temporary once investors survey the economic landscape and realize the agreement changes very little.</p>
<p>Consider a note issued to clients by economists at J.P. Morgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) which says the agreement “imposes considerable near-term headwinds to growth while doing very little to address longer-run fiscal sustainability issues.” The bank predicted the deal will cost the U.S. economy 1 percentage point of GDP growth this year.</p>
<p>Then there are the figures released Tuesday by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO): the CBO said the deal, which raises taxes on household incomes over $450,000 and extends tax breaks for many business and energy-related ventures, will add nearly $4 trillion to the U.S. deficit over the next 10 years.</p>
<p>Moreover, the deal merely delays for two month the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration that would slash about 9% from the defense budget as well as myriad social and educational programs.</p>
<p>Deal Ignores Long-Term Fiscal Problems</p>
<p>And the agreement simply ignored such major issues as long-term corporate tax reform, rising health care costs, and most importantly perhaps entitlement spending on such popular programs as Social Security and Medicare.</p>
<p>The irony is that the whole point nearly two years ago of establishing a Jan. 1, 2013 deadline (which came to be known as the fiscal cliff) was to set a date by which Congress and the White House would address those long-term issues, and at the same time also create serious consequences that would serve as motivation for getting something significant done.</p>
<p>Instead, Congress and the White House dragged their feet, all the while bickering and finger pointing, then cobbled together a last-minute deal that only serves to avert the worst of the consequences Congress itself endorsed in the summer of 2011 to serve as motivation.</p>
<p>Some of our elected officials seem to be looking at the bigger picture.</p>
<p>Sen. Bob Corker, (R-Tenn.), voted in favor of the deal but a short time later issued a statement calling for additional measures to rein in government spending long-term and address long-overdue entitlement reform.</p>
<p>“Passing fundamental entitlement reform is the most important action we can take in ensuring our country’s solvency and now we must have the courage to finish the job and make the tough choices necessary to get these problems behind us once and for all,” said Corker.</p>
<p>Looking ahead to the looming battle over raising the U.S. debt limit, Corker has proposed lifting the ceiling by about $1 trillion and offsetting that by $1 trillion in spending cuts brought about by reforms to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, the bipartisan leaders of a commission created in 2010 to address these same long-term fiscal reforms expressed frustration with the deal. Former Senator Alan Simpson, a Republican, and Erskine Bowles, a Democrat who served as chief of staff for President Bill Clinton, called the negotiations and final legislation “a missed opportunity.”</p>
<p>“Washington missed this magic moment to do something big to reduce the deficit, reform our tax code and fix our entitlement programs,” the two said in a statement.</p>
<p>The efforts of the Simpson-Bowles Commission, which produced arguably the most comprehensive and plausible mix of tax increases and spending cuts for reining in the bloated federal deficit, were also stymied by bipartisan political jockeying.</p>
<p>So the two men couldn’t have been very surprised by the all-too-predictable results of the drawn out fiscal cliff negotiations.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | Congress Defuses Bomb That it Built | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2013/01/02/fiscal-cliff-deal-temporary-boost-for-markets.html | 2016-03-02 | 0 |
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<p>Sean Sharer, chairman of the San Juan County Republican Party, said today Donald Trump Jr. is scheduled to arrive in Farmington at 2 p.m. Friday then speak at an event at Piñon Hills Community Church, 5101 N. Dustin Ave.</p>
<p>The event is free with doors opening at 1:30 p.m. and seating is first come, first served, Sharer said.</p>
<p>“We’re excited about it. It shows New Mexico is in play,” Sharer said.</p>
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<p>Todd Johnson, the campaign’s statewide director, confirmed the younger Trump’s visit and said the campaign has not released information about what topics he will focus on during his speech.</p>
<p>Trump’s visit comes after his father visited Albuquerque on Sunday.</p>
<p>Sharer said the county party office learned about the younger Trump’s visit late Monday afternoon.</p>
<p>Friday’s event will include speeches by local candidates, including state Reps. Sharon Clahchischilliage and James Strickler and state Sen. William “Bill” Sharer.</p>
<p>Clahchischilliage is seeking a third term for the state House District 4 seat and faces a challenge from Democrat GloJean Todacheene.</p>
<p>Clahchischilliage was named a co-chair on the Native American Coalition for Trump, according to a press release from the Trump campaign. The coalition is composed of Native American grassroots leaders and elected officials from 15 states, the release states.</p>
<p>Strickler is seeking a sixth term and faces Democratic challenger Kenneth Robinson for the state House District 2 seat.</p>
<p>Sharer faces a challenge from Rebecca Morgan, a Democrat, for the state Senate District 1 seat.</p>
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<p>Henry Silentman, chairman of the Democratic Party of San Juan County, said today he was not aware of Trump’s visit and remains confident New Mexico will vote for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.</p>
<p>“I don’t think it’ll make that much of a difference,” Silentman said about Trump’s appearance.</p>
<p>Also on Friday, the Navajo Republicans of Shiprock are scheduled to hold a rally at the Shiprock Chapter house after the Farmington event.</p>
<p>Noel Lyn Smith covers the Navajo Nation for The Daily Times. She can be reached at 505-564-4636.</p>
<p>——</p>
<p>©2016 The Daily Times (Farmington, N.M.)</p>
<p>Visit The Daily Times (Farmington, N.M.) at <a href="http://www.daily-times.com" type="external">www.daily-times.com</a></p>
<p>Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.</p>
<p>_____</p> | Donald Trump Jr. will visit Farmington | false | https://abqjournal.com/880270/donald-trump-jr-will-visit-farmington.html | 2 |
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<p>What a pity to be asked if you have ever been to your capital city and all that you have to say is, “I would love to go there one day,” or that “the last time I visited Jerusalem I was nine years old.” There could be a third way to answer this question: yes, I passed by it, but I was not allowed to step out of the bus because I didn’t have the special permit required for such visits.</p>
<p>Indeed, the first picture my mind summons up for Jerusalem is from 11 years ago, in 2000, when I went there for the first time with my parents, grandmother and older sister. I was staring at a crowd of Rabbis through the window of the bus that carried us to Jerusalem. They looked alike: dressed in black outfits and black hats with straggling beards and two curls dangling from their whiskers. I asked my mother who they were. She answered “religious Jews”.</p>
<p>My parents held my hands as we all got out of the bus among other “tourists”, many of whom were Palestinians like us. I was too naïve to realise that this visit could be the first and last time I would walk in the Holy Land for many years to come.</p>
<p>I don’t know what happened next, but I do remember that we went to the Al-Aqsa Mosque. I was fascinated by the grandeur of the Dome of the Rock as it proudly basked in the sun, which made it look even more beautiful. My mother handed me a prayer rug and prayer gown and told me to pray. I unrolled the rug, wore the gown and performed my prayer in the yard of the Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa under the blue sky of the Old City.</p>
<p>I remember relishing the special flavour of Jerusalem embedded in its Nabulsi Kunafeh (a Palestinian dessert) at a shop in one of the markets of Jerusalem’s seven-gated Old City.</p>
<p>The last scene I can summon up is of my mother, sister and grandmother trying to remember the name of the gate by which we were to meet my father. “Al-Qat???, al-Qat???, al-Qataneen!” I yelled with joy for being the one who reminded them of the name, and they cheered for me.</p>
<p>After all, I had to go back to my house in Gaza the same day, in accordance with the conditions stipulated on our permits. I was no more than a tourist in my own land.</p>
<p>The second trip was in 2007, the year the siege on Gaza was imposed. I was in a group of “privileged” young Palestinians who had been chosen to participate in the Arab Digital Expression Camps in Cairo for three weeks. We were given permits to leave Gaza through the Bait Hanoun border (Erez crossing), travel via Israel to Jordan, then fly to Cairo. It was impossible under Mubarak’s regime for us to cross to Egypt directly through the Rafah crossing and spare us the humiliation at Erez. Our adult leaders were banned from accompanying us, and we had to make it all the way from Erez to Jordan on our own.</p>
<p>To reach Erez, a taxi will drop you metres away from the gate. We dragged our feet and pulled our luggage under a hot August sun towards the gate. Not a gate like the one you might be picturing. It was more like a jail than a gate of a crossing point. Beyond the gate you could see at first glance that the whole area was bugged: cameras everywhere to tell you they are there to punish you if you act in a way that might bother the Israeli officers; large posters on the walls offered millions of dollars to those who would report to Israel the location of Gelad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held in Gaza.</p>
<p>A long, fenced road led to many search machines at checkpoints. You have to leave your luggage on the machine, take off anything that contains metal, even a necklace, and pass through the checkpoint. If it beams, you’re in trouble; if it doesn’t, go on to the next.</p>
<p>One machine was much larger than the ones I’d got used to. It was one with the X-rays that reportedly cause cancer. The one I had always heard about. Once I got inside it, a woman ordered me through a loudspeaker to raise my hands and stand still. The machine too was bugged!</p>
<p>There was something wrong with me. The woman’s voice with its distorted English accent ordered me to get out of the machine and re-enter. She screamed at me, saying that I was not raising my hands the way I should have been. She made me go in and out of the machine five times. When she let me out, I thought there was no doubt I would get cancer.</p>
<p>We then had to pass through a succession of further gates. If the gate beams a green light, push it and go to the next. If it beams red, what will happen to you is identical to what happened to me.</p>
<p>I was taken to a special room with an X-ray luggage detector, a female officer and a table with a metal detector wand on it. The officer ordered me to take off my trousers. All of a sudden, I thought I didn’t understand. “Did you hear me,” she inquired. “Take off your trousers and put them in the searching machine.”</p>
<p>I felt humiliated to the extent that made me force myself to pretend that I was totally fine. She picked up the search device and approached me. “Are you scared,” she sarcastically asked. “No,” I retorted, although I was soaked in fear. The device ran across my body. At that point I was wondering what one could possibly hide under one’s skin or underwear.</p>
<p>When she let me out, I found the rest of the group waiting on a bench. I burst into tears. Then, I suddenly burst out laughing at the absurdity of the situation.</p>
<p>Our luggage was unpacked and mixed together. We spent hours separating our stuff and repacking our bags. In the end, we walked out of Erez and rode the bus to the Allenby Bridge that leads to Jordan.</p>
<p>On the bus we screamed out of excitement, ecstasy and shock. We were in the occupied West Bank. We asked the driver to take us to Jerusalem and let us step on the ground of the Holy Land. Alas, to walk on our land we needed a permit! We could only pass by Jerusalem and see a little spot of the Dome of the Rock. But even seeing it from afar made me ignore, at least for a while, the treatment I had received at Erez.</p>
<p>And thus, we were carried to the Bridge, Jordan and eventually flew to Egypt. I really wonder how a minor’s body can be considered a threat to the security and well-being of the state of Israel, “the only democracy in the Middle East”.</p>
<p>News of the opening of the Rafah Crossing cannot yet refute the following fact: Palestinians are still being denied their indispensable right to move freely within their own land, their own home.</p>
<p>Rana B Baker is a 19-year-old student.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | My Jerusalem Diaries | true | https://counterpunch.org/2011/07/01/my-jerusalem-diaries/ | 2011-07-01 | 4 |
<p>I sit here stunned: a goofy smile on my face, a tear on my cheek. This must be what victory feels like. Forgive me if I’m not familiar with its near-narcotic euphoria.</p>
<p>For folks who haven’t heard, Kenneth Foster’s death sentence was struck down today by Texas Gov. Rick Perry after a 6-1 recommendation by the Perry appointed Board of Parolees. This is just a tremendous victory for those of us around the world who fought to make sure today wasn’t the day Kenneth was put to death. We must take the time to remember Michael LaHood who lost his life 10 years ago at the hands of Mauricio Brown who was driving in Kenneth’s car. But we also remember the words of Sean Paul Kelly, Michael’s closest friend who opposed Kenneth’s execution. Kelly told the press, “..the execution of a young man who didn’t even kill Mike? That’s not justice. It’s senseless vengeance, a barbarism cloaked in the black robes of justice.”</p>
<p>When victories like this occur, every link in the chain matters. Without question, the strongest links in this chain was Kenneth and his family. Kenneth said from the outset, “It’s my belief that if this does not become a political issue then I have no chance.”</p>
<p>That was the plan of action laid out for the DRIVE movement on death row, the Campaign to End the Death Penalty and other organizations that worked on his case. We made it political, asking the question over and over why Kenneth should be put to death for driving a car?</p>
<p>It was also the inspiration for a group of athletes and even a couple of sports writers, to stand together and demand that this man not be put to death. I want to take a moment and thank Etan Thomas, Dr. John Carlos, Lee Evans, Toni Smith, Dave Meggyesy, Jeff “Snowman” Monson, Dennis Brutus, William Gerena–Rochet, Neil DeMause, Doug Harris, Lester Rodney, Rus Bradburd and the INIMITABLE Scoop Jackson.</p>
<p>Below is a letter I received from Kenneth a couple weeks back with some of his thoughts on sports and society. I thought when I would eventually publish it, it would be a kind of eulogy. Instead it is a celebration of the struggle so desperately needed to see any kind of progress and a testament to his spirit.</p>
<p>In struggle and sports, DAVE ZIRIN</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Dear Dave,</p>
<p>Let me say that I grew up like most youths playing sports. I started off playing pee-wee football and went all the way up to high school giving it 6 years. I went to high school and hung out with guys that are now NFL football players (Priest Holmes, ND Kalu and have a cousin that was in the NFL as well- Tony Brackens). I indulged in basketball and track and field as well. But for me sports never took hold of me the way it did other youths. I had a pretty active mind, so from year to year I wanted to be/do something new. My last year in sports was my Freshman year in high school (around 1992). By then the streets encompassed my mind.</p>
<p>So, coming into prison I entered with a little bit of love for sports. But, I had a different personal legend to unfold, so I slowly began to drift from that interest. As I began to become politically and culturally conscious the more recidivistic aspects of prison began to heavily reflect off of me. A strong contrast comes to light when a man steps outside of the prison molds.</p>
<p>Facing an injustice the only thing that I began to get obsessive about was how to get heard and be free, and as the saying goes- you can’t serve 2 gods. Sports, as you know, becomes a way of life. You monitor it, you almost come to breathe it. It’s not just about watching a game, but knowing the stats, knowing the colleges they came from, knowing their proneness to injuries, etc.. All of this becomes relevant due to the fact that 9 times out of 10 there’s money on these games. Sports becomes a way of life in prison, because it becomes a way of survival. For men that don’t have family or friends to help them financially this becomes an income, and at the same time it becomes a way to occupy your time. That’s another sad story in itself, but it’s the root to many men’s obsession with sports.</p>
<p>I also began to observe the way sports is used as a crutch for a sense of pseudo-pride. In prison, due to being stripped of you humanity, man cling to anything they can to give them a sense of identity. The spectrum varied intensely- it could be keeping a pet snake in your cell, it could be wearing an earring you’re not supposed to, keeping your hair trimmed a certain way when you’re not supposed to, and then there’s the more intense levels of rolling with the gangs or becoming interested in religion, politics, etc.. More times than not sports becomes a crutch.</p>
<p>Seeing this, sports became something that I avoided. It was just another weapon in the arsenal of ignorance and mental oppression. It was another part of the term we call- “penitentiary poli-tricks.” These are tricky games, rules and concepts whose function only dilute and separate prisoner power. Therefore, I began a self-induced process to undergo sports amnesia. I didn’t watch it, I didn’t even listen to it, I didn’t gamble on it and didn’t entertain conversation about it. I even extended that to the city I was from. Not wanting to be belligerent in conversation if a person asked me where I was from I would tell them. I didn’t mind the casual conversation. But, I made sure to keep the lines drawn. There’s a comfort zone that rises and while interacting with each other and joking ones, while playing the dozens on each other, will way things like- “Aww, that fool must be from Dallas talking like that. You know how them fools from Dallas is,” or “that sounds like a Knicks fan over there, you know them dudes is throwed off anyway.” The cities and teams become protracting devices often-times for subliminal feelings and thoughts. This really becomes so when someone has lost a gambling bet and what often comes out as- “Man, them damn Spurs ain’t shit. To hell with them Spurs,”- usually translates to ­ “Man, fuck you.” And this has been the cause of numerous prison riots across the kountry.</p>
<p>This is why when I’m approached with the city pride think I let an individual know straight from the outset- I don’t represent cities, I represent ideologies. I don’t care about any city or State in this kountry, because the only thing they’ve done is railroaded me and ain’t none of these teams donating to my Defense Fund, so they don’t exist in my world- That’s a truth that can’t be rebuttled. But for many, whom are hopeless and still lost in their lower-selves, sports is a mighty ruler in their lives.</p>
<p>In 2000 Texas’ death row was moved to a new unit due to a death row prison escape in 1998. As a result Texas officials stripped us of everything we had- work program, group rec, arts and crafts and TV’s. That has lasted up until today and those continued conditions was the spark for the creation of DRIVE (drivemovement.org) which was a protest coalition I helped create. But, having no TV’s doesn’t stop the sports lovers. They go into their radios and find ways to wire it up and catch TV stations by radio, so the love of the game continues.</p>
<p>For a prisoner who has become politicalized I have a very hardline mentality- so things like sports, gambling, drinking, fooling with guards (in friendly manners) don’t exist for me. Because this goes against the grain of the norm I become a target not only for guards, but for inmates as well. From years of repression and humiliation (just like slavery) there is an enjoyed monotony.</p>
<p>I wanted to say that my favorite part of the book was the interview with Mumia. Mumia just has this way of taking the most complex of issues and making it seem so simple and understandable. I was even drawing my own parallels throughout your book- for example I saw the censoring of the 2 Live Crew in what David Stern is doing to his NBA Players. And if we wanted to stretch it, what Stern is doing is on the edges of old Apartheid/Jim Crow laws where you can’t do this, you can’t do that, you can’t go here or there. Everyday in this kountry we see things that we thought was Rights being rolled back. Even my case is an example of where they’re trying to execute me, because they say I should “anticipate” something and now they’ve passed laws to make repeate sex offenders eligible for the death penalty. Pretty soon we’ll be back to the old Emmitt Till days where you get murdered for looking at the wrong person (system wise).</p>
<p>And so, all of this ties into a deeper issue. For those of us in these movements we have strong allies in the athletic field. You did a great job highlighting Roberto Clemente and Etan Thomas. I have even tried to reach out to Etan. I think for those of us in the movement we have to start making demands from athletes (and rappers too). Athletes have the money and platforms. I’m sure that many fear going through what Carlos Delgado went through, but in this day and age stances must be made. It’s never easy to make them, but we, as a people, must stop feeling uncomfortable to stand on what we know is right. We must not feel uncomfortable to ask for things back from persons that benefit from us so much. We have to find more Etan’s and create coalitions. They must become serious and passionate like CEDP members. And when one try to silence them, like they did Delgado, we will let their bias and racist be reflected on their own.</p>
<p>“Athletes, Artist and Activist: from solidarity to power” is the next book you should work on. We have to connect the Glovers, Etans, dead prezs and Fred Hampton Jrs; also the Delgado’s, Welfare Poet’s, and other Latin movements. And then we have to take that internationally building with ones like Chavez and other countries open for progressive change. We have to put challenges up like Dennis Brutus did with SANROC.</p>
<p>Speaking of such, though I don’t know where it was initiated from, I have a great feeling that you probably had your hands in it, and that was the Jocks for Justice petition done on my behalf. That touched me greatly and whomever is responsible I’d like to thank them from the bottom of my heart. I’ve read Dennis Brutus’ work and I was always enchanted by the photo of Tommie Smith and John Carlos. It’s time to bring this new generation out.</p>
<p>You wield power, because you have vision and like Baldwin said- “Where there is no vision the people perish.” I only wanted to share a piece of my journey with you and want to continue to be a pebble in the pond. Though I wanted to save your book as a collectors item since you signed it I’m going to try to circulate it around here and see what I can spark in these dry prairies.</p>
<p>Brother, I wish you much success in all that you do and will pray that your work opens more eyes and empowers even more minds. It’s been a great blessing for me to have met you, even in this limited fashion. Revolutionary Love to you!</p>
<p>In Sprit/Strength/&amp;Struggle</p>
<p>Haramia Ki Nassar</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Kenneth Foster Lives | true | https://counterpunch.org/2007/08/31/kenneth-foster-lives/ | 2007-08-31 | 4 |
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<p>ALBANY, N.Y. — Police in New York state may soon have a high-tech way of catching texting drivers: a device known as a textalyzer that allows an officer to quickly check if a cellphone has been in use before a crash.</p>
<p>Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday directed the Governor’s Traffic Safety Committee to examine the technology and the questions about privacy and civil liberties its use would raise.</p>
<p>“Despite laws to ban cellphone use while driving, some motorists still continue to insist on texting behind the wheel — placing themselves and others at substantial risk,” Cuomo said in a statement first reported by The Associated Press. “This review will examine the effectiveness of using this new emerging technology to crack down on this reckless behavior and thoroughly evaluate its implications to ensure we protect the safety and privacy of New Yorkers.”</p>
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<p>The device is called the textalyzer because of its similarity to the Breathalyzer, which is used to identify drunken drivers. Once plugged into a person’s phone for about a minute, it will indicate whether a motorist was texting, emailing, surfing the web or otherwise using his or her cellphone before a serious crash.</p>
<p>Supporters of the technology say the officer would not be able to access personal information on the phone, such as pictures, emails or web browsing history.</p>
<p>The technology is still some months away from being ready, according to Cellebrite, the Israel-based tech company developing the device.</p>
<p>Digital privacy and civil liberties groups already have questioned whether the technology’s use would violate personal privacy, noting that police can already obtain search warrants if they believe information on a private phone could be useful in a prosecution.</p>
<p>Many security experts are skeptical when it comes to promises that the textalyzer would only access information about phone usage, and not personal material, according to Rainey Reitman, of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit organization that advocates for civil liberties when it comes to digital technology.</p>
<p>“I am extremely nervous about handing a cellphone to a law enforcement officer and allowing them in any way to forensically analyze it,” she said. “This is a technology that is incredibly problematic and at the same time is unnecessary. There are already legal avenues for a police officer.”</p>
<p>Westchester County resident Ben Lieberman lost his 19-year-old son Evan Lieberman to a fatal car crash in 2011 and later discovered the driver of the car his son was in had been texting while driving. He’s now a leading advocate for the textalyzer and has worked with Cellebrite on the project. He said he understands concerns about privacy but they’re unfounded, noting the device would only tell police whether a driver had been breaking the law.</p>
<p>“A Breathalyzer doesn’t tell you where you were drinking, or whether it was vodka or Jack Daniels, just that you were drinking,” he said. “This is the right balance between public safety and privacy.”</p>
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<p>Count Emily Boedigheimer as a supporter of the idea. The Albany area resident said she’s fine with police using a textalyzer, as long as there are rules about what police would be able to see.</p>
<p>“If you’re texting and driving you’re breaking the law and you’re risking people’s lives,” she said during a lunchtime walk in downtown Albany on Wednesday. “Why can’t you wait, or pull over, to make that one call or read your texts?”</p>
<p>The committee will hear from supporters and opponents of the technology, law enforcement officials and legal experts before issuing a report, Cuomo’s office said. Particular areas of focus will include the effectiveness of the technology, constitutional and legal issues and how the device would be used in practice.</p>
<p>Sen. Terrence Murphy, a Westchester County Republican, this year sponsored legislation that would have set out rules for the use of the textalyzer. The bill didn’t get a full vote, but Murphy said he believes it’s only a matter of time before New York and other states adopt the technology.</p>
<p>“It’s not if, it’s when,” he said. “This will literally save lives.”</p>
<p>Under Murphy’s bill, motorists who refuse to hand over their phones to officers could have their licenses suspended.</p>
<p>Twelve people were killed and 2,784 were injured in cellphone-related crashes in New York state from 2011 to 2015, according to figures from the Institute for Traffic Safety Management and Research. State statistics show 1.2 million tickets for cellphone violations were issued in that period.</p> | New York eyes textalyzer to bust drivers using cellphones | false | https://abqjournal.com/1038375/new-york-eyes-textalyzer-to-bust-drivers.html | 2017-07-25 | 2 |
<p>Aug. 16 (UPI) — The New Jersey wedding crashers whose $1 gift went viral thanks to the bride’s Facebook post have come forward and explained they were on their first date.</p>
<p>Karen Tufo took to Facebook last week to detail the saga of <a href="https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2017/08/09/New-Jersey-bride-wants-to-buy-wedding-crashers-a-drink/6901502290962/" type="external">a mystery couple who</a> attended her wedding to husband Mike and left them a card apologizing for crashing the wedding along with a $1 gift described as a “buck for luck.”</p>
<p>The mystery couple have now identified themselves and shared the story of their date.</p>
<p>Carly Wolfson said she contacted Tufo on Facebook Messenger after the story went viral.</p>
<p>“I messaged her on Facebook apologizing. I was like, ‘I’m so sorry,” Wolfson <a href="http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2017/08/11/wedding-crashers-come-forward/" type="external">told WCBS-TV</a>. “She was like, don’t be sorry. Best gift ever.”</p>
<p>Wolfson said she was on her first date with Ritchie Barry, and the evening became something of a romantic game of “chicken.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t think he was going to go through with it. I was just like, ‘I’m picking you up at this time, what’s your address? Get ready!'” Wolfson said. “And he came out all dressed up. So I was like, alright I guess we’re doing this.”</p>
<p>Wolfson said the couple came up with a phony backstory, including a fake engagement ring, and attempted to blend in at the wedding.</p>
<p>“I walked in and was like, ‘Oh, there’s no seat for us at our table.’ So they put a seat down for us at the best man’s table,” Wolfson said. “I was like, ‘OK, what would I do at a wedding? How do I fit in?’ So I pulled up everyone to come dancing.”</p>
<p>Wolfson said the “buck for luck” gift was a family tradition.</p>
<p>“We do a buck for luck for birthday or whatever and in case they remembered us I put a Polaroid picture in there,” Wolfson said.</p>
<p>Tufo said she is hoping Wolfson and Barry’s relationship goes well, so she can eventually crash their wedding.</p> | Wedding crashers behind viral $1 gift come forward | false | https://newsline.com/wedding-crashers-behind-viral-1-gift-come-forward/ | 2017-08-16 | 1 |
<p />
<p>A judge says a British man accused of hacking into U.S. government computer systems and stealing confidential information should be extradited to the United States to face trial.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Judge Nina Tempia told Lauri Love on Friday that he can appeal the judgment.</p>
<p>U.S. prosecutors say 31-year-old Love hacked agencies including the U.S. Army, NASA, the Federal Reserve and the Environmental Protection Agency and stole names, Social Security numbers and credit card information.</p>
<p>Love's lawyers say he has Asperger's syndrome, and will be at risk of suicide if he is jailed in the U.S.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>This story has been corrected to show the accurate spelling of the judge's surname is Tempia, not Templa.</p> | Judge OKs extradition of British man on US hacking charges | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2016/09/16/judge-oks-extradition-british-man-on-us-hacking-charges.html | 2016-09-17 | 0 |
<p>Whatever the truth regarding Deep State and Democratic Party charges of alleged Russian “meddling” in last year’s election (and I’m definitely in the camp that says there has been no hard evidence presented to show Russia hacked DNC emails), Donald Trump and his administration are now ensnared in a serious investigation by an independent prosecutor, former FBI Director Robert Mueller, into obstruction of justice and other crimes that could technically lead to indictments of Trump aides and to Trump’s impeachment.</p>
<p>But don’t forget: Trump has one unassailable power as president — the power to pardon — and I predict he will wield it.</p>
<p>The US Constitution gives a president the almost absolute power to pardon, including to pardon someone before he or she has been convicted of a crime or even indicted. As President Gerald Ford proved, such pardon power can even be used to pardon someone — in his case the disgraced and resigned ex-President Richard Nixon — before he had even been charged with a crime.</p>
<p>The only limitation on that presidential pardon power is that it cannot be used if the president is impeached, or to interfere with the impeachment process.</p>
<p>What this means is that as long as there has not been an impeachment of the president, or at least the launching of impeachment hearings in the House of Representatives, there is no constraint on President Trump’s use of his pardon power. He can, according to many legal experts, even pardon himself, though in that case he could still be impeached and removed from office, just not prosecuted for any crimes (impeachment is not a criminal proceeding, but is simply a process for removing a person from office).</p>
<p>I believe it is likely therefore, that Trump, for whom appearances, tradition, propriety, and the good of the country are all meaningless notions, will use his pardon power to block investigations into, and block indictments of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and his top advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner, and anyone else who gets caught up in the investigation into crimes committed by him and his administration, his transition team and his campaign.</p>
<p>While such actions — even more shocking than Nixon’s abrupt firing of special prosecutor Archibald Cox during the Watergate scandal — would likely stun the public and would, by most Americans, be viewed an admission of Trump’s guilt, it would effectively eliminate any chance for Mueller to prosecute or even to investigate anyone in the Trump administration. People who are pardoned cannot be pressured by fear of indictment and a promise of immunity into turning state’s evidence.</p>
<p>Trump would no doubt present his pardons as being an appropriate action to kill an investigation that he is already characterizing as a “witch hunt’ based upon lies and “fake news” — a view shared by most of his ardent backers around the country.</p>
<p>How such a bold stroke would play out at that point is hard to say. Establishment Democrats would likely be encouraged by Trump pardons to push harder for his impeachment, but this approach could work to their own detriment. We’ve already seen in the last election how disenchanted much of white, working-class America is with the Congressional Democrats and their focus on inside-the-beltway fighting as well as their lack of interest in the daily struggles of ordinary people, white and non-white. This sentiment will be all the stronger because most of Americans really aren’t really concerned about Russia as any kind of threat these days.</p>
<p>At the same time, Republicans, who have shown a shameless lack of concern with ethics, morals and basic decency in supporting Trump no matter how obscene, selfish, brutish or narcissistic he behaves, could lose support, particularly among independent voters and erstwhile Democrats, if they were to go along with Trump’s use of pardons to protect his own ass.</p>
<p>It is really a no-win situation for both parties, which benefits Trump, who doesn’t really seem to care much about his place in history.</p> | Impeachment Advocates Beware: Trump Holds a Trump Card: The Power to Pardon | true | https://counterpunch.org/2017/06/01/impeachment-advocates-beware-trump-holds-a-trump-card-the-power-to-pardon/ | 2017-06-01 | 4 |
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Homicide detectives are investigating the death&#160;of a man whose body was found at around 4 p.m. Saturday inside of a home on the 200 block of Los Ranchos NE, according to BCSO Capt. Ray Chavez.</p>
<p>Chavez said in an email that deputies responded&#160;to&#160;reports of a suspicious death at the residence, which is located&#160;near Edith Boulevard and Paseo Del Norte. The victim's name and age have not been released pending family notification.</p>
<p>Chavez said at around 9 p.m. that detectives are still in preliminary stages of &#160;the investigation.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Deputies investigate North Valley death as homicide | false | https://abqjournal.com/661480/deputies-investigate-suspicious-death-in-the-north-valley.html | 2015-10-17 | 2 |
<p>I was surprised to learn on Saturday afternoon that Israel’s latest assault on Gaza, though not even half a day old, already boasted a Wikipedia entry. I was even more surprised to learn the origins of the assault’s codename.</p>
<p>At first glance, Operation Cast Lead appeared to be quite straightforward in its evocation of imagery, at least in comparison to Operation Summer Rains—Israel’s 2006 foray into Gaza, the title of which may have functioned more appropriately on the cover of a romance novel in the checkout lane of a supermarket. According to Wikipedia, however, the significance of Cast Lead was not readily discernible by superficial symbolic analysis; in other words:</p>
<p>the term lead did not refer to harmful munitions made of heavy metals.</p>
<p>the term cast did not mean “wantonly dispersed in densely populated areas.”</p>
<p>As it turned out, Cast Lead was in fact adapted from a Hanukkah poem by Haim Nachman Bialik, national poet of Israel, who poetically lived and died before the nation of Israel was cast across 78% of Palestine. In one of his works, Bialik speaks of a “dreidel cast from solid lead”—a toy that is now being cast across Hamas-controlled portions of remaining Palestinian percentages.</p>
<p>The Israeli Air Force has demonstrated its acute command of literature on such previous occasions as Operation Grapes of Wrath, in which more than a hundred Lebanese civilians were massacred at the United Nations compound in Qana in 1996. The choice of a literary title provided observers with substantial opportunities for metaphorical reflection on the fine art of Israeli warfare; these reflections could have been further enhanced had the grapes of wrath been replaced with alternate excerpts from Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic”— producing, for example, Operation Trampling out the Vintage, or Operation Coming of the Lord—but the Israelis exercised judicious restraint. In the case of Operation Cast Lead, any references to Haim Nachman Bialik’s celebrated poem “In the City of Slaughter”—concerning the Kishinev pogrom of 1903—were likewise prudently avoided.</p>
<p>The Wikipedia entry for the operation in Gaza contributed its own subtle ironies to the Israeli discourse by reiterating that the Palestinians were to blame for the lead casting process. Issues not explained in the entry included:</p>
<p>whether the Israel Defense Forces possessed a readymade list of literary references, for use whenever the necessity arose.</p>
<p>whether the list was divided into seasons, such as summer and Hanukkah.</p>
<p>whether Hamas had considered naming its counter-operation “Operation Casting of Rockets Made of Sugar, Fertilizer, and other Household Items into the Negev Desert.”</p>
<p>The White House—presently stationed in Crawford, Texas, on a ranch approximately 1/56th the area of the Gaza Strip—refrained from commenting on the academic diligence of the Israeli military establishment, or on the fact that the IAF was now claiming “alpha hits” on scores of Hamas installations such as security headquarters and Palestinian children. Crawford’s own academic depth was contained in such statements by George W. Bush’s spokesman as: “These people are thugs”; Bush’s recovery from other recently perpetrated crimes against humanity was meanwhile aided by the low population density of his Crawford ranch, and the minimal chances of randomly sustaining an alpha hit from foreign footwear.</p>
<p>A subsequent visit to the Wikipedia website failed to verify my suspicions that the term “alpha hit” had also been adapted from the game of dreidel. I did, however, acquire other alphabetically relevant information, which was that the Hebrew letters pictured on the four sides of the dreidel combined to form acronyms for the phrases “A great miracle happened here” or “A great miracle happened there,” depending on whether the dreidel was located within Israel or not. These phrases were:</p>
<p>in reference to the small amount of oil that burned for eight nights during the rededication of the Temple of Jerusalem in the 2nd century B.C.</p>
<p>potential concluding slogans for the current campaign in Gaza, provided cast lead proved more effective than economic squeezes.</p>
<p>Additional opportunities for cultural adaptation came to mind thanks to Wikipedia’s English transcription of the popular “Dreidel Song,” a recurring theme of which seemed to be: “Oh dreidel, dreidel, dreidel, it drops and then I win!” The IAF might expand its shrewd manipulation of arts and letters by installing such a soundtrack in its F-16s.</p>
<p>The game of dreidel ends when one player has taken everything in the pot. In Operation Cast Lead, the Palestinians of Gaza have been excluded from the game as players, but they have not been spared as gambling chips.</p>
<p>BELÉN FERNÁNDEZ is currently completing a book entitled Coffee with Hezbollah, which chronicles the 2-month hitchhiking journey through Lebanon that she and Amelia Opali'ska conducted in the aftermath of the July 2006 war. She can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>. &#160;</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | Hanukkah Games | true | https://counterpunch.org/2008/12/29/hanukkah-games/ | 2008-12-29 | 4 |
<p>Jan 25 (Reuters) - Dechra Pharmaceuticals Plc:</p>
<p>* ‍BOARD OF DECHRA, INTERNATIONAL VETERINARY PHARMACEUTICAL BUSINESS, IS PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THAT IT HAS ENTERED INTO A CONDITIONAL ACQUISITION AGREEMENT TO ACQUIRE AST FARMA AND LE VET FOR A TOTAL CONSIDERATION OF EUR 340.0 MILLION ON A DEBT-FREE AND CASH-FREE BASIS​</p>
<p>* ‍TOTAL CONSIDERATION WILL BE SATISFIED APPROXIMATELY 75 PERCENT IN CASH AND 25 PERCENT IN NEW DECHRA SHARES, WHICH ARE SUBJECT TO A TWO YEAR LOCK-IN​</p>
<p>* ‍ACQUISITION STRENGTHENS DECHRA’S PORTFOLIO IN NETHERLANDS AND ACROSS EUROPE​</p>
<p>* ACQUISITION GIVES ACCESS TO A ROBUST PIPELINE OF PRODUCTS​</p>
<p>* ACQUISITION GIVES ‍SYNERGY BENEFITS PARTICULARLY IN FORM OF REVENUE SYNERGIES​</p>
<p>* ‍CHIEF EXECUTIVE SAYS “ACQUISITION IS A RARE OPPORTUNITY TO STRENGTHEN OUR EU SEGMENT IN ALL MAJOR EUROPEAN COUNTRIES IN WHICH WE OPERATE”.​</p>
<p>* ‍NET PROCEEDS OF PLACING WILL BE USED TO FUND ACQUISITION IN PART. REMAINING ACQUISITION CONSIDERATION IS BEING FUNDED THROUGH ISSUE OF 3,670,625 NEW ORDINARY SHARES TO SELLERS AND DRAWDOWN UNDER A NEW BANKING FACILITY​ Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: (Reporting by Emma Rumney)</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - A Japanese Nobel-winning chemist was discovered wandering in rural Northern Illinois and his wife found dead nearby, some nine hours after they had been reported missing from their home 200 miles away, police said on Wednesday.</p> FILE PHOTO - Ei-ichi Negishi of Japan (R) and his wife Sumire Negishi (2nd R) are surrounded by his family members as he displays his diploma and medal after winning the 2010 Nobel Prize in Chemistry during the award ceremony at the Concert Hall in Stockholm December 10, 2010. Henrik Montgomery/TT News Agency via REUTERS/File Photo
<p>Nobel Prize winner Ei-ichi Negishi, 82, was transported to a local hospital for treatment after he was spotted walking near Rockford, Illinois, at 5 a.m. on Tuesday, the Ogle County Sheriff’s Department officials said in a written statement.</p>
<p>Deputies later found the couple’s car and the body of his wife, Sumire Negishi, at the nearby Ochard Hills Landfill, the sheriff’s department said. Rockford is about 100 miles west of Chicago.</p> FILE PHOTO - Mrs. Sumire Negishi, wife of Nobel Prize laureate for Chemistry Ei-ichi Negishi of Japan attends the Nobel banquet at Stockholm's City Hall, Sweden December 10, 2010. REUTERS/Pawel Kopczynski/File Photo
<p>An autopsy was pending on the body of Sumire Negishi but foul play was not suspected in her death, the sheriff’s department said. No information was released on the condition of Ei-Ichi Negishi.</p>
<p>The couple was reported missing to the Indiana State Police at about 8 p.m. central time on Monday. They were last seen at their home in West Lafayette, near the Purdue University campus where Ei-Ichi is a professor of chemistry.</p>
<p>The scientist was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2010.</p>
<p>Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Michael Perry</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - Toys ‘R’ Us Inc, the iconic toy retailer, will shutter or sell its stores in the United States after failing to find a buyer or reach a deal to restructure billions in debt, putting at risk about 30,000 jobs.</p>
<p>The closure is a blow to hundreds of toy makers that sell their products at the chain’s U.S. stores, including Barbie maker Mattel Inc, board game company Hasbro Inc and other vendors like Lego.</p>
<p>“This is a profoundly sad day for us as well as the millions of kids and families who we have served for the past 70 years,” Chief Executive Officer Dave Brandon said.</p>
<p>With shoppers flocking to Amazon.com Inc and children choosing electronic gadgets over toys, Toys ‘R’ Us has struggled to boost sales and service debt following a $6.6 billion leveraged buyout by private equity firms in 2005.</p>
<p>Brokerage Jefferies estimated that 40 percent of the toy sales up for grabs as a result of the bankruptcy would flow to Amazon and 30 percent to Walmart.</p>
<p>Toys ‘R’ Us said on Thursday it was seeking approval to liquidate inventory in 735 U.S. stores, which debtors anticipate will close by the end of this year.</p>
<p>It is in talks to sell 200 of those stores as part of a deal to sell its 80-odd stores in Canada.</p>
<p>For its operations in Asia and Central Europe, including Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the company will pursue a reorganization and sale process. The already announced administration of its UK business will continue, the company said.</p>
<p>The wind-down follows a bruising holiday season, when the company failed to stay competitive and sales came in well below projections. The quarter accounts for 40 percent of its annual net sales.</p>
<p>Toys ‘R’ Us’ creditors said in a court filing that Target Corp, Walmart Inc and Amazon pricing toys at low-margins and a greater-than-expected decline in toy and gift card sales following its bankruptcy filing in September led to the weak performance in the quarter.</p> The logo of Toys R Us is seen on a store at Saint-Sebastien-sur-Loire near Nantes, France, March 15, 2018. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe
<p>“Even during recent store closeouts, Toys R Us failed to create any sense of excitement,” said Neil Saunders, managing director of retail research firm GlobalData Retail. “Its so-called heavy discounts remained well above the standard prices of many rivals.”</p> STORE CLOSURES
<p>Wayne, New Jersey-based Toys ‘R’ Us was already in the process of closing one fifth of its stores as part of an attempt to emerge from one of the largest ever bankruptcies by a specialty retailer.</p>
<p>In September, when the company operated more than 1,600 stores globally, with roughly 800 stores outside the United States, it got court permission to borrow more than $2 billion to start paying suppliers.</p> Slideshow (5 Images)
<p>But efforts to keep the business going collapsed after lenders decided that in the absence of a clear reorganization plan, they could recover more in a liquidation by closing stores and raising money from merchandise sales.</p>
<p>The company’s troubles mirror those of other mall-based retailers in the United States that have shut stores and fired employees in a bid to stay relevant.</p>
<p>More than 8,000 U.S. retail stores closed in 2017, roughly double the average annual store closures in the previous decade, according to data from the International Council of Shopping Centers.</p>
<p>The disappearance of Toys ‘R’ Us leaves a void for hundreds of toy makers that relied on the chain as a top customer alongside Walmart and Target.</p>
<p>Shares of Mattel and Hasbro tumbled last week on Toys ‘R’ Us’ liquidation reports. Both rely on Toys ‘R’ Us for roughly 10 percent of their revenues, according to their 2016 annual reports.</p>
<p>Jefferies cut its price targets for Hasbro, Mattel and a handful of other toymakers in a note early on Thursday, predicting the bankruptcy would depress 2018 revenue across the industry by between 2.5 percent and 5.5 percent.</p>
<p>“We ... expect the first half to be affected by reduced order flow from Toys ‘R’ Us and adjacent retailers, as companies like Target, Walmart, dollar stores, etc. reconcile inventory,” the brokerage said.</p>
<p>Reporting by Tracy Rucinski in Chicago and Abinaya Vijayaraghavan in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Aishwarya Venugopal; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Sayantani Ghosh</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Former European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso denied on Thursday he had lobbied ex-colleagues for his new employer Goldman Sachs, hitting back at what he has called a personal “political attack” by the EU’s ethics watchdog.</p> FILE PHOTO: Outgoing European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso attends the review of the Barroso II Commission at the EU Parliament in Strasbourg, October 21, 2014. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann/File Photo
<p>“I have not and will not lobby EU officials,” he tweeted after a European Ombudsman’s report said his successor at the Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, had failed to properly scrutinize whether Barroso’s new job undermined fragile public trust in the European Union.</p>
<p>Barroso, a former Portuguese prime minister, ran into furious criticism, including from Juncker, when he joined the U.S. bank in July 2016, less than two years after leaving an EU executive that eurosceptics branded out of touch with voters.</p>
<p>Brussels was reeling at that time from Britons’ vote to quit the bloc just two weeks earlier.</p>
<p>The controversy has resurfaced as Juncker faces his own troubles. The European Parliament and the Ombudsman are reviewing complaints after last month’s surprise promotion of his chief-of-staff to run the Commission’s civil service.</p>
<p>Barroso said Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly made no “legal assessment” of his duties for the bank but said he did not oppose her call for a new review by the Commission’s ethics committee which in 2016 found no reason to object to his job.</p>
<p>In an exchange of letters with O’Reilly, published by the Ombudsman on Thursday, Barroso accused her of mounting a “thinly veiled ad personam political attack”.</p>
<p>O’Reilly in turn dismissed Barroso’s account that his meeting in October with former Commission colleague Jyrki Katainen was a private matter. She said Katainen, now a vice president under Juncker, had registered it in the EU public lobbying record as a meeting with “Goldman Sachs”.</p> PENSION RIGHTS
<p>In light of that meeting, O’Reilly recommended the Commission’s watchdog determine whether his new employment met the obligation for former commissioners to act with integrity and not damage the EU’s image. The panel can cut pension rights for any breach, but has never done so.</p>
<p>“Much of the recent negative sentiment around this issue could have been avoided if the Commission had at the time taken a formal decision on Mr Barroso’s employment with Goldman Sachs,” O’Reilly said in a statement. It could have obliged him not to engage in any lobbying at the Commission, she added.</p>
<p>Despite vocal criticism, others have defended the right of top officials to find new work and have said attacking banks, and Goldman Sachs in particular, showed political prejudice.</p>
<p>Goldman Sachs said in a statement that Barroso, who left his position as president of the Commission in late 2014, had “from the beginning of his time with us recused himself from representing the firm in any interactions with EU officials”.</p>
<p>Juncker had criticized Barroso for taking a job with a bank accused by some of contributing to Europe’s economic crisis but said he could not obstruct the move as an 18-month “cooling off” period to avert conflicts of interest had lapsed.</p>
<p>Juncker later doubled the cooling off period for himself and successors and asked the ethics committee to look at Barroso’s move. The watchdog found no ground to object in late 2016 but the Ombudsman launched her own inquiry last year.</p>
<p>A Commission spokesman said it would consider her report and reply within her three-month deadline. Noting Juncker’s changes to the code of conduct, he said. “We have very strict and very comprehensive requirements.”</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Sinead Cruise in London; Editing by Edmund Blair</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>LONDON (Reuters) - The leaders of France, Germany, Britain and the United States issued a joint statement on Thursday condemning a chemical attack on a Russian former double agent in England and blaming Moscow for it.</p>
<p>Moscow has denied any responsibility for the attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. Britain has expelled 23 Russian diplomats, and Moscow is expected to retaliate.</p>
<p>“We, the leaders of France, Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom, abhor the attack that took place against Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, UK, on 4 March 2018,” the statement said.</p>
<p>“This use of a military-grade nerve agent, of a type developed by Russia, constitutes the first offensive use of a nerve agent in Europe since the Second World War.</p>
<p>“It is an&#160;assault on UK sovereignty and any such use by a State party is&#160;a clear violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention and a breach of international law. It threatens the security of us all.”</p>
<p>The four nations called on Russia to provide full and complete disclosure of its Novichok nerve agent program to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.</p>
<p>Reporting by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | BRIEF-Dechra Pharmaceuticals to acquire Ast Farma and Le Vet Nobel prize winner hospitalized, wife found deceased in Illinois Toys 'R' Us goes out of business, 30,000 jobs at stake Barroso slams EU watchdog over probe of his Goldman Sachs role UK, U.S., France, Germany jointly condemn chemical attack on ex-spy | false | https://reuters.com/article/brief-dechra-pharmaceuticals-to-acquire/brief-dechra-pharmaceuticals-to-acquire-ast-farma-and-le-vet-idUSFWN1PK0ER | 2018-01-25 | 2 |
<p>Aug. 24 (UPI) — A Kentucky driver pulled over to capture video of a highly unusual sight — a car using a furniture-moving dolly in the place of a missing wheel.</p>
<p>Nicholas Carrillo <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dXYYxChaFg" type="external">captured video</a> Sunday of a car traveling down a Pikeville road with one of its rear-tires missing and a furniture-moving dolly in its place.</p>
<p>An ambulance follows closely behind the damaged vehicle.</p>
<p>“Only in Pike County,” Carrillo deadpans in the video.</p>
<p>Austin Jones posted a photo <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10104828461980410&amp;set=p.10104828461980410&amp;type=3&amp;theater" type="external">to Facebook</a> showing the car after it reached its apparent destination at an auto shop. The ambulance is parked next to the car while amused EMS responders stand by.</p> | Car drives down Kentucky road with dolly in place of missing tire | false | https://newsline.com/car-drives-down-kentucky-road-with-dolly-in-place-of-missing-tire/ | 2017-08-24 | 1 |
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<p>VIENNA (AP) — Wanted, part-time: A hermit. Experience not necessary.</p>
<p>Municipal and Roman Catholic church officials in the Austrian town of Saalfelden are looking for someone to live in a nearby hermitage built into steep cliffs characteristic of the Salzburg region.</p>
<p>But a second job is advisable. The parish website says the position is unpaid. And because it's unheated and without running water, the hermitage is inhabitable only between April and November.</p>
<p>State broadcaster ORF on Thursday cited cleric Alois Moser as saying the search is on for “a person at peace with himself.” Moser says the successful candidate also should have a Christian outlook and be ready to greet visiting pilgrims.</p>
<p>The more than 350-year-old building has been uninhabited since a Benedictine monk left in the fall.</p>
<p><a href="#6bf98e38-2dc4-4852-b1c4-3d5aae1c3a4e" 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>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Wanted part-time in Austria: A hermit | false | https://abqjournal.com/926401/wanted-part-time-in-austria-a-hermit.html | 2017-01-12 | 2 |
<p />
<p>Our intrepid political blogger Kevin Drum <a href="" type="internal">posted last Thursday</a> on whether anyone is actually using Bing, Microsoft’s newly revamped, rebranded search engine. So I just had to share some fun stuff I read in Business Week last month about how Bing—already targeted by bloggywags as an acronym for “But It’s Not Google!”—got its name. (I can’t say I use Bing, but I have tried it: The home page is prettier than its rival’s, but after searching it for “Michael Jackson,” and looking at the list of results, I got to thinking that the Gates Posse should have called it Biig: “But It Imitates Google!”)</p>
<p>Big companies just can’t come up with clever names the way we at Mother Jones brainstorm clever headlines—that is, in a brief, frenzied series of internal emails. These days they feel compelled to outsource. According to the June 15 story by Bizweek marketing editor Burt Helm (the issue caught my attention because my birthday is June 16) Microsoft hired a firm called Interbrand, which set eight of its employees to brainstorming around themes like “speed” and “relevance.” In six weeks, the team came up with 2,000 names, then nixed the lamest—somehow overlooking Bing—and whittled the list to 600.</p>
<p>Know the old expression “Too many cooks…”? Well, enter 20 linguists—twenty!—and two trademark lawyers to scour the surviving ideas, checking, for instance, that a word like Bing doesn’t translate into Serbo-Croation as the ancient insult, “Your mother snorts kitty litter.” Mattel, as Helm notes, dubbed its <a href="http://store.americangirl.com/agshop/static/rebeccadoll.jsf/title/Rebecca/saleGroupId/1182/uniqueId/628/nodeId/11/webMenuId/5/LeftMenu/TRUE" type="external">latest American Girl doll</a> Rebecca Rubin, only to belatedly learn that a woman named Rebecca J. Rubin was <a href="http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/fugitives/dt/rubin_rj.htm" type="external">wanted by the FBI for arson</a> and for conspiring to torch government buildings. Mattel kept the name, despite headlines like “American Girl and Eco-terrorist” (ABC), which actually gives this overmarketed product a little je ne sais quois. And if you really want to nitpick, the doll has no middle initial.</p>
<p>Anyway, in the end, Interbrand had between 50 and 60 names to show their Redmond client. Microsoft chose eight for submission to focus groups, who apparently preferred “Bing” to alternatives such as “Kumo” and “Hook.” For my part, “Bing” just makes me think of Monty Python’s “ <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arCITMfxvEc" type="external">machine that goes bing!</a>” Which is hilarious, but somehow, as old and British as it is, the comedy sketch manages to aptly lampoon our own screwed up <a href="http://unsilentgeneration.com/2009/06/15/health-insurance-this-is-reform/" type="external">health care system</a>. Which depresses me so much that I turn to Google for solace.</p>
<p>What the heck has any of this to do with Ford? Well, as with Bing and Jacko (and <a href="" type="internal">Kevin Drum</a>), it’s all about branding.</p>
<p>Ford Motor Company, as we reported last November (“ <a href="" type="internal">How Ford Lost Focus</a>“), ignored the environmental rantings of its chairman and company scion Bill Ford Jr. until it was too late, instead pumping out high-profit, gas-guzzling pickups. Profitable, that is, until gas prices spiked last year and everyone stopped buying the trucks. The company’s survival rested on a plan to start marketing its European small-car models to American customers.</p>
<p>The challenge was to come up with a design that could suit the tastes of consumers around the globe, thus cutting the cost of selling different small cars in every market. So, it made a Fiesta hatchback that, as noted in—hey!—the very same issue of Bizweek, has with a rear end that looks like that of a small SUV, a dashboard inspired by a cell-phone keyboard, and oversized headlights that belong on a bigger vehicle. But the part I liked best was the magazine’s description of Ford’s target Fiesta buyer:</p>
<p>Her name is Isabella, a name that consistently ranks among the Top 5 baby names for American girls. Isabella isn’t American, though. She is stylishly Italian, a recent college grad living near Milan. She’s a modest earner, hip, urban, creative, and way into social media. She’s also considering <a href="" type="internal">journalism</a> as a career.</p>
<p>In other words, <a href="" type="internal">she’s nuts</a>. And entirely fictitious.</p>
<p>Follow Michael Mechanic on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/MichaelMechanic" type="external">Twitter</a>.</p>
<p /> | Re: Bing, Drum, Ford, & Jacko | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2009/07/re-bing-drum-ford-michael-jackson/ | 2009-07-13 | 4 |
<p>LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Las Vegas police officer who once served prison time in a sex misconduct case told a judge he plans to hire a lawyer to represent him on murder and sex assault charges in a woman's 1997 shooting death.</p>
<p>The judge on Monday set a March 20 preliminary hearing for Arthur Lee Sewall, who arrived in the Clark County jail in custody Friday following his Jan. 11 arrest in Reno.</p>
<p>Sewall was named as the suspect in the rape and killing of 20-year-old Nadia Iverson after a rape kit test in February 2017 matched his DNA.</p>
<p>Sewall resigned in 1997 after five years as a police officer and later served 20 months in state prison after being convicted of using his position to force prostitutes to perform sex acts.</p>
<p>LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Las Vegas police officer who once served prison time in a sex misconduct case told a judge he plans to hire a lawyer to represent him on murder and sex assault charges in a woman's 1997 shooting death.</p>
<p>The judge on Monday set a March 20 preliminary hearing for Arthur Lee Sewall, who arrived in the Clark County jail in custody Friday following his Jan. 11 arrest in Reno.</p>
<p>Sewall was named as the suspect in the rape and killing of 20-year-old Nadia Iverson after a rape kit test in February 2017 matched his DNA.</p>
<p>Sewall resigned in 1997 after five years as a police officer and later served 20 months in state prison after being convicted of using his position to force prostitutes to perform sex acts.</p> | Ex-Las Vegas officer gets court date in 1997 sex-murder case | false | https://apnews.com/amp/1d2cbbdf2ee94ee4877d29a84399a091 | 2018-01-22 | 2 |
<p>By Chris Shoemaker</p>
<p>Dozens of youth from Baptist churches across Virginia converging on the campus of Bluefield College this summer made a difference in the lives of families in southwest Virginia.</p>
<p>Impact Virginia, a project sponsored by the Baptist General Association of Virginia, is a one-week mission opportunity for youth in grades 7-12 that focuses on home repair for low-income families and spiritual growth for teens and the people they serve. While the youth participating in southwest Virginia spent the early mornings and evenings each day in Bible study and worship at Bluefield College, they spent the bulk of their daily time in the community, renovating homes in Tazewell County.</p>
<p>The youth worked from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day, stopping only for lunch, provided by local churches which joined the cause. They invested hundreds of hours of labor and thousands of dollars in materials, most of which was provided to Bluefield College and the Impact teams by local contractors, home improvement centers and other donors.</p>
<p>“It is remarkable to think about the impact we’ve been able to have in this community over the years,” said Bluefield’s David Taylor, vice president for student services, about the college’s participation in Impact Virginia since 2009. “We have made dwellings warmer, safer and dryer for needy homeowners.”</p>
<p>Impact Virginia hosted projects in three other Virginia locations this summer — Danville, Fluvanna and Alexandria — and an Impact International camp in Romania as well.</p> | Project impacts low-income families in southwest Virginia | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/project-impacts-low-income-families-in-southwest-virginia/ | 3 |
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<p>Published time: 1 Sep, 2017 09:34Edited time: 1 Sep, 2017 09:58</p>
<p>The US prefers “individual breakdance,” but “it takes two to tango,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, speaking of US-Russian relations. The minister stressed that Moscow is open to cooperation and does not seek confrontation.</p>
<p>Read more</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/383514-tillerson-lavrov-dance-tango/" type="external" /></p>
<p>Diplomatic ties between Moscow and Washington received yet another “dancing” expression, as Lavrov spoke at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations on Friday, as Russia celebrates Knowledge Day – the beginning of the school year.</p>
<p>“As you know, it takes two to tango, but it seems to me that our [US] partners keep performing individual breakdance,” the minister said.</p>
<p>Lavrov reiterated Russian President Vladimir Putin’s stance on relations with America, saying that Russia “does not seek any quarrel,” but has been always “friendly to the American people, and is open to constructive cooperation where it meets Russian interests.” He added that Moscow wants to normalize the bilateral political atmosphere.</p>
<p>“Generally, we will continue to promote a positive agenda, mutually respectful approaches, we will seek and find compromises,” Lavrov told the students.</p>
<p>According to Lavrov, Moscow will not leave the decision to close the Russian Consulate unaddressed.</p>
<p>“We received a detailed [diplomatic] note just last night, we are dealing with it and we will respond as soon as we finish this analysis,” the foreign minister said.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/401613-russian-consulate-us-closure" type="external">READ MORE: US orders closure of Russian Consulate in San Francisco – State Department</a></p>
<p>All of the “exchange of sanction moves” were initiated by the Obama administration to undermine relations and hinder the incoming president from changing the situation for the better, Lavrov said.</p>
<p /> | US performs ‘individual breakdance’ instead of paired tango – Lavrov | false | https://newsline.com/us-performs-individual-breakdance-instead-of-paired-tango-lavrov/ | 2017-09-01 | 1 |
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<p>Opportunity knocks for the University of New Mexico women’s basketball team this week.</p>
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<p>With a Wednesday visit to Colorado State and a home game against San Diego State on Saturday, the Lobos have an open shot to climb into contention in a muddled Mountain West Conference race.</p>
<p>Will it be a swish or a turnover?</p>
<p>UNM (9-7, 1-2) certainly is capable of either result. The Lobos have put together impressive streaks in all three of their MWC games, including a strong second half in last week’s 58-53 victory over Boise State.</p>
<p>Problem is, UNM also seems bent on self destruction at times. Dismal starts have left the Lobos in double-digit, first-half holes in each of their last five games.</p>
<p>New Mexico fought back in four of those contests, putting itself in position to win late. The comebacks fell short until last week, when the Lobos believe they finally turned a corner against Boise State.</p>
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<p>“We finally have something to grow and build on,” sophomore Antiesha Brown said.</p>
<p>UNM dominated the second half against Boise State, outscoring the Broncos 34-23 and limiting them to 22-percent shooting. The margin of victory would have been greater but for six missed UNM free throws in the final 5:35, including the front of two one-and-one opportunities.</p>
<p>Lobo coach Yvonne Sanchez has no illusions about the weaknesses that have kept her team from posting more wins.</p>
<p>“Free throws and taking care of the ball,” Sanchez said. “We’ve already been in three close conference games, and we’re going to be in a lot more. Free throws and turnovers will go a long way in deciding how many we win.”</p>
<p>New Mexico ranks eighth in the nine-team MWC in turnover margin, surrendering 4.13 more than it forces per game. The Lobos rank last in free-throw shooting, both in attempts and percentage made.</p>
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<p>On brighter notes, UNM has become one of the conference’s better defensive teams. It leads the MWC in 3-point field goal defense and ranks second in average points allowed (58.2).</p>
<p>The Lobos also are developing more scoring balance, which will make opponents think twice about swarming senior Caroline Durbin. Six different players have led the team in scoring for at least one game, not including freshman post Whitney Johnson, who scored 14 points against Boise State.</p>
<p>Johnson figures to be in the starting lineup Wednesday against a tall CSU front line. She figures to have help from junior Deeva Vaughn, who returned to practice Monday and is expected to come off the bench.</p>
<p>Vaughn (left foot injury) sat out the Boise State game, but X-rays and MRI tests on the foot revealed no structural damage. She was fitted with wider men’s shoes and will wear orthotics to support the foot.</p>
<p>“We should have everyone available,” Sanchez said, “and we’re going in with some confidence after the Boise game. Hopefully, we’re ready to put a full game together because that’s what it takes to win on the road.”</p>
<p>UNM has not won in Fort Collins since 2009. The Rams (5-11, 1-2) are coming off a 63-50 loss Sunday at UNLV but are 4-4 at home this season. — This article appeared on page D1 of the Albuquerque Journal</p> | Lobo Women in Position To Move Up | false | https://abqjournal.com/238710/lobo-women-in-position-to-move-up.html | 2 |
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<p>A Michigan mom says she's prepared to go to jail if the state forces her to vaccinate her 9-year-old son.</p>
<p>An Oakland County court has ordered Detroit Metro resident Rebecca Bredow to immunize her son within the next week, or face incarceration.</p>
<p />
<p>But Bredow says she won't compromise when it comes to her son's health, and won't be bullied into submission.</p>
<p>"I would rather sit behind bars standing up for what I believe in, than giving in to something I strongly don't believe in," Bredow told <a href="http://www.wxyz.com/news/region/oakland-county/metro-detroit-mom-could-be-thrown-behind-bars-for-not-getting-son-vaccinated" type="external">WXYZ</a>.</p>
<p>After agreeing with her ex-husband to space out and delay their son's vaccine regimen, Bredow learned about the potential for adverse reactions, and concluded Michigan's vaccine waiver medical exemption was the best course for her child.</p>
<p>"It wasn't until they started grouping them together that I backed off of doing vaccines," Bredow said.</p>
<p>"God forbid if he were to be injured by a vaccine," she added to <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/michigan-mom-face-jail-time-vaccinating-son/story?id=50169471" type="external">ABC News</a>. "I would have to take care of him."</p>
<p>Now legal documents reportedly show the court sided with her ex-husband, who is demanding the child be vaccinated.</p>
<p>"I feel angry. I feel backed into a corner. I feel like my rights &#160;as a parent have been taken away," Bredow says.</p>
<p>"Why automatically side with the father that wants the vaccines? What about my choice as a mother?"</p>
<p>"Now I have four-and-a-half business days' to fully vaccinate, they want me to bring him up to the fullest extent medically allowed, which would be up to eight vaccines, in one dose," Bredow told ABC. "And this is supposed to be done before 9 a.m. on Wednesday."</p>
<p>Bredow has expressed vaccinating her son is a personal choice, and says she's not "anti-vax."</p>
<p>"I choose not to vaccinate, but that's my choice," she said. "I'm not against vaccines, it's everybody's personal choice."</p>
<p>The court has not yet determined how long Bredow, the child's primary caregiver, would spend in jail.</p>
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<p>Facebook: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/adan.salazar.735" type="external">https://www.facebook.com/adan.salazar.735</a></p> | Michigan Mom Faces Jail for Refusing to Vaccinate Child | true | https://infowars.com/michigan-mom-faces-jail-for-refusing-to-vaccinate-child/ | 2017-09-29 | 0 |
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<p>During a hearing of the <a href="http://www.wartimecontracting.gov/" type="external">Commission on Wartime Contracting</a> earlier this week, Chris Shays got so exercised over the Justice Department’s intransigence that he may have momentarily forgotten that the panel he co-chairs doesn’t have subpoena power. He threatened to use it anyway to compel the agency to deliver up information that Shays, a former GOP congressman from Connecticut, says it has been stonewalling on for months.</p>
<p>Starting in December, the commission has repeatedly sought data from Justice on contracting corruption-related cases and prosecutions. That information—bringing together data from a collection of federal agencies and divisions—is contained in a database administered by an interagency law enforcement unit known as the International Contract Corruption Task Force.</p>
<p>“I can’t for the life of me understand why Justice would be reluctant to share statistics unless they don’t like what the statistics say,” Shays fumed. He added, “I don’t get the feeling that we are getting the kind of cooperation that we need to get from Justice.” The agency later promised to provide the information, according to a commission spokesman, but another member of the panel, Charles Tiefer, has complained that the agency has impeded their work in other ways, including by blocking access to closed case files and denying interviews with the investigators who worked them.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Withholding data and access has not been the Justice Department’s only affront, according to Shays. When he and the contracting commission’s general counsel attended a conference in late March that brought together federal personnel on the front lines of the effort to crack down on <a href="" type="internal">contracting fraud</a> and corruption, Shays says Justice Department representatives made it clear that their presence was unwelcome: “We were told that Justice was uncomfortable that we were present and that it would impede their being candid at the conference, so we left.” (A Justice Department spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment.) Says Justice Department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney: “As has been the practice at this conference in previous years, non-law enforcement guests were invited for specific sessions to make presentations and discuss matters of mutual interest, but all other sessions were designated for law enforcement only. This is done to encourage a full and free exchange of views and information that might involve discussion of confidential or sensitive law enforcement information. We continue to work cooperatively with the Commission to provide the information we can regarding their questions.”</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Among commission members, there appears to be a consensus that the government is not doing nearly enough to prevent fraud or punish the perpetrators that are ripping off taxpayers to the tune of billions of dollars. “We probably are not catching most of what’s going on,” commission member Dov Zakheim, the Pentagon’s comptroller during the first half of the Bush administration, remarked earlier this week. And some members of the commission have called into question the Justice Department’s commitment to prosecuting contracting-related fraud and corruption cases. “It’s not a priority of DOJ’s because they have lots of priorities,” said Shays.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Indeed, since 9/11 the FBI has shifted significant manpower and resources to the counterterrorism side of its operation. During that time, according <a href="http://www.fbi.gov/libref/executives/perkins.htm" type="external">Kevin Perkins</a>, the assistant director of the bureau’s criminal investigative division—the branch responsible for, among other things, investigating contracting corruption—has lost 2,000 agents, approximately a third of its manpower. “We focus our efforts on only the highest dollar items,” he said, adding, “obviously, something had to give.”</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>But in the contracting arena, zeroing in on just the high dollar cases could be the wrong calculation. <a href="" type="internal">Warzone crooks</a> who bilk the government of comparatively small amounts of money can potentially put the lives of US troops, civilians, and contractors in just as much jeopardy as those who steal larger sums. Just the same, federal inspectors general have acknowledged difficulties in getting the Justice Department to take up certain contracting cases, which, in addition to being difficult and dangerous to investigate are highly complex. “My perception is they have a lot of priorities and the dollar amounts in our cases are not necessarily the highest,” Ginger Cruz, a senior official with the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), told the contracting commission Monday. As Shays put it, “You have to be a salesman to Justice in order to get them to prosecute.”</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>In order to improve its success rate with the Justice Department, starting six months ago <a href="" type="internal">SIGIR</a> took the unusual step of hiring three seasoned ex-federal prosecutors and embedding them in the agency’s criminal division to work exclusively on its cases. It’s a novel approach, but it also suggests the lengths contracting fraud investigators need to go to move their cases along.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>“The bottom line is that fraud and abuse pays most of the time in contingency contracting,” Shays said. “You can get away with it. Some are investigated, few are prosecuted.”</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Corrupt contractors and government personnel have surely caught on. Cruz recalled paying a jailhouse visit to <a href="" type="internal">Robert Stein</a>, once the Coalition Provisional Authority’s comptroller in Iraq, who’s currently serving 9 years in prison for a massive fraud scheme that siphoned more than $8.6 million from the reconstruction effort in Iraq. Stein was then on suicide watch and remorseful for his crime, and Cruz asked why he had done what he’d one. “He looked at me and said, ‘You know, if there had been someone there, if I knew that someone was looking, I probably would have thought twice.”</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>The moral of the story, according to Cruz: “The deterrent effect doesn’t exist unless there’s a possibility that someone’s going to get you.”</p>
<p /> | Contracting Commission to DOJ: Stop Stonewalling | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2010/05/contracting-commission-doj-stop-stonewalling/ | 2010-05-26 | 4 |
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<p>Ernesto Londoño’s <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/06/AR2009120602689.html" type="external">article</a> in the Washington Post yesterday details a controversy over military gear worth tens of millions of dollars being donated to the Iraqi government. Cue arguments in the Pentagon: One military official thinks this fails to account for the need for similar items in Afghanistan, while the chief of staff for the ground forces command in Iraq says it’s more cost-effective to donate such items to the Iraqi government than to ship them out. Others express concern that equipment left behind could be looted.</p>
<p>In our 2007 package on the many problems associated with leaving Iraq, Mother Jones looked into <a href="" type="internal">the fate of military equipment in the wake of withdrawal</a>. On containers and trailers:</p>
<p>Containers are easy to come by; a former logistics officer says if any are brought back the job will probably fall to contractors like Kellogg, Brown and Root. “A lot will be left there for the Iraqis to use for storage, because where do you store stuff in the middle of the desert?”</p>
<p>The Pentagon blocked requests earlier this year for carte blanche on donating certain kinds of items (SUVs, generators, etc.) at closing bases, maintaining that US forces in Afghanistan needed some of them. Then, in October, it relaxed its guidelines, raising the cap on donations and loosening regulations about leaving behind passenger vehicles. New “suggested rationales” used to justify donations, such as avoiding delayed withdrawal and fostering favorable relations between the US and Iraq, seem to give commanders a lot of leeway to decide what will or won’t end up sent to support the surge of troops in Afghanistan.</p>
<p /> | In Iraq, Gear Gets Left Behind | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2009/12/iraq-gear-gets-left-behind/ | 2009-12-08 | 4 |
<p>China's housing sales growth decelerated sharply in July while developers, anticipating a further slowdown, pushed into smaller cities which have looser property controls than in big cities.</p>
<p>In July, housing sales by value rose 4.3% from a year earlier, according to calculations made by The Wall Street Journal based on data released Monday by the National Bureau of Statistics. That compared with a 26.4% gain in June.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>For the first seven months of the year, housing sales rose 15.9% from a year earlier, compared with a 17.9% increase from January through June.</p>
<p>As big cities tighten home-buying restrictions and credit lending policies, developers are fanning out to smaller cities to launch new projects. CIFI Holdings said it made its first forays into nine markets, including Wuxi, Wenzhou and Qingdao.</p>
<p>Developers are bracing for a continuation of the slowing sales growth this year amid stricter policies. Many signaled in recent earnings releases that they intend to speed up land acquisitions to shore up portfolios. That may cause housing inventories to swell again and risk weighing construction activity and real estate investment.</p>
<p>Property investment, including commercial and residential real estate, slowed to a 7.9% increase in the first seven months of the year at 6 trillion yuan ($900 billion). Investment grew 8.5% during the first six months of the year.</p>
<p>Construction starts rose 8% from a year earlier to 1 billion square meters. That compared with 10.6% growth for the first six months of the year.</p>
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<p>Write to Dominique Fong at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>August 13, 2017 23:08 ET (03:08 GMT)</p> | China January-July Housing Sales up 15.9% From a Year Earlier | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/08/13/china-january-july-housing-sales-up-15-9-from-year-earlier.html | 2017-08-13 | 0 |
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<p>Image source: Las Vegas Sands.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>What: Shares of gaming giant Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE: LVS) jumped 19% in July, according to data provided by <a href="https://www.capitaliq.com/home.aspx" type="external">S&amp;P Global Market Intelligence Opens a New Window.</a>, as investors bet that the decline in Macau's gaming market will soon come to an end.</p>
<p>So what: Second quarter results released recently <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/07/27/las-vegas-sands-faces-challenges-as-macau-resorts.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">showed a 9.3% decline in revenue Opens a New Window.</a> to $2.65 billion, but hold-adjusted property EBITDA fell just 5.9% to $953.8 million. While still in decline, management said it saw some improvement in Macau, particularly in the mass market, where Las Vegas Sands is a dominant player.</p>
<p>The company also said it will open The Parisian Macau on September 13, although we don't yet know how many table games the resort will receive. And that table allocation could determine how profitable the property is.</p>
<p>Now what: It seems that speculation of improvement or decline in Macau is a month to month guessing game. What's clear is that declines are slowing down and the mass market is starting to improve slightly. Long-term, that will be good for gaming companies -- but remember that a number of new resorts will open in the next year, so profits at each property will likely decline over the same timeframe.</p>
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<p>The other concern I have with Las Vegas Sands is that it's paying more in a dividend than it's making in net income. That can only continue for so long unless we see vast improvements in Macau. I can see where investors are starting to see signs of hope in Macau, but they should prepare for another up-and-down year ahead. Macau just isn't in a sustainable growth phase yet, and competition is still coming on the horizon, which is something to worry about in gaming.</p>
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<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFFlushDraw/info.aspx" type="external">Travis Hoium Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=isiedilnk018048" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Why Shares of Las Vegas Sands Corp. Popped 16.5% in July | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/08/01/why-shares-las-vegas-sands-corp-popped-165-in-july.html | 2016-08-02 | 0 |
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<p>Las Vegas police train to use a version of a chokehold designed to avoid restricting the airway while cutting the flow of blood to the brain, a technique the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada now believes should be off limits.</p>
<p>Tashii S. Brown, 40, died early Sunday outside The Venetian after a police officer used the technique. Brown became unconscious and died, despite efforts at CPR.</p>
<p>“We’re aware that they use this. But there has got to be another option,” ACLU executive Tod Story said Monday. “There have been people in custody who have died. It really should no longer be used.”</p>
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<p>Brown’s death near The Venetian has drawn comparisons with the July 2014 death of 43-year-old Eric Garner at the hands of New York City police. A passer-by captured video of Garner pleading “I can’t breathe,” while officers pinned him to the sidewalk. His last words became a rallying cry during public protests about police use of force.</p>
<p>The New York Police Department — the nation’s largest — no longer allows officers to go for the neck.</p>
<p>“NYPD doesn’t want you going for the neck under any circumstances,” said Eugene O’Donnell, a former New York police officer who now teaches at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. “But many departments still use it.”</p>
<p>O’Donnell said handcuffing a person resisting arrest is harder than it looks, but added reaching for the neck can be dangerous.</p>
<p>“Carotid artery versus airway. There are a lot of variables, including the competence of the officer, the condition of the person, mental health issues, whether they’re a smoker, alcohol (use),” O’Donnell said. “In the midst of a violent interaction, it’s different from doing it in a classroom.”</p>
<p>The Clark County coroner said a ruling on what killed Brown is pending.</p>
<p>District Attorney Steve Wolfson said there will be a public use-of-force review to air the findings of the investigation of Brown’s death.</p>
<p>Brown, who also used the name Tashi Sebastian Farmer, grew up in Hawaii and lived in recent years with his mother in Las Vegas, said Tynisa Braun, a cousin in Honolulu. Brown was a father of two children in Hawaii and had a business in Las Vegas selling shoes, hats and clothing, she said.</p>
<p>Brown’s mother didn’t immediately respond to a telephone message seeking comment.</p>
<p>Las Vegas police scheduled a Wednesday news briefing about Brown’s death and refused to release any information beyond the written statement issued Sunday. The officers involved were not immediately identified, and it wasn’t clear if they remained on-duty while the department investigates.</p>
<p>The statement said Brown acted “erratic,” approaching two police officers inside The Venetian, claiming people were chasing him, and then running through a secured area to an outside door.</p>
<p>The officers chased him into a parking area and tried using a stun gun, then punching Brown, before an officer employed the neck restraint. Venetian security guards were also involved in the struggle, police said.</p> | ACLU criticizes use neck holds following Vegas man’s death | false | https://abqjournal.com/1004094/aclu-criticizes-use-neck-holds-following-vegas-mans-death.html | 2017-05-16 | 2 |
<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama increased the minimum wage for a few hundred thousand federal contractors on Wednesday, then pressed the divided Congress to pass broader legislation that would apply to all workers. Obama declared, “It’s the right thing to do.”&#160; <a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>Obama first announced the executive order to boost some contractor wages during his State of the Union address last month. He signed the measure Wednesday in a White House ceremony where he was flanked by Americans who would make more money if lawmakers take more sweeping action.</p>
<p>White House officials concede that the executive order, which raises the hourly wage from $7.25 to $10.10, only applies to a small percentage of the more than 2 million federal contractors. But officials are hoping it generates momentum for Obama’s proposal on Capitol Hill, particularly as both parties try to focus on issues like income inequality and economic mobility.</p>
<p>“Raising the minimum wage is good for business, it’s good for workers and it’s good for the economy,” Obama said.</p>
<p>The president first called on Congress to increase the minimum wage last year, but the effort languished on Capitol Hill. White House officials say they’re working with lawmakers on a legislative strategy to tackle the issue this year, but it’s unclear when a bill might be voted on or whether it would pass.</p>
<p>The executive order for federal contractors goes into effect next year but only applies to new contracts.</p>
<p>The White House said the order requires that employees who work for tips make at least $10.10 overall. It also prevents contract workers from being paid less than others if they have disabilities affecting their productivity.</p>
<p>A recent survey by the National Employment Law Project found that 77 percent of government contract employees who work in food service, retail or janitorial service earn less than $10 per hour. About 4 in 10 of those workers depend on public assistance programs such as food stamps and Medicaid, the study by the worker advocacy group found.</p>
<p>This news item is from The Associated Press.&#160;</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Contact author</a></p>
<p>&#160;&#160; <a href="" type="internal">federal contractors pay</a>, <a href="" type="internal">hourly wage news</a>, <a href="" type="internal">living wage</a>, <a href="" type="internal">minimum wage news</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Poverty</a>, <a href="" type="internal">wage news</a>, <a href="" type="internal">wages</a></p> | Minimum Wage Raised to $10.10 - for U.S. Contractors | true | http://equalvoiceforfamilies.org/minimum-wage-raised-to-10-10-for-u-s-contractors/ | 4 |
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<p>CAMERON, Ariz. - Federal officials have reached a settlement with a natural gas company over the costs of field work at abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo Nation.</p>
<p>Under the settlement announced Monday, El Paso Natural Gas Company LLC must repay the government about $500,000. The company is the corporate successor to former uranium mine operators near Cameron from 1952 to 1961.</p>
<p>The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been working to identify parties responsible for hazardous or potentially hazardous waste.</p>
<p>El Paso Natural Gas sued the federal government last year to recover costs for work at 19 abandoned uranium mines and to determine future liability. The government counter-sued for reimbursement of money it spent on field work.</p>
<p>The settlement resolves the counterclaims. It now is subject to public review and court approval.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Settlement resolves cost to feds to address uranium mines | false | https://abqjournal.com/680780/settlement-resolves-cost-to-feds-to-address-uranium-mines.html | 2 |
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<p>BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A man accused of trying to hit a police officer with his vehicle in North Dakota has waived extradition from South Dakota.</p>
<p>Prosecutors say 22-year-old Ulises Villalobos-Alvarado is expected to appear in Burleigh County court early next week.</p>
<p>Villalobos-Alvarado is charged with attempted murder and fleeing a peace officer during a probation search. The officer shot Villalobos-Alvarado in the arm. The officer wasn't injured.</p>
<p>Villalobos-Alvarado has been held at the Minnehaha County Jail in Sioux Falls. He was arrested Thursday night at a gas station in Brookings.</p>
<p>BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A man accused of trying to hit a police officer with his vehicle in North Dakota has waived extradition from South Dakota.</p>
<p>Prosecutors say 22-year-old Ulises Villalobos-Alvarado is expected to appear in Burleigh County court early next week.</p>
<p>Villalobos-Alvarado is charged with attempted murder and fleeing a peace officer during a probation search. The officer shot Villalobos-Alvarado in the arm. The officer wasn't injured.</p>
<p>Villalobos-Alvarado has been held at the Minnehaha County Jail in Sioux Falls. He was arrested Thursday night at a gas station in Brookings.</p> | Man accused of trying to harm officer waives extradition | false | https://apnews.com/amp/6e7c3abf8032426ea39f1514a09bcc54 | 2018-01-24 | 2 |
<p>As the unofficial results from the first two days of Egypt's first post-Mubarak parliamentary elections roll in, it looks like Islamist candidates hold the lead, the <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204397704577070063237428728.html" type="external">Wall Street Journal</a> reported.</p>
<p>Initial tallies fulfilled most analysts' expectations that conservative religious politicians would take the election. The tallies showed the Freedom and Justice Party, or FJP, the powerful Muslim Brotherhood's political arm in the lead, WSJ reported. The FJP is followed by the Nour Party, an unconservative Salafi school of Islam.</p>
<p>Read more at GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/opinion/111128/revolution-20-fulfilling-egypt%E2%80%99s-democratic-promise" type="external">Egypt Revolution 2.0: Fulfilling Egypt's democratic promise</a></p>
<p>According to the WSJ, an FJP official said the party's vote-counting forecasts the group to win by as much as 50 percent of the vote and the Nour Party expects to take about 10 to 15 percent of seats in the incoming parliament. Results from Alexandria and seven other regions show that the FJP will be Egypt's biggest winner as well, the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/30/egypt-election-results-muslim-brotherhood?newsfeed=true" type="external">Guardian</a> reported.</p>
<p>Official election results will not be announced until Thursday, before a series of runoff ballots take place next Monday, the Guardian reported. Egypt heads to the polls in three regional phases, with final results for the lower house of parliament to be revealed on Jan. 13 and for the upper house on March 14.</p>
<p>Read more at GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/egypt/111129/egypt-election-vote-tahrir-square-protests" type="external">As polls close, Egypt closes in on democracy</a></p>
<p>"We were pleasantly surprised by the voter turnout, which appeared to be very large, and also by the diligence of election officials," said Robert Becker, political party trainer for the Washington-based National Democratic Institute, a non-profit organization, <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-11-30/egypt-s-islamists-claim-early-election-lead-as-votes-tallied.html" type="external">Bloomberg BusinessWeek</a> reported. "At the same time, we witnessed a lot of shortcomings, and a number of violations, and these are things we hope can be fixed in the coming rounds of voting."</p>
<p>Following a week of violent protests leading up to the election, Cairo's Tahrir Square remained calm on Wednesday as Egyptians awaited the official results, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/30/world/meast/egypt-elections/?hpt=wo_c1" type="external">CNN</a> reported. For some Egyptians it is the first time they ever voted. Citizens are partaking in elections that will decide the newest members of the lower house of parliament, which will draft a new constitution, CNN reported.</p>
<p>Read more at GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/egypt/111128/egypt-elections-egyptians-line-vote-landmark-polls" type="external">Egypt elections: Egyptians queue to vote in landmark polls</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Egyptian voters lean toward Islamist party | false | https://pri.org/stories/2011-11-30/egyptian-voters-lean-toward-islamist-party | 2011-11-30 | 3 |
<p>A failed business deal conducted between the Trump family and the Iranian military&#160;may have more than its unsuccessful outcomes to worry about. a recent report from the <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/13/donald-trumps-worst-deal" type="external">New Yorker</a> details a tower bearing the TRUMP name in Baku, Azerbaijan,&#160;had connections to another business family&#160;with ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.</p>
<p>The Trump Tower of Baku, located just off the Caspian Sea in&#160;Azerbaijan, was reportedly built in an area with&#160;little to no interest for tourists and business travelers. It’s “miles away” from the business district, and <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/bombshell-report-links-trump-hotel-to-corrupt-azerbaijan-oligarchs-and-iranian-terror-group/" type="external">sits across the street</a> from a discount shopping center. The building itself has never opened, and “the tower stands amid a welter of on-ramps, off-ramps, and overpasses,” <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/13/donald-trumps-worst-deal" type="external">according to the New Yorker article</a>.</p>
<p>The Trump Tower in Baku, which has never opened. Photo by Davide Monteleone for The New Yorker.</p>
<p>But more intriguing than it’s failed location is the fact that the tower was built with the help of&#160;Ziya and Elton&#160;Mammadov, who helped put the deal together that allowed construction of the tower in Baku. The Mammadov family&#160; <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/06/10/the-corleones-of-the-caspian/" type="external">has been described as</a> the “Corleones of the Caspian” for their approaches to business dealings.</p>
<p>The Mammadovs have also been tied to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, granting several contracts and positions within the company&#160; <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/13/donald-trumps-worst-deal" type="external">to former members of the Guard</a> in previous years. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard is branch of the Iranian military that is tasked specifically with safeguarding the nation’s Islamist government, headed by the Ayatollah.&#160;In February, Reuters reported that the Trump administration is considering designating the Revolutionary Guard <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-irgc-idUSKBN15N0AI" type="external">as a terror group</a>.</p>
<p>Trump himself played a less influential role in the development of the tower. He was a licensor more than anything else, allowing his “TRUMP” name to adorn the top of the building itself and holding very little stake in the success or failure of the tower itself.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Chris Walker has been writing about political issues for the past decade, including for sites such as Elite Daily, AMERICAblog, and Mic. You can follow him on Twitter&#160; <a href="http://twitter.com/thatchriswalker" type="external">@thatchriswalker</a>.</p> | Bombshell report reveals Trump hotel linked to Iranian Revolutionary Guard | true | http://resistancereport.com/politics/trump-hotel-report-iranian-guard/ | 2017-03-06 | 4 |
<p>On the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, The Japan Times yesterday ran an editorial titled “The Titanic and the Nuclear Fiasco” which stated: “Presenting technology as completely safe, trustworthy or miraculous may seem to be a thing of the past, but the parallels between the Titanic and Japan’s nuclear power industry could not be clearer.”</p>
<p>“Japan’s nuclear power plants were, like the Titanic, advertised as marvels of modern science that were completely safe. Certain technologies, whether they promise to float a luxury liner or provide clean energy, can never be made entirely safe,” it said.</p>
<p>It quoted from a piece by Joseph Conrad written after the Titanic sank in which he noted the “chastening influence it should have on the self-confidence of mankind.” &#160;The Japan Times urged: “That lesson should be applied to all ‘unsinkable’ undertakings that might profit a few by imperiling the majority of others.” <a href="" type="internal">http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/ed20120415a1.html</a></p>
<p>Yes, the same kind of baloney behind the claim that the Titanic was unsinkable is behind the puffery that nuclear power plants are safe. The nuclear power promoters are still saying that despite the sinking of atomic Titanics: Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and now the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plants.</p>
<p>In fact, underneath the PR offensive are government documents admitting that nuclear power plants are deadly dangerous.</p>
<p>The first analysis of the consequences of a nuclear plant accident was done in 1957 by</p>
<p>Brookhaven National Laboratory, established a decade before by the since disbanded U.S. Atomic Energy Commission to develop civilian uses of nuclear technology. Its “WASH-740” report said a major nuclear plant accident could result in “3,400 killed and about 43,000 injured” and property damage “could be about 7 billion dollars.” However, this analysis was based on nuclear power plants a fifth to a tenth of the size of those being constructed in the 1960s.</p>
<p>So Brookhaven National Laboratory conducted a second study in the mid-60s, “WASH-740-update.” It stated repeatedly that for a major nuclear plant accident, “the possible size of such a disaster might be equal to that of the State of Pennsylvania.”&#160; It increased the number of deaths to 45,000, injuries to 100,000 and property damage up to $280 billion.</p>
<p>Then, in 1982, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories did a study they titled “Calculation of Reactor Accident Consequences” that analyzed the <a href="" type="internal" />accident consequences for every nuclear plant in the U.S. It projected, for example, for a meltdown with a breach of containment at the Indian Point 2 plant just north of New York City: 50,000 “peak early fatalities; 167,000 “peak early injuries;” 14,000 “peak cancer deaths;” and $314 billion in “scaled costs” of property damage in, it noted, “1980 dollars.”</p>
<p>As to likelihood, in 1985 there was a formal written exchange between U.S. Congressman Edward Markey’s House Subcommittee on Oversight &amp; Investigations and the NRC in which the panel asked: “What does the commission and NRC staff believe the likelihood of a severe core melt accident to be in the next twenty years for those reactors now operating and those expected to operate during that time?”</p>
<p>The NRC response: “In a population of 100 reactors operating over a period of 20 years, the crude cumulative probability of such an accident would be 45%.” But then it went on that this might be off by “a factor of about 10 above and below.” Thus, the chances of a meltdown during a 20-year period among 100 U.S. nuclear plant plants (there are 104 today) would be about 50-50.</p>
<p>These are not good odds for disaster.</p>
<p>Steven Starr, a board member of Physicians for Social Responsibility, speaks further of the “fatal and deadly flaw” of nuclear power “that cannot be remedied by any technological fix or redesign. Nuclear power plants manufacture poisons thousands and millions of times more deadly to life than any other industrial process, and some of these poisons last for hundreds of millennia, and thus have great potential to become ubiquitous in the global environment.” And the “clear evidence” is that it is “beyond the means of the nuclear industry to keep these poisons contained during even the average lifespan of a nuclear reactor. It is beyond belief that anyone can promise that we can contain them for tens or hundreds of thousands of years.”</p>
<p>The current issue of Popular Mechanics features an article “Why Titanic Still Matters” by Jim Meigs, the magazine’s editor and chief, which states: “In one respect, little has changed. As the recent loss of the Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia demonstrates, bad decision making can overcome even robust engineering. Virtually all man-made disasters—including the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, the space shuttle Challenger explosion, and the BP oil spill—can &#160;be traced to the same human failings that doomed Titanic. After 100 years, we must still remember—and, too often, relearn—the grim lessons of that night.”</p>
<p>Indeed, human error is a big part of what can go wrong at a nuclear power plant. However, even without human error, nuclear power is fraught with the potential for immense catastrophe. A mechanical malfunction simple or complex, an earthquake, a tornado, a tsunami, a hurricane, a flood, a terrorist attack, these and other threats can result in catastrophe. Nuclear power plants and the process of atomic fission in them are inherently dangerous—at a scale of technological disaster that is unparalleled.</p>
<p>Some 1,500 souls were lost with the Titanic. For a nuclear plant accident, it is anticipated that tens of thousands could die—and the most recent estimates by independent scientists is that a million have died as a result of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. It is expected that even more will perish as a result of the six-nuclear plant Fukushima catastrophe.</p>
<p>And it’s not a ship sinking to the bottom of the sea but a part of the Earth rendered uninhabitable for millennia—as a huge area around Chernobyl has been, and now a large area around Fukushima will be. They become “sacrifice zones.”</p>
<p>And what for? In 1912 there was no other way to cross an ocean than on a ship—there were no airplanes flying passengers from continent to continent. But now there are numerous and truly safe, clean energy technologies available that render nuclear power totally unnecessary. Thus, we can avoid sinking with the atomic Titanics which the nuclear power promoters insist we board.</p>
<p>Karl Grossman, professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College of New York, is the author of the book,&#160; <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567511252/counterpunchmaga" type="external">The Wrong Stuff: The Space’s Program’s Nuclear Threat to Our Planet</a>&#160;(Common Courage Press) and wrote and presented the TV program Nukes In Space: The Nuclearization and Weaponization of the Heavens ( <a href="http://www.envirovideo.com/" type="external">www.envirovideo.com</a>).&#160;He is a contributor to&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion</a>, forthcoming from AK Press.&#160;</p> | Nuclear Titanics | true | https://counterpunch.org/2012/04/16/nuclear-titanics/ | 2012-04-16 | 4 |
<p>On Sunday, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus spoke to NBC’s Chuck Todd and pushed back against allegations that the delegate system was somehow corrupt. The “Meet the Press” host opened the segment by calling Priebus’ attention to Donald Trump’s’ recent claims that the entire delegate allocation system was “stacked against” him and “rigged.” “How do you tell Republican voters you are running a fair process when the front-runner is calling what you are doing ‘rigged,’” Todd asked Priebus.</p>
<p>Visibly agitated, the RNC chair stated that Trump’s “hyperbole” is nothing more than “rhetoric.” “These are the same rules that have been in place basically for over a century,” asserted Priebus. Indeed, the delegate system is the same system that chose Abraham Lincoln as the Republican nominee in 1860.</p>
<p />
<p>Undermining the false narrative that Trump was somehow blind-sided, Priebus continued, “All of these states submitted their delegate allocation plans by October 1st of 2015.”</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Trump’s pitchfork populism doesn’t leave room for nuance. At a campaign rally on Saturday, the real estate mogul doubled down on his conspiracy theories, accusing his own party of foul play. "It's a whole phony deal, just like what's happening with the Republican Party in terms of this delegate deal," Trump <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/trump-threatens-rough-july-if-rnc-doesn-t-straighten-out-n557096" type="external">told</a> his supporters. At one point, the billionaire businessman even threatened the party if it didn’t “straighten out,” declaring:</p>
<p>I'll tell you what, you're gonna have a rough July at that convention.</p>
<p>You better get going, and you better straighten out the system because the people want their vote, the people want to vote and they want to be represented properly.</p>
<p>“The threat comes a month after Trump told CNN that he thought there could be 'riots' at the GOP convention in Cleveland should the establishment push for a brokered convention,” <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/trump-threatens-rough-july-if-rnc-doesn-t-straighten-out-n557096" type="external">adds</a> NBC. In early April, longtime Trump ally Roger Stone issued a more disturbing threat. "We’re going to have protests, demonstrations. We will disclose the hotels and the room numbers of those delegates who are directly involved in the steal," Stone told <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzZgoTOb2Gg" type="external">Freedomain Radio</a>'s Stefan Molyneux.</p>
<p>In response, Priebus issued a call for calm on Sunday’s Meet the Press. “There’s no room for threatening the delegates or convention or anybody that would be going to the national convention,” he stated. However, the RNC chair made sure not to sound alarmist, adding that “some of” Trump’s bellicose pronouncements are nothing more than “rhetoric and hyperbole.”</p>
<p>Dissolving the illusion that the delegate system was "undemocratic," Priebus proceeded to explain how state conventions actually work:</p>
<p>These conventions that people talk about...</p>
<p>Number one, it’s not common, but a few states out West use a convention system where delegates start competing at the county level a month ago, and they go through the county, the precinct, the congressional district, and the state convention. The candidates participate the whole way through. No one was complaining except for when it was all over.</p>
<p>Priebus continued: “The truth is, the delegates themselves are the ones that write the rules to the convention. The RNC doesn’t write any rules.” The RNC only has an “administrative role” at the convention, he added.</p>
<p>Todd, however, pressed Priebus again. “Who’s picking the nominee: the voters of the delegates?” he asked. The RNC chair’s explanation contained a little bit of nuance, again something that the cult of Trump is conditioned to shun. Here was Priebus’ answer:</p>
<p>It’s a combination.</p>
<p>Voters empower the delegates, but ultimately the delegates who in most cases are bound by the outcomes of caucuses and primaries and conventions make the decisions at the conventions.</p>
<p>As Priebus mentioned, the system is similar to the electoral college used to elect the president of the United States. In case that wasn’t clear, here is a detailed <a href="http://www.cfr.org/elections/us-presidential-nominating-process/p37522" type="external">explanation</a> of the controversial "unpledged delegates" (delegates not directly elected by popular vote) provided by the Council on Foreign Relations:</p>
<p>Each party also reserves a certain number of delegate slots for its high-ranking officials, who generally are not bound (or are “unpledged”) to a specific candidate heading into the national convention (unlike pledged delegates). On the Republican side, these include the three members of each state’s national committee, representing less than 7 percent of party’s total delegates in 2016. (The Republican Party has <a href="https://www.gop.com/rnc-issues-the-call-of-the-2016-republican-national-convention/" type="external">instructed</a> state delegations to bind RNC members based on voting results.)</p>
<p>If the real estate magnate cannot wrap his “genius” mind around the nuance of delegate allocation, then he’s in for an uphill battle when the general election rolls around. Or perhaps it's just selective blindness. When Trump won all of Florida's delegates after receiving just over 40% of the total vote, he was more than happy to embrace the state's delegate allocation process. Here, Trump benefited from the so-called "rules," rules that sanctioned all-or-nothing delegate allocation rather than proportional representation. He was more than happy to keep his mouth shut then. Now that it's working against him he has launched a full-blown temper tantrum. Or, as some call it, "Trumptantrum."</p>
<p>To Trump’s chagrin, he must acquire a majority, not a plurality, of delegates to win the Republican nomination. Those are the rules, plain and simple. If he doesn’t like it, he’s more than welcome to opt out of the party system and run as an independent. The fact that Trump had complete access to these rules and refused to pay attention to them until after the results of the Wyoming and Colorado conventions were released doesn’t bode well for a man looking to negotiate the bestest deals in the world.</p>
<p>By opposing the entire delegate system carte blanche, Trump is acting like an unprepared and incompetent student whining to the professor after failing an exam. Perhaps you should have studied and read something other than “The Art of the Deal” before running for the highest office in the land, Donald.</p> | RNC Chair Defends Centuries-Old Delegate System Following Trump Temper Tantrum | true | https://dailywire.com/news/5018/rnc-chair-defends-centuries-old-delegate-system-joshua-yasmeh | 2016-04-17 | 0 |
<p><a href="//videos/37/64398" type="external" /></p>
<p>RUSH: The CEO of Gallup — I’ve always thought Gallup was part of the State-Run Media. I always thought of Gallup as almost, not quite, but the official pollster of the Obama Regime.</p>
<p>The CEO, Jim Clifton has a piece: “The Big Lie: 5.6% Unemployment — Here’s something that many Americans — including some of the smartest and most educated among us — don’t know: The official unemployment rate, as reported by the U.S. Department of Labor, is extremely misleading.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/181469/big-lie-unemployment.aspx" type="external" />“Right now, we’re hearing much celebrating from the media, the White House and Wall Street about how unemployment is ‘down’ to 5.6%. The cheerleading for this number is deafening. The media loves a comeback story, the White House wants to score political points and Wall Street would like you to stay in the market. None of them will tell you this: If you, a family member or anyone is unemployed and has subsequently given up on finding a job — if you are so hopelessly out of work that you’ve stopped looking over the past four weeks — the Department of Labor doesn’t count you as unemployed. That’s right.”</p>
<p>This guy is telling us something — this is striking — you as members of the audience of this program have known for 15 years what the U-6 and the U-3 unemployment numbers are. The U-3 number is what’s reported. And what he’s talking about, the U-6 number, does count people who’ve given up and are no longer working. The number that’s released, this 5.6% number, does not count the millions of people who were unable to find a job in four years and have given up looking. This guy thinks he is issuing breaking news. And, sadly, to a bunch of low-information voters, he is.</p>
<p>So when he says the big lie, 5.6 unemployment, all he’s talking about is the U-6 versus the U-3 number. These are categories, capital U, letter U, 3, it’s just a category, U-6 is another one. But the unemployment number every month that’s reported is U-3. They do not count, as unemployed, people no longer looking. The U-6 number is the real — and that’s up at around 12% right now. And his point, that’s the big lie. The big lie is that real unemployment is closer to 12% than 5.6. Now, you in this audience have known this, for, gosh, how many years? The CEO of Gallup decides to publish it today as though it’s breaking news. And I’m sure to some people it is, sadly.</p> | Gallup CEO Just Discovered What We’ve Known for Years About the Obama Unemployment Number | true | http://rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2015/02/03/gallup_ceo_just_discovered_what_we_ve_known_for_years_about_the_obama_unemployment_number | 2015-02-03 | 0 |
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<p>The storm, which slammed into the Gulf Coast in Texas and Louisiana late last month, lowered industrial production by about 0.75 percentage point, the Federal Reserve said Friday. That suggests production would have slipped without the hurricane.</p>
<p>The Gulf Coast is home to many of the nation’s oil refiners, and petroleum is a key component in the manufacturing of plastics and chemicals.</p>
<p>Manufacturing has picked up since last summer as the dollar has fallen in value, which makes U.S. goods cheaper overseas, boosting exports. Manufacturing production fell 0.3 percent last month, though the Fed said that without the hurricane, it would have increased roughly 0.5 percent.</p>
<p>And a survey of manufacturing firms that preceded Harvey found that factory activity rose to a six-year high in August.</p>
<p>Still, the report illustrates how Harvey has disrupted the wider U.S. economy. Jennifer Lee, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets, said the data included signs of weakness, even excluding the impact of Harvey.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“The August decline was widespread, with only the auto industry surprisingly gaining in the month,” she said.</p>
<p>Lee cut her estimate for third-quarter growth to 2 percent at an annual rate, from an earlier forecast of 2.4 percent. A drop in retail spending last month was also a factor. But she also expects growth to rebound in the fourth quarter as rebuilding from Harvey and Irma gets underway.</p>
<p>Industrial production includes mining and utilities as well as manufacturing. Utility output tumbled 5.5 percent as milder temperatures on the East Coast reduced air conditioning use.</p>
<p>And mining production fell 0.8 percent last month as Harvey temporarily shut down the drilling of oil and natural gas and refining operations.</p> | Harvey sends US industrial production down most in 8 years | false | https://abqjournal.com/1064146/harvey-sends-us-industrial-production-down-most-in-8-years.html | 2017-09-15 | 2 |
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<p><a href="" type="internal">Motorola</a> Mobility Inc. revealed the forthcoming Droid 4 at the 2012 <a href="" type="internal">Consumer Electronics</a> Show (CES), being held at Las Vegas, NV. The device is expected to be launched in association with <a href="" type="internal">Verizon Wireless</a>. The very thin device is expected to be one of the most powerful 4G LTE QWERTY smartphones available.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The phone is surprisingly slim - it is just 0.5 inches thick - but packs a dual-core 1.2 GHz processor with 1GB of RAM. The device also sports a five-row QWERTY keyboard with a PC-like layout and edge-lit keys for fast, precise typing, to help in the dark. Additionally, the phone is touted as being business-ready and features government-grade encryption, to keep data secure.</p>
<p>It also features a software tool - MotoCast - for remote access to music, pictures and videos on home or work computers, Smart Actions applications to automate everyday tasks and a new WebTop application for a multi-window environment with full Firefox browser on a larger screen to boost productivity. Finally, an 8 megapixel camera with 1080p HD video capture and Mirror Mode to display images and video on an HDTV has also been provided.</p>
<p>The 4.0-inch qHD display-based device is powered by Android 2.3.5 or the Gingerbread OS, which can later be upgraded to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. The 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot supports up to eight Wi-Fi-enabled devices and boasts 16GB off onboard memory that can later be extended to 32GB via s microSD card.</p>
<p>The Droid 4 is set to deliver speeds of 5 to 12 megabits per second (Mbps) and upload speeds of 2 to 5 Mbps within 4G LTE Mobile Broadband covered areas for fast Web browsing, video streaming and online collaboration. Other compatible accessories include the 10.1-inch Lapdock 100, a 14-inch Lapdock 500 Pro with a built-in webcam and Ethernet connection, a vehicle navigation mount, HD Station and HD Dock.</p>
<p>The Motorola Droid 4 has not yet been priced but is expected to hit the markets in the coming weeks, according to the company.</p> | Motorola Droid 4 LTE From Verizon: What to Expect | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2012/01/10/motorola-droid-4-lte-from-verizon-what-to-expect.html | 2016-03-03 | 0 |
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<p>To hate and fear,</p>
<p>You’ve got to be taught from year to year,</p>
<p>It’s got to be drummed</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>In your dear little ear</p>
<p>You’ve got to be carefully taught.”</p>
<p>We used this song from the musical South Pacific as the basis for a column several years ago when we thought the divisions in this country were about as bad as they could get. The song is right, but we were wrong. The divisions and hatred in this country have gotten worse, much worse.</p>
<p>Thank God for the eclipse this week, because it gave the news folks something else to talk about for a few days. We got a break from the constant barrage of who is the worst politician and which group of people is evil or at least borderline evil.</p>
<p>Somehow the re-appearance of the white supremacists recently took it all to a new level. They, and their beliefs, are so far removed from us and the people we know that it’s difficult to believe there really are people that blind and that prejudiced. Where do those people come from, and whom do they hang out with? We don’t know anyone like that. How did it happen that some people, hopefully not too many, have not an ounce of respect for others? If they find it so easy to judge, think of all the other groups they might call out. It makes one shudder – and cry a few tears.</p>
<p>Today, there is too much dividing people into groups – and then putting labels on those groups. For example, if you’re a minority, you must be a Democrat. If you’re a conservative, you must be a racist. If you’re gay, you must be liberal. If you’re pro-Second Amendment, you must not care about gun violence. If you’re anti-abortion, you don’t care about women. We know those labels are often wrong, but to those who have been labeled, it’s easy to look around and wonder who assumes all the labels are true.</p>
<p>Back to the song: “You have to be carefully taught.” We’re still teaching people to hate; we’re just doing it with labels today, labels that aren’t as obvious as using the color of someone’s skin, but aren’t any more just.</p>
<p>We know it’s effective; we know it stifles discussion. We also believe it increases hate and intolerance. It makes it harder to have honest conversations with people with different ideas. It breaks us apart, doesn’t bring us together.</p>
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<p>We’re segregating ourselves into groups of like-minded people, because we’re cautious and afraid of the labels – at the very time when we should be expanding our horizons, broadening our friendships, judging people “by the content of their character,” not the label that has been attached to them. We’re almost living through a reverse of what the Civil Rights movement was all about. We’re segregating, not integrating. How sad for us and our country.</p>
<p>We must talk. We must try to understand others, not leave them alone because the labels say they’re on the other side. We won’t get anywhere without honest dialogue between live people. Our strength comes from all sides standing up against white supremacists. Our strength comes from working together to solve problems, not waiting for politicians to do it.</p>
<p>Let’s break the cycle of teaching the hate behind the labels.</p>
<p>Contact the Ryans at <a href="" type="internal">[email protected]</a>.</p>
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<p /> | Let’s break the cycle of division and hatred | false | https://abqjournal.com/1053736/lets-break-the-cycle-of-division-and-hatred.html | 2 |
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<p>U.S. factories are hiring again, and Democratic President Barack Obama and some of his Republican rivals are pitching tax breaks to fuel a rebound in manufacturing and help rebuild a battered middle class.</p>
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<p>A focus on manufacturing may be good politics, as Rust Belt states like Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania are likely to be hotly contested in the November 6 election.</p>
<p>But is it good policy?</p>
<p>Economists on the left and the right say promises to bring back factory work may yield more votes than jobs.</p>
<p>Industry experts say the United States is long past the days when steel mills, auto plants and machine shops boosted millions of unskilled Americans into the middle class.</p>
<p>"The days where you could get a job right out of high school, step on a (factory) line and make 35,000 dollars a year, 40,000 dollars a year, are pretty much not out there anymore," said Rich Peterson, a vice president at Astro Manufacturing and Design here in suburban Cleveland.</p>
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<p>Astro, which makes products ranging from torpedo fins to medical scanner beds, is a good example of the new face of U.S. manufacturing. The company is hiring, but it needs workers with advanced mathematics and computer-programming skills.</p>
<p>Decades of productivity enhancements mean that factories have little need for unskilled workers. Though the sector added 237,000 jobs last year, the Labor Department projects employment will shrink by 2020.</p>
<p>Service-sector employers, by contrast, will add 18 million jobs by then.</p>
<p>Economists say the middle class would benefit more from efforts to boost the economy as a whole, rather than a particular sector such as manufacturing.</p>
<p>Still, that hasn't stopped some candidates from suggesting that a resurgence of factory work would revive the fortunes of blue-collar workers who have seen their prospects dwindle as low-skilled manufacturing jobs have left for <a href="http://www.reuters.com/places/china" type="external">China Opens a New Window.</a> or Mexico.</p>
<p>Obama, backed by labor unions that play a large role in the manufacturing sector, has made the government bailout of the auto industry a centerpiece of his re-election campaign. He has called for tax breaks and other policies aimed at re-opening shuttered factories and bringing jobs back from overseas.</p>
<p>Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, a former senator from Pennsylvania, says manufacturers would create more jobs if their corporate taxes were eliminated entirely.</p>
<p>Like the auto industry's resurgence, such proposals may strike an emotional chord with recession-weary voters who have suffered through two financial bubbles in the last 12 years.</p>
<p>But they would not be an effective way to rebuild the middle class, tax experts say.</p>
<p>"Manufacturing is something that's tangible and is easily seen by the voter," said Will McBride, an economist with the business-friendly Tax Foundation. "That's what's going on here - it's not based on any sort of economic reasoning."</p>
<p>Joseph Rosenberg of the non-partisan Tax Policy Center agreed.</p>
<p>"There's a political aspect" to the manufacturing proposals, he said. "It sounds good, it has sort of a patriotic feeling to it."</p>
<p>A DEAD-END CAREER CHOICE?</p>
<p>Obama and Santorum would find a lot to like at Astro, which employs about 280 people.</p>
<p>Machinists use three-dimensional modeling software to program $700,000 lathes that can be set up to run overnight unattended. The finished product is accurate to within 1/1000th of an inch.</p>
<p>Workers with such skills can command up to $30 an hour, and the company can't find enough of them as it gears up to double its sales over a five-year period. Astro is working with a local community college to develop new talent and reverse widespread perceptions that manufacturing is a dead-end career choice.</p>
<p>"People have been steered away from it, especially young kids," said Mike Franks, a production manager.</p>
<p>Cleveland, a city long synonymous with Rust Belt decline, now has an unemployment rate of 6.9%, well below the national average of 8.3%.</p>
<p>Medical research, not steel, now drives the local economy. Astro is working with the Cleveland Clinic, a leading education and research hospital, to developing surgical tools that are customized for each patient.</p>
<p>Obama has touted the U.S. auto industry's resurgence since his administration led bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler in 2009 and highlighted incentives that encourage manufacturers to buy new equipment.</p>
<p>In his State of the Union speech last month, Obama proposed expanding a tax break for domestic manufacturing, rescinding tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas, boosting efforts to fight unfair trade practices and increased vocational training.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, he called for lowering the corporate tax rate for manufacturers to 25 percent, below the 28 percent rate he proposed other companies would pay.</p>
<p>Santorum has called for eliminating the corporate income tax for manufacturers entirely and expanding other tax breaks as a way to create stable jobs for workers without a college education.</p>
<p>Santorum's Republican presidential rival, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, has promised to aggressively challenge China on trade practices he calls unfair and to push that country to increase the value of its currency, a move that would help U.S. manufacturers by effectively raising the cost of Chinese exports.</p>
<p>Romney has stood by his opposition to the U.S. auto bailout, which could complicate his prospects in states such as Ohio and Michigan that are tied closely to the industry. Michigan holds its Republican presidential primary on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Many economists say that tax breaks focused on manufacturing would likely be exploited by other businesses as well. An existing tax break for domestic manufacturing is now claimed by nearly every other business sector, according to Internal Revenue Service data.</p>
<p>"Every barbershop is now going to claim that they manufacture haircuts," said Jared Bernstein, a former economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden who thinks the government would do better to help commercialize academic research and aid emerging sectors such as clean energy.</p>
<p>Others question whether manufacturers should get any special treatment at all.</p>
<p>Christina Romer, Obama's former top economic adviser, argued in a February 4 New York Times opinion piece that the government would do better to boost the economy as a whole through tax cuts and aid to troubled state governments. Increased construction spending would do more to create good jobs for low-skilled workers, she said.</p>
<p>Voters are open to government help for manufacturing, partly out of concern that low-wage service industry jobs will be all that is left for unskilled workers if manufacturing fades further.</p>
<p>Some 69 percent of likely voters surveyed by the Alliance for American Manufacturing in June 2011 said government should take steps to boost manufacturing, while only 23 percent said the government should not interfere in the economy.</p>
<p>Manufacturing was viewed as more important to the economy than healthcare, high tech and other sectors.</p>
<p>White working-class voters aren't a crucial voting bloc for Obama, whose 2008 victory was powered by a coalition of minority and college-educated voters.</p>
<p>But he will have to limit his losses among blue-collar voters to stay in the White House, according to Ruy Teixeira and John Halpin of the liberal Center for American Progress.</p>
<p>Democrats generally fare better among the white working class in the industrial Midwest than they do elsewhere. Obama lost this group by 2 percentage points in this region in 2008, compared with an 18 percentage-point deficit nationwide.</p>
<p>Voters in Ohio are likely to view any plans to revive manufacturing with skepticism, said Ohio State University political science professor Paul Beck.</p>
<p>"They've seen these promises before," Beck said. "Politicians have come and talked to them, Democrats and Republicans, about how they're going to do something to improve the job climate. It really doesn't get better over time."</p> | Plans for U.S. Manufacturing May Yield More Votes than Jobs | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2012/02/27/plans-for-us-manufacturing-may-yield-more-votes-than-jobs2.html | 2016-03-03 | 0 |
<p>LHASA , Tibet — Shock would be a natural response for anyone returning to Lhasa after two years. Approaching in late afternoon — when the sun spreads gold over the city and the wind sweeps out the midday heat — the urban sprawl on the west side of town is staggering.</p>
<p>Next come the billboards advertising Japanese and American luxury vehicles. Six-lane highways, flyovers near the new railway station, and a futuristic bridge lead to the new Special Economic Zone in Lhasa, feeding it so that it grows and sells like Shenzhen, where the first Special Economic Zone burst onto the Chinese capitalist scene in the early 1980s.</p>
<p>Amid this new Lhasa, old women struggle to cross roads that run through what used to be their barley fields. But finally, upon arrival at the true heart of Lhasa, between the Potala Palace and the Jokhang Temple, within the Lingkor Road and near to the Barkor Market, it hurts to look.</p>
<p>Armed military details are stationed at every street corner 24/7, six-troop patrols march up and down the lanes of the old town in synchronized step, and watchmen stand sentry on rooftops adjacent to all sensitive zones like the Ramoche and Jokhang temples, two of the most sacred sites in Lhasa as well as the focal points for past protests.</p>
<p>Saddest of all are the beggars — men, women and children — who populate the streets in unprecedented numbers. Word is that the authorities banned all begging in Lhasa last summer, worried that hordes of travelers arriving from the Olympic Games would be put off by their numbers.</p>
<p>The travelers never came, the gates were finally opened, and the beggars returned in a flood. In Tibet, begging isn’t stigmatized as it is in the West. The Buddha was himself a beggar. If you can make a better living by pan-handling than farming then, well, why not do it?</p>
<p>Nevertheless, and despite rationalization, it is disturbing to confront such untold numbers resorting to a livelihood by desperation.</p>
<p>Over a few days I was able to spend in Lhasa, visiting the holy sites, meeting old and new friends, and walking about town, I realized that Tibet had changed more between 2007 and 2009 than it had in the preceeding eight years. A mere decade of exposure is certainly limited, but this has been a decade unlike many others: Some of the most significant events in Tibet history have occurred in the past few years.</p>
<p>Economic and social developments in Tibet have created a volatile situation that radiates from Lhasa across the country. Two in particular have had the greatest impact: first, railroad and highway construction, and its resulting rapid transfer of people and material goods to and from mainland China, and between the plateau and the Indian subcontinent; second, the commercialization of a "mystical Tibet" to both the Chinese and Western consumer. These developments gather steam by the day.</p>
<p>This report comes from a journalist in our Student Correspondent Corps, a GlobalPost project training the next generation of foreign correspondents while they study abroad. Next:&#160;"Part 2: From road and rail, to market and war."</p> | Tibet's sunset, China's sunrise | false | https://pri.org/stories/2009-09-25/tibets-sunset-chinas-sunrise | 2009-09-25 | 3 |
<p>Entertainment retailer Blockbuster UK will shut 129 of its 528 stores and make 760 out of its 4,190 employees redundant, the firm's administrators said on Saturday in the latest bad news for Britain's gloomy high streets.</p>
<p>Blockbuster, which is owned by U.S. satellite TV company Dish Network , went into administration on Wednesday, days after music and DVD retailer HMV did the same.</p>
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<p>"Having reviewed the portfolio with management, the store closure plan is an inevitable consequence of having to restructure the company to a profitable core which is capable of being sold," Blockbuster administrator Lee Manning of Deloitte said in a statement.</p>
<p>The 129 store closures, which will take place gradually over the coming weeks, are in addition to 31 store closures that had already been decided prior to administration, the statement said.</p>
<p>"The joint administrators continue to review the profitability of the store portfolio and announcements of further closures may be made in coming weeks," it said.</p>
<p>Blockbuster is the third casualty in the British retail sector since Christmas, after HMV and camera chain Jessops.</p>
<p>Many specialist retailers are struggling against competition from supermarkets like Tesco , online stores like Amazon and download sites like Apple's iTunes.</p>
<p>British retailers are also suffering from Britain's protracted economic troubles, with little wage growth for consumers whose budgets are being squeezed by government austerity measures.</p>
<p>(Reporting by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Susan Fenton)</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | Blockbuster UK administrators to shut 129 stores, cut 760 jobs | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2013/01/19/blockbuster-uk-administrators-to-shut-12-stores-cut-760-jobs.html | 2016-01-29 | 0 |
<p>Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro discusses a range of reasons why the Millennial generation isn't investing in real estate, and whether there's a reason to be optimistic about the future.</p>
<p>Julian Castro, secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, wants to extend the American dream to everyone by making it more affordable to own a home.</p>
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<p>In an exclusive interview with the FOX Business Network’s <a href="" type="internal">Countdown to the Closing Bell</a>, Castro said there must be a strong balance between lessons learned from the housing crisis and the ability to provide greater opportunities for responsible homeowners.</p>
<p>“We can make it more affordable but also ensure that the safeguards that have been put in place stay so that we don’t slide back to where we were ten years ago. [We need to provide] greater opportunities for folks who are responsible, who can pay on a mortgage to be able to buy a home,” Castro said.</p>
<p>The homeownership rate in the U.S. has declined to its lowest level since 1965, driven by Millennials who are burden by debt and low paying jobs. <a href="http://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/files/currenthvspress.pdf" type="external">According to second-quarter figures from the Census Bureau Opens a New Window.</a>, the U.S. homeownership rate dropped to 62.9%.</p>
<p>Despite the lackluster numbers, the HUD secretary sees an avenue of optimism for future Millennial homeowners.</p>
<p>“While it’s true that that age group is not buying a home at the same rate that they were let’s say in 2005 and 2006, it’s also true that from 2012, 2013, 2014, we have been seen an increase and we are not just sitting around. We are also trying to ensure we do our own part,” Castro told host Liz Claman.</p>
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<p>He stressed the importance of a growing economy and higher wages to sustain the housing market.</p>
<p>“Just last week, the Census Bureau reported that more folks are earning more. The benefits of this growing economy are reaching out from the middle out. They are lifting everybody up for the first time in a while; wages are growing that’s very important,” he said.</p> | HUD Secretary Julian Castro’s Plan to Make Homeownership More Affordable | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/09/30/hud-secretary-julian-castro-s-plan-to-make-homeownership-more-affordable.html | 2016-09-30 | 0 |
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<p>My airplane home from Boston is delayed for takeoff, so the woman next to me pulls out her phones to get some work done. Like many of us, she has two—an iPhone for her personal life and a BlackBerry paid for by her employer. “It’s a dog leash,” she jokes. “They yank on it and I respond. If somebody from work emails me on Friday at 10 p.m., they’re pissed if I don’t write back in five minutes.” When I ask whether she ever just turns it off, she shakes her head in annoyance, as though I’d uttered something profane. “My team leader would kill me,” she says.</p>
<p>Cultural pundits these days often bemoan how people are “addicted” to their smartphones. We’re narcissistic drones, we’re told, unable to look away from the glowing screen, desperate to remain in touch. And it’s certainly true that many of us should probably cool it with social media; nobody needs to check Twitter that often. But it’s also becoming clear that workplace demands propel a lot of that nervous phone-glancing. In fact, you could view off-hours email as one of the growing labor issues of our time.</p>
<p>Consider some recent data: A <a href="" type="internal">2012 survey by the Center for Creative Leadership</a> found that 60 percent of smartphone-using professionals kept in touch with work for a full 13.5 hours per day, and then spent another 5 hours juggling work email each weekend. That’s 72 hours a week of job-related contact. Another <a href="http://www1.good.com/about/press-releases/161009045.html" type="external">survey of 1,000 workers by Good Technology</a>, a mobile-software firm, found that 68 percent checked work email before 8 a.m., 50 percent checked it while in bed, and 38 percent “routinely” did so at the dinner table. Fully <a href="http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2013/09/connected-work.aspx" type="external">44 percent of working adults</a> surveyed by the American Psychological Association reported that they check work email daily while on vacation—about 1 in 10 checked it hourly. It only gets worse as you move up the ladder. According to the Pew Research Center, people who make more than $75,000 per year are more likely to fret that <a href="" type="internal">their phone makes it impossible for them to stop thinking about work</a>.</p>
<p>Over time, the creep of off-hours messages from our bosses and colleagues has led us to tolerate these intrusions as an inevitable part of the job, which is why it’s so startling when an employer is actually straightforward with his lunatic demands, as with <a href="http://abovethelaw.com/2009/10/quinn-emanuel-believes-in-c-b-a-check-blackberry-always/" type="external">the notorious email</a> a Quinn Emanuel law partner sent to his underlings back in 2009: “Unless you have very good reason not to (for example when you are asleep, in court or in a tunnel), you should be checking your emails every hour.”</p>
<p>Constant access may work out great for employers, since it continues to ratchet up the pressure for turning off-the-clock, away-from-the-desk hours into just another part of the workday. But any corresponding economic gains likely aren’t being passed on to workers: During the great internet-age boom in productivity, which is up 23 percent since 2000, the inflation-adjusted wages and benefits for college graduates climbed just 4 percent, according to the Economic Policy Institute.</p>
<p>The smartphonification of work isn’t all bad, of course. Now, we tell ourselves, we can dart off to a dental appointment or a child’s soccer game during office hours without wrecking the day’s work. Yet this freedom may be just an illusion; the Center for Creative Leadership found that just as many employees without a smartphone <a href="http://www.ccl.org/leadership/pdf/research/AlwaysOn.pdf" type="external">attended to “personal tasks” during workday hours</a> as those who did possess one. Even if you grant the convenience argument, the digital tether takes a psychic and emotional toll. There’s a Heisenbergian uncertainty to one’s putative off-hours, a nagging sense that you can never quite be present in the here and now, because hey, work might intrude at any moment. You’re not officially working, yet you remain entangled—never quite able to relax and detach. &#160;</p>
<p>If you think you’re distracted now, just wait. By 2015, according to the <a href="" type="internal">Radicati Group</a>, a market research firm, we’ll be receiving 22 percent more business email (excluding spam) than we did three years ago, and sending 24 percent more. The messaging habit appears to be deeply woven into corporate behavior. This late in the game, would it even be possible to sever our electronic leash—and if so, would it help?</p>
<p>The answers, research suggests, appear to be “yes” and “yes.” Indeed, in the handful of experiments where employers and employees have imposed strict limits on messaging, nearly every measure of employee life has improved—without hurting productivity at all.</p>
<p>Consider the study run by <a href="http://leslieperlow.com/book" type="external">Harvard professor Leslie Perlow</a>. A few years ago, she had been examining the workload of a team at the Boston Consulting Group. High-paid consultants are the crystal-meth tweakers of the always-on world: “My father told me that it took a wedding to actually have a conversation with me,” one of them told Perlow.</p>
<p>“You’re constantly checking your BlackBerry to see if somebody needs you. You’re home but you’re not home,” <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-lovich/" type="external">Deborah Lovich</a>, the former BCG partner who led the team, told me. And they weren’t happy about it: 51 percent of the consultants in Perlow’s study were checking their email “continuously” while on vacation.</p>
<p>Perlow suggested they carve out periods of “predictable time off”—evening and weekend periods where team members would be out of bounds. Nobody was allowed to ping them. The rule would be strictly enforced, to ensure they could actually be free of that floating “What if someone’s contacting me?” feeling.</p>
<p>The results were immediate and powerful. The employees exhibited significantly lower stress levels. Time off actually rejuvenated them: More than half said they were excited to get to work in the morning, nearly double the number who said so before the policy change. And the proportion of consultants who said they were satisfied with their jobs leaped from 49 percent to 72 percent. Most remarkably, their weekly work hours actually shrank by 11 percent—without any loss in productivity. “What happens when you constrain time?” Lovich asks. “The low-value stuff goes away,” but the crucial work still gets done.</p>
<p>The group’s clients either didn’t notice any change or reported that the consultants’ work had improved (perhaps because they weren’t dealing with twitchy freaks anymore). The “predictable time off” program worked so well that BCG has expanded it to the entire firm. “People in Brussels would go to work with a team in London that was working this way, and they came back saying, ‘We’ve got to do this,'” Lovich says.</p>
<p>For even starker proof of the value of cutting back on email, consider <a href="" type="internal">an experiment run in 2012 by Gloria Mark</a>, a pioneering expert on workplace focus. Mark, a <a href="http://www.ics.uci.edu/~gmark/Home_page/Welcome.html" type="external">professor at the University of California-Irvine</a>, had long studied the disruptive nature of messaging, and found that office workers are multitasked to death: They can only focus on a given task for three minutes before being interrupted. Granted, there isn’t any hard data on how often people were pulled away 20 or 30 years ago, but this level of distraction, she told me, simply goes too far: “You’re switching like mad.”</p>
<p>Mark decided to find out what would happen if a workplace not only decreased its email, but went entirely cold turkey. She found a group of 13 office workers and convinced their superiors to let them try it for a whole week. No digital messaging, full stop—not only during evenings and weekends, but even at their desks during the 9-to-5 hours. If they wanted to contact workmates, they’d have to use the phone or talk face to face.</p>
<p>The dramatic result? An enormously calmer, happier group of subjects. Mark put heart rate monitors on the employees while they worked, and discovered that their physical metrics of stress decreased significantly. They also reported feeling less plagued by self-interruptions—that nagging fear of missing out that makes you neurotically check your inbox every few minutes. “I was able to plan more what I was doing for a chunk of time,” one worker told her.</p>
<p>When the message flow decreased, so did the hectic multitasking efforts. Mark found that workers were flipping between windows on their screens half as often and spent twice as much time focusing on each task. Again, there was no decline in productivity. They were still getting their jobs done.</p>
<p>Mark’s and Perlow’s studies were small. But they each highlight the dirty little secret of corporate email: The majority of it may be pretty useless. Genuinely important emails can propel productive work, no doubt, but a lot of messages aren’t like that—they’re incessant check-ins asking noncrucial questions, or bulk-CCing of everybody on a team. They amount to a sort of Kabuki performance of work—one that stresses everyone out while accomplishing little. Or, as the Center for Creative Leadership grimly concludes: “The ‘always on’ expectations of professionals enable organizations to mask poor processes, indecision, dysfunctional cultures, and subpar infrastructure because they know that everyone will pick up the slack.” &#160;</p>
<p>Now, you could see these experiments as amazingly good news: It’s possible to rein in some of our counterproductive digital behavior!</p>
<p>But here’s the catch: Because it’s a labor issue, it can only be tackled at the organizational level. An individual employee can’t arbitrarily decide to reduce endless messaging; everyone has to do so together. “People are so interconnected at work, if someone tries to cut themselves off, they’re punishing themselves,” Mark notes.</p>
<p>Only a handful of enlightened firms have tackled this problem companywide. At <a href="http://bandwidth.com/about-us" type="external">Bandwidth</a>, a tech company with 300-plus employees, <a href="http://bandwidth.com/people/team-members/david-morken" type="external">CEO David Morken</a> grew tired of feeling only half-present when he was at home with his six children, so he started encouraging his staff to unplug during their leisure time and actually prohibited his vacationing employees from checking email at all—anything vital had to be referred to colleagues. Morken has had to sternly warn people who break the vacation rule; he asks his employees to narc on anyone who sends work messages to someone who’s off—as well as those who sneak a peek at their email when they are supposed to be kicking back on a beach. “You have to make it a firm, strict policy,” he says. “I had to impose it because the methlike addiction of connection is so strong.”</p>
<p>Once his people got a taste of totally disconnected off-time, however, they loved it. Morken is convinced that his policy works in the company’s self-interest: Burned-out, neurotic employees who never step away from work are neither productive nor creative. It appears everyone wins when the boss offers workers ample time to unplug—tunnel or no tunnel.</p>
<p /> | Are You Checking Work Email in Bed? At the Dinner Table? On Vacation? | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2014/04/smartphone-addiction-research-work-email/ | 2018-05-01 | 4 |
<p>Economist and New York University professor Nouriel Roubini explains that globalization, reckless lending and borrowing, and the redirection of income and wealth from industries dependent upon human labor and well-being to those composed mainly of capital, such as the global derivatives market, are undermining the social structures that capitalism relies upon to function.</p>
<p>Left alone, markets cannot be expected to serve the general good, he says, and neither can indefinite spending driven primarily by deficits. A global shift to the social sensibilities of 1930s America, when the government created a basis for production and demand by prioritizing the welfare of the average citizen through investments in skills training and social safety nets — which he and other economists call “human capital” — is needed to save societies from capitalism’s drive to consume itself and virtually everything else. –ARK</p>
<p>Nouriel Roubini at Project Syndicate:</p>
<p>To enable market-oriented economies to operate as they should and can, we need to return to the right balance between markets and provision of public goods. That means moving away from both the Anglo-Saxon model of laissez-faire and voodoo economics and the continental European model of deficit-driven welfare states. Both are broken.</p>
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<p>The right balance today requires creating jobs partly through additional fiscal stimulus aimed at productive infrastructure investment. It also requires more progressive taxation; more short-term fiscal stimulus with medium- and long-term fiscal discipline; lender-of-last-resort support by monetary authorities to prevent ruinous runs on banks; reduction of the debt burden for insolvent households and other distressed economic agents; and stricter supervision and regulation of a financial system run amok; breaking up too-big-to-fail banks and oligopolistic trusts.</p>
<p>Over time, advanced economies will need to invest in human capital, skills and social safety nets to increase productivity and enable workers to compete, be flexible and thrive in a globalized economy. The alternative is – like in the 1930s – unending stagnation, depression, currency and trade wars, capital controls, financial crisis, sovereign insolvencies, and massive social and political instability.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/roubini41/English" type="external">Read more</a></p> | Nouriel Roubini: Capitalism Must Be Saved From Itself | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/nouriel-roubini-capitalism-must-be-saved-from-itself/ | 2011-08-15 | 4 |
<p>The state is expected to pay about $100 million more in tax credits to oil and gas producers than it receives in production taxes this year amid low oil prices, Gov. Bill Walker said.</p>
<p>In an opinion piece published in Alaska newspapers Thursday, Walker said he supports the philosophy behind tax incentives, but "giving away" more in tax breaks than the state collects is irresponsible and unsustainable.</p>
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<p>Walker spokeswoman Grace Jang said the opinion piece was not a precursor to legislation. Rather, she said Walker simply was sharing facts with Alaskans as the administration learns them. Walker took office Dec. 1.</p>
<p>"The governor is not currently proposing any particular change to state law," she said by email. "We need to analyze our tax laws and determine what is working and what is not. Any proposed change will be rooted in solid analysis. We're in the analysis phase right now."</p>
<p>According to the state Revenue Department, oil and gas production taxes yielded $2.6 billion for the state in 2014. Those taxes are estimated to total $524 million this fiscal year because of much lower oil prices and about $308 million in 2016.</p>
<p>With credits factored in for next year, Walker said the situation is expected to worsen, "with the state netting negative $400 million on what has traditionally been our biggest source of unrestricted revenue."</p>
<p>"I have learned these bitter facts over the past few weeks, and I feel obliged to tell Alaskans the hard truth," Walker wrote. "As for how we got here, it appears to be a combination of tax breaks and credits, and a tax structure that magnifies the state's losses at low oil prices. The last oil tax rewrite occurred during a period of sustained high oil prices, and there was little consideration given to the low-price scenario."</p>
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<p>Alaska voters in August upheld the tax rewrite, championed by then-Gov. Sean Parnell and passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature in 2013. Walker supported the failed attempt to repeal the tax rewrite.</p>
<p>In September, he said he did not intend to introduce legislation to change the oil tax if elected but said if the Legislature proposed changes, he would consider them.</p>
<p>North Slope oil prices have fallen from the mid- to high-$90 range in September to about $50 this week.</p> | Gov. Walker: Alaska will pay more in credits than it receives in oil taxes this year | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2015/01/08/gov-walker-alaska-will-pay-more-in-credits-than-it-receives-in-oil-taxes-this.html | 2016-03-09 | 0 |
<p>Did you know GM sells more cars in China than the U.S.?</p>
<p>In March, GM sold 230,048 vehicles in China and 188,011 in the U.S. The U.S. auto giant is on pace to sell more than 2 million vehicles in China this year and 3 million by 2015.</p>
<p>“Overall auto sales in China rose 56% in March from a year earlier to a monthly record of 1.74 million units,” reported the Wall Street Journal last week. Total Chinese vehicle sales may hit 17 million this year, more than the biggest year ever in the U.S.. (China surpassed the U.S. in auto sales last year but it was largely because of a massive downturn in the American market.)</p>
<p>Today a Beijing tourist is more likely to encounter a traffic jam than see the Forbidden City. In 2009 auto companies sold 13.6 million vehicles in China, thirteen times the total number of cars in circulation in 1990.</p>
<p>Thirty years ago the Chinese Communist Party began to reform the country’s state dominated economy. State assets were sold, social entitlements cut, and consumerism unleashed. Capitalism was the new ideology. A decade on the government discovered that this required an automotive sector centered around the personal car.</p>
<p>The Chinese government understands, in the words of the Economist, that “the car industry more or less invented modern industrial capitalism.” Which is why, according to the Financial Times; “China’s car-centred model of development has been a mainstay of economic growth in recent years…the spin-off benefits from burgeoning car sales have been enormous. Each car requires several thousand parts, hundreds – if not thousands – of suppliers, roads, car parks, driving schools, petrol stations and other service industries.”</p>
<p>For the past 75 years the automobile has been the number one source of capitalist profit. An industry with a voracious and varied appetite, automakers are among the leading consumers of copper, aluminum, plastics, iron, lead, rubber, textiles, vinyl, computer chips and steel. 9 of the world’s 10 biggest corporations in 2007 were car and oil companies (Walmart, the largest, is highly dependent on the private automobile).</p>
<p>The Communist Party has worked vigorously for China to join this capitalist heaven. In 1994, the auto industry was named one of five “pillar industries” by the government. “The Chinese government wants to emulate America’s rise to industrial glory by making the car industry a pillar of economic growth,” noted the Economist.</p>
<p>To prop up this pillar, state banks have invested billions of dollars in car manufacturing. There are now automotive factories in almost all of China’s 31 provinces and last September, Wang Chuanfu, a “carmaker” became China’s richest man.</p>
<p>An indirect subsidy to the auto industry, 100s of billions of dollars in public money has been pumped into road construction. “Since the 1990s,” reported the Economist, “China has built an expressway network crisscrossing the country that is second only to America’s interstate highway system in length.” Between 1998 and 2008 30,000 miles of expressway were built.</p>
<p>Cars are literally shaping the physical lansdscape. Historic neighbourhoods have been torn to the ground to build new roads. A forest of roadside billboards have sprung up and the sprawling outskirts of major cities have undergone complete makeovers as big box retailers such as Wal-Mart move in.</p>
<p>By 2018 5 million people are expected to move to Shanghai’s suburbs. A source of inspiration for this suburban shift is one of the world’s most sprawling cities. In early 2008 a delegation of Chinese government officials, architects and bankers toured the outskirts of Phoenix. USA Today reported, “Members of the group studied the streetscape, the golf course, the spa, the cyber cafe, the healthcare amenities and the design of the single family homes at Sun City Festival, a 3000 acre, planned community for people over 55.”</p>
<p>In a country that has two hundred million bicycles, cities such as Shanghai have banned them from many streets. The Washington Post explained in December: “Major streets boasted wide bike lanes, sidewalks carried ample parking space for bikes and bikes usually had the right of way at intersections [in China]. But lately, public space for bicycles has been shrinking under the tyranny of the car.”</p>
<p>Cars need a highly controlled environment where everyone follows their rules. To enforce these rules, especially when the car is new, it takes repression. “Traffic police,” reported Shanghai Daily, “want to publicly shame jaywalkers and cyclists who violate traffic rules by displaying photographs and videos of their offences in newspapers and on TV.” (Early in U.S. automotive history 6 and 7 year olds were arrested for continuing to play on New York’s streets.)</p>
<p>Those lucky enough to escape public shame may not be so lucky when riding their bikes, walking or taking public transit – still the most popular modes of transportation. China has the highest number of crash deaths of any country, with 100,000 people dying annually in recent years. And the victims are often non-car users, which has stoked rising bitterness over the growing class divide in Chinese society where a minority of the population has accrued the benefits from the shift towards capitalism. A manifestation of this class divide is the rising dominance of the car at the expense of other transportation methods. For non-car drivers –the 500 million who get by with less than two dollars a day, among others – transportation is becoming more dangerous and as cars congest routes, more time consuming.</p>
<p>Cars have not only affected the domestic landscape they are changing China’s role in the world. Increased resource requirements have led Chinese companies to scour the globe for commodities, no matter the ecological costs. Two weeks ago, for instance, a Chinese company bought a $4.6 billion stake in Alberta’s Tar Sands, which is among the world’s dirtiest sources of oil.</p>
<p>Until the mid-1990s China was oil self-sufficient, a position that has changed dramatically. China is now the number two consumer of oil worldwide and the country has been responsible for a great deal of the world’s total oil growth in recent years. With less than two percent of the world’s oil reserves, most of its growing needs will be imported.</p>
<p>The Communist Party is increasingly concerned over the security of the country’s oil supply, as demonstrated by this week’s $20 billion oil agreement with Venezuela and the launch of the National Strategic Oil Reserves Office. China is in fact correct to be worried about its oil supply. Some say the invasion of Iraq was meant to enhance U.S control over the Middle East’s black gold in light of a rapidly expanding Chinese appetite. Elsewhere, reports the Washington Post, “The United States is building a network of military bases and diplomatic missions whose main goal is to protect American access to oil fields in volatile places such as Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and tiny Sao Tome and, as important, to deny that access to China.”</p>
<p>Fifteen years ago automobiles in China guzzled about 10 percent of the country’s much smaller total oil usage. Today cars and light trucks consume about forty percent of all China’s oil. So long as the country continues along the North American ‘development’ path, there’s no reason to believe that cars won’t someday consume half of the country’s oil. The ecological consequences will become increasingly severe.</p>
<p>The further into the future we peer, the more frightening the implications become. North America has already proved that a car culture severely damages the environment. Cars leak lead battery acid, brake fuel and anti-freeze, all of which seep into the earth. Brake pads house asbestos and air conditioners exhale ozone-depleting coolants. The rubber from tires takes centuries to decompose and entire eco-systems have been exterminated by expanding auto infrastructure. Cars also emit large amounts of CO2. As Jane Kay Holtz put it so aptly in Asphalt Nation, “the automobile’s abuse overruns our capacity to record it.”</p>
<p>It is crucial to consider the direction of the recent surge in automobility. Currently, China has some 40 vehicles per thousand residents, while Western Europe has about 590, and the US 950. With a population of roughly a billion more people than that of the U.S., China clearly has the potential to absorb many more cars.</p>
<p>Chinese environmentalist Liang Congjie does the math and describes the threat to human survival that the car now poses; “If each Chinese family has two cars like U.S. families, then the cars needed by China, something like 600 million vehicles, will exceed all the cars in the world combined. That would be the greatest disaster for mankind.” Simply put, the day their future looks like our present, we’re done for.</p>
<p>If China is following our lead, perhaps its time we get off this road to environmental ruin.</p>
<p>“Stop Signs: Cars and Capitalism on the road to Economic, Social and Environmental Decay” by BIANCA MUGYENYI and YVES ENGLER will be published in early 2011. Anyone interested in organizing a talk as part of a book tour please e-mail: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>Yves Engler is a writer, a political activist, and the former vice president of the Concordia University Student Union. He is the author of Canada in Haiti and Playing Right Wing. His most recent book is Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid. He lives in Montreal, Quebec. For more info: <a href="http://yvesengler.com/" type="external">http://yvesengler.com/</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p>
<p />
<p><a href="http://greentags.bigcartel.com/" type="external">WORDS THAT STICK</a></p>
<p /> | China and Cars | true | https://counterpunch.org/2010/04/23/china-and-cars/ | 2010-04-23 | 4 |
<p>William Martin LaFever, 28, was rescued after taking a hike in the Utah desert and getting lost for three weeks.</p>
<p>A helicopter flying over the Escalante River gorge spotted LaFever, who had lost 50 pounds while in the desert on his way from Boulder, Utah to Page, Arizona, <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2012/07/13/us/utah-desert-rescue/index.html?hpt=hp_t3" type="external">according to CNN</a>. The autistic man had been eating frogs and roots in an attempt to stay alive.</p>
<p>"We came around the corner and we were pretty amazed to see him alive and sitting up," Shane Oldfield, a Utah Highway Patrol helicopter pilot assisting the Garfield County Sheriff's Office, told CNN.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost:&#160; <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/120622/nick-hall-mount-rainier-ranger-dead" type="external">Nick Hall, ranger at Mount Rainier National Park, dies during climber rescue</a></p>
<p>LaFever walked 40 of the 90 miles&#160;that it would have taken him to reach Page, all the while staying along the river, <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-autistic-man-utah-desert-20120713,0,3210052.story" type="external">reported the Los Angeles Times</a>.</p>
<p>"They say that those who are autistic are drawn to water," sheriff's spokeswoman Becki Bronson told the Los Angeles Times. "He stayed with a water source, that was key. A person can go three weeks without food but only a few days without water. He stayed cool in the river, and he hydrated himself."</p>
<p><a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/autistic-man-survives-week-ordeal-utah-desert-16768549#.UAHr8itYs28" type="external">According to the Associated Press</a>, LaFever's father, John, said his son made one crucial mistake when setting out on his journey: leaving without food or equipment, which was apparently stolen before his trip began.</p>
<p>"He didn't realize how arduous his journey would be," LaFever's father told the AP. "We didn't know what he was heading into, either. Thank God he's alive."</p> | Autistic hiker found after 3 weeks lost in Utah desert | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-07-14/autistic-hiker-found-after-3-weeks-lost-utah-desert | 2012-07-14 | 3 |
<p>BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) _ These North Dakota lotteries were drawn Monday:</p>
<p>2 By 2</p>
<p>Red Balls: 2-22, White Balls: 7-20</p>
<p>(Red Balls: two, twenty-two; White Balls: seven, twenty)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $22,000</p>
<p>Lucky For Life</p>
<p>01-03-15-22-28, Lucky Ball: 15</p>
<p>(one, three, fifteen, twenty-two, twenty-eight; Lucky Ball: fifteen)</p>
<p>Mega Millions</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $40 million</p>
<p>Powerball</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $40 million</p>
<p>BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) _ These North Dakota lotteries were drawn Monday:</p>
<p>2 By 2</p>
<p>Red Balls: 2-22, White Balls: 7-20</p>
<p>(Red Balls: two, twenty-two; White Balls: seven, twenty)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $22,000</p>
<p>Lucky For Life</p>
<p>01-03-15-22-28, Lucky Ball: 15</p>
<p>(one, three, fifteen, twenty-two, twenty-eight; Lucky Ball: fifteen)</p>
<p>Mega Millions</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $40 million</p>
<p>Powerball</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $40 million</p> | ND Lottery | false | https://apnews.com/8a8ac2ccbc0d4be6a2dc0d9f0e629b5c | 2018-01-09 | 2 |
<p>Sen. Blanche Lincoln helped sink the proposed Employee Free Choice Act, which would have made labor organizing much easier. Now the Democrat is headed to a primary runoff against Arkansas Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, thanks in part to a massive multimillion-dollar campaign effort by the AFL-CIO and the SEIU that paid off for the unions in Tuesday’s primary.</p>
<p>Lincoln is seeking a third term in the U.S. Senate.</p>
<p>Even if Lincoln wins the primary runoff, she faces a tough fight in the general election. The labor movement, by targeting Lincoln and other imperiled Democratic incumbents who opposed the Employee Free Choice Act and health care reform, has really been showing its teeth. — PZS</p>
<p>Washington Post:</p>
<p />
<p>Working America started eight weeks ago with six organizers. At its peak, the group sent 45 paid workers a day to knock on doors, Holmes said. In all, the group spoke to about 90,000 people in 27 towns and sent 1.75 million pieces of pro-Halter mail.</p>
<p>A pairing of the Service Employees International Union and the Communications Workers of America reached an additional 85,400 prospective voters who agreed to discuss the Senate campaign, said Jon Youngdahl, SEIU national political director.</p>
<p>SEIU, which has only 1,000 members in the state, spent more than $1.5 million, including a $1 million television buy, Youngdahl said. The national AFL-CIO spent $3 million or more on Halter’s behalf, spokesman Eddie Vale said.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/18/AR2010051805020.html" type="external">Read more</a></p> | Unions Punish Lincoln in Arkansas | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/unions-punish-lincoln-in-arkansas/ | 2010-05-19 | 4 |
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<p>Mayor Tim Keller</p>
<p>Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller told business and community leaders Wednesday that the city is facing a budget deficit as gross receipts tax revenues fail to come in at the rate projected in the spending plan approved by the City Council earlier this year.</p>
<p>Keller said the budget for the current fiscal year, which began July 1, was based on 3 percent gross receipts tax growth.</p>
<p>“We’ve had 1.7 (percent). That’s what we’re looking at,” he said in his first speech to the Albuquerque Economic Forum as mayor during a breakfast meeting at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center.</p>
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<p>Alicia Manzano, interim communications director for the Mayor’s Office, told the Journal the current revenue shortfall is $10 million. The city’s operating budget is nearly $530 million. Manzano said the new administration is watching revenues and expenditures very closely.</p>
<p>Keller said in his speech that his predecessor “did a lot for infrastructure throughout our city,” but left the budget deficit, federal funding that has yet to materialize for the Albuquerque Rapid Transit project, a lack of “working capital” to hire needed police officers, and a new fountain on Civic Plaza that leaks.</p>
<p>“The last administration had some tremendous projects,” he said “… But also like any administration … there’s some unfinished business.”</p>
<p>Keller said the city has been using vacancy savings to fund infrastructure projects.</p>
<p>“So instead of fully hiring across city government, but also in APD … we take the savings at the end of the year and we move it to a special projects fund,” Keller said. “There’s nothing wrong with that at all. It’s a financial strategy, but it has now left us in a place where our budget keeps getting smaller.”</p>
<p>He also talked about the severe officer shortage the city is facing, noting that the city has about 800 officers, nearly 400 fewer than when he was in high school about 20 years ago.</p>
<p>“When 911 wait times are 90 minutes for nonviolent crimes, we have to get more police officers,” he said. “I know they have to be quality. I know we have to find money to do that, but we have to get more police officers.”</p>
<p>The city’s current budget allocates enough money to APD for 1,000 officers, but Keller said the department has had to pay lots of overtime, which eats into the budget.</p>
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<p>“We’ve got to get more officers to fix that, but to hire more officers, we need more money,” he said. “… So we also have a working capital problem.”</p>
<p>He also told the nearly 200 who attended the breakfast meeting that he might be reaching out to them to take part in public-private partnerships, which could include things like asking for private funds to provide low-interest home loans or down payment bonuses to help recruit officers.</p>
<p>As for Albuquerque Rapid Transit, the controversial project that is transforming Central Avenue into a rapid-transit corridor with a nine-mile stretch of bus-only lanes and bus stations, Keller said it’s not fully funded. The project cost was initially pegged at $119 million but is now about $134 million.</p>
<p>The city is banking on $75 million from the Federal Transit Administration’s Capital Investment Program for the project, and the previous administration had told the council that the federal funding was on track and that the funding agreement should be in place by this past November.</p>
<p>A federal budget deal announced in May contained $50 million for the Albuquerque project, and former Mayor Richard Berry’s administration said at the time that he was expecting the rest to be awarded the next year, although it has been unclear when, exactly, the city would get the money.</p>
<p>“I’m telling you, straight up, we do not have the money from the feds,” Keller said. “It has been promised. It has been in the budget. The check has not been signed. We’re going in January to meet with them to get an update. We have to understand, as a city, to call it like it is, which is that all the homework was done. All the legwork was done, but we still need the check.”</p>
<p>The Federal Transit Administration told the Journal earlier this week that the ART project is in the Small Starts Project Development phase of the Federal Transit Administration’s Capital Investment Grants program and is undergoing internal review.</p>
<p>Keller said he has some ideas about how to pay for ART if the city is forced to cover the cost on its own, and it involves expanding ART to the airport to tap into the airport’s excess bonding capacity.</p>
<p>“I’m not really interested in the short-term notions of … expanding that on its own right; however, to pay for it we might have to drive it to the airport, but the good news actually about that is it should have gone there in the first place. And then you could take it to the Lobo games and the Isotopes games,” he said.</p>
<p>Keller also revealed that there’s a problem with the new fountain at Civic Plaza.</p>
<p>“If you drive underneath, you will see why there’s no parking underneath (in) the parking garage because the new fountain leaks,” he said. “So we’ve got some things to work on.”</p>
<p>Berry’s administration said in April that the old fountain needed to be replaced because it was leaking into the parking structure below Civic Plaza.</p>
<p>The new mayor also pledged to double down on economic development.</p>
<p>“For me, the name of the game is focus,” he said. “I want to use every economic development tool we have more, but I want to use it in a focused way to finally turn around things like the Rail Yards. To finish the rail corridor that some people I know are starting to invest in. … To finish these areas of town that need investment. We want to support all development, but if you want taxpayer money it’s got to be for a company that is scaling here, and it’s got to be for a location that has incremental economic multipliers. We’ll come up with the criteria and we’ll work with folks on this.”</p>
<p>Asked about his plans for Downtown, Keller said his administration is working on a Downtown crime program in which officers are actually in businesses, the equivalent of having mini-police stations.</p>
<p>“The other thing is the Rail Yards,” he said. “We have to finally do that, and I think the way to do it is to make it a Tax Increment District or an Enterprise Zone. So I’m going to get with the lawyers and figure out how to do that.”</p>
<p>Keller drew applause when he said the city needs to get past pointing fingers at others and instead focus on solving its problems.</p>
<p>“It would be very easy for me to stand up here and blame others also – past administrations, Santa Fe, governor, county, Rio Rancho,” he said. “I am going to try to not do that, and I am going to ask you to not do that either. We have to push past the ‘whose fault it is’ and the ‘why is there a problem’ discussion and actually get down to how we are going to address these issues head-on.”</p>
<p>He said he planned to advocate for the District Attorney’s Office, Bernalillo County and others for their needs, and he hopes they, too, will advocate for the city’s needs.</p>
<p>“I do believe we fundamentally have to come together and take responsibility for our future,” Keller said.</p>
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<p /> | Mayor says Albuquerque faces budget deficit | false | https://abqjournal.com/1106188/keller-says-albuquerque-facing-many-challenges-including-budget-deficit.html | 2017-12-13 | 2 |
<p>What, I wonder, is the point of remaking a film you’ve already made if you’re just going to make the same mistakes over again? In fact, in Just Visiting Jean-Marie Gaubert makes the same mistakes he made in Les Visiteurs (1993) only more so—perhaps because he took on John Hughes to help him tart the script up for its English-language version. Skilled as Mr. Hughes is in the very narrow area of his expertise (mainly writing Home Alone movies), he is not the man to see that what Les Visiteurs lacked was a serious sense of the difference between people in the 12th or 13th centuries and people today, let alone the man to supply it. In fact, he was just the man to focus like a laser on the unserious differences—what fun he has with the medieval visitors’ discovery of indoor plumbing!—while relegating the serious stuff to a bit of hastily made-up psychobabble.</p>
<p>However, readers in serious need of a bit of a laugh may well decide that their $8 or $9 has not been spent in vain. Jean Reno and Christian Clavier (who wrote the original screenplay with Jean-Marie Poire) reprise their original roles as Thibault, Comte de Malfete and his servant André, and if anything do an even better job of looking surprised by the technological innovations of the 20th (and, indeed, the 19th) century. Large sections of the audience will be tempted to cheer when the Count slays an automotive dragon and, in the process, puts a violent end to “The Macarena” on its sound system, or when he destroys a television set in an attempt to free from putative captivity therein the contestants on “Family Feud.” But these amusing episodes, together with the ones featuring toilets and urinals and a flaming chicken spitted on an umbrella, run out about half-way through.</p>
<p>Thereafter, we are left with a lot of cheesy special effects, supposedly a product of the potions of an English wizard played by Malcolm McDowell, to account for the time travel and the aforementioned psychobabble derived from the feminist self-esteem movement. The Count, on being translated to the year 2000, finds himself under the protection of his descendant, Julia Malfete (Christina Applegate) and her scheming boyfriend, Hunter (Matthew Ross) who calls her “Bunny” and makes her believe that she needs him to run her life for her. Of course, he is scheming with another girlfriend, Amber (Bridgette Wilson-Sampras) to rob her and then leave her. Her many times great grandfather arrives and, in the intervals of playing the buffoon with unfamiliar objects, teaches her not to be a bunny anymore, but to be a strong and independent woman. The family motto is “Courage is my creed” and “all the woman of our lineage are lionhearted” he tells her—not bunny-hearted.</p>
<p>Well, this is very nice for her, especially as it gets the loathsome Hunter out of her life, but it has the most unwelcome effect of making the Count altogether too much a modern man. Of course, one can scarcely imagine a movie on this theme which would present such a hero with the attitude to women that someone like him in real life would presumably have had. There are limits to Hollywood’s appreciation of knights in shining armor. The script makes a few gestures in the direction of moral and psychological authenticity by showing how the Count is disposed to treat his servant, André, as property. But then he manumits him at Julia’s instance to become “a free man” in the present day, roaring off to Vegas with his new gardener girlfriend (Tara Reid) while Count Thibault returns with the Wizard to his own time to marry Julia’s lookalike, also played by Miss Applegate. So that’s all right then!</p> | Just Visiting | false | https://eppc.org/publications/just-visiting/ | 1 |
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<p>In the first treatise written on the art of war sometime around 450 BC [1], Sun Tzu explained why “the wise general sees to it that his troops feed on the enemy,”</p>
<p>“Where the army is, prices are high; when prices rise the wealth of the people is exhausted. When the peasantry will be afflicted with urgent exactions.”</p>
<p>The commentator, Chia Lin elaborated on Master Sun’s words by saying,</p>
<p>“Where troops are gathered, the price of every commodity goes up because everyone covets the extraordinary profits to be made.”</p>
<p>The militarization of development aid is a central pillar of General Petaeus’s counterinsurgency strategy to buy the hearts and minds of the Afghan people, ninety per cent of whom are spread out in remote rural areas. So it should not be surprising that the military is controlling the bulk of the billions of dollars in aid money flowing into (and being smuggled out of) Afghanistan.</p>
<p>In the very important <a href="" type="internal">CounterPunch report</a> on 13 December, Patrick Cockburn, certainly one of the most informed observers of insurgencies in the Middle East and Central Asia, described how the militarization of development aid in Afghanistan is riven with corruption. Reliance on U.S. companies to manage high-cost showcase projects, for example, has produced tiered structures of subcontractors inside Afghanistan who skim off most of the aid money in administration frees, with very little reaching its intended purpose, which in any case, is usually irrelevant to the needs of impoverished locals, some of whom are living on the brink of starvation. The ubiquitous skimming operations are lubricated by the fact that many of these aid projects are in isolated areas, where progress cannot be effectively monitored for security reasons, and where the military has no idea of what the local people really need. Not surprisingly, effectiveness is measured by the time honored American political-military tradition of counting money spent — i.e., by measuring inputs rather than outputs, but this case, instead of tons of bombs dropped on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the metric is tons of money spent to buy the heart and minds of people we are killing accidentally. That these people live in a xenophobic, clan-based, vendetta culture does not seem to have affected Petraeus’s strategic calculus.</p>
<p>Cockburn goes on to explain why the aid is feeding a culture of corruption is working to alienate the people and further destabilize Afghanistan.</p>
<p>In other words, the strategic effect of development aid is to strengthen the Taliban and prolong the insurgency, which under Petraeus’s counterinsurgency doctrine, has the happy consequence of increasing the demand for aid dollars even further. The money pumping operation explains, in part, the strategically inane infatuation with never-ending small wars by the Military – Industrial – Congressional Complex, notwithstanding Sun Tzu’s admonition that, “what is essential in war is victory, not prolonged operations.” [2]</p>
<p>Thus, the American taxpayer is faced with an inwardly focused war mongering process which folds back on itself to amplify itself. In the Pentagon, we have a term of art for this kind of never-ending, self-referencing operation: the Petraeus counterinsurgency strategy is a “self-licking ice cream cone.”</p>
<p>In context of the wisdom of Master Sun introduced above, Patrick’s description of General Petraeus’s self licking ice cream cone begs the question:</p>
<p>Who is the wise general?</p>
<p>General Petraeus whose counterinsurgency strategy is based on the theory that you can buy hearts and minds by pumping money or Mullah Omar whose insurgency strategy is to feed off that money flow?</p>
<p>Given the ongoing impoverishment of the middle class at home, the ramifications of Sun Tzu’s aphoristic words also apply to President Obama. He would be well advised to ponder Sun Tzu’s question in the upcoming Defense Review. But to do that, Mr. Obama must reach out beyond the groupthink mentality [3] of the closed circle strategic advisors that is feeding him the ice cream.</p>
<p>Franklin “Chuck” Spinney&#160;is a former military analyst for the Pentagon. He currently lives on a sailboat in the Mediterranean and can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>Notes.</p>
<p>[1] Sun Tzu, The Art of War, translated by Samuel B. Griffith, Oxford University Press, 1963, p. 74.</p>
<p>[2] Griffith translation, p. 76</p>
<p>[3] Irving Janis, Groupthink: Psychological studies of policy decisions and fiascos, Houghton Mifflin, 2nd edition, 1983</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p /> | Who is the Wise General in Afghanistan? | true | https://counterpunch.org/2010/12/14/who-is-the-wise-general-in-afghanistan/ | 2010-12-14 | 4 |
<p>The tea party movement, which dominated Republican elections in 2010 and 2012 and forced Congress to move to the right policywise, has hit a rough patch.</p>
<p>House Tea Party Caucus Chairman <a href="/topics/tim-huelskamp/" type="external">Tim Huelskamp</a> lost his primary this week, meaning one of the movement’s leading voices on Capitol Hill will go silent.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, on the presidential campaign trail, Sen. Rand Paul’s presidential hopes fizzled out quickly, <a href="/topics/ted-cruz/" type="external">Sen. Ted Cruz</a> of Texas was booed off stage at the Republican National Convention and Sen. Marco Rubio is now seen by many as a member of the <a href="/topics/republican-party/" type="external">GOP</a> establishment.</p>
<p>The reversal of fortune has left tea party leaders wondering where it went downhill — and the answer they keep coming back to is <a href="/topics/donald-trump/" type="external">Donald Trump</a>.</p>
<p>“I had been predicting a tea party resurgence in 2016 because I thought the climate was right for it, but the only problem was that a guy named <a href="/topics/donald-trump/" type="external">Donald Trump</a> came along and basically co-opted the movement,” said Judson Phillips, head of Tea Party Nation.</p>
<p>While <a href="/topics/donald-trump/" type="external">Mr. Trump</a> has the anti-establishment credentials tea partyers craved, his stances — and questions over how strongly he is committed to conservative principles — have deeply divided voters.</p>
<p>Ken Crow, a tea party activist in Iowa, said the “tea party is in turmoil” over how to feel about <a href="/topics/donald-trump/" type="external">Mr. Trump</a>.</p>
<p>“The hard-core tea party wanted a strict constitutional guy like a Mike Lee or <a href="/topics/ted-cruz/" type="external">Ted Cruz</a> — someone who prays, loves the Constitution, loves guns and waives the flag,” he said. “But the more pragmatic tea partyers realized that <a href="/topics/ted-cruz/" type="external">Ted Cruz</a> could not win, so they jumped aboard the Trump train.</p>
<p>“They got their outsider, it just so happens that he is not a conventional outsider, and now they are starting to go ‘oops,’” Mr. Crow said.</p>
<p>Heading into this year’s elections, tea party types were excited about their options, with <a href="/topics/ted-cruz/" type="external">Mr. Cruz</a> and Mr. Paul vying for different factions, and Mr. Rubio offering a potential bridge between the <a href="/topics/republican-party/" type="external">tea party</a> and the establishment wing of the <a href="/topics/republican-party/" type="external">Republican Party</a>.</p>
<p>But Mr. Paul was quickly ousted from the race, Mr. Rubio dropped out after a poor showing in his home state of Florida, and <a href="/topics/ted-cruz/" type="external">Mr. Cruz</a> canceled his campaign after failing to overcome <a href="/topics/donald-trump/" type="external">Mr. Trump</a> in a one-on-one fight in Indiana in May.</p>
<p>All the while, <a href="/topics/donald-trump/" type="external">Mr. Trump</a> was gaining steam, powered by folks enraged at Washington — the same anger that drove the <a href="/topics/republican-party/" type="external">tea party</a>.</p>
<p>“The people who have gone for <a href="/topics/donald-trump/" type="external">Trump</a> are the people I like to refer to as the angry crowd,” said Mr. Phillips. “Some of these people, I don’t think they even know what they are even angry about. I think a lot of the movement conservatives, where conservatism is more than a punchline for them, have not gotten on the Trump bandwagon.”</p>
<p>At the same time <a href="/topics/donald-trump/" type="external">Mr. Trump</a> is grabbing some of its power, the <a href="/topics/republican-party/" type="external">tea party</a> is still fighting its old battle against the party establishment — and losing.</p>
<p><a href="/topics/tim-huelskamp/" type="external">Mr. Huelskamp</a>’s loss Tuesday to Roger Marshall was the latest black eye.</p>
<p>Mr. Marshall, an obstetrician-gynecologist, had the backing of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and made the case that <a href="/topics/tim-huelskamp/" type="external">Mr. Huelskamp</a>’s battles with Republican leaders had hurt the region’s agricultural industry.</p>
<p>“It is the ongoing civil war in the <a href="/topics/republican-party/" type="external">Republican Party</a> with the Chamber of Commerce wing at war with movement conservatives,” Mr. Phillips said.</p>
<p>Jenny Beth Martin, of the Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund, said the fact that the establishment took such pains to defeat <a href="/topics/tim-huelskamp/" type="external">Mr. Huelskamp</a> was, in itself, a victory for the <a href="/topics/republican-party/" type="external">tea party</a>.</p>
<p>“If the establishment were not concerned about the <a href="/topics/republican-party/" type="external">tea party</a>, they would not have spent millions of dollars working to defeat <a href="/topics/tim-huelskamp/" type="external">Tim Huelskamp</a>,” Ms. Martin said, adding that that money could have better spent defending the Senate <a href="/topics/republican-party/" type="external">GOP</a> majority or taking down liberal Democrats.</p>
<p><a href="/topics/tim-huelskamp/" type="external">Mr. Huelskamp</a> served as chairman of the House Tea Party Caucus for just over a year, after taking the reins from Rep. Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota, whose own 2012 presidential bid flamed out. She now sits on the Evangelical Executive Advisory Board for <a href="/topics/donald-trump/" type="external">Mr. Trump</a>.</p>
<p>Asked whether tea partyers are unified around <a href="/topics/donald-trump/" type="external">Mr. Trump</a>, Ms. Martin, whose group endorsed <a href="/topics/ted-cruz/" type="external">Mr. Cruz</a>, said the tea party movement is “unified on not wanting Hillary Clinton to be president.”</p>
<p>“We are united on wanting to repeal Obamacare. We are united on wanting to secure the border,” she said. “While in any movement there are going to be differences on strategy and tactics and preferences on candidates, we still are united on our end goal, and that end goal is to expand freedom in America and to get to a debt-free future.”</p>
<p>Copyright © 2018 The Washington Times, LLC. <a href="http://license.icopyright.net/3.7280?icx_id=/news/2016/aug/3/tea-party-pushed-to-the-side-by-trump-juggernaut/" type="external">Click here for reprint permission</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Trump train derails tea party movement | true | http://washingtontimes.com/news/2016/aug/3/tea-party-pushed-to-the-side-by-trump-juggernaut/ | 2016-08-03 | 0 |
<p>(Screenshot courtesy of YouTube)</p>
<p>Sarah Paulson is interested in playing Donald Trump on the election-themed seventh season of “American Horror Story.”</p>
<p>While at PaleyFest over the weekend, Paulson was asked by The Hollywood Reporter who should play the president in the upcoming season.</p>
<p>“I’d like to play Donald Trump,” Paulson told <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/american-horror-story-sarah-paulson-wants-play-trump-988910" type="external">The Hollywood Reporter.</a> “If Donald Trump is going to be in a character in it … Why not? That’s an acting challenge to be sure.”</p>
<p>“American Horror Story” creator Ryan Murphy revealed the seventh season would focus on the 2016 presidential election while on <a href="" type="internal">“Watch What Happens Live”</a>&#160;in February. He admitted there would be a “Trump character” on the show.</p>
<p>Murphy later confirmed to E! that Trump and Hillary Clinton have not yet been cast.</p>
<p>“No, not yet. We’re halfway through the writing and not yet,” Murphy told <a href="http://www.eonline.com/news/833344/hillary-clinton-and-donald-trump-will-be-portrayed-in-the-next-american-horror-story" type="external">E!.</a></p>
<p>“American Horror Story” veteran Evan Peters has also been cast for the next season.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">American Horror Story</a> <a href="" type="internal">Donald Trump</a> <a href="" type="internal">E!</a> <a href="" type="internal">Evan Peters</a> <a href="" type="internal">PaleyFest</a> <a href="" type="internal">Ryan Murphy</a> <a href="" type="internal">Sarah Paulson</a> <a href="" type="internal">the Hollywood Reporter</a></p> | Sarah Paulson wants to play Donald Trump in ‘AHS’ season seven | false | http://washingtonblade.com/2017/03/28/25084060/ | 3 |
|
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>A major review of the U.S. nuclear weapons policy has been kicked off by the Pentagon. The military announced on Monday that the review was underway, the first of its kind in seven years.</p>
<p />
<p>The nuclear posture review is expected to take six months. The review is an evaluation of both the state of the U.S. nuclear arsenals, and the threat from potential nuclear-armed adversary.</p>
<p />
<p>President Donald Trump ordered the review in a memorandum he signed shortly after taking office. The review will be headed by the deputy secretary of defense and the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs.</p>
<p />
<p>The presidential memorandum which is dated Jan. 27, revealed that the president directs the Pentagon to examine whether the U.S. nuclear deterrent is safe, secure, effective, reliable and appropriately tailored to deter 21st-century threats and reassure the U.S. allies.</p>
<p />
<p>In a statement made by Gen. John Hyten, who is the U.S. commander in charge of nuclear weapons, Hyten told Congress that the review will begin this month with a revised assessment of the dangers posed by America's nuclear rivals.</p>
<p />
<p>Hyten said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 4th that the first thing that will be assessed is the threat scenario. He also emphasized that countries such as Russia, China, North Korea and Iran in particular will be evaluated to make sure that the U.S. understands its threats.</p>
<p />
<p>The review is a major concern to Trump's administration. Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., who is also a ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee made a statement saying that he hopes this review gets it right.</p>
<p />
<p>Smith emphasized that he hopes the review will include a thorough assessment of policy options that would allow the U.S. to avoid a costly and dangerous nuclear arms race.</p>
<p>Rep. Adam Smith also called for the review to properly analyze the enormous risks inherent in lowering the threshold for using nuclear weapons. Smith pointed out that the U.S. has over 4,000 nuclear weapons, adding that it is enough destructive power in our arsenal to destroy the world several times over.</p>
<p />
<p>Smith urged the committee to rethink what the priorities should be for a strong yet affordable nuclear arsenal, instead of embarking on a trillion-dollar modernization plan that will drag the U.S. into perilous nuclear competition and drain much-needed resources from conventional weapon systems and nondefense programs.</p>
<p />
<p>SOURCE:</p>
<p />
<p><a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/pentagon-launches-major-review-of-nuclear-policy/article/2620485" type="external">http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/pentagon-launches-major-review-of-nuclear-policy/article/2620485</a></p> | Trump Will Hold His Cards To His Chest On North Korean Solution | true | http://thegoldwater.com/news/2340-Trump-Will-Hold-His-Cards-To-His-Chest-On-North-Korean-Solution | 2017-04-17 | 0 |
<p>SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Pope Francis accused victims of Chile’s most notorious pedophile of slander Thursday, an astonishing end to a visit meant to help heal the wounds of a sex abuse scandal that has cost the Catholic Church its credibility in the country.</p>
<p>Francis said that until he sees proof that Bishop Juan Barros was complicit in covering up the sex crimes of the Rev. Fernando Karadima, such accusations against Barros are “all calumny.”</p>
<p>The pope’s remarks drew shock from Chileans and immediate rebuke from victims and their advocates. They noted the accusers were deemed credible enough by the Vatican that it sentenced Karadima to a lifetime of “penance and prayer” for his crimes in 2011. A Chilean judge also found the victims to be credible, saying that while she had to drop criminal charges against Karadima because too much time had passed, proof of his crimes wasn’t lacking.</p>
<p>“As if I could have taken a selfie or a photo while Karadima abused me and others and Juan Barros stood by watching it all,” tweeted Barros’ most vocal accuser, Juan Carlos Cruz. “These people are truly crazy, and the pontiff talks about atonement to the victims. Nothing has changed, and his plea for forgiveness is empty.”</p>
<p>The Karadima scandal dominated Francis’ visit to Chile and the overall issue of sex abuse and church cover-up was likely to factor into his three-day trip to Peru that began late Thursday.</p>
<p>Karadima’s victims reported to church authorities as early as 2002 that he would kiss and fondle them in the swank Santiago parish he ran, but officials refused to believe them. Only when the victims went public with their accusations in 2010 did the Vatican launch an investigation that led to Karadima being removed from ministry.</p>
<p>The emeritus archbishop of Santiago subsequently apologized for having refused to believe the victims from the start.</p>
<p>Francis reopened the wounds of the scandal in 2015 when he named Barros, a protege of Karadima, as bishop of the southern diocese of Osorno. Karadima’s victims say Barros knew of the abuse, having seen it, but did nothing. Barros has denied the allegations.</p>
<p>His appointment outraged Chileans, badly divided the Osorno diocese and further undermined the church’s already shaky credibility in the country.</p>
<p>Francis had sought to heal the wounds by meeting this week with abuse victims and begging forgiveness for the crimes of church pastors. But on Thursday, he struck a defiant tone when asked by a Chilean journalist about Barros.</p>
<p>“The day they bring me proof against Bishop Barros, I’ll speak,” Francis said. “There is not one shred of proof against him. It’s all calumny. Is that clear?”</p>
<p>Francis had defended the appointment before, calling the Osorno controversy “stupid” and the result of a campaign mounted by leftists. But The Associated Press reported last week that the Vatican was so worried about the fallout from the Karadima affair that it was prepared in 2014 to ask Barros and two other Karadima-trained bishops to resign and go on a yearlong sabbatical.</p>
<p>According to a Jan. 31, 2015, letter obtained by AP from Francis to the executive committee of the Chilean bishops’ conference, the plan fell apart and Barros was sent to Osorno.</p>
<p>Juan Carlos Claret, spokesman for a group of Osorno lay Catholics who have mounted a three-year campaign against Barros, questioned why Francis was now accusing the victims of slandering Barros when the Vatican was so convinced of their claims that it planned to remove him in 2014.</p>
<p>“Isn’t the pastoral problem that we’re living (in Osorno) enough to get rid of him?” Claret asked.</p>
<p>The reference was to the fact that — guilty or not — Barros has been unable to do his job because so many Osorno Catholics and priests don’t recognize him as their bishop. They staged an unprecedented protest during his 2015 installation ceremony and have protested his presence ever since.</p>
<p>Anne Barrett Doyle, of the online database BishopAccountability.org, said it was “sad and wrong” for the pope to discredit the victims since “the burden of proof here rests with the church, not the victims — and especially not with victims whose veracity has already been affirmed.”</p>
<p>“He has just turned back the clock to the darkest days of this crisis,” she said in a statement. “Who knows how many victims now will decide to stay hidden, for fear they will not be believed?”</p>
<p>Indeed, Catholic officials for years accused victims of slandering and attacking the church with their claims. But up until Francis’ words Thursday, many in the church and Vatican had come to reluctantly acknowledge that victims usually told the truth and that the church for decades had wrongly sought to protect its own.</p>
<p>German Silva, a political scientist at Santiago’s Universidad Mayor, said the pope’s comments were a “tremendous error” that will reverberate in Chile and beyond.</p>
<p>Patricio Navia, political science professor at Diego Portales University in Santiago, said Francis had gone much further than Chilean bishops in acknowledging the sexual abuse scandal, which many Chileans appreciated.</p>
<p>“Then right before leaving, Francis turns around and says: ‘By the way, I don’t think Barros is guilty. Show me some proof,’” Navia said, adding that the comment will probably erase any good will the pope had won over the issue.</p>
<p>Navia said the Karadima scandal had radically changed how Chileans view the church.</p>
<p>“In the typical Chilean family, parents (now) think twice before sending their kids to Catholic school because you never know what is going to happen,” Navia said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writers Peter Prengaman and Eva Vergara contributed to this report.</p>
<p>SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Pope Francis accused victims of Chile’s most notorious pedophile of slander Thursday, an astonishing end to a visit meant to help heal the wounds of a sex abuse scandal that has cost the Catholic Church its credibility in the country.</p>
<p>Francis said that until he sees proof that Bishop Juan Barros was complicit in covering up the sex crimes of the Rev. Fernando Karadima, such accusations against Barros are “all calumny.”</p>
<p>The pope’s remarks drew shock from Chileans and immediate rebuke from victims and their advocates. They noted the accusers were deemed credible enough by the Vatican that it sentenced Karadima to a lifetime of “penance and prayer” for his crimes in 2011. A Chilean judge also found the victims to be credible, saying that while she had to drop criminal charges against Karadima because too much time had passed, proof of his crimes wasn’t lacking.</p>
<p>“As if I could have taken a selfie or a photo while Karadima abused me and others and Juan Barros stood by watching it all,” tweeted Barros’ most vocal accuser, Juan Carlos Cruz. “These people are truly crazy, and the pontiff talks about atonement to the victims. Nothing has changed, and his plea for forgiveness is empty.”</p>
<p>The Karadima scandal dominated Francis’ visit to Chile and the overall issue of sex abuse and church cover-up was likely to factor into his three-day trip to Peru that began late Thursday.</p>
<p>Karadima’s victims reported to church authorities as early as 2002 that he would kiss and fondle them in the swank Santiago parish he ran, but officials refused to believe them. Only when the victims went public with their accusations in 2010 did the Vatican launch an investigation that led to Karadima being removed from ministry.</p>
<p>The emeritus archbishop of Santiago subsequently apologized for having refused to believe the victims from the start.</p>
<p>Francis reopened the wounds of the scandal in 2015 when he named Barros, a protege of Karadima, as bishop of the southern diocese of Osorno. Karadima’s victims say Barros knew of the abuse, having seen it, but did nothing. Barros has denied the allegations.</p>
<p>His appointment outraged Chileans, badly divided the Osorno diocese and further undermined the church’s already shaky credibility in the country.</p>
<p>Francis had sought to heal the wounds by meeting this week with abuse victims and begging forgiveness for the crimes of church pastors. But on Thursday, he struck a defiant tone when asked by a Chilean journalist about Barros.</p>
<p>“The day they bring me proof against Bishop Barros, I’ll speak,” Francis said. “There is not one shred of proof against him. It’s all calumny. Is that clear?”</p>
<p>Francis had defended the appointment before, calling the Osorno controversy “stupid” and the result of a campaign mounted by leftists. But The Associated Press reported last week that the Vatican was so worried about the fallout from the Karadima affair that it was prepared in 2014 to ask Barros and two other Karadima-trained bishops to resign and go on a yearlong sabbatical.</p>
<p>According to a Jan. 31, 2015, letter obtained by AP from Francis to the executive committee of the Chilean bishops’ conference, the plan fell apart and Barros was sent to Osorno.</p>
<p>Juan Carlos Claret, spokesman for a group of Osorno lay Catholics who have mounted a three-year campaign against Barros, questioned why Francis was now accusing the victims of slandering Barros when the Vatican was so convinced of their claims that it planned to remove him in 2014.</p>
<p>“Isn’t the pastoral problem that we’re living (in Osorno) enough to get rid of him?” Claret asked.</p>
<p>The reference was to the fact that — guilty or not — Barros has been unable to do his job because so many Osorno Catholics and priests don’t recognize him as their bishop. They staged an unprecedented protest during his 2015 installation ceremony and have protested his presence ever since.</p>
<p>Anne Barrett Doyle, of the online database BishopAccountability.org, said it was “sad and wrong” for the pope to discredit the victims since “the burden of proof here rests with the church, not the victims — and especially not with victims whose veracity has already been affirmed.”</p>
<p>“He has just turned back the clock to the darkest days of this crisis,” she said in a statement. “Who knows how many victims now will decide to stay hidden, for fear they will not be believed?”</p>
<p>Indeed, Catholic officials for years accused victims of slandering and attacking the church with their claims. But up until Francis’ words Thursday, many in the church and Vatican had come to reluctantly acknowledge that victims usually told the truth and that the church for decades had wrongly sought to protect its own.</p>
<p>German Silva, a political scientist at Santiago’s Universidad Mayor, said the pope’s comments were a “tremendous error” that will reverberate in Chile and beyond.</p>
<p>Patricio Navia, political science professor at Diego Portales University in Santiago, said Francis had gone much further than Chilean bishops in acknowledging the sexual abuse scandal, which many Chileans appreciated.</p>
<p>“Then right before leaving, Francis turns around and says: ‘By the way, I don’t think Barros is guilty. Show me some proof,’” Navia said, adding that the comment will probably erase any good will the pope had won over the issue.</p>
<p>Navia said the Karadima scandal had radically changed how Chileans view the church.</p>
<p>“In the typical Chilean family, parents (now) think twice before sending their kids to Catholic school because you never know what is going to happen,” Navia said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writers Peter Prengaman and Eva Vergara contributed to this report.</p> | Pope shocks Chile by accusing sex abuse victims of slander | false | https://apnews.com/77f4a7e9779940a48e2347c852516d3c | 2018-01-19 | 2 |
<p>Although he denies it in this clip from Thursday’s “Colbert Report,” David Frum is indeed a “conservative apostate.” What else can being fired from the American Enterprise Institute possibly mean? And what does all of this have to do with Scientology? Frum braved the Colbert treatment (not to mention a rather boisterous audience) to give his side of the story. –KA</p> | Colbert to Frum: 'When Has the Head Helped the Conservative Movement?' | true | http://truthdig.com/avbooth/item/colbert_to_frum_when_has_the_head_helped_the_conservative_movement_20100402/?ln | 2010-04-03 | 4 |
<p>(Reuters) - A federal judge on Wednesday threw out several bribery charges against Democratic U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, five days after U.S. prosecutors announced they would seek to retry him after his first trial ended with a hung jury.</p> FILE PHOTO: Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) looks on during a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. January 23, 2018. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein/File Photo
<p>The New Jersey politician, who is expected to run for reelection this year, is charged with accepting gifts, including luxury trips and campaign contributions, from wealthy ophthalmologist Salomon Melgen in exchange for official favors.</p>
<p>U.S. District Judge William Walls, who presided over last year’s corruption trial, said on Wednesday that prosecutors had failed to show that some $660,000 in political contributions from Melgen to benefit Menendez’s 2012 reelection campaign were part of any bribery scheme.</p>
<p>The mere fact that some of the money arrived around the same time that Menendez took actions that could benefit Melgen was not enough to prove a “quid pro quo” arrangement, Walls said.</p>
<p>“There is no there there,” he wrote, quoting the writer Gertrude Stein.</p>
<p>But the judge refused Menendez’s request to dismiss the rest of the case, saying enough evidence existed to permit a jury to decide his guilt.</p>
<p>Prosecutors have accused Menendez of accepting bribes from Melgen and, in exchange, lobbying Medicare officials to alter their billing practices after the agency concluded Melgen had overbilled it.</p>
<p>Melgen, who is Menendez’s co-defendant in New Jersey, was separately convicted of a massive Medicare fraud in Florida.</p>
<p>Menendez is also charged with helping Melgen’s foreign girlfriends obtain visas and attempting to intervene in a port dispute involving one of Melgen’s companies.</p>
<p>Defense lawyers argued at trial that Melgen and Menendez were simply close friends.</p>
<p>Menendez’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said on Wednesday the remaining case “is now solely about the purest of personal hospitality allegations,” including trips on Melgen’s private plane and vacations at his home in the Dominican Republic. He said he hopes the Justice Department reconsiders its decision to retry the senator.</p>
<p>A Justice Department spokeswoman said prosecutors were reviewing the court order and considering their next steps.</p>
<p>The first trial, which lasted more than two months, ended in a mistrial when the jury in Newark, New Jersey, could not come to a unanimous verdict on any count.</p>
<p>A new trial date has not been set.</p>
<p>The prospect of a second trial during a campaign year has not deterred the state’s prominent Democrats, including U.S. Senator Cory Booker and newly elected Governor Phil Murphy, from continuing to back Menendez. He currently faces no serious opponent for the Democratic nomination.</p>
<p>Reporting by Joseph Ax</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - In a boost to the Democratic Party’s chances of winning back the U.S. Congress this year, both the U.S. Supreme Court and a Pennsylvania panel of federal judges on Monday rejected Republicans’ efforts to block the state’s new congressional district map from taking effect.</p> FILE PHOTO: A general view of the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, DC, U.S., November 15, 2016. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
<p>The twin rulings, which ensure November’s midterm elections in Pennsylvania will be contested using the new boundaries, were announced just 24 hours before candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives must file petitions to secure spots on ballots.</p>
<p>In a 5-2 vote in January along party lines, the Democratic-majority state Supreme Court ruled the Republican-controlled legislature designed the old boundaries to hurt Democratic voters, violating their constitutional rights. After the legislature did not meet a court deadline to submit a new version, the court drew its own map.</p>
<p>Independent political analysts have said the new map will boost Democratic chances in one-third of the state’s 18 seats, which Republicans have dominated since the old district lines took effect in 2011 despite Pennsylvania’s status as a closely divided electoral swing state.</p>
<p>Republicans hold 12 seats after Democrat Conor Lamb’s surprise victory last week in a special election. All told, Democrats need to flip 23 seats nationwide to capture control of the House.</p>
<p>The state’s Republican legislative leaders had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block the map, while eight Republican Congress members and two Republican state lawmakers separately filed a federal lawsuit in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, seeking the same remedy.</p>
<p>In both cases, Republicans argued only lawmakers have the power to draw voting districts. U.S. President Donald Trump, a Republican, had urged legislators to contest the map.</p>
<p>The panel of three federal judges, all appointed by Republican presidents, dismissed the Harrisburg lawsuit on Monday, finding that individual lawmakers did not have standing to bring such a complaint on behalf of the entire legislature.</p>
<p>The U.S. Supreme Court, meanwhile, rejected the Republicans’ petition in a single-line order.</p>
<p>In statements, Republican legislative leaders in Pennsylvania said they were disappointed by the rulings but reiterated their belief that the state Supreme Court had usurped the legislature’s role.</p>
<p>The legal battle began last year with a lawsuit from the League of Women Voters, echoing critics who had held up Pennsylvania’s bizarrely shaped districts as a prime example of partisan gerrymandering, in which one party engineers lines to marginalize opposing voters.</p>
<p>In a statement, the organization’s president, Susan Carty, said, “This victory is an important first step toward slaying the gerrymander.”</p>
<p>The U.S. Supreme Court is weighing whether to set a legal standard for partisan gerrymandering in two cases out of Wisconsin and Maryland. A ruling is expected by June.</p>
<p>Reporting by Joseph Ax; additional reporting by Andrew Chung; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Grant McCool</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>TEMPE, Ariz./SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - An Uber self-driving car hit and killed a woman crossing the street in Arizona, police said on Monday, marking the first fatality involving an autonomous vehicle and a potential blow to the technology expected to transform transportation.</p>
<p>The ride services company said it was suspending North American tests of its self-driving vehicles, which are currently going on in Arizona, Pittsburgh and Toronto.</p>
<p>So-called robot cars, when fully developed by companies including Uber, Alphabet Inc and General Motors Co, are expected to drastically cut down on motor vehicle fatalities and create billion-dollar businesses. But Monday’s accident underscored the possible challenges ahead for the promising technology as the cars confront real-world situations involving real people.</p>
<p>U.S. lawmakers have been debating legislation that would speed introduction of self-driving cars.</p>
<p>“This tragic accident underscores why we need to be exceptionally cautious when testing and deploying autonomous vehicle technologies on public roads,” said Democratic Senator Edward Markey, a member of the transportation committee, in a statement.</p>
<p>Elaine Herzberg, 49, was walking her bicycle outside the crosswalk on a four-lane road in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe about 10 p.m. MST Sunday (0400 GMT Monday) when she was struck by the Uber vehicle traveling at about 40 miles per hour (65 km per hour), police said. The Volvo XC90 SUV was in autonomous mode with an operator behind the wheel.</p>
<p>Herzberg later died from her injuries in a hospital, police said.</p>
<p>“The pedestrian was outside of the crosswalk. As soon as she walked into the lane of traffic she was struck,” Tempe Police Sergeant Ronald Elcock told reporters at a news conference. He said he did not yet know how close Herzberg was to the vehicle when she stepped into the lane.</p>
<p>Elcock said he believed Herzberg may have been homeless.</p>
<p>The San Francisco Chronicle late Monday reported that Tempe Police Chief Sylvia Moir said that from viewing videos taken from the vehicle “it’s very clear it would have been difficult to avoid this collision in any kind of mode (autonomous or human-driven) based on how she came from the shadows right into the roadway." ( <a href="http://bit.ly/2IADRUF" type="external">bit.ly/2IADRUF</a>)</p>
<p>Moir told the Chronicle, “I suspect preliminarily it appears that the Uber would likely not be at fault in this accident,” but she did not rule out that charges could be filed against the operator in the Uber vehicle, the paper reported.</p>
<p>The “Tempe Police Department does not determine fault in vehicular collisions,” the department said in a statement late Monday, in reply to questions from Reuters about the chief’s comments. “Ultimately the investigation will be submitted to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office for review and any potential charges.”</p>
<p>Tempe authorities and federal officials are still investigating the incident. Canada’s transportation ministry in Ontario, where Uber conducts testing, also said it was reviewing the accident.</p> Burned out flares lie at the location where a woman pedestrian was struck and killed by an Uber self-driving sport utility vehicle in Tempe, Arizona, U.S., March 19, 2018. REUTERS/Rick Scuteri
<p>Volvo, the Swedish car brand owned by China’s Geely, said the software controlling the car in the crash was not its own.</p>
<p>Video footage will aid the ongoing investigation, and the case would be submitted to the district attorney, Elcock said.</p>
<p>“Our investigators have that information, and they will be using that in their investigation as well as the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office as part of their investigation,” said Elcock. “They are going to attempt to try to find who was possibly at fault and how we can better be safe, whether it’s pedestrians or whether it’s the vehicle itself.”</p> WILD WEST
<p>Uber and Waymo on Friday urged Congress to pass sweeping legislation to speed the introduction of self-driving cars into the United States. Some congressional Democrats have blocked the legislation over safety concerns, and Monday’s fatality could hamper passage of the bill, congressional aides said Monday.</p> Slideshow (6 Images)
<p>Safety advocates called for a national moratorium on all robot car testing on public roads.</p>
<p>“Arizona has been the wild west of robot car testing with virtually no regulations in place,” said Consumer Watchdog, a non-profit consumer advocacy group, in a statement. “That’s why Uber and Waymo test there. When there’s no sheriff in town, people get killed.”</p>
<p>Arizona has opened its arms to companies testing self-driving vehicles as a means to economic growth and jobs. Republican Governor Doug Ducey reached out to Uber in 2016 after California regulators cracked down on the company over its failure to obtain testing permits.</p>
<p>Self-driving cars being tested routinely get into fender-benders with other vehicles. Last week, a self-driving Uber crashed with another vehicle in Pittsburgh, local news reported. There were no injuries.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-autos-selfdriving-uber-regulation/self-driving-car-industry-faces-critical-test-after-first-death-idUSKBN1GV2X5" type="external">Self-driving car industry faces critical test after first death</a>
<p>A year ago, Uber temporarily grounded its self-driving cars for a few days following a crash with another car in Tempe. The company has been the subject of a number of complaints about its autonomous vehicles, but the company has said the cars were being driven by a human driver at the time of the incidents.</p> ESSENTIAL TO UBER’S SUCCESS
<p>Uber has said its ability to build autonomous cars is essential to its success in the rapidly changing transportation industry. The company envisions a network of autonomous cars that would be summoned through the Uber app that would supplement - and eventually replace - human-driven cars.</p>
<p>Uber has logged 2 million self-driving miles (3.2 million km) through December. The company has more than 100 autonomous cars testing on the roads of the greater Phoenix area, the company’s prime testing ground due to the state’s loose regulations and hospitable weather. Rain, snow and ice are particularly challenging for autonomous cars. The company also tests in Pittsburgh and Toronto.</p>
<p>Concerns over the safety of autonomous vehicles flared after a July 2016 fatality involving a Tesla Inc automobile with a partially autonomous system that required human supervision. Safety regulators later determined Tesla was not at fault.</p>
<p>Reporting by Sydney Maki and Alexandria Sage; Additional reporting by Dave Shepardson in Washington, Tina Bellon in New York, Heather Somerville in San Francisco, David Schwartz and Andres Guerra Luz in Phoenix, and Allison Lampert in Montreal; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Lisa Shumaker</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - Mississippi’s governor signed into law on Monday the most restrictive abortion measure in the United States, which was immediately challenged in court by abortion rights advocates who say it is unconstitutional.</p>
<p>Republican Governor Phil Bryant said he was proud to sign the bill banning abortion after 15 weeks of gestation with some exceptions, according to a statement from spokesman Knox Graham.</p>
<p>“I am committed to making Mississippi the safest place in America for an unborn child, and this bill will help us achieve that goal,” Bryant said.</p>
<p>The law takes effect immediately. Previous Mississippi law banned abortion at 20 weeks after conception, similar to limits in 17 other states.</p>
<p>Abortion rights advocates have said the measure targets the state’s only abortion provider, the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which provides abortions for up to 16 weeks after conception.</p>
<p>The Center for Reproductive Rights said it had filed suit in U.S. District Court on behalf of the clinic to block the Mississippi law. It said the law violated Supreme Court precedent that a state may not ban abortion before the fetus can survive outside the womb.</p> FILE PHOTO: Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant, arrives at B.B. King's funeral in Indianola, Mississippi, U.S., May 30, 2015. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo
<p>“Politicians are not above the rule of law, and we are confident this dangerous bill will be struck down like every similar attempt before it,” Nancy Northup, the Center for Reproductive Rights’ president and chief executive, said in a statement.</p>
<p>The U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion in its 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling. The country’s highest court has since banned the prohibition of abortion before fetal viability, usually seen at about 20 weeks of gestation.</p>
<p>A similar measure banning abortion 15 weeks after conception has been introduced in the Louisiana legislature. The Mississippi law includes an exception in the case of severe fetal abnormality or a medical emergency.</p>
<p>Abortion rights groups say anti-abortion organizations could use the legal case to test the limits of abortion all the way to the Supreme Court.</p>
<p>In 2016, the high court refused to uphold an Arkansas law that banned abortion after 12 weeks’ gestation as well as a North Dakota six-week law.</p>
<p>The Guttmacher Institute, which opposes abortion limits, has said about 926,200 abortions were performed in the United States in 2014, down 12 percent from 2011.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court is scheduled on Tuesday to hear arguments in a California free-speech case involving private facilities that counsel pregnant women against abortion.</p>
<p>Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Frances Kerry and Peter Cooney</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump will unveil a plan on Monday to combat the opioid addiction crisis that includes seeking the death penalty for drug dealers and urging Congress to toughen sentencing laws for drug traffickers, White House officials said on Sunday.</p>
<p>The White House plan will also seek to cut opioid prescriptions by a third over the next three years by promoting practices that reduce overprescription of opioids in federal healthcare programs, officials told a news briefing.</p>
<p>Trump will outline his proposals at an event in New Hampshire, which has been hit hard by the opioid epidemic.</p>
<p>The roll out of the plan will be the latest White House action aimed at addressing a U.S. drug abuse crisis that is causing thousands of overdose deaths a year. Trump has said the United States will need “toughness” to reverse these trends.</p>
<p>“The Department of Justice will seek the death penalty against drug traffickers when it’s appropriate under current law,” said Andrew Bremberg, director of Trump’s Domestic Policy Council, in the briefing detailing the plan.</p>
<p>The White House did not offer any specific examples of when it would be appropriate to seek the death penalty for drug dealers and referred further questions to the Justice Department.</p> U.S. President Donald Trump boards Air Force One for travel to New Hampshire from Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S. March 19, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
<p>Current federal law allows for the death penalty in certain drug cases including murder related to a drug trafficking offense and murder committed during a drug-related drive-by shooting, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit capital punishment monitor.</p>
<p>It is unclear how this new plan will affect federal prosecutions.</p> Slideshow (7 Images)
<p>Trump raised the issue of using the death penalty for drug dealers at a rally in Pennsylvania earlier this month. He has repeatedly said individual drug dealers are responsible for thousands of deaths.</p>
<p>The White House is also asking lawmakers to lower the amount of drug possession that triggers mandatory minimum sentences for certain opioids “to match the new reality of drugs like fentanyl, which are lethal in much, much smaller doses,” Bremberg said.</p>
<p>According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 42,000 people died from opioid overdoses in 2016, the latest year with publicly available data.</p>
<p>In addition to pursuing street dealers, the plan directs the Justice Department to aggressively go after criminally negligent doctors and pharmacies and to take criminal and civil actions against opioid manufacturers that break the law.</p>
<p>The proposals will also seek to help those addicted to opioids by expanding access to treatment facilities.</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Pete Schroeder; Editing by Peter Cooney and Sandra Maler</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | Judge narrows bribery case against New Jersey Democratic Senator Menendez Supreme Court upholds Pennsylvania election map in win for Democrats Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street Mississippi governor signs bill banning abortions after 15 weeks Trump to unveil opioid plan seeking death penalty for drug dealers: White House | false | https://reuters.com/article/us-new-jersey-menendez/judge-narrows-bribery-case-against-new-jersey-democratic-senator-menendez-idUSKBN1FD355 | 2018-01-24 | 2 |
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<p>“Bush poured enormous amounts of federal money into abstinence-only sex education, so-called ‘crisis pregnancy centers’ that propagandize women against abortion, and so on. The next president can defund much of this pretty quickly and sweep out of office the right-wing Christians, family-values fanatics, and incompetent cronies with whom Bush has stocked federal agencies—people who have done a great deal of harm, especially to women’s health and equality.”</p>
<p /> | How to Fix It: Pink-Slip the God Squad | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2008/09/how-fix-it-pink-slip-god-squad/ | 2018-09-01 | 4 |
<p>JERUSALEM — In mid-August a Facebook page called, “Notes I took from the Western Wall” started to take off as a user who described himself as “Amos, 41 years old” began to <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/%D7%A4%D7%AA%D7%A7%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%A9%D7%9C%D7%A7%D7%97%D7%AA%D7%99-%D7%9E%D7%94%D7%9B%D7%95%D7%AA%D7%9C/1413171658896905" type="external">post pictures of prayer slips</a> he supposedly lifted from the cracks of the holiest site in Judaism.</p>
<p>The notes were often deeply personal and usually signed. Some asked to meet a husband or to bear a child, others for peace or for the strength to be more religiously observant. Some weren’t directed at God at all, but at a loved one or a politician.</p>
<p>The page gained more than 10,000 followers in a few weeks but it ignited an angry backlash from the religious community.</p>
<p>For hundreds of years it has been Jewish tradition to write messages to God on small strips of paper and place them in the Western Wall – the last remaining vestige of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. More than a million such messages are left in the Wall each year. However, it is strictly taboo for the notes to be read by anyone other than the author.</p>
<p>The Rabbi of the Western Wall, Shmuel Rabinovitch, was incensed.</p>
<p>“Placing notes in the Western Wall is an ancient custom,” the rabbi told the Israeli paper Yediot Aharonot. “To expose these prayer notes is a despicable act that breaches the intimate pact between man and his creator.”</p>
<p>“The Western Wall is a public place,” he added, “it’s not possible to enforce the security of the private notes. It is the personal responsibility of everyone to honor and respect all of the worshippers and their prayers.”</p>
<p>As the “Notes I Took from the Western Wall” Facebook page gained followers, angry commenters began to attack “Amos,” the page’s founder, questioning the morality of publishing private notes, especially ones that might reveal the author’s identity. The criticism swelled when the page began to be covered in Israeli media.</p>
<p>Then this month, Rabinovitch took his complaint to the police, claiming the page constituted desecration of a holy place and was emotionally damaging to the wall’s visitors. He called for a full investigation.</p>
<p>But before the police had time to address the issue in earnest, “Amos” decided he’d had enough. One day after the rabbi went to the police, the author published a note announcing he would be closing the page.</p>
<p>“So to start with, I’m not Amos and I am not from Holon,” he began. He claimed to have founded the page as satire and that all of the notes were invented and written by him and his friends.</p>
<p>“We ‘apologize’ to all those that were hurt,” he wrote.</p>
<p>Many of the commenters were pleased to see the page go, but some questioned whether the notes were really fake.</p>
<p>“Truthfully, it doesn’t make sense that it’s all fabricated,” Meir Aroch wrote in a Facebook comment. “There is writing here from many different hands in a way that is not easy to fake. You called for people to send you notes and I’m sure that some of them did it. It doesn’t make sense.”</p>
<p>Others claimed that they recognized friends or relatives as the authors of specific notes (some of the notes were signed with first names or mentioned names within the note) and called the page’s anonymous creator a coward for refusing to reveal his identity.</p>
<p>Typically, prayer slips are removed twice a year when the Western Wall is washed and they are buried in the Mount of Olives – the more than 3,000-year-old Jewish cemetery outside the walls of the Old City. But this is not the first time the notes have been intercepted and caused a scandal.</p>
<p>In 2008 when Barack Obama visited Israel during his presidential campaign, he made a stop at the Western Wall and placed an unsigned note in the cracks.</p>
<p>After he left, a Yeshiva student nearby found the note and <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jul/26/nation/na-prayer26" type="external">it was published in Israeli and international newspapers</a>.</p>
<p>The note read, “Lord – Protect my family and me. Forgive me my sins, and help me guard against pride and despair. Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just. And make me an instrument of your will.”</p>
<p>Maariv, the Israeli newspaper that first publicized the prayer, was criticized and the Yeshiva student later apologized.&#160;</p>
<p>In recent days the Facebook page has gone dormant.</p> | Head rabbi slams publication of Western Wall prayer slips on Facebook | false | https://pri.org/stories/2014-09-24/head-rabbi-slams-publication-western-wall-prayer-slips-facebook | 2014-09-24 | 3 |
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<p>OKLAHOMA CITY – Carter Camp, a longtime activist with the American Indian Movement who was a leader in the Wounded Knee occupation in South Dakota, has died in Oklahoma. He was 72.</p>
<p>Camp’s sister, Casey Camp-Horinek, said Thursday he died Dec. 27 surrounded by family in White Eagle, Okla. Camp-Horinek says her brother had been suffering from cancer for the past year.</p>
<p>Camp, a member of the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma, was a leader in the 1973 uprising at Wounded Knee. The 71-day siege included several gunbattles with federal officers</p>
<p>He was a longtime member of the American Indian Movement, which was founded in the late 1960s to protest the U.S. government’s treatment of Native Americans and demand the government honor its treaties with Indian tribes.</p>
<p>Services for Carter were held Tuesday.</p>
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<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Indian Movement activist Carter Camp dies at age 72 | false | https://abqjournal.com/332175/indian-movement-activist-carter-camp-dies-at-age-72.html | 2 |
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<p><a href="" type="internal">Robert Gehl writes</a> that if you think the anti-Trump demonstrations raging around the country are merely spontaneous demonstrations by college kids and concerned citizens, think again.</p>
<p>An author and historian says these rallies and riots are well-organized and planned by people who are connected to the Democratic establishment.</p>
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<p>Trevor Loudon, who wrote a book about the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGe3pypQWl0" type="external">coming American civil war</a>, was also producer of a documentary called “America Under Siege: 2017 that examines the connections between the so-called “grassroots” groups and liberal establishment figures.</p>
<p>Breaking news updates and daily headlines from a news source you can trust.</p>
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<p>Interviewed by <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2017/03/18/author-its-not-college-kids-creating-chaos-to-resist-trump-theyre-professionals-video/" type="external">The Daily Caller’s</a> Ginni Thomas, Loudon said that there are many in the “resistance” on the political left who espouse a goal of destroying the very fabric of this country. In the film, Theresa Gutierrez of the Workers World Party says: “This is the revolution that will take Donald Trump down and make America a socialist country.”</p>
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<p>But destroying the country is a long-term goal. In the short term, he says, they want to “terrorize the squishy Republicans” who are complicit in their acquiescence to leftist policies. They used shadowy, paid protesters and a corrupt media who are aligned with the “Bernie Sanders-Tom Perez-Keith Ellison-Barack Obama” faction and who suddenly found themselves out of power.</p>
<p>They want to bring about disunity in the GOP by using escalating fear and political correctness, he said.</p>
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<p>Loudon, contends that if Trump is supposedly soft on the Russians, it seems strange that hardened radical revolutionaries, including many communist and socialist groups, some of which are funded by Putin’s allies, are behind the most vicious and violent protests against Trump.</p>
<p>Loudon is known for speaking around the country to empower citizens and galvanize them to speak up, and fight back against those who wish to fundamentally transform America into a socialist utopia. He implores Americans who want to leave Washington to the politicians now that they helped elect Trump and Republicans to stay engaged. “We have been granted a miraculous reprieve in President Trump’s election.”</p>
<p>Citizen activism is needed, he says, to back up Trump’s mandate and pressure or oust Republican squishes. He also hopes everyone who is watching in despair uses their social media to relay truth and help swing public opinion and keep others informed.</p>
<p>Here is Loudon’s documentary: “America under Siege”:</p>
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<p>What do you think? Scroll down to comment below.</p> | HARD TRUTH: Where the Real Privilege Lies in America | true | http://thefederalistpapers.org/us/hard-truth-where-the-real-privilege-lies-in-america | 0 |
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<p>From a September 3 AP <a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OBAMA_HEALTH_CARE_OVERHAUL?SITE=AP&amp;SECTION=HOME&amp;TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&amp;CTIME=2009-09-03-06-31-36" type="external">article</a>:</p>
<p>Several lawmakers say Obama must convincingly show that he can reduce the cost of pending health care plans. Nonpartisan budget officials have said Obama's proposals could increase the federal deficit by about $1 trillion over the next decade.</p>
<p>AP previously reported similar falsehood. On August 3, the AP <a href="/research/2009/08/03/ap-falsehood-obama-health-plan-would-add-around/152784" type="external">reported</a> that "even the nonpartisan Congressional Budget office says" health reform bills "with the elements Obama wants would add around $1 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years."</p>
<p>Accounting for bill's savings and revenue increases, CBO found House bill would increase the federal budget deficit by $239 billion. In its July 17 <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/104xx/doc10464/hr3200.pdf" type="external">cost estimate</a> of the House tri-committee <a href="http://docs.house.gov/edlabor/AAHCA-BillText-071409.pdf" type="external">bill</a> as introduced, CBO explained that its "estimate reflects a projected 10-year cost of the bill's insurance coverage provisions of $1,042 billion, partly offset by net spending changes that CBO estimates would save $219 billion over the same period, and by revenue provisions that [the Joint Committee on Taxation] estimates would increase federal revenues by about $583 billion over those 10 years." CBO thus concluded the legislation "would result in a net increase in the federal budget deficit of $239 billion over the 2010-2019 period." Contrary to the AP's suggestion, CBO has not released a cost estimate of "Obama's proposals." The House bill is the only complete health care reform bill CBO has scored.</p>
<p>From CBO's analysis of the House bill:</p>
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<p>LA Times reported $1 trillion cost and Republican criticism on deficit without noting CBO's estimate. From a September 3 Los Angeles Times <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/healthcare/la-na-health-obama3-2009sep03,0,1301529.story" type="external">article</a>:</p>
<p>Their own party is divided; liberals are demanding a more active role for government while moderates balk at radical change and the potential cost. Meantime, large segments of the public are uneasy about changing a system that, though troubled, continues to serve the needs of many.</p>
<p>To address those concerns, the administration may face compromises on several key issues:</p>
<p>On cost containment, with estimates that the overhaul could cost $1 trillion over 10 years, Republicans have hammered Obama on the ballooning deficit. Doing more to lower costs would require cutting back the scope of the program, which could stir anguish among the president's liberal supporters.</p>
<p>On Medicare, proposals to offset new expenditures by curbing outlays for the program serving the elderly have spread panic among senior citizens. Strategists say Obama must find a way to still their anxieties.</p>
<p>Reuters referenced "$1 trillion scheme" and concerns about deficit without noting CBO's estimate. From a September 2 Reuters <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN02534478" type="external">article</a>:</p>
<p>Obama's top domestic priority, the plan to overhaul the costly U.S. healthcare system, has drawn intense fire from opponents and cut into Obama's approval ratings as Americans worry about what the nearly $1 trillion scheme could mean for the burgeoning U.S. budget deficit.</p>
<p>Three bills have been approved by committees in the House of Representatives, but no Republicans have backed them. Months of Senate Finance Committee negotiations with three Republican senators have not produced a deal, signaling a nasty battle to pass a plan after Congress returns on Sept. 8 from its break.</p> | AP again botched net cost of health care plan | true | http://mediamatters.org/research/200909030016 | 2009-09-03 | 4 |
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