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<p>It started as a rallying image for the British anti-nuclear movement in the late ’50s and went on to become one of the world’s most instantly recognizable — and widely adopted — symbols. But did you know that the iconic peace sign was originally derived from the semaphore alphabet?</p>
<p>BBC:</p>
<p>Gerald Holtom, a designer and former World War II conscientious objector from West London, persuaded DAC [Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War] that their aims would have greater impact if they were conveyed in a visual image. The “Ban the Bomb” symbol was born.</p>
<p>He considered using a Christian cross motif but, instead, settled on using letters from the semaphore — or flag-signalling — alphabet, super-imposing N (uclear) on D (isarmament) and placing them within a circle symbolising Earth.</p>
<p />
<p><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7292252.stm" type="external">Read more</a></p> | Peace Sign Turns 50 | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/peace-sign-turns-50/ | 2008-03-20 | 4 |
<p>The European soccer season comes to a climax on Wednesday in Rome when Europe crowns a champion. And after a season of odd bounces and iffy officiating, fans have a dream final between two teams capable of transcendent soccer — English champion Manchester United and Spanish champion Barcelona.</p>
<p>But yesterday, the final Sunday of Premier League play, transcendence was hardly the focal point. Rather survival was.</p>
<p>The top of the league has been settled for a while, with the big four — Man U, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal — once again securing the four English spots in the Champions League.</p>
<p>The drama, however, was most compelling at the bottom of the standings.</p>
<p>Newcastle United, a Premier League power early in the decade, has declined steadily in recent years. This season, one final loss and it would be relegated to the English League Championship, which is fancy Brit talk for the minor leagues.</p>
<p>For a team already in deep financial trouble, this would mean a huge loss — namely, some million dollars a week in TV revenues that accrue to the 20 teams in the elite division. But to the passionate Newcastle fans, it threatened something even worse — an emotional blow equivalent to the economic devastation that has been visited upon the northeast region of England.</p>
<p>Early last month, recognizing this potential denouement, Newcastle turned to a local hero, Alan Shearer, who as a player had rescued the team innumerable times over the space of a decade. A Newcastle native and former captain of the English side, Shearer — dressed in the black and white — made the Newcastle goal as celebrated as the Newcastle coal. His 260 scores, first with Blackburn then with Newcastle, stand as a Premier League record — a whopping 73 more than any other player in league history.</p>
<p>But at 38 and three years retired following a serious knee injury, Shearer is no longer capable of helping the team as a player. Newcastle’s last hope was that just having Shearer on the sidelines as coach would inspire the team to compete with — if not the same level of skill — the same grit and ferocity, and so help salvage the season.</p>
<p>There is an American sports maxim, mostly heard in baseball, that great players don’t make great coaches and managers. The notion is that the game came easier to them and thus they can’t relate to the struggles of the average player and may not be quite as attentive to strategic detail as those less gifted.</p>
<p>Soccer has produced some notable exceptions. But, of late, the maxim has been dead on. Bayern Munich fired Juergen Klinsmann, the great German striker, as its manager after the team faltered in the Bundesliga and suffered an embarrassing exit from Champions League. (His successor, Louis van Gaal, rallied Bayern Munich but the team still fell short, finishing second behind upstart Wolfsburg.)</p>
<p>And then there is Diego Maradona, the legendary Argentine who was the bizarre choice to take over as coach of his country’s national team. (One blog, FANIQ, greeted Maradona’s selection with the headline: "This Should End Well: Argentina Hires Fat, Debt-Ridden Cocaine Addict As Their National Soccer Coach.") After only two games, many fans and journalists were calling for Maradona’s head. In one of those games, Argentina was thrashed 6-1 by Bolivia — a performance that seemed to reflect Maradona’s lack of discipline off the field far more than his talents on it.</p>
<p>Shearer didn’t appear to provide any lift either, as Newcastle continued its plunge. In the seven games after he took over, his team has won just once, over lowly relegation-bound Middlesbrough, and had demonstrated none of Shearer’s scoring instincts, with but a single goal in those other six games combined.</p>
<p>So on Sunday, Newcastle traveled to Birmingham with absolutely everything at stake. Newcastle required an unlikely parlay to stave off relegation: a rare road win (or possibly a tie) against a strong, but, of late, struggling Aston Villa team as well as an unhappy result for either Hull City or Sunderland, both of which were at home playing league powerhouses, Man U and Chelsea respectively.</p>
<p>Both Hull City and Sunderland cooperated by losing their matches. And Newcastle did manage to score a goal; unfortunately it was an own goal, which accounted for the lone score in its 1-0 loss. The team, indeed the city, will have to claw its way back next season if it hopes to play in the Premier League again.</p>
<p>I only got to see Alan Shearer compete live once and it proved to be one of the most ignominious games of his celebrated career. Harassed by Leicester City’s pesky Neil Lennon, Shearer spilled him and added a boot to the head for good measure. The ref looked the other way and the Football Association never punished him — Shearer would later apologize and insist it looked worse on video than it really was — but there was a huge outcry. For a while it looked like Shearer might be forced to relinquish his English captaincy.</p>
<p>Sunday, however, was the worst of all days. And I have no doubt Shearer would gladly accept the scorn of English fans, if he could have only returned home to Newcastle with his team still a fixture in the Premier League.</p>
<p>Read more about sports:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/sports/090519/whats-really-beneath-those-swimsuits" type="external">What's really inside those swimsuits?</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/south-africa/090521/indian-cricket-league-relocates-south-africa" type="external">Indian cricket league relocates to South Africa</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/sports/090406/the-dominican-republics-baseball-magic" type="external">The Dominican Republic's baseball magic</a></p> | Winners and losers | false | https://pri.org/stories/2009-05-27/winners-and-losers | 2009-05-27 | 3 |
<p>Two recent articles in the New York Times by Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Jim Yardley draw attention to the mounting <a href="" type="internal">political crisis in Nepal</a>. &#160;They point out that the fundamental problem is “the unresolved task of merging the two enemy armies” mandated by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed by the Maoists and the government in November 2006.</p>
<p>Yardley <a href="" type="internal">notes</a> that the interim constitution composed in January 2007 will expire on May 28, when a new one authored by the Constituent Assembly is supposed to go into effect. But the writing of the new constitution has not been completed, and the peace agreement may fall by the wayside in a few months.</p>
<p>Yardley indicates that both parties are at fault for the impasse. “Many analysts,” he writes (without citing any names), “say the Maoists have maneuvered to keep their army intact as a bargaining chip to influence the constitutional negotiations. At the same time, the Nepalese Army, which before 2006 answered to the king, now deposed, has grudgingly succumbed to civilian control. In January, the defense minister announced that the army was not obligated to accept Maoist soldiers and should be included in civilian negotiations over integration — comments rejected by the prime minister and seized upon by Maoists as evidence of bad faith by the government.”</p>
<p>While superficially “balanced” (there’s no way the New York Times is going to take the Maoists’ side here, and yet it’s impossible for anyone familiar with the recent history to assign them entire responsibility for the gridlock) these articles actually imply that the Maoists bear principle responsibility. By treating the PLA’s continued existence as a mere political “maneuver” Yardley ignores the fact that the Comprehensive Peace Agreement explicitely provides for the the Maoists to keep their army intact pending “integration.” &#160;More importantly it avoids what should be obvious: had the Maoists not fought a decade-long People’s War before deciding to suspend it and make the deal with the mainstream political parties in 2006 there would have been no toppling of the monarchy, no proclamation of the republic, no convening of the Constituent Assembly.</p>
<p>Since Yardley provides a very partial, skewed view of the historical context, it’s worth reviewing that history now as Nepal becomes front-page news.</p>
<p>We should first of all wonder why it hasn’t been front-page news for years, because something quite amazing is happening in that country. Something that isn’t supposed to be happening. Conventional wisdom has it that communism died with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 or dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. It failed, according to some interpretations, because of its misunderstanding of “human nature” (the positive value of greed in driving economies, and the inherent need for religion), and/or was defeated by the valiant brinksmanship of U.S. statesmen from Harry Truman to John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan. “Even the Chinese communists” it’s argued, have come to realize the superiority of capitalism.</p>
<p>But events in Nepal embarrass the theory that communism is dead. (So do events in India, where Maoist-led forces have gained control of huge swathes of territory.) From 1996 to 2006 the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)—now the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)—waged a People’s War against the Nepalese government, applying Mao Zedong’s principles of guerrilla warfare. Confronting the weak state apparatus, targeting local elites guilty of abuses, organizing women and lower castes to challenge their oppression, the Maoists gained substantial control over about 80 percent of the country’s territory by 2006.</p>
<p>This was generally reported in the western press as a movement of thuggish ideologues employing terror and intimidation to realize an antiquated, discredited utopian dream. These Maoists (like Peru’s “Shining Path” before them) were likened to Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge (who actually weren’t Maoists at all) as the embodiment of a far-left savagery that should have disappeared, now that communism was in the dustbin of history.</p>
<p>But the communist movement in its most militant form was really very much alive in the Himalayas. Twice, in late 2001 and summer 2003, the Maoists declared cease-fires from a position of strength and negotiated with the government. Their main demands were an end to the Hindu monarchy (which had been absolute up to 1990), and its replacement with a republic; and the convening of a Constituent Assembly to draw up a new constitution. These needless to say are not specifically “communist” demands but demands for mere modernity. When they were rejected the Maoists returned to the battlefield, where they inflicted shocking defeats on the RNA.</p>
<p>In February 2005 King Gyanendra, frustrated with his government’s inability to crush the rebels, dismissed the parliament and cabinet, arrested leading politicians, declared martial law and assumed full executive powers. The king was already highly unpopular, in part because of the antics of his vicious son Prince Paras, in part due to suspicion that he played a role in the sensational killings of his predecessor and brother and his wife and children. Now he became more hated.</p>
<p>The parliamentary parties, the largest being the Nepal Congress Party and the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist) (over half the many political parties in Nepal call themselves “communist” although the Maoists will say they are most certainly not that) had opposed the People’s War and&#160; denounced its leaders. But in the new situation the Maoists did something unexpected, and in the history of the communist movement, quite innovative.</p>
<p>They were poised to attack Katmandu Valley. Classic Maoist strategy is to surround the cities from the countryside, and they had done that. But rather than continue to build for an attack, they offered the political parties now alienated from the king a series of proposals. If the parties would join with the Maoists in organizing street agitation in the capital to bring down the newly-revived absolute monarchy, and agree to elections for a Constituent Assembly to discuss the possibility of proclaiming a republic, the CPN(M) and its PLA would end the People’s War, and place their combatants in cantonments under UN supervision pending the merger of the two armies.</p>
<p>That was the Deal</p>
<p>The Maoists were, in the eyes of supporters around the world who’d been inspired by their success—by the (valid) perception that they were “keeping the Red Flag flying”—taking a big risk. Maybe even blowing the opportunity to seize state power. Criticism from the fraternal Communist Party of India (Maoist) has been substantive, while the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (long the main supporter of Nepal’s Maoists in this country) has denounced the abandonment of armed struggle as capitulation. (The Nepali Maoists have responded politely that their foreign critics don’t understand Nepal’s circumstances but are merely dogmatically citing Marxist texts pertaining to past revolutions.)</p>
<p>As things worked out, the mass movement (andolan) of 2006 brought down the king. The Maoists, able organizers, brought in some of their people to agitate and to join others struggling for their own reasons to end Gyanendra’s dictatorship. They used the opportunity to expand their political base in the city, among its workers and middle class.</p>
<p>The “Prachanda Path” outlined by party leader Prachanda (Pushpa Kamal Dahal) has for some years posited that the revolution in Nepal will combine the two great twentieth century revolutionary models: the People’s War of China, and the October Revolution of Russia. There will have to be a general urban insurrection in Katmandu. The party has hinted that it assessed there was inadequate basis for that four years ago, but that by forming a strategic alliance with the parliamentary parties against the king it could massively increase its presence in the valley and develop that basis.</p>
<p>The king was in fact forced in the wake of massive protests to rescind martial law and restore power to parliament. There was an election for a constituent assembly in the spring of 2008 and shortly afterwards Gyanendra was unceremoniously deposed, ending the 239-year old monarchy.</p>
<p>The elections for the assembly, replacing the parliament, were internationally monitored (pronounced free and fair by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter among others). &#160;The Maoists won twice as many votes as their nearest rivals. They won fully half the directly-elected seats and 30% of those elected proportionately and wound up with 40% of the total seats. (Yardley merely notes that they “took control of the government.”)</p>
<p>Party chair Prachanda became Prime Minister, while a Nepal Congress Party politician became President. As debate over the constitution continued between August 2008 and May 2009, Prachanda explored the limits of his authority as head of government. The Maoists were very conscious of the fact they had not seized state power, in the Marxist-Leninist sense; they had indeed entered a power structure that they might use towards their revolutionary goals, but it was one not entirely amenable to their objectives.</p>
<p>The Comprehensive Agreement had stated that the two armies must be integrated. That was really its core. Political power really does grow out of the barrel of a gun, and Maoist guns (and the judicial suspension of their use guided by politics) had produced the current situation.</p>
<p>The officer corps of the Royal Nepali Army (simply the Nepali Army after May 2008) have not been happy campers in this revolutionary period. They were not party to the 2006 Agreement, and have expressed opposition to the integration of “indoctrinated” troops into their professional national force. Most are themselves of high caste, many intermarried with the royal family, indoctrinated with their own ideology of loyalty to the King, avatar of&#160; the god Vishnu. They have violated the terms of the Comprehensive Agreement, recruiting new soldiers since 2006 and importing arms. The United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) has confirmed this and protested to the Nepalese government.</p>
<p>Prime Minister Prachanda tried to fire the Army chief in May 2009 for insubordination, due to his unwillingness to comply with the terms of the agreement. The president, however, with likely backing from New Delhi, backed the Army chief. Thereupon the Maoists once again made a surprising move: Prachanda resigned.</p>
<p>Well aware that he was the most popular figure in the country, and that his message would be heard sympathetically, Prachanda addressed the nation. He explained that he was unable, as head of government, to force out the head of the military. He called for “civilian supremacy” versus “military supremacy.” (Again, needless to say, this is not a specifically “communist” demand but a populist and commonsense one.) He intimated that India (widely suspected in Nepal of having expansionist designs on the country) and the India-aligned Congress Party were working against the 2006 agreement. Leaving government he vowed to take the struggle back to the streets, where it has been with a passion ever since.</p>
<p>Yardley doesn’t quite capture the context when he writes, “the <a href="" type="internal">Maoists withdrew from the government</a> after the president overruled the Maoist prime minister’s firing of the army chief…” He’s accurate in observing that they’ve “spent the ensuing months trying to destabilize the coalition government that replaced them.” But he might point out that they are trying to bring it down precisely because it’s reneging on the agreement about integration of the PLA and being swayed by the political influence of the Nepali Army. The Maoists call the current regime illegitimate because it reflects military supremacy.</p>
<p>“Now,” writes Yardley, “the Maoists want to replace the country’s existing parliamentary-style democracy and produce a constitution based on a directly elected, powerful executive. Rival parties say the Maoists oppose a true multiparty democracy and are trying to insert elements of a Communist system into the Constitution.”</p>
<p>It actually wouldn’t be surprising if real communists were trying to insert elements of a “Communist system” into a constitution that’s being written because of their own hard-earned efforts, in a Constituent Assembly they dominate because they won the vote. But what is “a Communist system” that might be politically “inserted” into the Constitution? The directly elected, powerful executive is a feature of the U.S., French and other bourgeois-democratic systems and has nothing to do per se with “communism.”</p>
<p>Really what the Maoists are trying to do—and they seem very flexible about the means—is to lead a country steeped in what we might loosely call “feudal” institutions and practices, with rudimentary industry and only a nascent industrial working class, into a new period in which it won’t be a satrapy of imperialist powers, its development dictated by the requirements of multinational corporations, but enjoy genuine independence allowing for economic growth producing benefits for ordinary people.</p>
<p>The Maoists debate among themselves the applicability of&#160; Chairman Mao’s concept of “New Democracy” in China right after the revolution of 1949, which involved an alliance of workers, peasants, petty-bourgeoisie and nationalist capitalists. It is one option. The goal—as it has always been for communists, back to the Manifesto of 1848, and for that matter (as the French philosopher Alain Badiou points out) back to Plato—is social equality, which you may find a profoundly inspiring or deeply disturbing ideal, depending on who you are in this world.</p>
<p>The timing for the transition from the present semi-feudal system to a socialist system integrating a lot of private enterprise, to a system in which private profit ceases to drive economic activity (as posited by Marxist theory as the real “end of history”)—this is a matter for discussion among the people. &#160;And left out of the discussion for ages, the people are rallying to the Maoist cause.</p>
<p>The Maoists are not calling at this point for “all power to the workers’ and peasants’ soviets” or drawing unimaginatively on the poetry of past communist-led revolutions. They’re talking about civilian sovereignty and respect for the 2006 agreement which enjoys widespread support. But insistence on such modest points alone may well bring them to power. They have already won a war and an election. Now (perhaps—I’m merely viewing from afar) for the urban insurrection.</p>
<p>Andolan III (following the mass movements of 1990 and 2006) began in November with a massive march on the capital, surrounding the Singha Durbar, the seat of (illegitimate) government, paralyzing activity. It was preceded by an evening torch-lit procession.&#160; There were some clashes with police but the demonstrators stood their ground; there was a dramatic confrontation between number two Maoist leader Baburam Bhattarai captured on video. He and those he led pressed past the police.</p>
<p>Prachanda spoke to the crowd. He cited the recent report of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon noting that the Nepalese government wasn’t observing the 2006 agreement with respect to the integration of the two armies. He wasn’t calling for communist revolution but simply for implementation of the agreement. And (again) some international communists, or those who see themselves as such, are criticizing his party for dwelling on this narrow legal issue rather than the grand issue of revolutionary seizure of power à la 1917 or 1949.</p>
<p>Maybe such critics gesticulating from the sidelines don’t get it. Every revolution is different. If it succeeds, it does because it responds to concrete conditions.</p>
<p>When the Maoists laid down their arms in 2006, they told the world: we’re confident we can move on from here, using these tactics, to plant the red flag of real people’s power over Mt. Everest. They forced their foes into an agreement that the latter are now reneging on. The Maoists probably expected that. Meanwhile the PLA has not been wasting time but (as Yardley documents) training, politically and militarily—either for integration into a truly national army accountable to the people, or for renewed confrontation with the army. (I’d imagine some Maoists are also volunteering the army,&#160; about 100,000 strong, as it recruits new troops in violation of the accord, in order to influence it and undermine it. The Maoists meanwhile express indignation that in a&#160; poor country of Nepal’s size such a large army even exists and advocate its replacement by a popular militia.)</p>
<p>There is a crisis. The government has shown bad faith. It has not asserted civilian supremacy over the military and been unable to implement the 2006 agreement. Because power really does grow out of the barrel of a gun, and the army hasn’t in fact despite Yardley’s contention “grudgingly succumbed to civilian control.” &#160;And while the Maoists have shown they can both fight on the battlefield, and win an election, in the end they may need to resort to violent means again. This time on an urban battlefield, with masses in the streets, while the PLA stands by attentively, country-wide, ready to serve the cause.</p>
<p>The most thoughtful communists in the world today have put an awful lot of thought into their unfolding strategy. Those on the outside looking in, persuaded this can’t be happening, scratch their heads and come up with explanations for the Maoists’ “maneuverings.” As though the Maoists were U.S. politicians, deviously seeking to maintain or acquire power by trading votes on this or that. As though they were opportunists, asking for anything other that was is theirs following the People’s War, the 2006 Peace Agreement, the 2008 election, proclamation of the republic, abolition of the monarchy, convening of the Constituent Assembly—all due, let us repeat, to their efforts.</p>
<p>They asked that the People’s Liberation Army be united with the national army, the former Royal Nepalese Army, to end the war. They’ve also made it clear all along that if that project is thwarted they’re prepared to resume the war. Their recent mass demonstrations in Katmandu, and proclamation of autonomous provinces within a federal Nepal, and even the postponed plans to shut down the international airport, indicate that they are serious about demonstrating their power among the masses and challenging their opponents to muster forces against them.</p>
<p>Both the Maoists and their opponents think they’re right, and as Marx once wrote, “Between equal rights force decides.” We will see. But our vision of what’s happening will be clouded as much as clarified by the New York Times.</p>
<p>GARY LEUPP is Professor of History at Tufts University, and Adjunct Professor of Religion. He is the author of <a href="" type="internal">Servants, Shophands and Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan</a>; <a href="" type="internal">Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan</a>; and <a href="" type="internal">Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900</a>. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch’s merciless chronicle of the wars on Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, <a href="http://www.easycarts.net/ecarts/CounterPunch/CP_Books.html" type="external">Imperial Crusades</a>. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p> | Skewing the Himalayan Revolution | true | https://counterpunch.org/2010/02/12/skewing-the-himalayan-revolution/ | 2010-02-12 | 4 |
<p>A point that can never be made enough about the policies of California Democrats is how much they actually hurt poor people. Their top priority is pleasing the richest part of their base — unions, trial lawyers and the urban professionals for whom environmentalism is a religion.</p>
<p>So they oppose anti-union Walmart, even though the Obama White House’s top economist says Walmart’s low prices make it a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/27/AR2005112700687.html" type="external">progressive godsend</a> for poor people.</p>
<p>So they back high taxes and heavy regulation, which prevents job growth and leaves California with the nation’s highest effective poverty rate.</p>
<p>So they back a public education status quo in which the interests of veteran, tenured teachers top the interests of every other “stakeholder” combined. If you think that’s exaggerated, remember that we have a 1971 state law requiring that student performance be a part of teacher evaluations. Not only is the state law ignored, insanely enough, a stage agency — the California Public Employment Relations Board — seriously argues that the law should be subject to <a href="" type="internal">retroactive collective bargaining</a>.</p>
<p>But what’s not yet widely appreciated is how California’s greens’ energy policies, starting with AB 32, will hammer the less fortunate. Five years ago, air board documents forecast an increase of as much as 60 percent in retail energy costs after AB 32 took full effect in 2020. Who is least able to deal with such a rate shock? Duh. Poor people.</p>
<p>We’re getting a sneak peek at what the future holds from Maryland. This is from <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/367133/marylands-low-energy-chill-jillian-kay-melchior" type="external">National Review</a>:</p>
<p>“Governor Martin O’Malley’s aggressive green agenda has favored expensive renewable-energy sources, driving up the cost of electricity. The 784,000 Marylanders who are living in poverty, and many more on the brink of it, have been particularly hard hit, even though sometimes the cost is offset by subsidies.</p>
<p>“Since O’Malley assumed office in January 2007, residents’ electricity rates have increased by 43 percent, according to estimates from Change Maryland, a group chaired by Larry Hogan, a Republican who intends to run for governor. …</p>
<p>“By 2020, O’Malley wants 18 percent of the state’s energy to be supplied from green sources, even though natural gas is at least 37 percent cheaper an energy source than onshore wind, and solar energy is at least 98 percent more expensive than conventional coal. Working toward this goal, the governor has backed several green policies, despite their impact on electricity prices. …”</p>
<p>“The increased cost of energy isn’t just a side effect of Maryland’s environmental agenda; for radical green policymakers, it’s the point, explains Myron Ebell, the director of energy and global-warming policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Already, consumption has decreased by 9.4 percent under O’Malley’s tenure, according to the Maryland Energy Administration.</p>
<p>‘The purpose of [such green policies] is to make people poorer so they can’t use as much energy,’ Ebell says. ‘They are making life very difficult for the lower-middle-class and working-class people and creating a greater divide between rich and poor, and despite the rhetoric that we need to reduce inequality, it’s really designed to do the opposite.'”</p>
<p>“Maryland’s poorest families could breathe easier if they were allowed to use cheaper energy sources.</p>
<p>“The Maryland Budget &amp; Tax Policy Institute has highlighted a ‘home energy affordability gap,’ noting that energy is considered affordable when it costs less than 7 percent of household income. But in Maryland, people at 50 percent of the federal poverty level or below devote about 40 percent of their income to energy consumption, says Richard Doran, program director of the Fuel Fund of Maryland. …</p>
<p>“Right now, Doran says, at least 500,000 state residents are struggling to pay their utility bills. And Children’s HealthWatch, which provides nonpartisan policy analysis, reported in 2011 that 15 percent of Baltimore residents had been threatened with a shutoff and that an additional 18 percent were heating their homes with a cooking stove, had experienced a shutoff, or lived in an unheated home.”</p>
<p>This is the coming reality, California: already-impoverished people being further impoverished by AB 32.</p>
<p>The party of the poor isn’t really about the poor. It’s about the needs and whims of its slice of the middle class, in this case the green religionists.</p> | Maryland’s poor hammered by energy price spike — CA’s next | false | https://calwatchdog.com/2014/01/03/56742/ | 2018-01-20 | 3 |
<p><a href="//videos/37/63544" type="external" /></p>
<p>RUSH: So just to review, you notice what’s going on today, folks, on the very day Jonathan Gruber is testifying before a House committee about all the things he said in which he lied and admitted the American people are stupid and they relied on that to trick the American people. He went into detail on the Cadillac Tax on top drawer health plans, a Democrat on the committee, a former union guy just laid into him over that.</p>
<p>We have that going on, but hardly anybody notices because Di Fi has released her report on what a rotten country the United States was back when George W. Bush was president and how we, if we’re not vigilant, will remain a rotten place. She released her report today, read from it on the floor of the Senate, making it very clear that we have a lot of explaining to do to the world, that we committed gross human rights violations, and we’ve got a lot of ground to cover before we can ever expect the rest of the world to respect us again.</p>
<p>And shortly after, Jack in the Box John McCain stood up and basically endorsed what she had said with a couple of caveats.</p>
<p>BREAK TRANSCRIPT</p>
<p>RUSH: So, anyway, anyway, Clinton, 1998, attacked a Tylenol factory in the Sudan to distract the American public from the Lewinsky scandal, remember that? At the time we were told it might be a munitions plant. We were told it might be a weapons of mass destruction installation. Clinton launched that and it turned out it was aspirin or Tylenol or something. And that begot a movie, essentially, called Wag the Dog.</p>
<p>Make it up, produce a war, get B-roll footage of two sides shooting each other, put it on TV, claim it’s an actual ongoing war and get people all focused on it to distract their attention from what you’re doing. First responders, can’t forget, first responders just a few years ago were America’s greatest heroes. After 9/11, the first responders, man, were they celebrated. Today, first responders are now the focus of evil in a country that’s gone off the tracks. Primarily the cops.</p>
<p>Our military tortures people abroad. White police abuse African-Americans at home and in the streets. That’s the narrative today. That’s the media narrative today. If you want to know what the news is, the daily soap opera script today, I’ve just described it to you. In a way you could say it’s a playbook from the sixties. And of course people in the sixties are now adults and they’ve got their own nostalgia and they think it’s cool to relive those days so now they’re doing it from the position that they once hated, power.</p>
<p>BREAK TRANSCRIPT</p>
<p>RUSH: Little Rock, home of the Clinton Library and Massage Parlor. This is Jeff. Welcome, sir, to the Rush Limbaugh program. Hi.</p>
<p>CALLER: Wow, Rush, it’s a great honor to talk to you. I’ve never done this before.</p>
<p>RUSH: Thank you, sir. It’s great to have you here.</p>
<p>CALLER: I’m not usually one who does something like this, but today I’m just fed up. I did 21 years as a pilot in the Army, and my daughter just had a baby yesterday, and she’s bringing her home so I have to go soon. But they’re willing to sacrifice my grandkids for political gain, when they can go out and get the information to save us, should something like this happen. And the people we’ve elected in Congress, the ones that are there, are afraid to stand up and put a stop to this crap. I’m sorry. I’m just really angry.</p>
<p>RUSH: I understand you being angry, a lot of people are, because when this was going on, the Democrats — you know, Pelosi is misrepresenting. She was told, the Democrats got reports of what was going on, and they didn’t object. They didn’t object when it was happening because we’re in the heat of the moment. Everybody knew back then we had to find out what these people knew. We had to head off future attacks. But then shortly after that, the whole anti-Bush, anti-Iraq war and even anti-War on Terror Democrat objective began, and so it was all in for all criticism of anybody who had anything to do with the war effort because it was coming up on election time, and the Democrat Party, nothing is sacred, and so it became time to throw these people overboard.</p>
<p>CALLER: And I don’t understand, you know, if we keep going the way we’re going going, we might as well pull the flag down and raise a white sheet.</p>
<p>RUSH: Well, let me just tell you, Obama has — I’ve got it somewhere in the Stack here — obviously I didn’t intend to get to it now or it’d be at the top of the Stack. But Obama has ordered the DOJ or the DOJ with Obama’s approval has ordered that criminal records of people seeking visas either for a long period of time or even permanently are to be ignored now.</p>
<p>CALLER: I don’t get it. I don’t understand it.</p>
<p>RUSH: Well, I can tell you. I’m blue in the face explaining this, but people like Obama and the Democrat Party today believe this country is so flawed from the days of its founding that we owe all of the people of this world that we’ve denied admittance to our country. We are responsible for the fact that they’re criminals. We are responsible for their behavior because we have been so mean because we have had such punishing laws. We’re responsible and it’s time we face the music. It’s time that we face the consequences of how discriminatory and biased and racist we have been as a nation for over 200 years. That’s why the floodgates are open to anybody and everybody.</p>
<p>BREAK TRANSCRIPT</p>
<p>RUSH: I go back to the phones to Bend, Oregon. This is Tom. You’re next, sir. Great to have you with us. Hello.</p>
<p>CALLER: Well, thank you. Been listening since Sacramento. My question is, why don’t we have pictures of ISIS and what they’re doing to children, beheading the women and children there like they did with the Abu Ghraib pictures?</p>
<p>RUSH: This is a very good question. It’s a very interesting question. Have you noticed, Tom, that every anniversary of 9/11, something isn’t shown. If you notice, we don’t any longer on the major cable and broadcast networks, there may be an exception at Fox now, we do not see footage of the planes hitting the twin towers. We don’t see footage of people leaping out of the buildings, plunging to their deaths to avoid being burned alive. We don’t see any of that.</p>
<p>We don’t see the beheadings. It’s just too gross. We’re not capable of it, not capable of dealing with it, it’s too horrific. But your point is well taken. One of the reasons that that video footage isn’t shown is precisely so that the American people will, over time, forget the intensity of the acts and the horrors, no question about that.</p>
<p>BREAK TRANSCRIPT</p>
<p>RUSH: Ruth in Portland, Oregon. Welcome, Ruth. Glad you waited. Great to have you on the show. Hi.</p>
<p>CALLER: Hi, Rush. I’m so glad you took my call. Thank you very much. First I want to say dittos from my mother, who’s a longtime listener. She turned 90. She raised 13 kids, and she survived criminal corruption in Multnomah County Probate Court, so a shout out to Madeleine. Thank you. I think that this is gonna backfire them doing this, releasing this. Americans are sick of listening to how terrible we are to these people that are beheading Americans.</p>
<p>RUSH: How’s it gonna backfire?</p>
<p>CALLER: Americans are just sick of it. They’re going to see more and more of this administration as trying to stir up sympathy for the terrorists who are chopping off our heads and chopping off children’s heads, and there’s actually people that — I work out in the public, and people are just, they’re rising up anger.</p>
<p>RUSH: I know. What are they going to do?</p>
<p>CALLER: And then to say that sleep deprivation and Ensure is torture, okay, let’s talk to the Americans that are trying to figure out how to pay their bills and ask us how much sleep deprivation we’ve had. And as far as Ensure, I give that to my mom on doctor’s orders for good nutrition. You want to torture ’em, give ’em Michelle’s lunch program food.</p>
<p>RUSH: (laughing) That happens to be true. These terrorists at Gitmo do eat better than school kids eating the Michelle Obama menu. But look, wait a minute, now, Ruth hang on. You said the American people are fed up, they’ve had it. What are they gonna do? They voted. Didn’t change anything. What are they gonna do, Ruth, after they get mad? How’s it gonna backfire? How is this gonna backfire on Dianne Feinstein? How’s it gonna backfire on the Democrats? How’s it gonna backfire on McCain who stood up and basically endorsed most of it? How is it gonna backfire on anybody?</p>
<p>CALLER: You know what I’d like to see, I’d actually like to see Americans just light up Washington, DC, their Senators and everybody, just tell ’em they’re fed up with it, and just tell ’em —</p>
<p>RUSH: Been doing that for 10 years. (crosstalk)</p>
<p>CALLER: — it’s gonna help, let’s get rid of them completely.</p>
<p>RUSH: We just did.</p>
<p>CALLER: — wipe them out.</p>
<p>RUSH: It’s a break wall. We just did. We just got rid of more Democrats in two elections than we got rid of in 50 years.</p>
<p>CALLER: We’re not done, though. You know, there needs to be accountability. Let’s light up the switchboards at the media outlets.</p>
<p>RUSH: That isn’t gonna matter. You know what, Ruth — I love Ruth’s optimism. All you gotta do is express your anger and magic happens. It works for the left. It doesn’t work for us. Ruth, I’m gonna tell you what. I want you to conduct a little test here. You talk about lighting up the switchboards and the media outlets, pick a network, call ’em up, complain about something. Complain about the coverage of something. I don’t care what it is. And if they talk to you, which they won’t, but if they do they will thank you and tell you, “Yes, ma’am, yes, ma’am, three bags full, you’re an idiot because you don’t know enough to know how we do what we do here. And we don’t do what we do for you anyway. If you don’t like it, don’t watch it.” And then they’ll hang up on you.</p>
<p>You do that, and you repeat it, and then after, if you’re really colorful enough, they’ll end up talking about you in the break room, in the newsroom at the network, and they’ll start making fun of this lady that called us from Portland. Do you believe we really care what they think about what’s going on in Portland? This woman tells me that we’re lying and we’re biased, and they’ll just laugh at you and make fun of you because they don’t do the news for you, Ruth. They do the news for the approval of other journalists and Obama.</p>
<p>BREAK TRANSCRIPT</p>
<p>RUSH: Here’s Seth in Nashville. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.</p>
<p>CALLER: Hey, Rush. It’s an honor and a pleasure to talk to you. I’ve actually listened to you probably since I was four or five in the car with my mom.</p>
<p>RUSH: That’s great. I really do appreciate that.</p>
<p>CALLER: I just wanted to comment on you’ve been making a point all day about how liberalism and a lot of the low-information voters that don’t perceive or understand the real world, whether it’s the police shootings or the torture thing that’s going on now, it’s just incredible to me how they don’t understand. They accuse us of participating in torture, as you pointed out multiple times, hijacking the language. What we do is just barely considered torture. If they want to say we wrong the world, we need to explain ourselves to the world, look at other techniques that we don’t use because of what they do, whether you want to look at the Soviets’ use of sensory deprivation. Some of the terror cells have been found to use extremity burning, where you burn an extremity and then poke, prod at it, burn again. It’s just amazing that — all waterboarding is is a fear tactic. And the scaled-up version of what we do is good cop/bad cop. Bad cop comes in, he’s mad, he’s angry, good cop comes in, you want to play nice.</p>
<p>RUSH: Yeah, but see, the way they would react to you, “Oh, okay Seth, so we’re no better than the Soviets. You want to use the Soviets and their gulags, well, that’s about what we were doing at Guantanamo Bay, and Dick Durbin said so.” But they would come at you and say, “This is our point. We aren’t the Soviets and that’s not who we are, and just because they do it doesn’t mean we should do it, or doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t feel really good about ourselves because we don’t get close to what they do.” But that’s not what this is about. This is about the ongoing criticism of America. It really is no more complicated than that.</p> | Fed Up with the Trashing of America | true | http://rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2014/12/09/fed_up_with_the_trashing_of_america | 2014-12-09 | 0 |
<p />
<p>We gave the Pentagon more than <a href="http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy09/pdf/budget/defense.pdf" type="external">$500 billion</a> (PDF) last year, but, according to the Center for Public Integrity, that hasn’t stopped defense officials from routinely <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/pentagon_travel/articles/entry/1408/" type="external">accepting trips bankrolled by special interests</a>.</p>
<p>Despite the Pentagon’s big budgets, DOD personnel routinely accept free flights, accommodations, and hospitality from outside interests, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of thousands of travel disclosure records. From 1998 through 2007, the analysis found, outside sources paid for more than 22,000 trips worth at least $26 million, sponsored by an array of foreign governments, private companies, and other groups which have business with the Pentagon.</p>
<p>The best (or most suspect) trip taken by an American official? A $24,000, Saudi-funded excursion—complete with a trip to a camel race as special guests of Prince Miteb bin Abdullah bin Abdulaziz—taken by Richard Millies and his wife in 2005. Millies is one of the Pentagon’s men in charge of selling advanced weapons to foreign governments.</p>
<p /> | The Pentagon’s Free Rides | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2009/06/pentagons-free-rides/ | 2009-06-10 | 4 |
<p>AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court has let stand a lower court ruling that a white Texas police officer was immune from prosecution for the fatal shooting of a black man near a bank in 2013.</p>
<p>In a statement, the Travis County District Attorney’s Office said justices declined Monday to take up the county’s appeal in the case involving former Austin officer Charles Kleinert.</p>
<p>Kleinert was working with an FBI task force investigating bank robberies when he became suspicious of Larry Jackson Jr. and a chase ensued. Jackson was shot in the neck following a struggle.</p>
<p>Kleinert was indicted in 2014 on a manslaughter count, but a federal judge dismissed the charge under a more-than-100-year-old court ruling protecting federal officers from state prosecution.</p>
<p>AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court has let stand a lower court ruling that a white Texas police officer was immune from prosecution for the fatal shooting of a black man near a bank in 2013.</p>
<p>In a statement, the Travis County District Attorney’s Office said justices declined Monday to take up the county’s appeal in the case involving former Austin officer Charles Kleinert.</p>
<p>Kleinert was working with an FBI task force investigating bank robberies when he became suspicious of Larry Jackson Jr. and a chase ensued. Jackson was shot in the neck following a struggle.</p>
<p>Kleinert was indicted in 2014 on a manslaughter count, but a federal judge dismissed the charge under a more-than-100-year-old court ruling protecting federal officers from state prosecution.</p> | White Texas officer’s immunity stands in black man’s death | false | https://apnews.com/af6a6e1cf8264139afeb5cb3c4951907 | 2018-01-09 | 2 |
<p><a href="" type="internal" />JUNE 20, 2011</p>
<p>By STEVEN GREENHUT</p>
<p>Hours before the midnight Wednesday deadline for passing a state budget, legislative Democrats rammed through a ridiculous, gimmick-laden, majority-vote spending plan that failed to reform anything and failed to impress Gov. Jerry Brown, who wisely vetoed it less than a day later. The budget succeeded mainly in one area: ensuring the legislators would continue getting their paychecks, given that an initiative passed by voters last year, <a href="http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/California_Proposition_25,_Majority_Vote_for_Legislature_to_Pass_the_Budget_%282010%29" type="external">Proposition 25</a>, would have permanently denied them their pay for every day after a missed budget deadline.</p>
<p>Brown might do another good thing that would give California property owners reason to celebrate: sign the budget trailer bills that would eliminate the state’s noxious redevelopment agencies. There’s been debate in the Capitol about whether his budget veto affects the redevelopment trailer bills, but the latest information from Assembly Republicans is that the trailer bills can be signed or vetoed separately.</p>
<p>An earlier effort this year to kill these local central-planning fiefdoms — which run up debt, divert existing tax dollars from traditional public services such as schools and public safety, abuse government’s power to seize private property and dole out subsidies to politically savvy developers — failed when Republicans rallied to save the agencies, their free-market rhetoric notwithstanding. But Wednesday, the Legislature voted to end their reign of terror, with a handful of Republicans joining Democrats in doing the right thing.</p>
<p>The previous bid to kill redevelopment failed because the bill required a two-thirds majority vote, but Wednesday a version stripped of its appropriations provisions came before both houses of the Legislature for a simple majority vote. AB 26x would “dissolve all redevelopment agencies and community development agencies in existence and designate successor agencies.”</p>
<p>A companion bill, AB 27x, was a sop to weak-in-the-knees Democrats afraid to kill these agencies outright. It allows the agencies to rise like zombies, provided they pay a large portion of the revenue they collect to schools, fire protection agencies and other agencies from which they divert funds. That’s problematic, but as news reports suggest, city officials don’t think they have the cash to revive their agencies.</p>
<p>San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed complained in published reports that such a payback provision is “an impossible demand to meet.” Given the abusive and wasteful actions of redevelopment in that city and elsewhere, California property owners should be relieved that Reed and other redevelopment advocates are upset.</p>
<p>“The Senate and the Assembly just voted to kill redevelopment, plain and simple,” the California Redevelopment Association’s John Shirey told the media. The governor has yet to sign (or even receive) the bills, and the agencies’ fate could end up in court, but Shirey is not crying wolf.</p>
<p>The redevelopment industry suffered an enormous defeat, despite its phalanx of lobbyists. Prior to the vote, Republican U.S. Rep. Tom McClintock of Rocklin, and one of the state’s conservative icons, released a short video urging Republicans to join with Democrats to kill the agencies.</p>
<p>Yet, even though any serious conservative should agree with McClintock and be eager to kill redevelopment agencies, which epitomize crony capitalism and central planning, Republicans were the biggest obstacle to their elimination. They found various reasons to support them, ranging from the desire not to give Brown any sort of budget victory to the oft-stated claim that redevelopment at least keeps the money in the hands of cities rather than in Sacramento.</p>
<p>In reality, many Republican legislators are more interested in being pro-business than pro-freedom, and they have become addicted to the redevelopment cash and the political support from developers who benefit from the process.</p>
<p>On the Assembly floor Wednesday, Assemblyman Don Wagner, R-Irvine, rightly compared redevelopment tactics to the Mafia — thus sparking a schoolyard-like scuffle on the floor with an Italian-American assemblyman who demanded an apology on behalf of his fellow Italians. But Wagner then opposed the legislation because AB 27x provided a way to revive RDAs.</p>
<p>I’ve never heard a Republican refuse to support a tax cut on the grounds that the Legislature could raise taxes in the future. When it comes to redevelopment, Wagner and other Republicans contorted logic to defend these agencies.</p>
<p>Obviously, Democrats didn’t vote to shut down redevelopment agencies for the right reasons. They don’t mind central planning and subsidies.</p>
<p>If they didn’t like those things, they wouldn’t be Democrats. They are looking for cash to close the budget hole. But who cares why they did it? Principled politicians find allies wherever they can find them, even if such alliances are fleeting.</p>
<p>There were some genuine heroes. Ted Gaines of Roseville was the only Senate Republican to vote to end the agencies, providing the swing vote. His wife, Beth Gaines, a newly elected assemblywoman, joined Chris Norby of Fullerton, Allan Mansoor of Costa Mesa, Jim Nielsen of Gerber and Dan Logue of Linda in voting to kill redevelopment.</p>
<p>I loved what Beth Gaines said in her floor speech: “Redevelopment agencies were first created to clean up blight and improve infrastructure, and while some have completed very successful projects in their communities, unfortunately today, many use these state-subsidies as slush funds to seize private property through eminent domain and supplement other general fund expenditures, with little accountability to taxpayers.”</p>
<p>This redevelopment vote separated real Republicans — note how few there were — from the Republicans In Rhetoric Only.</p>
<p>Good for Gov. Brown for quickly rejecting the Democrats’ scam budget, even though he is sticking to his playbook calling for tax extensions as the only solution to the state’s deficit. Still, whatever emerges from this budget drama will have a short-term effect on the state. The budget won’t be fixed until Californians elect politicians willing to exert some fiscal discipline.</p>
<p>But the death of redevelopment — and I believe Shirey that these votes really would have meant their death — would be a great advance for fiscal responsibility and property rights and could give Brown a serious legacy.</p>
<p>However this plays out, redevelopment is on the ropes. That is a reason to celebrate.</p> | Redevelopment Agencies on the Brink | false | https://calwatchdog.com/2011/06/20/redevelopment-agencies-on-the-brink/ | 2018-06-20 | 3 |
<p>Roots of War, by Richard J. Barnet. New York: Atheneum. 350 pp.</p>
<p>In his latest book, Richard Barnet, codirector of the Institute for Policy Studies, continues his examination of U.S. foreign policy, specifically "the roots of a generation of war" and the forces in U.S. society that have pushed this country into a series of military interventions. His premise is that only deeply entrenched forces would make the country persist in the disastrous Vietnam policy long beyond the point when it became evident that the economic, social, and moral costs far outweighed any possible advantage in international power relations. The book is written lucidly and concisely. Barnet's analysis of the theories of imperialism by Hobson, Lenin, Kautsky, and Schumpeter is first-rate. He avoids moralizing and cheap polemics, and he usually stays away from sweeping simplifications.</p>
<p /> | Road to Vietnam | true | https://dissentmagazine.org/article/road-to-vietnam | 2018-10-03 | 4 |
<p>Al Qaeda in Yemen has warned the United States of more and bloodier attacks in retaliation for the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.</p>
<p>The warning by Nasser al-Wahishi, the head of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and once a close associate of bin Laden, was posted on Islamist extremist websites on Wednesday.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hI8p2QCZzj9p2ySR2DdxvpJAO5RA?docId=CNG.d2acdf5f5595e9d01a69d964534d54c4.951" type="external">SITE</a> monitoring group, which monitors militant messages, Wahishi tells Americans not to fool themselves that "the matter will be over" with bin Laden's death.</p>
<p>He says that "what is coming is greater and worse, and what is awaiting you is more intense and harmful," Agence France-Presse reports.&#160;The "ember of <a href="http://www.voanews.com/english/news/middle-east/Al-Qaida-Warns-of-More-Attacks-121628349.html" type="external">jihad</a>is brighter" following bin Laden's death, he reportedly says.</p>
<p>"We promise Allah that we will remain firm in the covenant and that we will continue the march, and that the death of the sheikh will only increase our persistence to fight the Jews and the Americans in order to take revenge," Wahishi said.</p>
<p>The warning came as Sen. John Kerry - the chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee - announced he would travel to Pakistan next week to try and put relations with that country "back on track" after bin Laden's death.</p>
<p>U.S. special forces killed the bin Laden during a May 2 raid on a compound in Pakistan's garrison city of Abbottabad.</p>
<p>The discovery of bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan and his subsequent killing in the raid has further strained relations between the U.S. and Pakistan.</p>
<p>Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has rejected claims that Pakistan's military and spy agency, ISI, were complicit with bin Laden or incompetent in failing to detect his hideout.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p />
<p /> | Al Qaeda warns US, Jews of more attacks after bin Laden killing (VIDEO) | false | https://pri.org/stories/2011-05-11/al-qaeda-warns-us-jews-more-attacks-after-bin-laden-killing-video | 2011-05-11 | 3 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>The person he offered money to murder his parents, and who sent him the silencer, was an undercover FBI employee. Sullivan, 20, who was arrested soon after the silencer arrived, pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday to attempting to commit acts of terrorism.</p>
<p>According to court documents, Sullivan began watching videos of Islamic State beheadings and other atrocities on his laptop in September 2014. He converted to Islam, announced his support for the Islamic State to his parents and destroyed some of their religious objects.</p>
<p>“I liked IS from the beginning then I started thinking about death and stuff so I became Muslim,” he later told the FBI employee, the indictment in the case said.</p>
<p>By June 2015, Sullivan had made contact with Junaid Hussain, an Islamic State recruiter who was reported killed in a drone strike in Syria two months later. A British hacker turned militant, Hussain encouraged severalattempted terrorist attacks in the United States. It was to Hussain that a Kosovo-based hacker passed on personal information about U.S. military personnel.</p>
<p>According to authorities, Hussain asked Sullivan to film a video of his deadly attack for use by the Islamic State. Sullivan agreed.</p>
<p>“I’ll kill people this month,” he told the FBI agent on June 7, 2015. Sullivan said he would carry out his attack in a bar, club or concert, where he hoped to kill as many as 1,000 people.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>He was arrested two weeks later.</p>
<p>Sullivan is also accused of killing a 74-year-old neighbor, John Bailey Clark, to get enough money to finance his terrorist attack. Sullivan admitted that he stole a .22-caliber rifle from his stepfather’s gun cabinet, and forensic testing linked the rifle to Clark’s death.</p>
<p>According to court documents, Sullivan also said that the $689 he planned to use to buy an AR-15 rifle and ammunition at a gun show came from Clark. But he has not confessed to the murder.</p>
<p>Prosecutors said Sullivan has agreed to a sentence of life in prison, the maximum penalty for attempting to commit terrorism.</p>
<p>isis-virginia</p> | 20-year-old planned terrorist attack in Virginia or North Carolina | false | https://abqjournal.com/897954/20-year-old-planned-terrorist-attack-in-virginia-or-north-carolina.html | 2 |
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<p>RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – Hundreds of Brazilian soldiers poured into Rio de Janeiro’s Rocinha slum on Friday in a bid to help the cash-strapped state government quell the drug-related violence that authorities blamed for at least four deaths and several injuries there this week.</p>
<p>The army deployed 950 troops in the sprawling favela, responding to a request from the Rio state government, Defense Minister Raul Jungmann told local television.</p>
<p>In the past week, 60 criminals are believed to have launched an effort to dominate the drug trade in the area, not far from some of the city’s most expensive real estate, and shootings were reported there on Friday morning, according to local media.</p>
<p>The violence in Rocinha is one more sign of the backsliding since the launch of a “pacification” program in 2008 to reduce violence by pushing out drug gangs and setting up permanent outposts in the city’s more than 1,000 favelas.</p>
<p>Police struggled to maintain security gains in favelas in the run-up to the 2016 Olympics in Rio and have continued to lose ground as a fiscal crisis in the city and state lead to cutbacks in spending on police and other essential services.</p>
<p>The military operation in Rocinha on Friday disrupted transportation and businesses in the area, with some schools closing or paring back operations.</p>
<p>“I was going to work and suddenly the police closed off the tunnel in Rocinha and started to patrol with guns. There was a panic at the mouth of the tunnel and I saw people running and heard gunfire,” one witness told Reuters, requesting anonymity.</p>
<p>“I’m still shaking now.”</p>
<p>The outbreak of violence is happening in the midst of the Rock in Rio music festival at the far south end of the city, which has drawn thousands of people with musical acts including Fergie and Aerosmith.</p>
<p>Broadcaster GloboNews on Friday showed relatively calm scenes of matte green military trucks filing down roads into the favela, including soldiers riding on trucks and motorcycles holding assault rifles.</p>
<p>There are up to 10,000 troops in Rio de Janeiro who could be mobilized if needed, the defense ministry said.</p>
<p>“We’re not going to back off in Rocinha,” the governor of Rio state Luiz Fernando Pezao told journalists.</p>
<p />
<p>Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.</p> | Brazil army deploys in Rio slum as drug-related violence worsens | false | https://newsline.com/brazil-army-deploys-in-rio-slum-as-drug-related-violence-worsens/ | 2017-09-22 | 1 |
<p><a href="" type="internal" />APRIL 12, 2011</p>
<p>By KATY GRIMES</p>
<p>Another attempt to stop the unchecked spending on high-speed rail was killed in committee on Monday on a party-line vote. That happened despite research proving that taxpayers cannot sustain the inevitable subsidy the project will require, &#160;and claims that voters were misrepresented in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_1A_(2008)" type="external">2008 ballot initiative</a>.</p>
<p>Dana Point Republican Assemblywoman Diane Harkey faced a full committee room and even some heckling as she spoke Monday to the Assembly Committee on Transportation. <a href="http://leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/asm/ab_0051-0100/ab_76_bill_20101222_introduced.pdf" type="external">AB 76</a> would have reduced the amount of general obligation debt for the High-Speed Rail, starting in January 1, 2012.</p>
<p>In 2008, voters approved $10 billion in bonds for the “ <a href="http://www.catc.ca.gov/programs/hsptbp.htm" type="external">High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act for the 21</a> <a href="http://www.catc.ca.gov/programs/hsptbp.htm" type="external">st</a> <a href="http://www.catc.ca.gov/programs/hsptbp.htm" type="external">Century</a> under Proposition 1A.&#160;But to date, very little has been built, and already millions of dollars have been spent. One <a href="http://www.cc-hsr.org/assets/pdf/middleclass.pdf" type="external">study</a> reported ($1M means $1 million):</p>
<p>By July this year, the State will have spent about&#160;$500Million on studies and public relations. The present CHSRA budget for&#160;July 31, 2010 to June 30, 2011 is $231 million, over $1M/working day. That&#160;supports about 30 staff and 600 full time equivalent (FTE) consultants. These&#160;planners, engineers and managers each cost an average of $355,385 this&#160;fiscal year. For that price the project could have given jobs to seven of your&#160;colleagues or neighbors.</p>
<p>The rail project was awarded $3.6 billion by the federal government, and the High-Speed Rail Authority applied recently for even more money from the feds. But more federal funding is not a sure thing. According to the <a href="http://leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/asm/ab_0051-0100/ab_76_bill_20101222_introduced.pdf" type="external">AB 76</a>fact sheet, $9 – $10 billion is only the startup cost for the rail project. The High-Speed Rail Authority estimates the costs in excess of $40 – $60 billion.</p>
<p>However, several rail <a href="http://www.cc-hsr.org/assets/pdf/CHSR-Financial_Risks-101210-D.pdf" type="external">experts</a> put the actual cost estimates of the rail project somewhere between $60 billion and $116 billion (that’s $60,000,000,000 to $116,000,000,000 — nine zeros).</p>
<p>In 2009, the Legislature approved $139 million to fund the preliminary planning of the rail system. But since then, according to a high-speed rail <a href="http://www.cc-hsr.org/assets/pdf/CHSR-Financial_Risks-101210-D.pdf" type="external">briefing paper</a> done in January:</p>
<p>[B]y the close of 2010, 25 months after Prop 1A, no private investor has come forward with any of the $10-12 billion required for the project’s capital development. Unless the State and/or Federal governments build or guarantee Phase One’s capital construction costs, there will be no project; a fact the Authority knew in mid-2008.</p>
<p>“What are the risks of the project? We don’t even know,” Harkey said, critical of the large, as-yet-unknown debt California will be taking on. “It could be $66 to $100 billion, and that’s without the train sets and without the operating expenses.”</p>
<p>Harkey was also critical of the 120 miles of prime farmland that will be dissected in order to lay tracks for the rail. “Farming is our largest employer in the state,” she said.</p>
<p>And Harkey said that the system is estimated at $677 million per year to operate, once the construction has been completed.</p>
<p>Another bill has been introduced by Harkey&#160;that would require an “Investment Grade Analysis” by the state auditor of California’s High-Speed Rail Authority to provide a timeline and benchmark of the costs, duration, risks and ridership.</p>
<p>Ridership has been an issue with the project as well. The <a href="http://www.cc-hsr.org/assets/pdf/CHSR-Financial_Risks-101210-D.pdf" type="external">study</a> reported:</p>
<p>The 2008 proposition reported that more than 100 million riders annually would use the train by its tenth operating year (2030). By 2009, CHSRA was claiming only 39 million riders by 2030 for its LA/Anaheim to San Francisco Phase One. But even that claim doesn’t withstand scrutiny.&#160;&#160; One notable bias is the claim that 96 percent of the Californians surveyed expressed an interest in taking High-Speed Rail. But contrary to best practices and known to produce bias, the sample was a survey of train-based commuters.</p>
<p>But for all of Harkey’s facts, challenges to the ridership figures, and concern for the lost farmland and agriculture jobs, the chairwoman of the transportation committee, Long Beach Democrat Bonnie Lowenthal, told Harkey that she would vote against the bill. “I think you and I are going to disagree about the merits of high-speed rail because I believe there is a possible success story out there,” Lowenthal said. “So for that reason I am going to oppose your bill.”</p>
<p>As expected, pushback came from the High-Speed Rail Authority. “Put really simply, this bill would kill high-speed rail in California. We believe that’s against the will of the people who voted for the project,” said Jeff Barker, deputy executive director of the High-Speed Rail Authority.</p>
<p>Support for Harkey’s bill came from agricultural and farming groups in the state, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and even from some supporters of high-speed rail. Rich Tolmach, one of the state’s leading rail experts, said he is a big supporter of high-speed rail, “But sanity and accurate data need to be applied to the bill.”</p>
<p>Opposition came from numerous college students, the Building and Trades Council, the California Labor Federation, the Operating Engineers, teamsters, machinists and other labor groups.</p>
<p>The 14-member committee voted the bill down along party lines. “You’ll be hearing from me again,” Harkey said after the vote.</p> | High-Speed Rail Rides Again | false | https://calwatchdog.com/2011/04/12/high-speed-rail-rides-again/ | 2018-04-20 | 3 |
<p>A 21 year-old Sheffield, England, woman bravely defended herself against an attack from a rapist as she walked home from work in the early morning hours.</p>
<p>Johnathon Holmes, 35, followed the 5' 4" intended victim down the street for over a mile, hiding behind walls, before he jumped her, holding her down and forcing her onto her back, saying, "You're going to enjoy this."</p>
<p>The quick-thinking and courageous woman had realized she was being followed and placed her keys into her hand as a weapon. When Holmes thrust his tongue into her mouth she bit down as hard as she could until his grip loosened. She then got on top of him and started punching, stabbing, and clawing him in the face, neck, and stomach with her keys and fists while screaming for help.</p>
<p>Fortunately two passers-by heard her cries and came rushing to her aid, prompting Holmes to flee the scene, only to injure himself even more by jumping over some railings.</p>
<p>The police caught up to the attacker a few hours later; he claimed he didn't recall the incident because he was drunk. The judge didn't buy it, sentencing him to 4 1/2 years in prison.</p>
<p>"He won’t do anything like this to a woman again", the prosecutor said, quoting the would-be victim.</p>
<p>Luckily for Holmes, his fellow prisoners have pledged to intimately show him all the ways his technique could improve by using him as their unsuspecting volunteer.</p>
<p>Adiós, Frankenswine.</p>
<p>(h/t <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/chilling-cctv-captures-sex-beast-6941538" type="external">Mirror</a>)</p> | This Rapist Thought His Victim Would Give Him a ‘Good Time.’ Then This Happened. | true | https://dailywire.com/news/1736/rapist-thought-his-victim-would-give-him-good-time-chase-stephens | 2015-12-09 | 0 |
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>Ted Cruz is a junior senator with less than one year experience in the Senate. How did he amass the power to inflict the damage he has on the American government and economy? How did he bring the GOP Civil War that much closer?</p>
<p>To understand the mentality one would have had to watch the Ted Cruz campaign as it happened in Texas. Texas is a state where very few people vote. Moreover, many of those that vote are Right Wing Conservatives. As a proportion of those that vote, they are plentiful. Ted Cruz roamed the state as a Tea Party candidate that defeated an establishment candidate. When he defeated David Dewhurst he did so with the Tea Party ‘grassroots’.</p>
<p>Anyone attending one of his rallies would believe they were in a confederate rally ready to go to war against the government. Many openly spoke not only of a GOP civil war, but an entire civil war in the entire country. They cloak this in the establishment taking away one’s freedom.</p>
<p>Ted Cruz came to Kingwood, Texas among other Texas towns, a couple months ago during the last recess. The Tea Party ensured the meeting and rally was well attended and the money from attendees poured in as he gave them the red meat of indoctrinating lies. Every politician leaving that meeting left empowered. Every politician likely felt that most of America was on his/her side.</p>
<p>Every American in Ted Cruz’s isolated bubbles is on his side. Unfortunately, Cruz chooses not to look outside the bubble. As such he disregards polls showing that most Americans do not want what the Americans in his bubble want. Most importantly, he represents a small <a href="" type="internal">misinformed</a> segment of America. The freedom that he complains about losing is the freedom he is attempting to take away from most Americans.</p>
<p>In Cruz’s statement below it is clear he has laid groundwork for a GOP civil war. He makes it clear the establishment has won this battle. Most importantly he makes the claim that he is listening to the American people, they are not.</p>
<p />
<p>Make no mistake; Ted Cruz is an intelligent man. Ted Cruz knew he would lose this battle. The Ted Cruz move with the backing of Heritage Action and an indoctrinated Tea Party had a purpose. It will either split the Party with a GOP civil war or have Republicans cower into appeasement to the Tea Party minority.</p>
<p>Ultimately the portion of the Republican Party that needed to cower got a feeble spine in the end. What is left; a GOP civil war. Stay tuned.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /> LIKE My <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/EgbertoWilliescom/181893712536" type="external">Facebook Page</a> – Visit My Blog: <a href="http://www.EgbertoWillies.com" type="external">EgbertoWillies.com</a></p> | Ted Cruz Caves But Lays Groundwork For GOP Civil War (VIDEO) | true | http://egbertowillies.com/2013/10/16/gop-civil-war/?fb_source%3Dpubv1 | 2013-10-16 | 4 |
<p>There is definitely something <a href="" type="internal">not right with the outcome of the Kentucky governor's race</a>, though I'm still not ready to say it was definitely the voting machines.</p>
<p>I had a long conversation with Brad Friedman Wednesday on and off the air about the differences between Conway's totals and other Democrats down the ticket. The on-air conversation is at the top of this post.</p>
<p>The vote distributions on the downticket races are what's considered a "significant anomaly" by Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org, as Brad <a href="http://bradblog.com/?p=11430" type="external">explains</a>:</p>
<p>Bev Harris, of <a href="http://blackboxvoting.org/" type="external">BlackBoxVoting.org</a>, who I spoke with earlier today, described the higher vote totals in the down ballot races as a "significant anomaly". She tells me that, at least until more records are requested and examined, the KY-Gov's race "has to be looked at as a questionable outcome, particularly because of the discrepancies in the down ballot races. More votes in those races and not at the top...that just doesn't happen."</p>
<p>(Here is a link to a helpful <a href="http://blackboxvoting.org/toolkit-public-records.pdf" type="external">Public Records Request toolkit [PDF]</a> from Black Box Voting for those of you who may be interested in helping to try and obtain some transparency in this race, as we also discussed on today's program.)</p>
<p>Now, here's the thing. It's entirely possible that the voting went exactly the way it was reported. It's also possible that it didn't. Brad says that at least in the more densely populated portions of Kentucky, they've switched from touchscreen machines to optical scanners, at least have a paper trail accompanying the marked ballots.</p>
<p>This is a good thing. However, it doesn't amount to a hill of beans if any of the machines simply read the ballots wrong, or there was a more complicated but still real hack called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMw2dn6K1oI" type="external">"man in the middle"</a> between the ballot scans and vote tallies.</p>
<p>The only way to have confidence in these results is to count the ballots by hand.</p>
<p>Kentucky isn't going to do that. In fact, Brad told me that if they did a recount for some reason, it would simply be a process of feeding the ballots back through the same machines again, which doesn't lend itself to an accurate result.</p>
<p>Brad entitled his show "Primal Scream: The Kentucky Governor's Race," and for good reason. Everyone has a reason why Jack Conway lost the race to Matt Bevin. Chris Hayes went on and on about low turnout Wednesday night. But just to set some perspective here, the current governor, Steve Beshear, won in 2011 with lower turnout than this year. The turnout this year was 30.7 percent of registered voters. In 2011, it was 28 percent, and Beshear won.</p>
<p>E.J. Dionne talked to Kentucky Rep. John Yarmuth <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/one-election-day-still-two-americas/2015/11/04/79eedb8c-8338-11e5-9afb-0c971f713d0c_story.html" type="external">who suggests</a> it's an insider/outsider issue, so Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Ted Cruz have reason for hope. Also, turnout.</p>
<p>But the biggest surprise of the evening was Bevin’s sweep, and Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) saw it as instructive. “There is something to this outsider theory,” he said in an interview. “People are looking for something new and fresh.” Ben Carson, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz all have reason to take heart.</p>
<p>Yarmuth and other Democrats also pointed to low turnout among their supporters in nonpresidential years, aggravated by a Catch-22 in Republican-leaning states: Getting too close to Obama and the national party can hurt Democratic candidates in the broader electorate, but creating too much distance can dampen turnout among loyalists they badly need to show up.</p>
<p>Oh yes, the Obama/race thing again too. Except that one is harder to get my head around from a race perspective, given that Bevin's running-mate was African-American. In fact, I'd argue that having an African-American woman as his running mate might be an argument for why there could have been legitimate ticket-splitting.</p>
<p>I took a look at the numbers on a county-by-county basis, comparing the Conway/Bevin race to the Grimes/Knipper Race. Alison Lundergan Grimes received 66,656 more votes than Jack Conway. She won in nearly 40 counties; Conway won less than 10. The margins weren't even close in the counties he lost and she won.</p>
<p>I've uploaded the data in <a href="/files/attachments/15/11/ky-gov-sos-results_sheet1.pdf" type="external">PDF format</a> if you want to take a gander at it and number-crunch or make suggestions for how it might best be analyzed. These are unofficial results at this time, but they're what the press is using to craft their reasoning for how this race differed so greatly from the polls.</p>
<p>To me, the fact that we're even having this discussion means that <a href="http://blackboxvoting.org/toolkit-public-records.pdf" type="external">records requests</a> should be made to get the tapes and any other publicly available information. Kentuckians deserve to have confidence in their elections. We all deserve to have confidence in our elections.</p>
<p>This isn't intended to be a sour-grapes effort. Matt Bevin should want to have confidence in the result as much as Jack Conway does, because if we don't believe our ballots are being counted with integrity, confidence in democracy declines, which erodes the democracy itself.</p>
<p>If you were to toss all of Grimes' votes into Conway's column, he still wouldn't have won. But at least it would have been within the margin of error. That's a result I would have more confidence in than a rout without any kind of reasonable explanation.</p>
<p>Yes, turnout matters, and in every election. I preach this every time we come to a midterm or off-cycle election. Republicans are far more reliable voters in midterm elections than Democrats are. That has to change if we want to make any progress at all. Every election, whether for dogcatcher, the local school board, city council, or president matters. Every one.</p>
<p>But on the other side of that, how those votes are counted matters at least as much as casting one in the first place.</p>
<p>So which among you would like to start putting together records requests? Let's make it a group project.</p> | Vote Distribution In Kentucky Is A 'Significant Anomaly' | true | http://crooksandliars.com/2015/11/we-may-never-really-understand-what | 2015-11-05 | 4 |
<p>The folks over at Sears sure do have a sense of humor. You see, carrying your cash and valuables when traveling adds another level to an already stressful situation. Will the hotel maid go snooping in your luggage? Can someone on the plane slip their hand into your carry-on bag while you’re asleep? Will TSA somehow grab something out of your tote while scanning for explosives? (I still think airport security in Vegas lifted a pair of Cavalli sunglasses when I wasn’t looking.) Well, Sears is selling the perfect solution for hiding your money and valuables while traveling. Dirty underwear! These specially designed drawers have a secret compartment in the fly for stashing whatever you like. But the real kicker is the strategically placed skid marks. Here’s what Sears says about the Brief Safe: “Even the most hardened burglar or most curious snoop will ‘skid’ to a screeching halt as soon as they see them. (Wouldn’t you?)” Um, yes, but I don’t go snooping through people’s stuff anyway. [$12.99, <a href="http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_SPM217612453P?prdNo=1&amp;blockNo=1&amp;blockType=" type="external">Sears</a>]</p> | WTF! Dirty Underwear Is For Hiding Your Valuables? | true | http://thefrisky.com/post/246-wtf-dirty-underwear-is-for-hiding-your-valuables/ | 2018-10-05 | 4 |
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<p>Either way, if the IS affiliate in Sinai does have a new readiness to slaughter Muslims, that threatens to put a further strain on Egypt’s security forces and intimidate anyone cooperating with the government in the fight against militants. But it also could raise a backlash against IS, prompting Sinai tribes to cooperate with the military and take greater action to stop any of their members from joining the group.</p>
<p>The IS-linked militants waging a campaign of violence in the Sinai and other parts of the country the past three years have traditionally targeted security forces, government officials, Christians and Muslim civilians suspected of collaborating with authorities. However, the Nov. 24 attack — the bloodiest ever militant attack in Egypt — hit ordinary Muslims gathered for a Friday sermon, followers of the mystical movement in Islam known as Sufism that militants view as heretical.</p>
<p>“The ceiling of who is an infidel has risen to include worshippers and to view the slaying of Muslims inside mosques as permissible,” said Ahmed Ban, an Egyptian expert on Islamic extremist groups.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Ban suspects that followers of an ultra-extremist IS faction known as “Hazimiyoun” played a role or were behind the mosque attack.</p>
<p>It may also be possible that other IS militants carried it out, feeling pressure from the Hazimiyoun faction’s rising power to show they are not “soft.”</p>
<p>There has been no claim of responsibility for the Sinai attack, and it is impossible to confirm that the faction did have a role. Some experts believe that IS may have felt it needed a “showcase” attack to show it remains deadly even after losing almost all its territory in Syria and Iraq.</p>
<p>Tore Hamming, a researcher at the European University Institute focusing on jihadis and ideological differences within IS, said the mosque butchery was not necessarily connected to the Hazimiyoun faction. No IS fighters “would consider Sufis true Muslims.” He believed the attack came from a “great need (among IS) for large symbolic attacks.”</p>
<p>Even before the attack, Egyptian newspapers reported the emergence of the Hazimiyoun faction in Egypt. One quoted a prosecution official saying detained Egyptian IS suspects told their interrogators that they are followers of the Hazimiyoun and consider some IS leaders as infidels.</p>
<p>The faction is named after a radical cleric, Ahmad bin Omar al-Hazimi, who has been imprisoned in his home country of Saudi Arabia since 2015. It considers as infidels — and therefore as legitimate to kill — all Muslims who do not accept the Islamic State group’s interpretation of Islam. Even further, it says those who don’t consider such people as infidels are also infidels deserving of death. Al-Hazimi himself is not known as an IS member but his ideology has gained support within IS ranks.</p>
<p>The Islamic State group is notorious for atrocities in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere, including against fellow Muslims; the group argues that killings of Muslims are justified when they were fighting IS or cooperating with its enemies or belong to branches of Islam it rejects, like Shiism. In Yemen, four IS suicide bombers struck two mosques filled with worshippers, killing over 130 people in one day in March 2015.</p>
<p>But IS largely argued that Muslims in general, even if they haven’t sworn allegiance to IS, are not necessarily legitimate targets, on grounds of “ignorance” — namely, that they may not have the religious knowledge to accept IS. The Hazimiyoun faction rejects the “ignorance” excuse.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The feud within IS has been stoked by the group’s military defeats in Iraq and Syria. Hazimiyoun clerics have blamed IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his “lenient” ideology for the setbacks.</p>
<p>But the tensions date back to 2015, when IS in Syria executed a number of pro-Hazimiyoun clerics because of their excesses in declaring others infidels.</p>
<p>The more radical free hand has been criticized by al-Qaida-linked groups and other extremists in Egypt. Another militant group fighting the government in Sinai, called Jund al-Islam, said in a recent audio message that it had ambushed an IS patrol to avenge attacks on other Muslims.</p>
<p>Whether due to growing Hazimiyoun influence or not, the first major militant attack on a Muslim congregation in Egypt underscored that IS could dramatically expand its targets. That could strain Egypt’s security forces, already stretched thin across much of the country to protect government facilities, major thoroughfares and tourist hotels, as well as banks, churches and museums.</p>
<p>The militants have targeted individual Sufis in the past. Extremists consider some Sufi practices to be a form of idolatry and heresy, but millions of Egyptians follow Sufism, and it is considered part of mainstream Islam. The targeted mosque was the headquarters of a local Sufi order, but non-Sufis were also among the 311 killed last week, including workers from a nearby salt factory.</p>
<p>“Any segment of society now is game for them,” said Mohammed Gomaa, an expert on extremist groups from the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.</p>
<p>He said the mosque attack was “certainly the work of one of IS factions. They are sending a message of how far they’re willing to go, frighten tribes into submission and provide a response to a series of battlefield successes by security forces.”</p>
<p>But the attack could instead anger the tribes. Most of the victims were from Sinai’s powerful Sawarkah tribe, from which many of the IS affiliate’s fighters are believed to hail. The government hopes that will prompt the tribes to isolate the militants. Some tribal leaders have called on the government to arm them to fight IS, but security agencies have been reluctant.</p>
<p>After the attack, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi ordered the military and security forces to crush the insurgency within three months, telling them to use “brute force.”</p>
<p>Fawaz Gerges, an expert on extremist groups who lectures at the London School of Economics, believes the scale and brazenness of the mosque attack could portend more brutal and indiscriminate attacks by the militants — and prompt a similar escalation by security forces, which responded to past major militant attacks by, according to local rights activists, collective punishment or carpet bombing.</p>
<p>He said it appeared the IS affiliate or rogue elements within it have decided to “wage all-out war, not just against the Egyptian state, but the Egyptian people as well.”</p>
<p>“It’s a doomsday scenario, and I believe there is no turning back now,” Gerges added. “The Egyptian state will win at the end, but the question is at what cost and how long will it be before it does.”</p> | Egypt massacre in Sinai may point to an even more bloody IS | false | https://abqjournal.com/1101134/egypt-massacre-in-sinai-may-point-to-an-even-more-bloody-is.html | 2017-12-02 | 2 |
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<p>Here’s a look at what’s going on in a country that has never had a peaceful transfer of power since independence from Belgium in 1960:</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>WHY IS CONGO SO TENSE?</p>
<p>Monday marks the end of Kabila’s five-year term, but the ruling party has suggested it might be well into 2018 before lists of voters and other materials will be ready to hold an election to succeed him. Until then, he remains in charge. Growing anger at the delays led to dozens of deaths during angry protests in September in the capital, Kinshasa. In response, the government banned opposition meetings there. Congo is among a number of African countries where leaders and ruling parties in recent years have sought to remain in power through tinkering with term limits, doing away with age limits or other means.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE CAPITAL?</p>
<p>A heavy security presence is in Kinshasa, and internet access is spotty amid reports that the government ordered a shutdown. Last-minute talks between the ruling party and opposition representatives, moderated by Catholic leaders, ended Saturday without any agreement. They are expected to resume this week after Catholic representatives visit the Vatican. Human rights groups have expressed alarm about possible bloodshed and government abuses if Congolese take to the streets again. “The country’s brittle security forces could fracture if Kabila relies on force to stay in power,” Human Rights Watch warned. The United States, the United Nations and others have urged that elections be held soon. The U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo, the world body’s largest, is preparing for chaos.</p>
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<p>WHO IS KABILA?</p>
<p>Kabila is the son of former president Laurent Kabila, who led a long rebel march from the country’s militia-riddled eastern region to the capital to overthrow leader Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997 after decades in power. Kabila was assassinated in 2001, and his son took over as president. A Bloomberg investigation has shown how Joseph Kabila and his family have amassed a fortune in Congo’s rich mineral resources and other sectors, suggesting that Kabila might be reluctant to leave what has been a vastly lucrative position in the heart of Africa. The president has denied the charges.</p> | AP Explains: Why tensions are spiking in Congo today | false | https://abqjournal.com/911841/ap-explains-why-tensions-are-spiking-in-congo-today.html | 2016-12-19 | 2 |
<p>&lt;a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-331242347/stock-photo-man-putting-a-ballot-into-a-voting-box-usa.html?src=dTmcalOhrdjqL39aA-Q_yw-1-24"&gt;Zerbor&lt;/a&gt;/Shutterstock</p>
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<p>As John Oliver <a href="http://www.localandspecialelections.com/?p=418" type="external">reminded</a> viewers this week, the much-hyped presidential election may still be 12 months away but important state and local elections are on Tuesday. From the battle over health care in Kentucky to the return of Michigan’s tea party lovebirds, here are six states to watch in Tuesday’s elections.</p>
<p>1. Medicaid in Kentucky: Kentucky’s gubernatorial race has also turned into a battle over Obama’s Affordable Care Act. The race pits the state’s current attorney general, Democrat Jack Conway, against millionaire Republican businessman Matt Bevin. Bevin <a href="http://http://bigstory.ap.org/article/739a05cd5b5f489881a436b464dd1e14/kentucky-election-puts-medicaid-expansion-crosshairs" type="external">has sworn to roll back</a> current Gov. Steve Beshear’s expansion of the state’s Medicaid program, saying that Kentucky taxpayers can’t afford it, even though this expansion allowed an additional 400,000 residents to receive health care coverage. It also made Kentucky one of the only Southern states to expand Medicaid under Obamacare. If Bevin wins, it would become the first state to reverse that expansion, according to the Associated Press. Bevin, who has never before held political office, was trailing Conway by 5 points in <a href="http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/elections/kentucky/2015/10/28/bluegrass-poll-governors-race-jack-conway-matt-bevin-drew-curtis/74388352/" type="external">a recent poll</a>.</p>
<p>2. Gun control in Virginia: The state Senate race in Virginia has attracted millions of dollars in outside funding from groups eager to make headway in the national fight over gun control.Everytown for Gun Safety, the gun control advocacy group backed by billionaire former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/02/us-usa-election-virginia-idUSKCN0SR1AG20151102" type="external">put&#160;$2.2 million</a> into television ads supporting two Democratic candidates for the Senate, Reuters reported. A win by either of these candidates would give Democrats the majority in the 40-seat state Senate, which could allow Gov. Terry McAuliffe to push through gun control measures that w <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/virginia-gov-mcauliffes-gun-control-efforts-die-in-senate-committee/2015/01/26/d2cf5ff8-a574-11e4-a06b-9df2002b86a0_story.html" type="external">ere blocked by a state Senate committee</a> in January. The National Rifle Association, which is based in Virginia,&#160; <a href="http://www.vpap.org/donors/137269-national-rifle-association/" type="external">has contributed</a> to the Republican campaigns.</p>
<p>3. Campaign finance reform in Maine and Seattle: Both Maine and Seattle residents will vote Tuesday on initiatives to limit the power of money&#160;in politics. Seattle’s city ballot includes <a href="http://honestelectionsseattle.org/learn-more/" type="external">a novel initiative</a> to create a system of “democracy vouchers,”&#160;which would give voters four $25 vouchers to contribute to the campaign of their choosing. It would also limit contributions in city races to $500 or less. Meanwhile, Maine— <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/maine-campaign-finance-reform_55e8bf3be4b093be51bafa2e" type="external">historically a leader in campaign finance regulation</a>—will vote on a package of reforms that would require additional disclosures in political advertising and gubernatorial races, raise penalties for breaking campaign finance rules, and <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/voters-weigh-taxes-wages-and-legalizing-pot-1446422053" type="external">add $1 million to the state’s fund</a> for public campaign financing.</p>
<p>4. Restrictions on Airbnb in San Francisco: San Francisco residents will vote Tuesday on Proposition F, a measure to limit short-term rentals in the city—which would strike a potentially&#160;precedent-setting blow to locally based hospitality startup Airbnb&lt;. for its part airbnb has href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/01/us-airbnb-election-sanfrancisco-idUSKCN0SQ2CJ20151101"&gt;poured more than $8 million into lobbying against the initiative. The company tried to win favor before the vote with a <a href="" type="internal">tongue-in-cheek ad campaign</a> last month that backfired, prompting an apology from the company’s management.</p>
<p>5. Education funding in Mississippi: While no surprises are expected in Mississippi’s gubernatorial election, in which&#160;an unknown truck driver is&#160;running as the Democratic nominee against Republican incumbent Phil Bryant,&#160;a racially tinged battle over an amendment to the state’s constitution&#160;is one to watch. <a href="http://42forbetterschools.org/what-is-initiative-42/" type="external">Initiative 42</a>, which gathered 200,000 signatures to get on the ballot, would force the state to meet levels of education funding that <a href="http://42forbetterschools.org/42facts/" type="external">lawmakers set in 1997</a> but have repeatedly failed to meet. If the measure passes, and lawmakers again fail to appropriate sufficient&#160;funds, a state court could step in and rule on the issue.&#160;Republicans have opposed the measure, arguing that it would give the courts control over the state’s budget.&#160;But the issue has also taken on distinctly racial overtones, with one state lawmaker,&#160;Bubba Carpenter,&#160;caught on camera last month telling constituents they should be afraid of what a “black judge”&#160;might do with their tax dollars. “If 42 passes in its form, a judge in Hinds County, Mississippi, predominantly black—it’s going to be a black judge—they’re going to tell us where the state education money goes,”&#160; <a href="http://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/local/dailyledes/2015/10/18/rep-bubba-carpenter-black-judge-and-initiative-42/74196426/" type="external">Carpenter said</a>. Carpenter later <a href="http://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/local/dailyledes/2015/10/19/gunn-reacts-carpenter-comments-initiative-42/74212752/" type="external">apologized</a> for his statement.</p>
<p>6. Tea party tryst in Michigan: And last but not least, two tea party politicians in Michigan who left office after their extramarital affair and peculiar attempts to cover it up were revealed are <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/midwest/ct-todd-courser-cindy-gamrat-20151031-story.html" type="external">running for the same positions</a> they just vacated. Todd Courser, who resigned after the scandal broke, and Cindy Gamrat, who was kicked out of the Legislature in September, are running less than two months after the left their respective offices. Courser in May famously sent a fake email to journalists and politicians&#160;claiming he had been caught having sex with a male prostitute—a ruse he believed at the time would make news of the affair appear less credible. He was wrong.</p>
<p /> | Here Are 6 Things You Should Care About in Today’s State Elections | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2015/11/six-big-decisions-watch-tuesdays-elections/ | 2015-11-03 | 4 |
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<p />
<p>"No more political correctness," said Titus Kottke, 22, a cattle trucker and construction worker from Athens, Wis., who waited hours last weekend to see the candidate.</p>
<p>Trump is "not scared to offend people," Kottke said. He agrees with some of the views Trump expresses but likes the fact that the candidate shows the confidence to reject the dogma of political correctness. That "takes away your freedom of speech, pretty much. You can't say anything."</p>
<p>For years, conservatives have decried political correctness as a scourge of orthodox beliefs and language, imposed by liberals, that keeps people from voicing uncomfortable truths.</p>
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<p>Now, some Trump supporters - many white, working-class voters frustrated with the country's shifting economics and demographics - applaud him for not being afraid to make noise about the things that anger them but that they feel discouraged from saying out loud.</p>
<p>"It's a cultural backlash," said Steve Schmidt, a Republican political strategist. "Millions and millions of people in this country, blue-collar people, feel that their values are under assault, that they're looked down upon, condescended to by the elites."</p>
<p>Trump rival Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson are among the candidates who have decried political correctness.</p>
<p>But Trump has made defiance of political manners a signature of his campaign.</p>
<p>"The big problem this country has is being politically correct," he said in an August debate, when pressed on his comments about women. "I've been challenged by so many people and I don't frankly have time for total political correctness. And to be honest with you, this country doesn't have time either."</p>
<p>Trump tapped into a frustration shared even by many voters who disagree with him on other issues. In an October poll by Fairleigh Dickinson University, more than two-thirds agreed that political correctness is a "big problem" for the country. Among Republicans, it was 81 percent.</p>
<p>"Finally somebody's coming in that has the cojones to say something and to do something," said Ray Henry, another supporter. "I think he's saying what a lot of what America's feeling right now - enough's enough."</p>
<p />
<p /> | Trump champions the politically incorrect | false | https://abqjournal.com/754760/trump-champions-the-politically-incorrect.html | 2 |
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<p />
<p>Over the past 12 months, the S&amp;P 500 rallied 25% and the NASDAQ climbed 33%. Those gains -- which propelled both indexes to record highs -- are impressive, but a few other stocks crushed even those returns with triple-digit gains.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Three such stocks -- Veeva Systems (NYSE: VEEV), Paycom Software (NYSE: PAYC), and Proofpoint (NASDAQ: PFPT) -- all develop cloud-based software. Let's take a look at why these three cloud stocks surged, and whether investors should consider buying them this year.</p>
<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>Veeva Systems provides a cloud-based CRM (customer relationship management) platform for healthcare companies. It uses Salesforce's SFA (Sales Force Automation) tools as the foundation of its CRM platform for drug companies. Its core products include the Veeva Vault, which tracks prescribing habits, clinical trials, regulatory filings, and industry regulations; and the Veeva Commercial Cloud, which helps companies manage customer relationships.</p>
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<p>Shares of Veeva have soared more than 110% over the past year, fueled by four straight quarters of 30%+ annual sales growth and rising profitability. Veeva's revenue rose 34% annually to $142.8 million last quarter, and its non-GAAP earnings surged 83% to $0.22 per share. GAAP earnings more than doubled to $0.15 per share.</p>
<p>Veeva attributes all that growth to the growth of new cloud services and new companies signing up for its Commercial Cloud. Intense competition between drugmakers and new regulatory pressures have also sparked fierce demand for Veeva's industry-tracking services. For fiscal 2017 (which ended on Jan. 31), Veeva expects its revenue and non-GAAP earnings to respectively grow 32% and 79%. For fiscal 2018, analysts expect Veeva's revenue to rise 21%, and for its earnings to grow another 18%.</p>
<p>Paycom Software provides cloud-based tools for payroll processing and human resources. It runs five main businesses -- Talent Acquisition tools for streamlining the recruiting process, Time and Labor Management tools for managing employee work schedules, Payroll tools for automated payments, Talent Management tools for monitoring performance and setting employee goals, and HR Management tools for organizing virtual documents.</p>
<p>Paycom stock has surged more than 110% over the past 12 months. Its revenue growth rate has remained well above 30% ever since its IPO in 2014, and its profitability has gradually improved. Last quarter, its revenue rose35% annually to $87.8 million, and its non-GAAP earnings grew 80% to $0.18 per share. Its GAAP earnings rose 67% to $0.15 per share, and its adjusted EBITDA nearly doubled to $20.7 million.</p>
<p>Paycom attributed that growth to its higher brand visibility, expansion into new cities, new client wins, and market share gains. For fiscal 2017 (which started on Jan. 1), Paycom expects its revenue to rise 29% and for itsadjusted EBITDA to grow about 20%.</p>
<p>Proofpoint is a cloud-based security-as-a-service provider that serves medium and large enterprises around the world. Its platform includes a suite of threat protection, incident response, regulator compliance, email archiving, electronic discovery, and secure communication tools.</p>
<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>Shares of Proofpoint more than doubled over the past 12 months, thanks to its robust earnings growth and improving non-GAAP profitability. Its revenue has risen more than 40% annually over the past three quarters -- which CEO Gary Steele attributed to"robust demand for advanced threat solutions, high competitive win rates, traction with new products, robust add-on activity, and consistently high renewal rates."</p>
<p>Like many of its cybersecurity peers, Proofpoint has great top line numbers but wobbly bottom line ones. Revenue rose43% annually to $106.8 million last quarter, and billings grew 42% to $138.4 million; but GAAP net loss only narrowed slightly from $27.4 million in the year-ago quarter to $22.9 million. But on a non-GAAP basis, it reported a net profit of $8.5 million, compared to a loss of $0.4 million a year ago.</p>
<p>Proofpoint faces fierce competition from rival cloud security players like FireEyeand bigger bundled players like Cisco, but it remains confident in its growth prospects. For fiscal 2017 (which started on Jan. 1), it expects revenue to grow 30% and non-GAAP earnings to improve 36%.</p>
<p>Veeva, Paycom, and Proofpoint all boast impressive revenue growth, but their valuations have also been inflated by their year-long rallies. Veeva trades at nearly 100 times earnings and Paycom has a P/E of 77 -- which are both much higher than the industry average of 54 for application software companies.</p>
<p>Proofpoint has a negative P/E due to its uneven profitability, but it trades at 90 times forward earnings and 10 times sales -- which is double the industry average P/S ratio of 5 for software companies. Therefore, investors interested in these three hot stocks should do some more homework to see if their future growth potential can be justified by these lofty valuations.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than ProofpointWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*</p>
<p>David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the <a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-dyn%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=0cf3406c-ee85-46c8-94b7-b14d870ac182&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and Proofpoint wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.</p>
<p><a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-dyn%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=0cf3406c-ee85-46c8-94b7-b14d870ac182&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Click here Opens a New Window.</a> to learn about these picks!</p>
<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of February 6, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFSunLion/info.aspx" type="external">Leo Sun Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Cisco Systems. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends FireEye, Paycom Software, and Veeva Systems. The Motley Fool recommends Cisco Systems and Salesforce.com. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | 3 Cloud Stocks That Doubled in a Year | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/02/17/3-cloud-stocks-that-doubled-in-year.html | 2017-02-17 | 0 |
<p>By Jennifer Saba and Kenneth Li</p>
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Thomson Reuters Corp</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>named Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and former <a href="" type="internal">Dow Jones</a> Newswires President Paul Ingrassia to the new position of deputy editor-in-chief, one of four new hires brought in to overhaul its news operations.</p>
<p>The appointments were announced on Tuesday after a 60-day review by Editor-in-Chief Stephen Adler, who aims to raise the profile of the 160-year-old news agency, streamline decision-making, and better exploit the resources of the company created by the $16 billion takeover of Reuters by Thomson in 2008.</p>
<p>Adler, who took the top journalist job at Reuters in February, unveiled a new management team consisting almost entirely of new faces, including a number of alumni of the <a href="" type="internal">Wall Street</a> Journal.</p>
<p>Ingrassia was once a contender to run the Journal, before Rupert Murdoch's <a href="" type="internal">News Corp</a> acquired the paper and its parent Dow Jones. Adler himself worked at the Journal for 16 years, during which he led reporters to win three Pulitzer prizes, the highest honor in American journalism.</p>
<p>Stuart Karle, the Journal's former general counsel, will also join Thomson Reuters as the news division's chief operating officer, a new position.</p>
<p>Reginald Chua, former editor of the South <a href="" type="internal">China</a> Morning Post and the Asian Wall Street Journal, will become data editor.</p>
<p>Jim Gaines, a long-time editor at Time Warner's Time Inc, will leave his job as managing editor of The Daily, Murdoch's digital paper for tablet computers, to join Thomson Reuters as ethics editor.</p>
<p>"We must be second to none in speed, accuracy, relevance, and fairness, but also - and crucially - in enterprise, insight, analysis and originality," Adler said in a news release.</p>
<p>INVESTING HEAVILY</p>
<p>Thomson Reuters, along with rivals such as Bloomberg LP, and Dow Jones, have invested heavily in news gathering and analysis in recent years, as newspapers and other traditional media organizations cut back.</p>
<p>Competing more effectively requires eliminating layers of bureaucracy to streamline decision-making, Adler said.</p>
<p>Under the new structure, journalism to be led by Ingrassia will be separated from operations, such as managing budgets, which will be overseen by Karle.</p>
<p>"News is central to what we do," Adler said in his Times Square office, seated near a white board with 60 days crossed out with slashes to signify the end of his initial global review. "I think this structure enables us to concentrate on doing great journalism."</p>
<p>As part of Adler's effort to "tame the bureaucracy and clarify lines of authority," the reorganization eliminates roles such as the global specialist editors who oversaw coverage of areas such as general and political news, and economic and companies reporting.</p>
<p>Betty Wong, a 21-year veteran and global managing editor, will leave Thomson Reuters.</p>
<p>The new hires are part of a New York-based executive team that also includes Chrystia Freeland, editor of Thomson Reuters Digital, who joined the company last year from the <a href="" type="internal">Financial Times</a>; Amy Stevens, executive editor of Professional News, who was deputy page-one editor of the Journal; and Adrian Dickson, global editor for editorial products. Hugo Dixon continues as editor of Breakingviews and will remain in London.</p>
<p>Adler joined Thomson Reuters in 2010 after leaving the top job at BusinessWeek magazine.</p>
<p>"My sole goal will be to make us the number one news provider in the world," Adler wrote in a memo to employees.</p>
<p>"I'm in favor of anything that helps get us there and against anything that gets in the way."</p>
<p>On the white board next to Adler's desk, Tuesday is marked as day zero.</p>
<p>(Reporting by Jennifer Saba and Kenneth Li; Editing by <a href="" type="internal">Tiffany</a> Wu and Ted Kerr)</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | Thomson Reuters overhauls news management team | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2011/04/19/thomson-reuters-overhauls-news-management-team.html | 2016-01-28 | 0 |
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<p>FILE - In this March 23, 2016 file photo, House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis. speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington. Wisconsin's "Cheesehead Revolution" was ushered in by a trio of Republicans, Walker, Reince Priebus and Scott Walker, looking to inject the party with their own youthful, aggressive brand of conservatism while positioning the party for success in the 2016 presidential election. Then came Donald Trump. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)</p>
<p>MADISON, Wis. - A trio of Wisconsin Republicans looking to inject the party with their own youthful, aggressive brand of conservatism ushered in the "Cheesehead Revolution." Their aim was to position the GOP for success in the 2016 presidential election.</p>
<p>Then came Donald Trump.</p>
<p>With the anti-Trump movement in full swing even as Trump solidifies his front-runner status in the presidential race, the focus turns to the April 5 primary in the home state of those three heavyweights: House Speaker Paul Ryan, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and Gov. Scott Walker.</p>
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<p>They are trying to chart a course in the face of a revolt over Trump's rise and what it means for the future of the Republican Party - and for each of them individually.</p>
<p>"The great plans came off the tracks with the presence of Donald Trump, both in terms of where the party would be and presidential ambitions," said Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who ran against Walker twice and lost both times. "Donald Trump changed everything."</p>
<p>The "Cheesehead Revolution," as Walker and Priebus dubbed it, began in 2011. With Ryan rising in the House, Walker a new governor, and Priebus taking over the party apparatus, the trio then represented what looked to be a unified party in a swing state that could become a GOP stronghold in presidential races to come.</p>
<p>But in 2012, Mitt Romney lost to incumbent Barack Obama, with Ryan as his running mate. Priebus tried to steer the party in a more inclusive direction.</p>
<p>In 2013, he issued the "Growth and Opportunity Project," aimed toward an immigration overhaul and outreach to minorities, and driven by the recognition that Hispanics in particular were rising as a proportion of the population.</p>
<p>Now that tract is known as an autopsy report.</p>
<p>The recommendations put Priebus at odds with more conservative Republicans. And now, two of the three remaining presidential candidates, Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, have built their campaigns not on trying to broaden the party by reaching out to Hispanics and minorities, but by appealing to evangelicals and more conservative white voters.</p>
<p>Priebus's report "has been haunting the Republican Party" ever since its release, said Steve King, an Iowa Republican congressman who backs Cruz.</p>
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<p>"It's awfully hard to recover from something like that," King said.</p>
<p>Trump launched his campaign by calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals. He's made a border wall a cornerstone of his platform. Those positions have torn at the party's core, contributing to efforts to stop him.</p>
<p>Priebus puts the best face on the chaotic campaign. He says his party is large enough to handle a variety of opinions about the best course. He cites record fundraising and voter turnout. He calls it a "miracle turnaround."</p>
<p>Ryan became House speaker in October, replacing John Boehner, and his stock has risen to a point that some Republicans see him as an alternative to Trump if the nomination isn't settled going into the summer convention. "Paul Ryan has brought about climate change there," said King, meaning the climate in Congress, "and I mean that in a very complimentary way." King is one of the most conservative members of Congress and was a critic of Boehner.</p>
<p>Just as he refused initial calls to run for speaker, Ryan has tried to tamp down talk of being drafted as an alternative to Trump at the convention.</p>
<p>Robin Vos, the Republican speaker of Wisconsin's state Assembly, said Trump's rise has helped to put the Republican Party at a crossroads. But Vos said he still believes Walker, Ryan and Priebus are in positions to "change the face of government."</p>
<p>Vos pointed to Walker's record as governor as proof that with a "good, articulate leader," Republicans can advance their conservative agenda, even in a politically divided state like Wisconsin. Vos endorsed Cruz on Friday.</p>
<p>But Walker has been struggling with public support since his failed presidential run. His call in September for other Republican candidates to join him and drop out of the race to make it easier for others to take on Trump went ignored for months.</p>
<p>Walker still hasn't endorsed anyone in the race, with Wisconsin's primary just over a week away. He told AP he sees Trump's popularity as an "an anomaly" that is overshadowed in significance by Republican success in governor's races and state legislative contests for years.</p>
<p>"You look over the last five, six years, the story that's had the longer impact is not who the nominee is for one presidential election but this shift that's happened nationally," Walker said.</p>
<p>Barrett, the Milwaukee mayor who lost to Walker in 2010 and 2012, said the political landscape has changed for Walker and Republicans since the governor won a recall election four years ago over his battle with public-service unions in the states. "A lot of the glitter's gone," he said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Scott Bauer on Twitter at <a href="http://twitter.com/sbauerAP" type="external">http://twitter.com/sbauerAP</a> and find more of his work at <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/content/scott-bauer" type="external">http://bigstory.ap.org/content/scott-bauer</a></p> | Wisconsin-based 'Cheesehead Revolution' challenged by Trump | false | https://abqjournal.com/747235/wisconsin-based-cheesehead-revolution-challenged-by-trump.html | 2 |
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<p>Cedric Gum (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)</p>
<p>Cedric Gum came to Baltimore in 2011 for an internship with Center Stage, a theater company. He was happy to return to the area permanently last February.</p>
<p>He works by day as a peer navigator at Chase Brexton Health Care and says the city has everything he needs.</p>
<p>“Ultimately the two things that brought me here were work and more opportunity,” says the 26-year-old Lakeview, Ark., native. “Outside of advocating for those infected and affected by HIV, I enjoy performing. I knew the area was filled with opportunities to showcase my acting skills.”</p>
<p>Gum is a spokesperson for the CDC’s HIV Treatment Works campaign. He came out as HIV-positive in 2013 and says it was important to speak out.</p>
<p>“There is so much stigma and lack of education surrounding HIV,” he says. “As someone living with it and educating himself, I saw so much opportunity to be a voice that could inspire and also educate.”</p>
<p>Gum is single and lives in Middle River in Baltimore County. He enjoys acting, working out, basketball, cooking, traveling and writing in his free time.</p>
<p>How long have you been out and who was the hardest person to tell?</p>
<p>I’ve been out as far back as I can remember. As far as telling someone, I’ve never had to have that sit-down conversation with anyone. It’s always just been.</p>
<p>Who’s your LGBT hero?&#160;</p>
<p>Growing up, I needed to see someone like me whom I could relate to. As I got older, I became familiar with Bayard Rustin and his work in Civil Rights. I immediately designated him as my personal LGBT hero.</p>
<p>What’s Baltimore’s best nightspot, past or present?&#160;</p>
<p>Baltimore’s best nightspot, in my experience, has been Red Maple. It’s small, yet full of life especially when the music overtakes you.</p>
<p>Describe your dream wedding.</p>
<p>My dream wedding would be my partner and I, along with the individual officiating the wedding, in the center of Delphi Theatre in Greece. After the kiss, I’m whisked away to Paris to enjoy a weekend of French culture, ending the trip with a moonlit night under the Eiffel Tower. That’s not dreaming too much, right?</p>
<p>What non-LGBT issue are you most passionate about?&#160;</p>
<p>Mental health. This is an issue that has been ignored or swept under the rug for too long.</p>
<p>What historical outcome would you change?&#160;</p>
<p>With all the past and present massive killings of racial groups or any other group of people, if I had the opportunity to change all of them, I would.</p>
<p>What’s been the most memorable pop culture moment of your lifetime?</p>
<p>Super Bowl 2013! Kelly Rowland’s epic choreography was everything to me. For a brief moment, I forgot it was Beyoncé’s half-time show.</p>
<p>On what do you insist?</p>
<p>Being open, honest and respectful even when it’s difficult.</p>
<p>What was your last Facebook post or Tweet?</p>
<p>“Pray, b****, pray. Not today, Satan!” It was an early morning and the attitudes were running rampant.</p>
<p>If your life were a book, what would the title be?</p>
<p>“Second Time Around.”</p>
<p>If science discovered a way to change sexual orientation, what would you do?</p>
<p>I would remain exactly the way that I am.</p>
<p>What do you believe in beyond the physical world?&#160;</p>
<p>I believe there is a lot left to be discovered.</p>
<p>What’s your advice for LGBT movement leaders?</p>
<p>Remember why you started. The fight for change clearly hasn’t come easy, but continue to keep in mind why you started fighting for the change you are seeking. We are almost to the finish line.</p>
<p>What would you walk across hot coals for?</p>
<p>Free Adele tickets and unlimited travel benefits.</p>
<p>What LGBT stereotype annoys you most?</p>
<p>That all gay men are feminine and live their lives in the societal expectations of women. It’s annoying because it tends to degrade one’s personal expression and truth to self.</p>
<p>What’s your favorite LGBT movie?</p>
<p>“Paris Is Burning.” The emphasis placed on community and support is something I feel strongly about when it comes to those underrepresented, often ignored individuals within the LGBT community.</p>
<p>What’s the most overrated social custom?</p>
<p>Being kissed when the clock strikes 12 on New Year’s Day.</p>
<p>What trophy or prize do you most covet?</p>
<p>I have a strong desire to have an Emmy, Tony or Oscar by the time I’m 75. That gives me plenty of time to get everything in order.</p>
<p>What do you wish you’d known at 18?</p>
<p>I wish I had known that life becomes more expensive the older you get and that I wouldn’t be married by the time I was 25. I might have tried a little harder to keep the person I was with at the time.</p>
<p>Why Baltimore?</p>
<p>Why not? It’s called Charm City for a reason. I’m still trying to figure out where the charm is actually located. However, Baltimore offers many opportunities for me to learn and grow as a person and that’s ultimately what I wanted to do upon relocating. Since moving here, I’ve started my career in HIV outreach and even had the opportunity to perform in the first show that ever required me to sing aloud — seriously — in front of people. All in all, life’s been pretty darn good to me.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Cedric Gum</a></p> | QUEERY: Cedric Gum | false | http://washingtonblade.com/2016/02/24/queery-cedric-gum/ | 3 |
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<p>His comments, during an address to local leaders of his ruling-party in Ankara, appeared to be in defiance of the United States, which has urged Turkey to keep its campaign in Syria “limited in scope and duration” and to focus on ending the war.</p>
<p>Erdogan said the Turkish forces’ push into Afrin would stretch further east, to the Syrian Kurdish town of Manbij, and toward the border with Iraq “until no terrorist is left.”</p>
<p>Turkey considers the Syrian Kurdish forces, known as the People’s Protection Units or YPG, as a terrorist group because of their purported links to Kurdish insurgents within Turkey’s own border. Manbij is held by the Syrian Democratic Forces, which is dominated by the YPG. U.S. troops are not present in Afrin but are embedded with the SDF in other parts of Syria, where they are working to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State group.</p>
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<p>“We will clear Manbij of terrorists … No one should be disturbed by this because the real owners of Manbij are not these terrorists, they are our Arab brothers,” Erdogan said. “From Manbij, we will continue our struggle up to the border with Iraq, until no terrorist is left.”</p>
<p>Ankara’s push into Manbj would put Turkish troops in proximity to American soldiers there.</p>
<p>Erdogan remarks came on the seventh day of the Turkish incursion into Afrin, which started last Saturday.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Turkey’s Health Minister Ahmet Demircan said Friday the operation into Afrin had led to 14 deaths on the Turkish side. Three Turkish soldiers and 11 Syrian opposition fighters allied with them were killed in fighting since Jan. 20, he said. Some 130 others were wounded.</p>
<p>The SDF said the first week of Turkey’s incursion had left more than a 100 civilians and fighters dead. The group said in a statement Friday that among the dead are 59 civilians and 43 fighters, including eight women fighters. At least 134 civilians were wounded in the weeklong clashes, it added.</p>
<p>Turkey’s military said at least 343 “terrorists” have been “neutralized” during the campaign, a figure the Syrian Kurdish dispute.</p>
<p>In his speech, Erdogan slammed the U.S. alliance with the Kurdish forces in Manbij and other parts of Syria.</p>
<p>“Our greatest sadness is to see these terrorist organizations run wild holding U.S. flags in this region,” Erdogan said.</p>
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<p>Erdogan said President Donald Trump asked him “not to criticize us so much” during their telephone call on Wednesday.</p>
<p>“Okay,” said Erdogan, quoting what he allegedly told Trump in the conversation. “But how can a strategic partner do such a thing to its strategic partner?”</p>
<p>Erdogan also accused the Syrian Kurdish militia of using civilians as human shields in Afrin to try and slow down the advance of the Turkish forces and of the Turkish-backed Syrian opposition fighters.</p>
<p>He also criticized calls by U.S. and other allies for a quick resolution of Turkey’s incursion, saying military interventions in places in Afghanistan and Iraq lasted for several years.</p>
<p>Late Thursday, the Pentagon described Turkey’s military operations in Afrin as not helpful and threatening to damage the ongoing fight against Islamic State militants in Syria.</p>
<p>Joint Staff Director Lt. Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr. said U.S. military commanders continue to talk with Turkey about the establishment of some type of safe zone along the Turkey-Syria border. He said it was “simply an idea floating around right now” and there has been no decision yet.</p>
<p>McKenzie said the U.S. is clearly tracking movement by Turkey but downplayed the chances of American forces being threatened in the vicinity of the town of Manbij.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press Writer Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report.</p> | Turkey vows to expand Syria offensive east to Iraqi border | false | https://abqjournal.com/1124618/turkey-vows-to-expand-syria-offensive-east-to-iraqi-border.html | 2018-01-26 | 2 |
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<p>Brian Henington instructs seven new members of the Santa Fe Fire Department's Atalaya Hand Crew at Station 8 on Wednesday. (Eddie Moore/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - More than likely, Brian Henington will never forget what happened last year in Yarnell, Ariz., when 19 firefighters were trapped and killed in a box canyon by a fast-moving wildfire.</p>
<p>Henington is a firefighter, too - and a teacher.</p>
<p>"Yarnell Hill is a big discussion we have," he said in a recent interview. "We will probably never know what led to that, but we try to look at it from an investigative perspective, rather than a hindsight or judgmental perspective."</p>
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<p>Henington is one of several fire sciences instructors at Central New Mexico Community College who are traveling around the state to give required refresher courses at no charge to volunteer firefighters. The classes are offered under a three-year, $56,000 contract between CNM and the State Forestry Division.</p>
<p>Henington paused for a moment during a recent class he was teaching at Santa Fe's Fire Station 8.</p>
<p>"Today," he said, "we're teaching the importance of the safety zone. We will never know why those 19 men left their safety zone. All we know is that they left, then became trapped in a box canyon - one way in, one way out - and couldn't retreat. We also know that the terrain was treacherous and that the hill was under a severe drought, like we are today. The fuel on the ground was extremely flammable, probably even explosive."</p>
<p>Henington said fires and firefighting are so complex that it's easy for someone to forget basic material - thus the state mandate for the refresher classes specific to wildland firefighting.</p>
<p>In New Mexico, the fire season is just getting underway. "The experts," Henington said, "meteorologists and fire behavior analysts, are divided on how severe it might be. It's about a 50-50 split. (The month of) May could be wet, or it could be dry."</p>
<p>In a recent bosque fire in Belen, the fuel on the ground was "so explosive that the wind didn't have to be a major player," Henington said.</p>
<p>Henington and the other CNM instructors provide eight-hour refresher classes and 32-hour intermediate wildland firefighting classes to the volunteers. The longer classes are offered over two weekends.</p>
<p>Several for-profit businesses also have teaching contracts, but CNM is the only publicly funded college involved.</p>
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<p>To meet the requirements of the State Forestry Division contract, Mike Kavanaugh, chairman of CNM's Fire Sciences program, has hired several new instructors. Most are also teaching classes at CNM.</p>
<p>Knowing how treacherous fires can be, and with Yarnell Hill a fresh and haunting memory, Henington said all of the classes zero in on safety.</p>
<p>Instructions include the deployment of fire shelters, tent-like structures designed as a last resort to shield firefighters from flames and heat. Firefighters at Yarnell Hill used shelters as a last line of defense, but the intensity of the blaze proved to be too much.</p>
<p>Instructors also talk about such potential hazards as rattlesnakes, oil and gas production, and a sometimes volatile situation near the Mexican border.</p>
<p>"We try to teach avoidance," Henington said. "That doesn't mean we don't engage fires - we're not going to sit around and watch it. But the No. 1 concept to remember is that you need to go home at night."</p>
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<p /> | NM volunteer firefighters get refresher classes | false | https://abqjournal.com/390009/nm-volunteer-firefighters-get-refresher-classes.html | 2 |
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<p>BOSTON (MA)Boston.com12/30/2003</p>
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<p>A Middlesex Superior Court judge is to decide by week's end whether an attorney for the Rev. Paul Shanley can use confidential files as he prepares to defend his client against child rape and abuse charges. Shanley, a key figure in the Catholic clergy sexual abuse scandal, and his attorney, Frank Mondano, appeared briefly yesterday before Judge Paul A. Chernoff for a pretrial hearing. Mondano has asked prosecutors for documents that he claims are necessary to prepare Shanley's defense. Chernoff said he would review the files by Friday to determine if they could be released to Mondano and prosecutors. After the hearing, Mondano said he expected that the documents -- therapy files for three of four men whose allegations form the basis of the state's case against Shanley -- would be released. (AP)</p> | Priest's lawyer seeks therapy files | false | https://poynter.org/news/priests-lawyer-seeks-therapy-files | 2003-12-30 | 2 |
<p>A conservative group in Florida wants Floridians to be able to purchase solar power directly from other consumers, and it’s hoping a 2016 ballot initiative can make that happen.</p>
<p>Conservatives for Energy Freedom, <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/tea-party-pushing-for-florida-to-step-up-solar-energy-efforts/2202617" type="external">launched</a> in Florida last October by tea party activist and solar advocate Debbie Dooley, has created a <a href="http://election.dos.state.fl.us/initiatives/fulltext/pdf/64491-1.pdf" type="external">petition</a> for a ballot initiative that seeks to “encourage and promote local small-scale solar-generated electricity production and to enhance the availability of solar power to customers.” Florida’s current law stipulates that only utilities can sell electricity directly to consumers, but this initiative would <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/republican-led-group-launches-ballot-petition-to-boost-solar-power-in/2212659" type="external">go against that rule</a>, making it possible for businesses and property owners to produce up to 2 megawatts of solar power and sell it directly to consumers.</p>
<p>Tory Perfetti, a conservative activist who’s head of the Florida chapter of <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Conservatives-for-Energy-Freedom/1479420552308153" type="external">Conservatives for Energy Freedom</a>, told ThinkProgress that the group is planning on beginning their push for signatures on the petition next week. He and his team of volunteers will be going to businesses, college campuses, libraries and individual residences to secure signatures for the petition. In order to secure a spot on the 2016 ballot, the petition for the initiative must gain a total of <a href="http://election.dos.state.fl.us/constitutional-amendments/cong-dist-require.shtml" type="external">683,149 signatures</a> from Floridians in at least seven congressional districts — though Perfetti is aiming for more than 700,000 signatures. Then, as the <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/republican-led-group-launches-ballot-petition-to-boost-solar-power-in/2212659" type="external">Tampa Bay Times reports</a>, the ballot initiative must gain 60 percent of the vote in 2016 to pass.</p>
<p>Perfetti said the feedback he’s received from Floridians who read about the ballot initiative in the Tampa Bay Times has been encouraging — he’s been getting Facebook messages, calls, texts and emails from supportive conservatives and liberals in the state, he said.</p>
<p>“It can’t even be 40 hours yet since that article hit and the response has been overwhelming,” he said. “I’ve not had one negative response.”</p>
<p>That support isn’t surprising to Dooley, the tea party activist who’s <a href="" type="internal">fought</a> for solar-friendly policies in Georgia, Florida and other states. Conservatives For Energy Freedom wants to increase access to solar because it believes in the free market and increasing consumer choice — two things she said conservatives, especially, can get behind.</p>
<p>“Free market and the freedom to choose — those are core conservative principles,” she told ThinkProgress. “Unless you cherry-pick your principles, if you’re a true conservative, this is something that resonates with you. I think the residents are fed up with the government telling them who to purchase their power from.”</p>
<p>But it’s not just conservatives who are interested in increasing access to solar in Florida. Last year, a <a href="http://allianceforsolarchoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/HarstadResearch-PollonNetMetering-March72014-1.pdf" type="external">poll</a> found that 77 percent of Floridians supported net metering, a practice that <a href="http://www.seia.org/policy/distributed-solar/net-metering" type="external">allows owners</a> of solar systems to be credited for the electricity they produce. Seventy-one percent of Floridians, according to the poll, also opposed the idea of imposing a fee on Florida residents who install solar panels on their roofs.</p>
<p>Some advocates of solar energy, including Conservatives for Energy Freedom, see Florida as the next frontier for solar. Along with as much of the Southeast, Florida is <a href="http://energy.gov/maps/solar-energy-potential" type="external">ranked high</a> in potential for solar power by the Department of Energy. But the state’s laws <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/solar-energy-positioned-to-boom-in-florida/2136868" type="external">historically haven’t been friendly</a> to solar: along with granting only utilities the power to sell electricity to consumers, Florida also doesn’t have a renewable portfolio standard, and the state’s <a href="http://www.broward.org/GoGreen/GoSOLAR/GoSOLARFlorida/Documents/Solar_Leasing_Tangible_Personal_Property_Tax_meeting_report.pdf" type="external">tangible personal property tax</a> increases the cost of leased solar systems.</p>
<p>Conservatives for Energy Freedom — along with state- and regionally-based solar advocacy groups like the Florida Alliance for Renewable Energy, hope they can ultimately change some of these laws to be more encouraging of solar development.</p>
<p>“There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be opening up alternative energy sources, and solar is one of the best ways to do that in Florida,” Perfetti <a href="" type="internal">said in November</a>. “You can’t build your own power plant but you sure as heck can have solar installed on your property.”</p> | Florida Conservative Group Launches A Ballot Initiative To Increase Access To Solar Power | true | http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/01/08/3609455/florida-conservatives-push-for-solar/ | 2015-01-08 | 4 |
<p>Photo of Bobby Egan and the North Korean head of American Affairs, Han Song Ryol, courtesy of Kurt Pitzer.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Read Part I: What if Kim Jong Il Went to Tony Soprano’s Dentist?</a></p>
<p>Editor’s note: This concludes our excerpt from Kurt Pitzer’s riveting new book, <a href="http://www.eatingwiththeenemy.org/book/Home/Home.html" type="external">Eating With the Enemy</a>, the tale of a New Jersey restaurant owner who becomes a middleman in the high-stakes diplomatic dance between America and North Korea. But you’ll want to read <a href="" type="internal">Part I</a> first.</p>
<p>—–</p>
<p>“WHAT’S HAPPENING, DOC?” I could hear the alarm in my voice. “Kallis?”</p>
<p>The Greek ignored me and swiveled around so he was standing behind Han’s head. “Turn down the gas,” he said to his assistants. He put his hands over Han’s ears and repositioned his head and neck. “Is the oxygen ready? Turn it up.”</p>
<p>I was sure he knew what he was doing, but Han wasn’t a typical patient. His body wasn’t used to American pharmaceuticals. Besides the anesthetic, they’d jacked him up on a cocktail of steroids, Demerol, Ketamine, Valium and Propofol. If he stopped breathing for too long, he could suffer brain damage, or worse.</p>
<p>The second hand ticked around the bottom numbers of the clock on the wall. I thought: ‘I’m going to have to drag Han’s body out to the security goon and the driver and say, ‘Sorry, here’s what’s left of him.'” In which case, I’d be dead meat. Some night, an agent from Pyongyang, somebody like Cranky, would knock on my front door and rub out my whole family. And then he’d come after The Greek’s.</p>
<p>Han’s family might be targeted. If the regime found it embarrassing that their ambassador passed away in a dentist’s chair, his wife, daughters, parents and who knows how many other relatives could be thrown into a prison camp. I vowed that if I weren’t dead or rotting away in Leavenworth, I would find a way to help them. I’d travel to Pyongyang and grieve with them and let them know that Han’s last moments were peaceful, and that his friend was holding his hand.</p>
<p><a href="http://eatingwiththeenemy.org/book/Home/Home.html" type="external" />A worse scenario occurred to me. What if Han died, and it led to war? In Pyongyang, the circumstances would look suspicious: The American president is threatening a preemptive strike, and the ambassador dies mysteriously in a dental office in New Jersey. That’s how the First World War started. An Austrian nobleman gets popped while driving around and minding his own business in Sarajevo and suddenly 16 million people are dead. The Greek and I would be mentioned in the encyclopedias of the future, as the guys who started a war by trying to fix a toothache. They’d call it The Molar War.</p>
<p>“Come on, buddy.” I said. “Breathe for me.”</p>
<p>O’D poked his head into the operating room. “Are we on Headline News yet?” he asked. And before I could say, “Fuck off, Mike,” Han snorted—a drawn-out sound like kids make when they imitate pigs.</p>
<p>“The medication gets them too relaxed,” The Greek said. “Like apnea.”</p>
<p>“Could it have damaged his brain?”</p>
<p>“I don’t think so. Most people can go thirty seconds or more.”</p>
<p>Finally, after eight hours, it was time to bring Han out of the anesthesia. One of the assistants fed some wake-up juice into the IV, and Han’s eyes fluttered open. He recognized me, and looked straight into my eyes. He had a dreamy, spaced-out expression.&#160;</p>
<p>“I love you,” he said.</p>
<p>The Greek grinned at me. “He’s feeling no pain,” he said. “Not yet, anyway.”</p>
<p>Han turned and held his finger up to quiet everybody in the room. “I love my brother, Bobby,” he announced.</p>
<p>O’D shifted uncomfortably by the door. “Looks like you two need some quiet time together,” he said. “Get a room!”</p>
<p>The Greek and his assistants left us alone. O’D raised his eyebrows at me and followed them. Han sat on the edge of the dentist’s chair and shook his head back and forth, until he got his bearings. “Was anybody else here when I said I liked you?”</p>
<p>“You didn’t say you liked me. You said, ‘I love you.'”</p>
<p>“No, I didn’t.”</p>
<p>“You were petting my arm. I thought you said there were no homosexuals in North Korea.”</p>
<p>“Don’t even talk like that!” he said. “You are a jackass.”</p>
<p>I tried to help him up, but he pushed me away and stood on his own. “You gave us a good scare there, pal,” I said.</p>
<p>As we were leaving, The Greek slipped me a small manila envelope, which I pocketed. He tried to write a prescription for pain medicine, but Han refused it on the grounds that he needed to keep his mind sharp for the nuclear negotiations ahead.</p>
<p>He rolled his tongue around in his mouth. “I’m hungry.”</p>
<p>“You’ve been knocked out for eight hours,” I said, “you’ve earned a plate of ribs.”</p>
<p>“Take it easy,” The Greek said, handing me the prescription. “He’s all juiced up on steroids. Give him a milkshake, and get him the meds.”</p>
<p>But once Han had heard “plate of ribs,” there was no convincing him otherwise.&#160; An hour later at Cubby’s, he was pulling meat off the bone with his fingers and putting it into his mouth as gingerly as he could. If he was in pain, he didn’t show it. He was all smiles. It was too bad the new teeth were hidden by the gravestone-looking things in the front of his mouth.&#160;</p>
<p>“We could do something about these, too,” I said, rubbing my finger under my top lip. “I know a guy who does veneers.” Blank stare. “They’re caps,” I said. “Like gloves for your teeth. They’d make you look younger.”</p>
<p>Han chewed carefully on some rib meat. “I’m a bee in the beehive, remember?” he said. “I don’t need to look younger. It’s not good for me.”</p>
<p>“We’ll make you the Eric Estrada of North Korea!” I said. No response. “You don’t know Eric Estrada? Like a movie star. Like Tom Cruise. Think about Tom Cruise’s smile. It’s powerful.”&#160;</p>
<p>Han put a bare rib on his plate and wiped barbecue sauce off his fingers with a paper napkin. “Maybe it would make me a better negotiator?”</p>
<p>“Of course it would!” I said.</p>
<p>Han said he’d think about it.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>MARAKOVITS WAS SITTING in the parking lot of Cubby’s when I arrived the next morning. It was Sunday, his day off. He knew. Lilia told me his agents had made 21 calls to Cubby’s while we were at The Greek’s.</p>
<p>“He’s feeling fine,” I said as we sat at the back table. “Everything went off without a hitch. No trouble at all.”</p>
<p>“I was worried, you know.” Marakovits looked like he couldn’t decide whether or not to scold me. We were still feeling out our relationship.</p>
<p>I pulled the little manila envelope out of my pocket and put it on the table in front of him. “If we hadn’t put him in that chair, I wouldn’t have this for you.”</p>
<p>He gave it a little squeeze between his thumb and forefinger and shook his head in amazement. “Is this what I think it is?”&#160; He turned it upside down and a fully intact molar rattled across the Formica. His hand shot out and saved it from flying off the table. “Does he know you took this?”</p>
<p>I didn’t tell Han. Even though we were like family by now, he knew we had to do our part for our own sides. Loyalties get mixed up when you reach across borders. My mom’s Uncle Tony drove a tank in WWII in parts of Italy where relatives sided with Mussolini’s fascists. When Uncle Tony’s crew fired tank rounds on the enemy, he never knew if he was hitting a cousin or an uncle.</p>
<p>Marakovits dropped the tooth back in the envelope, looking pleased with the trophy.&#160; It was more personal than the strands of hair I brought Kuhlmeier years earlier, and they couldn’t ask for a better body part for the purpose of identification. The tooth had been in Han’s head for four decades, chewing an unknown number of meals for him. A life of meals could be probably be detected, if anybody looked closely enough. FBI experts would examine it in some lab, I guessed. But other than Han’s diet, what would they learn from it?&#160; I wanted to tell them: Get inside the North Koreans’ heads—not their teeth and hair. Our intelligence guys seemed more interested in Han’s chemical structure than his psyche.</p>
<p>They could have learned something from Han’s self-image, too. Everybody likes to look good. Han wasn’t vainer than anybody else. But he wasn’t any less vain, either. A few weeks later, when his jaw had healed, I took him to Jorge Cervantes-Grundy, a cosmetic dentist in Fort Lee, who’s also a friend and a regular customer of mine at the restaurant. Grundy agreed to work on Han with zero down. Han was still leery of the idea of veneers. He asked for the yellowest ones possible. He was afraid that if his teeth looked too perfect and too white, some jealous superior back home would rip them out with a pair of pliers and send them back to America in an envelope.</p>
<p>Grundy installed veneers in Han’s mouth over the course of two visits in January 2003. Han looked years younger. “I’m going to Hollywood,” he boasted. “You think I can be an actor?”</p>
<p>“What do you want to play – the good guy or the bad guy?”</p>
<p>He flashed his new, killer smile. “Bad guy,” he said.</p>
<p>After he got his veneers, Han became a poster boy for oral hygiene. He’d grin at himself in the mirror when he thought nobody was watching. He started asking me how often I flossed and telling me I needed to get my bottom teeth straightened.</p>
<p>Despite the Communist system that says they have to live for the glory of their nation and all that BS, I’ll bet most North Koreans would jump at the chance to get their teeth fixed. I imagined a dental-diplomacy effort, starting with the Dear Leader and his top brass and working our way down the chain of command. I talked to The Greek about it, and he offered to make a humanitarian trip to Pyongyang anytime I asked. I had conversations with Bill Henry and Han about getting dental lab equipment shipped over there, with the idea of opening up a clinic.</p>
<p>They say the little details of your appearance can have a psychological effect on how others see you. Especially the teeth. I’ve heard that looking at someone’s teeth is how we unconsciously measure their vitality. The mouth is the gateway to health, they say. Han was always talking about juche and self-reliance. To me, self-reliance starts with self-improvement. Or to put it in terms of politics, if you can’t change your adversary, change yourself. I wasn’t saying dental work alone would do the trick. But most of the North Koreans I met had plenty of room for improvement in the oral-cavity department. A few fixes in that area could help their self esteem. Imagine what could happen if a group from Pyongyang showed up to a negotiating session and flashed their new and more pleasing smiles—winning smiles—at their American counterparts. The Americans would smile back. It’s instinctual. Things like that work on an unconscious level. Maybe the negotiations would take on a better tone. You never know. Sometimes it’s the intangibles that make all the difference.</p> | Hamburger Diplomacy | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2010/04/hamburger-diplomacy/ | 2010-04-28 | 4 |
<p>In the market for a used car but don’t want to spend more than $10,000? Not a problem, online vehicle research portal Web2Carz.com put together a list of the best used cars under $10,000 that takes into account fuel economy, performance, hauling capacity and luxury. There’s even an option for sports-car enthusiasts. Keep in mind that these cars aren’t that new; most were rolled out between 2004 and 2007. Photo Source: Reuters</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p> | Best Used Cars Under $10,000 | true | http://foxbusiness.com/slideshow/personal-finance/2011/08/02/best-used-cars-under-10000.html | 2017-02-08 | 0 |
<p>Photoillustration by &lt;a href="http://www.motherjones.com/authors/dave-gilson"&gt;Dave Gilson&lt;/a&gt;/MoJo. Shutterstock photos by &lt;a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-109669508/stock-photo-mormons-temple-in-salt-lake-city-ut-in-the-evening.html"&gt;photo.ua&lt;/a&gt; (temple) and &lt;a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-108300971/stock-vector-vector-icon-rainbow.html?src=Z16kczFGwQWk_Ip1SoqJWg-1-3"&gt;zzveillust&lt;/a&gt; (rainbow)</p>
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<p>Last month, hundreds of boisterous protesters converged in Washington, DC, as the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Hollingsworth v. Perry, the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of California’s anti-gay marriage initiative, Proposition 8. Faith-based groups were on prominent display: the Methodists supporting marriage equality, the <a href="" type="internal">Westboro Baptists</a> suggesting (per usual) that “God hates fags,” the Catholics both for and against gay marriage, clergy of all stripes. But one group that wasn’t there in any official capacity was the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—a.k.a. the Mormons—which perhaps more than any other religious group was responsible for getting Prop. 8 passed in the first place.</p>
<p>In the five years since the LDS church sent busloads of the faithful to California to canvass neighborhoods, and contributed more than $20 million via its members to support the initiative, it has all but dropped the rope in the public policy tug of war over marriage equality. The change stems from an even more remarkable if somewhat invisible transformation happening within the church, prompted by the ugly fight over Prop. 8 and the ensuing backlash from the flock.</p>
<p>Although the LDS’s prophet hasn’t described a holy revelation directing a revision in church doctrine on same-sex marriage or gay rights in general, the church has shown a rare capacity for introspection and humane cultural change unusual for a large conservative religious organization.</p>
<p>“It seems like the [Mormon] hierarchy has pulled the plug and is no longer taking the lead in the fight to stop same-sex marriage,” says <a href="" type="internal">Fred Karger</a>, the LGBT activist who first exposed the church’s major role in the passage of Prop. 8. “The Mormon Church has lost so many members and suffered such a black eye because of all its anti-gay activities that they really had no choice. I am hopeful that the Catholic Church cannot be far behind.”</p>
<p>The LDS church has been a driving force against gay-marriage initiatives since at least 1995. It was instrumental in fending off same-sex marriage in Hawaii and Alaska and, in 2000, it helped pass California’s Proposition 22 (the Prop. 8 precursor known as the Knight Initiative), which defined marriage as solely between a man and woman. (Prop. 22 was struck down by the California Supreme Court in 2008.)</p>
<p>The church’s anti-gay positions and lobbying on gay marriage have always been divisive. In 2000, during the fight over the Knight Initiative, a young gay Mormon named Stuart Matis killed himself on the steps of a Mormon ward in Los Altos, California. In a letter to his cousin shortly before his suicide, he despaired over the impact of the church’s political activities on Mormon families: “On the night of March 7th, many California couples will retire to their beds thrilled that they helped pass the Knight Initiative. What they don’t realize is that in the next room, their son or daughter is lying in bed crying and could very well one day be the victim of society’s homophobia. The Knight Initiative will certainly save no family. It is codified hatred. It is anti-family, anti-love and it is wrong.”</p>
<p>But Matis’ death didn’t slow the church’s efforts to beat back same-sex marriage initiatives. In 2008, after the California Supreme Court briefly legalized gay marriage in the state, the Latter Day Saints lent their formidable organizing skills and networks to the Prop. 8 effort, sending canvassers door to door by zip code—sometimes as many as 25,000 per weekend—much as they send out missionaries to spread the Gospel. The church has been credited with almost single-handedly getting Prop. 8 passed, despite a well-funded opposition with backing from Hollywood.</p>
<p>Prop. 8 was a Pyrrhic victory for the Mormons, however. Their role, which the church sought to keep under wraps, was exposed by Karger, who tracked the individual donations pouring into the Yes on 8 campaign back to church members. LGBT activists responded by publicizing the church’s involvement, running an ad, for example, showing fake Mormon missionaries knocking on the door of a lesbian couple and then rifling through their drawers and tearing up their marriage license.</p>
<p>The negative exposure prompted protests, and many Mormons publicly renounced their church membership. One of them was then 28-year-old Matthew Lawrence, the son of official LDS pollster Gary Lawrence, who had led the Prop. 8 fight. “I love my family so much, but it’s hard to not take this personally. We had a brief falling-out over Prop. 22, but that got mended. But two anti-gay initiatives in eight years, it’s impossible not to feel attacked,” Matthew, who is gay, wrote in 2008.</p>
<p>The LDS church had always struggled for public acceptance, and the negative press wasn’t helping. One poll, conducted a year after Prop. 8 passed, showed that the church’s favorability rating had fallen from 42 percent to 37 percent. But its image problem was nothing compared to the internal rifts the Mormons were experiencing. “The church probably deserved the black eye we got from Prop. 8,” says Mitch Mayne, an openly gay Mormon leader in the San Francisco area. “What the non-Mormon world didn’t get to see was how destructive that was inside the faith.”</p>
<p>In response to the anger within Mormon ranks over Prop. 8, the president of the Oakland, California, stake (a stake is akin to a Catholic diocese) began organizing&#160;gatherings of gay and straight members to try to bridge the differences. In September 2010, the disgruntled church members received a private audience with one of the church’s top officials, Marlin Jensen, who serves as the LDS’s historian. The church members tearfully told Jensen their stories—of being shunned by their families, and the homophobia generated by the Prop. 8 campaign. “We explained that [the church had] pitted father against son, mother against daughter, exactly the opposite of what we stand for,” says Mayne, who attended the meeting.</p>
<p>After listening to them talk, Jensen did something almost unheard of in a church whose strict authoritarian hierarchy is unaccustomed to being challenged from below: He apologized “for the pain that Prop. 8 caused [us],” Mayne recalls, choking up at the memory. It was, he says, a “very meaningful event.”</p>
<p>The apology from a high church official turned out to be just the beginning of a cultural shift toward greater acceptance of gays and lesbians within LDS ranks. In 2011, Mayne was called to serve as an official of his local San Francisco ward, as an openly gay man. It was a historic appointment in an institution with a long history of excommunicating openly gay members, which it referred to as people who were “afflicted” with same-sex attraction.</p>
<p>Since then, the church has opened its doors to LGBT members in many places, Mayne says: “Everybody is welcome here. Nobody is under that threat of being excommunicated.” In 2012, the church even created a website, <a href="http://www.mormonsandgays.org" type="external">Mormonsandgays.org</a>, to convey its desire for more-humane treatment of LGBT members. Also last year, about 300 straight Mormons marched in the Salt Lake City pride parade, a significant and emotional first. Mayne says the new website, like the church, still has a long way to go, but he and other gay Mormons see it as a step in the right direction.</p>
<p />
<p>Perhaps most significantly, the church has made a concerted effort to bring LGBT kids back into the fold. Mayne points out that gay Mormon kids have significantly higher suicide rates than gay non-Mormon ones—a problem that has been attributed to the church’s longtime policy of forcing parents of gay kids to choose between their church and their children. It also has long been common practice for Mormon parents to kick LGBT adolescents out of their homes because of their sexual orientation. (When Matt Lawrence, the church pollster’s son, broke with his family over Prop. 8, he told stories about his family’s efforts to “straighten me out” by sending him to live with homophobic cousins in Utah.) Utah foster parents, too, generally <a href="" type="internal">won’t take in LGBT children</a>. That’s one reason why heavily Mormon Utah has so many homeless LGBT kids on the streets. But even that is starting to change.&#160;</p>
<p>The church has worked with the Family Acceptance Project at San Francisco State University to craft an educational booklet aimed specifically at helping Mormons parent their gay kids, to keep them safe at home and to prevent suicide. It’s a remarkably humane document instructing church members on how to embrace their gay kids even when they’re uncomfortable with their purple hair and transgendered friends. The pamphlet is now being used in lots of Mormon wards. Meanwhile, in Salt Lake City, where the church is headquartered, the church has teamed up with the&#160;LGBT&#160;community to open a shelter for young homeless people there, about 40 percent of whom are known to be&#160;LGBT.&#160;</p>
<p>“The LGBT community had reached out to the church several times before Prop. 8 and we’ve never been able to connect,” says Jim Dabakis, head of the Utah Democratic Party and cofounder of the Utah Pride Center in Salt Lake, who has been involved in these conversations. But after the Prop. 8 backlash, the Utah LGBT community, along with national leaders, commenced a series of meetings with church hierarchy. The first meetings were “a bit uncomfortable,”&#160;Dabakis recalls. But then, “as we began to meet, and we began to introduce our families, it became much less an issue about legal points, what is the definition of a family, what kind of overarching legal principals are involved, and much more about Christian values and how people should be treated. Minds changed on both sides.”</p>
<p>Not everything has changed, of course. The church still filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in support of Prop. 8, although it doesn’t read like the same sort of full-throated anti-gay sentiment that drove the initiative. The church lawyers who drafted the document seem to have bent over backward to express how much they like gays, and to frame the issue in terms of states’ rights, as opposed to morality.</p>
<p>Mormon church doctrine still defines homosexuality as a sin. The gay Mormon website clarifies that while having a same-sex attraction is not a sin, acting on it is. Mayne was only able to take on his leadership role in the church after he broke up with his longtime partner and was single again. And noncelibate LGBT members are still excluded from “temple recommends”—access to the church’s most sacred spaces and ceremonies.</p>
<p>Dabakis says that there are still many points of disagreement. “I don’t think the church has given one iota on gay marriage—maybe they never will—and neither have we. On the other hand, we have found a lot of commonalities that we can work on,” he says, pointing towards the joint efforts to help homeless kids.</p>
<p>The LGBT community’s best evidence of change within the church is that last year, in the only four states ever to pass marriage equality laws, the church “did not provide one dime or one volunteer,” Dabakis says. He adds that in Maryland, when one local Mormon leader tried to organize to oppose a pro-marriage-equality initiative, the church shut her down.</p>
<p>Regardless of how the Supreme Court rules in the Prop. 8 case, the church responsible for its passage has been permanently changed for the better. In Mayne’s view, this all means that Prop. 8, with all its ugliness, happened for a reason: “I believe in our attempt to nail shut the Pandora’s box of gay marriage, we essentially blew the lid off of it.”</p>
<p /> | Mormon Church Abandons Its Crusade Against Gay Marriage | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2013/04/prop-8-mormons-gay-marriage-shift/ | 2013-04-12 | 4 |
<p>“We recognize the weight that the language of disappearance holds; we use it to call attention to the fact that disappearance is not a natural or inevitable phenomenon but rather a direct consequence of US border-enforcement policies and practices.”</p>
<p>— La Coalitión De Derechos Humanos, and No More Deaths, “Disappeared: How the US Border Enforcement Agencies are Fueling a Missing Persons Crisis”</p>
<p>The sunbaked skull seemed to complement the volcanic rocks that lie strewn around it, haunting in its symmetry. Ivory amidst ebony, splayed across the desert floor. The year-round searing heat of the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge can do that, bake things into anonymity. Were it not for the vacant eye sockets, we likely would have walked right by these human remains unaware that someone’s life ended there, or nearby. Eerily the eyeless skull faced south.</p>
<p>Joel Smith, Director of Operations for Humane Borders, and I were hiking in the Growler Valley region of the Refuge on our annual maintenance check of loosely-scattered water stations. The region’s austerity is at once beautiful and perilous. The aptly named El Camino del Diablo (Devil’s Highway) cuts a parallel swath across part of valley. There is little shade anywhere, save the occasional Palo Verde or mesquite tree. Teddy bear Cholla, salt and brittlebush, ocotillo and prickly pear cactus provide modest ground cover. The horizon is elusive. One can walk all day and not feel any closer to the mountain just ahead. Time and distance seem like illusions. I have never encountered anyone on my hikes there. Not one.</p>
<p>Joel tried unsuccessfully to summon Border Patrol Agents to report the remains. As dusk approached we planted a blue flag on a high pole marking the site for later recovery. Then we returned to our camp miles away.</p>
<p>Prior to the mid 1990’s, deaths in the desert were rare and usually attributable to vehicular accidents. Today the Sonoran Desert, 100,000 square miles of Arizona, California and Northern Mexico, particularly its remotest areas, is a veritable death trap. “Exposure” or more frequently “undetermined” is listed as cause of death. In late December 2016, humanitarian aid workers initiated an exploratory effort in the vast reaches of the Refuge. Four sets of skeletal human remains were recovered in the first week, in the Growler Valley. Several more were discovered in the ensuing weeks. The border-hugging refuge is a cemetery of the unknown, and unburied.</p>
<p>Since 1999, the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office has handled more than 2,800 human remains, those who died attempting to migrate through the southern Arizona deserts. Border Patrol reports 6,029 human remains recovered in the same region since the 1990s. Fifty-one bodies have been recorded already this year, with deaths trending between 100 and 250 annually over 10 years. Skeletal remains like those Joel and I encountered are not counted; nor are the deaths of migrants in Border Patrol custody. Estimates of the total number of migrant fatalities vary between three and 10-times the official number of bodies recovered.</p>
<p>This is a dark untold chapter behind this staggering body count, the story of the dead never recovered, the disappeared.</p>
<p>“I’m looking for a disappeared person” was the gist of over 800 phone calls to the Missing Migrant Crisis Line in 2015 alone. A family member is desperately seeking information on the whereabouts of a loved one who has come north from Mexico or Central America—and has not turned up.</p>
<p>The term “disappeared” has generally been associated with people kidnapped by authoritarian regimes and killed without explanation. The United Nation’s definition of “enforced disappearance” now includes state policies which result in persons being disappeared. People don’t just vanish into thin air in the Sonoran Desert. A sophisticated technological network which includes surveillance towers, drones, ground sensors, and cameras work together with an ever-increasing number of Border Patrol agents to create a vast zone of enforcement which pushes people further into formidable, lethal terrain. In effect, the desert becomes a weapon. People do not just disappear. They are disappeared. Their numbers are unknowable, uncountable, and reprehensible—at least in the view of civil society. Even one lost is one too many, let alone thousands. The 1999 “Prevention through Deterrence” enforcement directive which fueled this catastrophe is not only fatally flawed, it is criminal.</p>
<p>Members of La Coalitión De Derechos Humanos and No More Deaths held a press conference near the border fence in Nogales, Arizona last December to announce the publication of their latest abuse report: “Deadly Apprehension Methods, The Consequences of Chase and Scatter in the Wilderness.” The study spotlights one of the US Border Patrol’s more egregious tactics, “Chase and Scatter.”</p>
<p>“Chase” is defined as “the active period of pursuit of border crossers by US Border Patrol agents during an attempted apprehension.” Four-wheelers, horses, and low-flying helicopters—euphuistically called “dusting”—are used to pursue people. The copter hovers directly over people creating a maelstrom of rocks, branches and dust, which scatters people in the chaos. Then the chase ensues.</p>
<p>In 42 percent of more than 500 interviews conducted by La Coalitión de Derechos Humans, people reported members of their group lost to the wilderness by this tactic; 41 percent reported injuries including broken limbs and lacerations. A few individuals are usually apprehended. The rest are scattered, often unable to regroup, fleeing alone into the wilderness. This tactic has contributed to untold numbers of the disappeared. The policy’s title is “Prevention through deterrence.” Human remains are what deterrence looks like.</p>
<p>As I’m writing, I’ve been told that four more sets of human remains were recovered in the Growler Valley last week. There is no end in sight.</p> | Disappeared on the Border: “Chase and Scatter” — to Death | true | https://counterpunch.org/2017/03/27/disappeared-on-the-border-chase-and-scatter-to-death/ | 2017-03-27 | 4 |
<p>The Onion, as ever, is on point with its “coverage” of the worst recorded outbreak of Ebola, and the first in West Africa, infecting some 1,779 people and killing at least 961. “ <a href="http://www.theonion.com/articles/experts-ebola-vaccine-at-least-50-white-people-awa,36580/" type="external">Experts: Ebola Vaccine At Least 50 White People Away</a>,” read the cheeky headline of the July&#160;31 news brief.</p>
<p>Our shorthand explanation is that if the people infected with Ebola were white, the problem would be solved. But the market’s role in both drug companies’ refusal&#160;to invest in research and the conditions on the ground created by neoliberal policies that exacerbate and even encourage outbreaks goes unmentioned.</p>
<p>Racism is certainly a factor. Jeremy Farrar, an infectious disease specialist and the head of the <a href="http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/" type="external">Wellcome Trust</a>, one of the largest medical research charities in the world, told the&#160; <a href="http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2014/07/09/ebola_outbreak_not_right_for_testing_experimental_vaccines_drugs_experts.html" type="external">Toronto Star</a>: “Imagine if you take a region of Canada, America, Europe, and you had 450 people dying of a viral hemorrhagic fever. It would just be unacceptable — and it’s unacceptable in West Africa.”</p>
<p>He noted how an experimental Canadian-developed Ebola vaccine had been provided on an emergency use basis to a German researcher in 2009 after a lab accident. “We moved heaven and earth to help a German lab technician. Why is it different because this is West Africa?”</p>
<p>But Ebola is a problem that is not being solved because there is almost no money to be made in solving it. It’s an unprofitable disease.</p>
<p>There have been around 2,400 people killed since Ebola was first identified in 1976. Major pharmaceutical companies know that the market for fighting Ebola is minute while the costs of developing treatment remain significant. On a purely quantitative basis, some might (perhaps rightly) warn against focusing too much on this one disease that kills far fewer than, for example, malaria (300,000 killed since the start of the Ebola outbreak) or tuberculosis (600,000).</p>
<p>Yet the economic constraints retarding progress in developing Ebola treatment also explain why <a href="" type="internal">drug companies are resisting</a>&#160;developing treatment to those diseases as well as many others.</p>
<p>The last decade has actually seen a tremendous advance in research into therapies for Ebola, usually in the public sector or by small biotech companies with significant public funding, with a variety of treatment options on the table including nucleic-acid-based products, antibody therapies, and a number of candidate vaccines — five of which have successfully protected non-human primates from Ebola.</p>
<p>Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has been telling everyone in the press who will listen to him in the last fortnight that an Ebola vaccine would be within spitting distance — if it weren’t for the corporate skinflints.</p>
<p>“We have been working on our own Ebola vaccine, but we never could get any buy-in from the companies,” he told <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/07/31/ebola-vaccine-trial/13404609/" type="external">USA Today</a>.</p>
<p>“We have a candidate, we put it in monkeys and it looks good, but the incentive on the part of the pharmaceutical companies to develop a vaccine that treats little outbreaks every thirty or forty years — well, that’s not much incentive,” he told <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cross-border-ebola-outbreak-a-first-for-deadly-virus/" type="external">Scientific American</a>.</p>
<p>Almost everyone familiar with the subject says that the know-how is there. It’s just that outbreaks are so rare and affect too few people for it to make development worthwhile — that is, profitable — for large pharmaceutical companies.</p>
<p>“These outbreaks affect the poorest communities on the planet. Although they do create incredible upheaval, they are relatively rare events,” Daniel Bausch, the director of the emerging infections department of Naval Medical Research Unit Six (NAMRU-6), a biomedical research laboratory in Lima, Peru, told <a href="http://www.vox.com/2014/7/31/5952665/ebola-virus-vaccine-why-hasnt-it-happened" type="external">Vox</a>. “So if you look at the interest of pharmaceutical companies, there is not huge enthusiasm to take an Ebola drug through phase one, two, and three of a trial and make an Ebola vaccine that maybe a few tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people will use.”</p>
<p>John Ashton, president of the <a href="http://www.fph.org.uk/" type="external">UK Faculty of Public Health</a>, wrote a vituperative opinion piece in the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/theyd-find-a-cure-if-ebola-came-to-london-9644515.html" type="external">Independent on Sunday</a> decrying “the scandal of the unwillingness of the pharmaceutical industry to invest in research to produce treatments and vaccines, something they refuse to do because the numbers involved are, in their terms, so small and don’t justify the investment.</p>
<p>“This is the moral bankruptcy of capitalism acting in the absence of an ethical and social framework,” he concluded.</p>
<p>This situation is not unique to Ebola. For thirty years, the large pharmaceutical companies have refused to engage in research into new classes of antibiotics. Due to this “ <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3021209/" type="external">discovery void</a>,” clinicians expect that within twenty years, we will have completely run out of effective drugs against routine infections. So many medical techniques and interventions introduced since the 1940s depend upon a foundation of antimicrobial protection. The gains in life expectancy that humanity has experienced over this time depended on many things, but would certainly not have been possible without antibiotics. Prior to their development, bacterial infections were one of the most common causes of death.</p>
<p>In April, the World Health Organization issued its first-ever <a href="http://www.who.int/drugresistance/documents/surveillancereport/en/" type="external">report</a> tracking antimicrobial resistance worldwide, finding “alarming levels” of bacterial resistance. “This serious threat is no longer a prediction for the future, it is happening right now in every region of the world and has the potential to affect anyone, of any age, in any country,” the UN health body warned.</p>
<p>The reason for this is straightforward, as the companies themselves themselves admit: It simply makes no sense to pharmaceutical companies to invest an estimated <a href="http://www.nature.com/nrd/journal/v9/n3/full/nrd3078.html" type="external">$870 million</a> (or $1.8&#160;billion accounting for the cost of capital) per drug approved by regulators on a product that people only use a handful of times in their life when suffering from an infection, compared to investing the same amount on the development of highly profitable drugs for chronic diseases such as diabetes or cancer that patients have to take every day, often for the rest of their lives.</p>
<p>Every year in the US, <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/threat-report-2013/" type="external">according to the CDC</a>, some two million people are infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria. 23,000&#160;die as a result.</p>
<p>We see an identical situation with vaccine development. People purchase asthma drugs or insulin, for example, for decades, while vaccinations usually require only one or two doses once in a lifetime. For decades now, so many pharmaceutical companies have abandoned not just vaccine research and development but production as well, that by 2003, the US began to experience shortages of most childhood vaccines. The situation is so dire that the CDC maintains a public website <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/VACCINes/vac-gen/shortages/default.htm#why" type="external">tracking</a> current vaccine shortages and delays.</p>
<p>But at least with respect to Ebola, where the market refuses to provide, the defense department is comfortable intervening and setting aside free-market principles in the interests of national security.</p>
<p>Virologist Thomas Geisbert of the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston told <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-will-we-have-a-vaccine-for-ebola-virus1/" type="external">Scientific American</a> about his hope for the VSV vaccine, one of the most promising options against Ebola:</p>
<p>We’re trying to get the funds to do the human studies .&#160;.&#160;. but it really depends on financial support for the small companies that develop these vaccines. Human studies are expensive and require a lot of government dollars. With Ebola, there’s a small global market — there’s not a big incentive for a large pharmaceutical company to make an Ebola vaccine, so it’s going to require government funding.</p>
<p>William Sheridan, the medical director of BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, the developer of experimental anti-viral drug <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v508/n7496/full/nature13027.html" type="external">BCX4430</a>, describes the financial predicament facing Ebola treatment research and development: “It just wouldn’t make the cut at a major company.”</p>
<p>But for a small company like his, the federal government has both backed research and promised to purchase stockpiles of anti-Ebola drugs as a preventative measure against bioterrorism. BCX4430 is also co-developed with the US Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID). “There is a market, and the market is the US government,” he told <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/04/11/301418627/ebola-drug-could-be-ready-for-human-testing-next-year" type="external">NPR</a>.</p>
<p>USAMRIID, along with Canada’s Public Health Agency, is also backing the development of ZMAPP, a serum of monoclonal antibiodies by a small San Diego-based biotech firm MAPP Biopharmaceutical, which was <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/04/health/experimental-ebola-serum/" type="external">administered last week</a> to two American doctors, Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, working with the evangelical Christian missionary group Samaritan’s Purse.</p>
<p>The pair had fallen ill in Liberia while taking care of patients infected with Ebola. Brantley’s condition had been rapidly deteriorating, and he had phoned his wife to give his farewells. Within an hour of Brantley receiving the experimental serum, his condition had reportedly reversed, with his breathing improving and rashes fading.</p>
<p>The following morning, he was able to shower on his own, and by the time of his arrival in the US after being evacuated from Liberia, he was able to climb down out of the ambulance without assistance. Writebol is now similarly “up and walking,” after her arrival in Atlanta from the Liberian capital.</p>
<p>We should be extremely cautious about drawing any conclusions from this development and claiming that the drug has cured the missionaries. We have a sample size of just two in this “clinical trial,” with no blinding or control groups. The drug had until now never been tested on humans for safety or efficacy. And as with any illness, a certain percentage of patients will recover on their own. We do not know whether ZMapp was the cause of the apparent recovery. Nonetheless, it is not unreasonable to state that this turn of events gives great hope.</p>
<p>Two of the ZMapp antibodies were originally identified and developed by researchers at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg and at Defyrus, a Toronto-based “life sciences biodefense company,” with funding from the Canadian Safety and Security Program of Defence R&amp;D Canada. The third antibody in the cocktail was produced by MappBio in collaboration with USAMRIID, the National Institutes of Health, and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. The companies then partnered with Kentucky Bioprocessing in Owensboro, a protein production company that was bought earlier this year by the parent firm of RJ Reynolds Tobacco, to pharm the antibody-laden tobacco plants.</p>
<p>On hearing of the role of the Pentagon and Canada’s defense establishment, some have jumped to conspiracy theories. Indeed, ZMapp appears to be a perfect storm of popular&#160;nemeses: GMOs, Big Tobacco, the Pentagon, and injections that look a bit like vaccines!</p>
<p>But the Defense Department funding should not be viewed as nefarious. Rather, it is evidence of the superiority of the public sector as shepherd and driver of innovation.</p>
<p>However,&#160;not all unprofitable diseases are subjects of the colonels’ bioterror concern. And why should the private sector get to cherry pick the profitable conditions and leave the unprofitable ones for the public sector?</p>
<p>If, due to its profit-seeking imperative, the pharmaceutical industry is structurally incapable of producing those products that are required by society, and the public sector (in this case in the guise of the military) consistently has to fill in the gaps left by this market failure, then this sector should be nationalized, permitting the revenues from profitable treatments to subsidize the research, development, and production of unprofitable treatments.</p>
<p>In such a situation, we would no longer have to even argue whether&#160;the prevention of malaria, measles, or polio deserves greater priority; we could target both the big name and neglected diseases at the same time. There is no guarantee that turning on the tap of public funding will immediately produce a successful result, but at the moment, private pharmaceutical companies aren’t even trying.</p>
<p>This is precisely what is meant when socialists talk of capitalism being a fetter on the further development of the forces of production. Our concern here is not merely that the refusal of Big Pharma to engage in neglected tropical disease, vaccine, and antibiotic R&amp;D is grotesquely immoral or unjust, but that the production of a potential cornucopia of new goods and services that could otherwise benefit our species and expand the realm of human freedom are blocked due to the free market’s lethargy and paucity of ambition.</p>
<p>Focusing on a vaccine or drugs is critical. But doing so without also&#160;paying attention to the deterioration of public health and general infrastructure across West Africa, and the wider economic conditions that contribute to the likelihood of outbreaks of zoonotic diseases like Ebola, is at best using a bucket to empty the water out of a leaky and sinking boat.</p>
<p>Phylogeographer and ecologist Rob Wallace has <a href="http://farmingpathogens.wordpress.com/2014/04/23/neoliberal-ebola/" type="external">described</a> well how neoliberal fallout has established the ideal conditions for the epidemic. Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone are some of the poorest countries on the planet, ranking 178th, 174th, and 177th out of 187 countries in the UN’s Human Development Index.</p>
<p>Were such an outbreak to occur in northern European countries, for example, nations with some of the best health infrastructure in the world, the situation would more likely have been contained.</p>
<p>It is not merely the dearth of field hospitals, lack of appropriate hygiene practices in existing hospitals, absence of standard isolation units, and limited cadre of highly trained health professionals that are able to track down every person that may have been exposed and isolate them. Or that better supportive care is a crucial condition of better outcomes, whatever the treatment available. The spread of the disease has also been exacerbated by a withering away of basic governmental structures that would otherwise be able to more broadly restrict movement, to manage logistical difficulties, and to coordinate with other governments.</p>
<p>Epidemiologist and infectious diseases specialist Daniel Bausch, who worked on research assignments near the epicenter of the current outbreak, describes in a <a href="http://www.plosntds.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pntd.0003056" type="external">paper</a> published in July in the Public Library of Science journal Neglected Tropical Diseases how he “witnessed this ‘de-development’ firsthand; on every trip back to Guinea, on every long drive from Conakry to the forest region, the infrastructure seemed to be further deteriorated — the once-paved road was worse, the public services less, the prices higher, the forest thinner.”</p>
<p>Wallace notes that here, as in many countries, a series of structural adjustment programs have been encouraged and enforced by Western governments and international financial institutions that require privatization and contraction of government services, removal of tariffs while Northern agribusiness remains subsidized, and an orientation toward crops for export at the expense of food self-sufficiency. All of this drives poverty and hunger, and, in turn, competition between food and export crops for capital, land, and agricultural inputs leads to an ever greater consolidation of land ownership, in particular by foreign companies, that limits access of small farmers to land.</p>
<p>Ebola is a zoonotic disease, meaning a disease spread from animals to humans (or vice versa). Some 61&#160;percent&#160;of&#160; <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1088493/" type="external">human infections</a> throughout history have been zoonotic, from influenza to cholera to HIV.</p>
<p>The single biggest factor driving growth in new zoonotic pathogens is increased contact between humans and wildlife, often by the expansion of human activity into wilderness. As neoliberal structural adjustment forces people off the land but without accompanying urban employment opportunities, Wallace points out, they plunge “deeper into the forest to expand the geographic as well as species range of hunted game and to find wood to make charcoal and deeper into mines to extract minerals, enhancing their risk of exposure to Ebola virus and other zoonotic pathogens in these remote corners.”</p>
<p>As Bausch puts it: “Biological and ecological factors may drive emergence of the virus from the forest, but clearly the sociopolitical landscape dictates where it goes from there — an isolated case or two or a large and sustained outbreak.”</p>
<p>These outcomes are the predictable result of unplanned, haphazard development in areas known to be the origin of zoonotic spillover, and without the sort of infrastructural support and egalitarian ethos that permitted, for example, the elimination of malaria from the American South after World War&#160;II by the CDC in one of its earliest missions.</p>
<p>Over these past few months, the worst Ebola outbreak in history has exposed the moral bankruptcy of our pharmaceutical development model. The fight for public health care in the United States and the allied fight against healthcare privatization elsewhere in the West has only ever been half the battle. The goal of such campaigns can only truly be met when a new campaign is mounted: to rebuild the international pharmaceutical industry as a public sector service as well as address&#160;wider neoliberal policies that indirectly undermine public health.</p>
<p>We could take inspiration from HIV/AIDS activist groups from the late 1980s–early 1990s like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACT_UP" type="external">ACT UP</a> and the Treatment Action Group, and, in the 2000s, South Africa’s Treatment Action Campaign, which combined direct action and civil disobedience against both companies and politicians with a scientifically rigorous understanding of their condition.</p>
<p>But this time, we need a larger, more comprehensive campaign covering not just one disease, but the panoply of market failures with respect to vaccine development, the antibiotic discovery void, neglected tropical diseases, and all neglected diseases of poverty. We need a science-based treatment activism that has the long-term, ambitious but achievable aim of the pharmaceutical industry’s democratic conquest.</p>
<p>We need a campaign to destroy the unprofitable diseases.</p> | The Political Economy of Ebola | true | https://jacobinmag.com/2014/08/the-political-economy-of-ebola/ | 2018-10-03 | 4 |
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A boom in births and a plethora of patients has spurred Presbyterian Healthcare Services to announce plans to increase the number of beds available at its new Rio Rancho hospital.</p>
<p>Plans for the Rust Medical Center include expanding the birthing facilities and opening a now unused patient floor, increasing the total number of available beds from 68 to 92.</p>
<p>Director of patient care services Angela Ward said Presbyterian intentionally left the fifth floor unused when the hospital opened to allow time to gauge the level of demand.</p>
<p>“We wanted to be cautious to see if volumes were what we thought they would be — and they were greater,” Ward said.</p>
<p>From the date the hospital opened in late October through the end of February, 10,000 people visited the medical center’s emergency department — 25 percent more than Presbyterian staff had estimated — 300 babies were delivered and 1,700 overnight patients were discharged.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Ward said the goal is to have the fifth floor ready for use by July 1. The $1.9 million project involves equipping the rooms and modifying the information technology systems needed to support the patient services.</p>
<p>Some of the money for the project will come from Presbyterian capital funds and some out of the original $190 million hospital construction budget, she said.</p>
<p>The plan also involves remodeling areas on the second and third floor to increase the number of birthing suites from four to six and the number of postpartum rooms from nine to 18. Presbyterian is still working out the costs for this part of the work, Ward said.</p>
<p>The expansion will also mean about 40 more jobs at the hospital. Ward said Presbyterian has already begun recruiting physicians, nurses, technicians and other clinical staff. — This article appeared on page 1 of the West Side Journal</p> | New Hospital Expanding | false | https://abqjournal.com/97103/new-hospital-expanding.html | 2012-03-29 | 2 |
<p>Published time: 18 Nov, 2017 13:28</p>
<p>The US Military has decided to seize artwork produced by detainees at Guantánamo Bay Navy Base and will no longer release prisoner artwork to the public. The detainees’ attorneys have said that the ultimate plan is to destroy it.</p>
<p>A practice has been in place for years whereby detainees are allowed to own their artwork and display it publicly, once it has passed a security screening for hidden messages. Officials have declined to give an explanation for the policy u-turn.</p>
<p>An exhibition in New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice, entitled ‘ <a href="https://www.artfromguantanamo.com/" type="external">Ode to the Sea: Art from Guantánamo Bay</a>,’ may have been the catalyst, however, as the website indicates the artworks are available for purchase.</p>
<p>“Detainees at the United States military prison camp known as Guantánamo Bay have made art from the time they arrived. The exhibit will display some of these evocative works, made by men held without trial, some for nearly 15 years, who paint the sea again and again although they cannot reach it,” reads the exhibition description. The exhibition features 30 artworks by both current and former detainees, and runs until January 26, 2018.</p>
<p>“I did this show to try and help people see that detainees are human beings and give detainees another way to think about themselves: as artists,” said Erin Thompson, professor of art crime at John Jay and co-curator of the exhibition, as cited by <a href="https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-military-claims-ownership-art-made-guantanamo-bay-detainees" type="external">Artsy</a>. “The authorities saw it as a risk and just slammed shut that possibility.”</p>
<p>Thompson added that it’s “yet another clear demonstration of the human-rights violation that is Guantánamo,” and “an illustration of how these men can never escape.”</p>
<p>Art classes were introduced in <a href="https://www.dvidshub.net/image/193031/guantanamo-officer-charge-views-detainee-art-work" type="external">2009</a> under the Obama administration as a means of diffusing tensions between inmates and prison guards.</p>
<p>The prisoners will be prevented from gifting their artwork to their lawyers as a workaround for the new regime. They will also no longer be allowed to give it to the Red Cross with a view to sending it on to the detainees’ families. “Their art would not even be allowed out with them and would be incinerated instead,” according to attorney Ramzi Kassem, reported the Miami Herald.</p>
<p>Pentagon spokesperson Major Ben Sakrisson said on Wednesday that the art is “property of the US government” and suggested that “questions remain on where the money for the sales was going,” as quoted by <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/guantanamo/article185088673.html" type="external">The Miami Herald</a>. Navy Commander Anna Leanos, spokesperson for the prison, said “transfers of detainee-made artwork have been suspended pending a policy review.”</p> | US Military to seize, burn Guantánamo Bay detainees’ art (PHOTOS) | false | https://newsline.com/us-military-to-seize-burn-guantanamo-bay-detainees-art-photos/ | 2017-11-18 | 1 |
<p>Many were&#160;shocked by&#160;Donald Trump’s trip to Mexico. That misses the real ironies here: NAFTA — and how this should be a boon to the Green Party.</p>
<p>First the obvious stuff: Donald Trump is playing to xenophobic sentiments. His “solutions” are in large part twisted or beside the point, for example,&#160; <a href="http://www.accuracy.org/release/no-need-to-build-the-donalds-wall-its-built/" type="external">U.S. government has largely already built the wall</a>.</p>
<p>One real irony is that Trump is appealing for votes based on trade issues. His criticism of NAFTA rightly resonates with many in the U.S. Lots of workers have lost out because of NAFTA and other so-called “trade deals.” These deals are actually largely investment protection agreements that help the huge corporations and the wealthy in the U.S., Mexico and other countries. That’s people like&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Trump</a>&#160;and people and corporations like those who&#160; <a href="" type="internal">fund Hillary Clinton</a>. Meanwhile, these secretive deals often&#160;rook regular folks wherever they live.</p>
<p>But Trump — and many other critics in the U.S. — only talks about how NAFTA has hurt U.S. workers. Largely unacknowledged in the U.S. is how it has&#160; <a href="http://otherwords.org/nafta-mexico-poverty-engine/" type="external">devastated Mexican family farms and small industry</a>&#160;— which leads to&#160; <a href="http://www.ips-dc.org/nafta_pushes_many_mexicans_to_migrate/" type="external">desperate migration from Mexico</a>&#160;to the U.S. ( <a href="" type="internal">along with the drug war</a>).</p>
<p>So, redoing NAFTA would actually help stem desperate migration that is the source of much of Trump’s support.</p>
<p>Hillary Clinton is now claiming to be against the TPP, the successor to NAFTA in many respects. In fact, she has backed both. And she just named&#160; <a href="" type="internal">pro-TPP&#160;Ken Salazar to be her transition team head</a>. Her VP pick,&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Tim Kaine recently backed the TPP</a>&#160;before he pretended to flip-flop as well. Meanwhile, Trump contradicts himself on issues like mad. Who knows what he’ll do if he were actually in office.</p>
<p>But Clinton has largely succeeded in pretending she’s anti TPP. OnTheIssues just reports her stated&#160; <a href="" type="internal">positions on TPP</a>, which you have to be an idiot to believe — or a hack. Over 40 million people have apparently taken an “issues” poll with <a href="http://isidewith.com/" type="external">iSideWith.com</a> — but when I asked them if they label Clinton as opposed to the TPP the same way Jill Stein of the Green Party is, they&#160; <a href="" type="internal">refused to answer and deleted our exchange</a>.</p>
<p>In fact, the U.S. public is&#160; <a href="http://www.accuracy.org/release/despite-public-opposition-obama-and-republicans-ramming-fast-track-through/" type="external">strongly opposed</a>&#160;to more of the same U.S. trade deals like NAFTA and the TPP. But the only reliable candidate on reforming trade issues is ticket of Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka of the Green Party, but they are&#160; <a href="" type="internal">excluded from most discussion</a>&#160;by&#160; <a href="http://fair.org/topic/trade/" type="external">corporate media, which are overwhelmingly for corporate “trade” deals</a>. Our politics is broken on so many levels.</p>
<p>So: The incredible irony of this is that the best choice for the xenophobes is Green (the Libertarian Party of Gary Johnson and &#160;Bill Weld&#160; <a href="" type="internal">is openly pro-TPP</a>).</p>
<p>Certainly, Greens and other progressives usually talk against NAFTA and the TPP in terms of corporate control over health, labor, environmental, patent, copyright and other critical issue areas. But ending the NAFTA model may well end desperate migration, a leading concern of many on the right.</p>
<p>Let Mexicans prosper in Mexico. If the U.S. were to have reasonable agreements with Mexico, people there will work in farms and factories in Mexico without feeling desperate to come to the U.S. for any work they can possibly get here. They are free human beings, not charity cases.</p>
<p>We have a similar dynamic regarding xenophobia directed against Syria refugees now. Let Syrians be a peace in Syria without outside meddling — the root causes of the war in Syria and much of the Mideast is constant outside intervention, most clearly the U.S. invasion of neighboring Iraq.</p>
<p>Let each —&#160; <a href="http://www.compassroses.org/" type="external">Mexico, Syria and every other country</a>&#160;— deal with the U.S. as equals. People should not be in need of coming and begging for refuge or to do work at poverty wages in the shadows in the U.S.</p>
<p>If we change the root causes of policies, things look very different and people who might be motivated, superficially at least, by different arguments end up having much more in common than meets the eye in terms of desperately needed policy changes.</p> | Trump Going to Mexico is not the Real Irony, NAFTA Is | true | https://counterpunch.org/2016/09/01/trump-going-to-mexico-is-not-the-real-irony-nafta-is/ | 2016-09-01 | 4 |
<p>If you'd like to see for yourself whether the TV mini-series "The Reagans" is worth all the fuss over it (CBS spiked the program for not being "fair and balanced" in its portrayal of Ronald and Nancy Reagan), you can <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/11/07/reagans_script/index_np.html" type="external">read the full script</a> on Salon.com. It's an 8-megabyte, 213-page PDF document. This is a great example of something possible on the web not practical to do in print or television. Bravo, Salon.</p> | 'The Reagans' in PDF | false | https://poynter.org/news/reagans-pdf | 2003-11-10 | 2 |
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<p><a href="http://www.bankrate.com/funnel/personal-loans/?ic_id=story_personal-loans&amp;qls=BRC_CONTENT0.061616PRSN" type="external">Personal Loans Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>You can take out a mortgage with another person, secure auto financing or even get a credit card together, but if you want to take out a personal loan with your spouse or partner, you'll need to ask the lender if it allows joint borrowers.</p>
<p>What is a Joint Borrower?</p>
<p>When 2 or more people apply for credit together and use their income and credit history to qualify for a loan they are called joint borrowers or co-borrowers. Spouses or partners may apply jointly in an effort to get a larger or cheaper loan than they would qualify for individually or -- with a look to the future -- to help boost their partner's credit score with a record of timely payments.</p>
<p>Bankrate reviewed the personal loan applications of nearly a dozen banks and credit unions. In each instance, the institution allows for joint applications on personal loans. But a number of online lenders explicitly forbid co-borrowers.</p>
<p>This may be an important consideration for people with damaged credit.</p>
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<p>"Often a (joint borrower) can make the difference between getting approved and getting rejected," says Bruce McClary, vice president of public relations and external affairs with the National Foundation for Credit Counseling. "Taking on a (co-borrower) can not only help you get approved when otherwise you might not, but you might also qualify for better rates."</p>
<p>RATE SEARCH: Need a personal loan? Let Bankrate help you find the <a href="http://www.bankrate.com/funnel/personal-loans/?ic_id=story_personal-loans&amp;qls=BRC_CONTENT1.061616PRSN" type="external">best loan rates Opens a New Window.</a> today.</p>
<p>Before signing on to any loan with another person, you need to talk about the responsibilities and expectations each person taking on the loan has.</p>
<p>Saying 'Yes' or 'No' to Co-Borrowers</p>
<p>Online lenders Avant, CommonBond, LendingPoint and Prosper all confirmed they do not allow joint borrowers. Another lender, SoFi, notes in an online FAQ that it doesn't allow more than one person to sign for a loan.</p>
<p>Among the other major online lenders, Bankrate found that both Lending Club and LightStream, the online lending arm of SunTrust Bank in Atlanta, allow co-borrowers.</p>
<p>"If joint applications help people meet our lending criteria, we're happy to approve them," says Julie Olian, a LightStream spokeswoman.</p>
<p>Lending Club, one of the big marketplace lenders, began allowing joint applications in October 2015 for "certain" borrowers. On its website, the company indicates that credit scores, credit history and debt-to-income ratio, or DTI, among other factors, will be considered in deciding qualification.</p>
<p>What is Debt-to-Income Ratio (DTI)?</p>
<p>DTI = monthly debt payments / gross monthly income</p>
<p>Lenders use this ratio as a way to measure your ability to repay. In the case of Lending Club, it requires a smaller DTI for joint applicants.</p>
<p>"If joint income is considered for purposes of joint loan application approval, the maximum joint DTI ratio for the approval of such loans is 35% (versus 40% for individual application loans)," according to the Lending Club website.</p>
<p>Lending Club did not respond to a request for comment, but in an interview last year with Lend Academy, an online guide to marketplace lending, the company said borrower demand led to the introduction of joint applications.</p>
<p>"This is first about fulfilling a top customer request and enabling us to grant slightly larger line sizes through the commitment of 2 incomes liable for the loan," Lending Club said.</p>
<p>Another online lender, CommonBond, has had a different experience with regard to joint applicants.</p>
<p>"It's not something we see demand for," says Phil Degisi, the chief marketing officer for the firm, which refinances and consolidates student loans.</p>
<p>RATE SEARCH: <a href="http://www.bankrate.com/funnel/personal-loans/?ic_id=story_personal-loans&amp;qls=BRC_CONTENT2.061616PRSN" type="external">Bankrate's lending partners can find the right personal loan for you now. Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p>Dangers of Joint Borrowing</p>
<p>Taking out a loan with another person has its potential pitfalls, though. You may get a bigger loan using your combined resources, but you're also both equally responsible for repaying the loan. If one of you loses a job or refuses to pay, the other borrower will have the burden of making the monthly payment.</p>
<p>"All the responsibility falls into your lap," McClary says.</p>
<p>Before signing on to any loan with another person, you need to talk about the responsibilities and expectations each person taking on the loan has, he says.</p>
<p>"If it's at all avoidable and you've got good credit, I would suggest people find their way around these situations," McClary says.</p>
<p>Deciding whether to seek a joint loan may also come down to what the loan will be used for, says Joe Heider, financial adviser and president of Cirrus Wealth Management in Cleveland.</p>
<p>On cars, Heider recommends that couples take out loans individually. But when it comes to loans tied an asset like a house, he sees it differently. This includes personal loans that will be used for home renovations.</p>
<p>"In most cases, I would recommend they take it out jointly," he says. "The debt really ought to follow the asset."</p>
<p>Copyright 2016, Bankrate Inc.</p> | Want a Co-Borrower on Your Personal Loan? Read This | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2016/06/22/want-co-borrower-on-your-personal-loan-read-this.html | 2016-06-22 | 0 |
<p>Target Corp.'s stock dropped 3.3% in premarket trade Wednesday, after the discount retail giant reported a fiscal second-quarter profit that beat expectations but provided a downbeat outlook. For the quarter ended July 30, earnings fell to $680 million, or $1.16 a share, from $753 million, or $1.18 a share, in the same period a year ago. Excluding non-recurring items, such as early debt-retirement losses, adjusted earnings per share came in at $1.23, above the FactSet consensus of $1.13. Revenue fell 7.2% to $16.17 billion, matching the FactSet consensus. Same-store sales declined 1.1%, compared with the FactSet consensus of a 0.9% decline. Looking ahead, Target expects third-quarter adjusted EPS of 75 cents to 95 cents, compared with the FactSet consensus of 96 cents. For the full year, the net EPS outlook was cut to a range of $4.36 to $4.76 from $4.76 to $4.96, while the adjusted EPS outlook of $4.80 to $5.20 surrounds the FactSet consensus of $5.13. "While we recognize there are opportunities in the business, and are addressing the challenges we are facing in a difficult retail environment, we are pleased that our team delivered second quarter profitability above our expectations," said Chief Executive Brian Cornell. The stock has gained 4% year to date through Tuesday, while the SPDR S&amp;P Retail ETF has climbed 6% and the S&amp;P 500 has advanced 6.6%.</p>
<p>Copyright © 2016 MarketWatch, Inc.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p> | Target's Stock Drops After Downbeat Profit Outlook | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/08/17/target-stock-drops-after-downbeat-profit-outlook.html | 2016-08-17 | 0 |
<p><a href="" type="internal" />Since the Fall of 2009, Feministing has been traveling to college campuses to talk feminism – from the “war on women” to transgender liberation, from building consent culture on campuses to racial justice, from online activism to Beyonce. And we’re hitting the road again for our sixth year! We’re currently booking events for this current school year, so now’s a great time to get in touch about bringing us to campus. We’ve got brand new&#160;speaking&#160;event options this year – <a href="" type="internal">check out our speaking tour page for all the details</a>, and read on to learn about our panels.</p>
<p>Feministing:&#160;HBICs</p>
<p>Feministing is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, a major milestone in the life of the site and the feminist internet in general.&#160;Lori Adelman, Maya Dusenbery, and Jos Truitt became Co-Executive Directors last year, and are shepherding the site into the next phase of its life. Feministing’s nerd troika brings you a panel focused on the things they think about every day – feminist history, links between campus, grassroots, and online feminism, what we’ve learned in 10 years of feminist interneting, and the next steps necessary to keep moving our movement forward and winning important victories. There is also a lengthy Q&amp;A to discuss topics of interest to folks on campus. Lori, Maya, and Jos are all available for group panels, or can do two ED events, depending on your budget. The EDs are also available for solo events.</p>
<p>Feministing: Offline and Unfiltered</p>
<p>Since Feministing was founded ten years ago, we’ve grown from a scrappy “web log” to the most widely read feminist publication of all time–and our crew of contributors has expanded.&#160;We’re modeling buzzwords and phrases like “diversity in media” by centering people of color and elevating marginalized voices. And we’re still evolving. In this panel, Feministing’s award-winning writers and members of the leadership team talk about our feminist work, online and off. We also invite a student panelist from your campus to bring a local perspective. The panel is followed by a lengthy Q&amp;A, an opportunity for dialogue around important feminist topics.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" />So You Want To Write For The Feminist Internet</p>
<p>This interactive training by Feministing editors and leadership team members focuses on practical skills for adding your voice to the feminist internet. Learn tricks of the trade for writing content, getting it in front of reader’s eyeballs, and contributing to a broader feminist discourse. Feministing sees spreading the word about the activist potential of blogging and educating people about the tools to make it happen as central to our mission.&#160;This training can be combined with a panel event for a discounted rate.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Click here to learn more about the individual speakers</a>.</p>
<p>We work with a number of different budgets to suit a variety of groups’ needs.&#160;If you’re interested in bringing Feministing to your center, campus, or organization, contact&#160; <a href="" type="internal">jane AT feministing DOT com</a>&#160;for more information on fees and availability.&#160;The sooner you get in touch with us, the better–we’re booking Fall and Spring events now!</p>
<p>Additionally, we’ll be writing on Feministing about&#160;tour&#160;highlights along the way and featuring guest posts by student panelists we bring onto our sessions–giving worldwide attention to the work of your center and/or campus.</p>
<p>Hope to see you on the road!</p> | Bring Feministing to your campus! | true | http://feministing.com/2014/09/23/bring-feministing-to-your-campus/ | 4 |
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<p>The Bush administration will no doubt be remembered for torture, Guantanamo, and Abu Ghraib, as well as for catchy euphemisms like “enhanced interrogation” and histrionic catch-phrases like “the Global War on Terror.”</p>
<p>The Obama administration has introduced a new lexicon that includes words like “fairness,” “values,” and “the Constitution.” But there are worrying signs, as the new government’s policies develop, that its change in vocabulary is more striking than its change in ideas.</p>
<p>President Obama did make immediate and crucial reforms in barring torture and closing CIA “black sites.” Unfortunately, the White House hasn’t shown similar leadership in ending the practice of indefinite detention without charge, a central and defining Bush-era abuse.</p>
<p>In a high-profile national security speech he gave in May, President Obama asserted that the military prison at Guantanamo held some number of terrorism suspects who could not be convicted of a crime, but who were nonetheless too dangerous to release. According to a report in the Washington Post on Saturday, the Obama administration has now drafted an executive order that would allow such prisoners to be held indefinitely without charge.</p>
<p>To disguise its plans for relying on a practice that is more characteristic of repressive governments than of constitutional democracies, the Obama administration has even invented its own euphemism. In his May speech, President Obama spoke only of “prolonged” detention, not of indefinite detention, or preventive detention, or detention without charge.</p>
<p>The label is new, but what of the substance behind it? To the many prisoners at Guantanamo who’ve already been held for more than seven years, “prolonged” may be to detention what “enhanced” was to interrogation.</p>
<p>Four Reasons for the Obama Administration to Rethink its Plans</p>
<p>It is not too late for President Obama to change course, and the reasons to do so are compelling.</p>
<p>1. Indefinite detention without charge is unjust, unconstitutional, and inconsistent with US law and traditions. American society has long dealt with dangerous people through criminal prosecution before competent, independent and impartial courts. US law provides ample grounds to prosecute and imprison anyone who has taken even a small step toward committing an act of terrorism.</p>
<p>Preventive detention, which allows imprisonment based on the suspicion that someone will take dangerous action in the future, is a radical departure from this tradition.</p>
<p>2. Indefinite detention without charge will bring Guantanamo on shore. The fight to close Guantanamo was meant to end the practice, unprecedented in US history, of detaining suspects arrested outside of a traditional armed conflict and holding them for years without charge or trial.</p>
<p>By bringing the practice of indefinite detention without charge onto US soil, the Obama administration would be closing Guantanamo in name only.</p>
<p>3. US reliance on indefinite detention without charge will embolden repressive governments elsewhere. Indefinite detention without charge is a hallmark of governments like China, Egypt, Libya, Syria and Saudi Arabia, each of which hold hundreds in preventive detention, as did apartheid-era South Africa. If the United States were to continue to bypass accepted criminal justice rules, it would encourage repressive governments like these.</p>
<p>Already, several authoritarian rulers have pointed to US abuses at Guantanamo to justify their own actions. In Libya, notably, head of state Mu’ammar Qaddafi bragged to the Libyan public during his 2002 address to the nation that he was treating terrorist suspects “just like America is treating [them].”</p>
<p>4. US reliance on indefinite detention without charge will reinforce the terrorist narrative.</p>
<p>Holding detainees without charge as members of an enemy force risks elevating their status. Terrorists want to be seen as warriors, not criminals, and they use that status to recruit more “fighters” to their cause. A good example is admitted al Qaeda operative Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who proudly embraced the designation of combatant during administrative hearings at Guantanamo, using it to compare himself to George Washington.</p>
<p>Far better to have fair and independent court proceedings that will stigmatize such men as terrorists, murderers and criminals.</p>
<p>Fort Leavenworth Could Be the New Guantanamo</p>
<p>President Obama criticized Guantanamo when he was running for office, but he risks replicating it now. Obama’s Guantanamo may have a different name—it may be called Fort Leavenworth or Camp Pendleton—but if it holds terrorist suspects for years without charge, its meaning will be the same.</p>
<p>Whether established by executive order or congressional legislation, a policy of indefinite detention without charge or trial is wrong. As a world leader and constitutional law scholar, President Obama should think hard before taking any further step to institutionalize the discredited practice that made Guantanamo such a stain on the reputation of the United States.</p>
<p>JOANNE MARINER is a human rights lawyer living in Paris.</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | Obama’s New Euphemism | true | https://counterpunch.org/2009/07/14/obama-s-new-euphemism/ | 2009-07-14 | 4 |
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<p>I bet you have heard time and time again how important it is to have a unique resume, a breathtaking LinkedIn profile, and knock-your-socks-off interviewing skills. When it comes to finding a job, these three ingredients are all you need.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>I want you to visualize something delicious, like brownies. Betty Crocker makes things pretty easy for us. You add water, vegetable oil, and an egg. But what happens if you leave out just one ingredient? The brownies are ruined!</p>
<p>The same thing happens if you neglect your resume, LinkedIn profile, or interviewing skills. Each ingredient plays an equally important role in the creation of your end product – that is, a <a href="https://www.recruiter.com/job-offer.html" type="external">job offer Opens a New Window.</a>!</p>
<p>Ingredient No. 1:&#160;The Resume</p>
<p>Although all the ingredients are necessary, the resume is going to be the main one. A well-written, well-crafted, and fully optimized resume is going to set you apart from your competition. Plus, it's&#160;nearly impossible to apply for jobs without a resume.</p>
<p>- Well-Written:&#160;The content of your resume should be grammatically correct. An amazing tool that can help you with all things grammar is&#160; <a href="http://gram.ly/ymfp" type="external">Grammarly Opens a New Window.</a>. It is a completely free app that I personally wish I had during school! Kids these days have all the cool tools.</p>
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<p>- Well-Crafted:&#160;When I say "well-crafted," I&#160;am referring to the resume's formatting, design, font, color, etc. Make sure that your resume is not over the top, unprofessional, or obnoxious to the reader. <a href="https://www.findmyprofession.com/career-advice/professional-resume-style-headers-fonts-and-themes" type="external">A crisp, clean, and professional resume is very&#160;easy to write Opens a New Window.</a>, as long as you follow a few simple guidelines.</p>
<p>- Fully Optimized:&#160;This is an area&#160;in which most resumes are lacking. By now, you've likely heard of applicant tracking systems (ATS). These are software platforms that companies use to scan resumes and rank them based on their content. If you have the right keywords on your resume, you rank highly. If you don't, you rank lowly.</p>
<p>Incorporating the right keywords into your resume can be tricky, so if you aren't an experienced resume writer, I would recommend contacting a professional. If you want to give it a try on your own, <a href="https://www.findmyprofession.com/career-advice/how-to-use-resume-keywords-when-applying-for-jobs/" type="external">start by learning about how to use the right resume keywords Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Ingredient No. 2: The&#160;LinkedIn Profile</p>
<p>If you don't have a LinkedIn profile, don't worry! It's not too late to create one. Trust me: So many people are underutilizing their LinkedIn profiles that it will be easy to catch up. With the right guidance, you can craft an all-star&#160;LinkedIn profile that will play a huge role&#160;in landing your next job.</p>
<p>If you already have a LinkedIn profile, you might not be&#160;in a much better position than the person who is just now creating one, so it may be helpful for everyone to take a look at the ways in which LinkedIn can be useful for your job hunt:</p>
<p>Networking:</p>
<p>Networking is one of LinkedIn's most important uses. After all, it is a social networking platform. One great thing about LinkedIn is that you can connect with friends of friends (second&#160;degree connections) and friends of friends of friends (third degree connections).</p>
<p>You can also use LinkedIn to join all sorts of groups to find people with common interests. If you love cooking, singing, sports, or golf, you can find a group for it!</p>
<p>LinkedIn will be most useful to you once you learn <a href="https://www.findmyprofession.com/career-advice/linkedin-networking-tips-for-job-seekers/" type="external">how to network like a pro Opens a New Window.</a>, so start there.</p>
<p>Job Searching:</p>
<p>It's very common for hiring managers and recruiters to post jobs on LinkedIn. It is the most widely used&#160;social network for business professionals and the best place to publicize open positions. Staying active on LinkedIn and frequently checking your newsfeed can really pay off.</p>
<p>LinkedIn also makes it easy to&#160;apply to&#160;jobs. Many companies now allow you to apply with your LinkedIn profile instead of filling out an application. Just look for the "Apply with LinkedIn" button.</p>
<p>Credibility:</p>
<p>In a perfect world, no one would ever doubt your credibility.&#160;Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world. Many recruiters and hiring managers will check out your LinkedIn profile after you've applied to a job. They want to make sure what&#160;you say on your resume lines up with your LinkedIn profile. They also want to find out any additional information about you that they can.</p>
<p>Your credibility starts with a great-looking LinkedIn profile. An unfinished profile&#160;could make you look lazy. A poorly worded profile&#160;could make you seem&#160;unintelligent. A silly photo could make you seem unprofessional. Avoid all of these problems by <a href="https://www.findmyprofession.com/career-advice/19-essential-linkedin-profile-tips-for-job-seekers/" type="external">brushing up on LinkedIn etiquette Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Ingredient No. 3: Interviewing Skills</p>
<p>Being a great interviewee is arguably one of the most important skills you can possess as a job seeker. Unfortunately, I've come across many great interviewees who are never given the chance to even show off their skills in an interview!</p>
<p>That's why interviewing skills come in at No. 3 on the list of ingredients:&#160;Although they are important, it's even more important to be able to&#160;land an interview in the first place. Otherwise, you will never have your chance to shine.</p>
<p>Being a great interviewee takes dedication and practice. It does not require&#160;a certain personality, college degree, or anything like that. Anybody who puts in the time and effort can become a pro.</p>
<p>I guarantee that if <a href="https://www.findmyprofession.com/career-advice/50-top-job-interview-questions-and-answers/" type="external">you research and practice common interview questions Opens a New Window.</a>, you will be 10 times more prepared for your interview than before. Don't let a hard-earned interview go to waste! Be prepared to convert 100 percent of your interviews into offers.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, it's important that you remember these simple, yet vital ingredients. Your resume, LinkedIn profile, and interviewing skills, when combined right, can make for one heck of a job offer.</p>
<p>Mike Podesto is the founder and CEO of <a href="https://www.findmyprofession.com/" type="external">Find My Profession Opens a New Window.</a>. Send him an invite on&#160; <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-podesto/" type="external">LinkedIn Opens a New Window.</a>.&#160;He would love to connect with you.</p> | Resume, LinkedIn, and the Interview: The Recipe for a Job Offer | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/02/23/resume-linkedin-and-interview-recipe-for-job-offer.html | 2017-03-16 | 0 |
<p><a href="https://fellowshipofminds.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/gallup-ceo-jim-clifton.jpg" type="external" /></p>
<p>Jim Clifton is the Chairman and CEO of Gallup, Inc. Yes, that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallup_%28company%29" type="external">Gallup</a> as in the Gallup Poll — the U.S. consulting company famous for its public opinion polls, founded by George Gallup in 1935.</p>
<p>On Feb. 3, 2015, Clifton did something quite remarkable: <a href="" type="internal">He wrote an op/ed in which he called the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) official unemployment rate of 5.6% “the big lie.”</a> (See my post “ <a href="http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/2015/02/04/gallup-ceo-5-6-unemployment-is-a-big-lie/" type="external">Gallup CEO: 5.6% unemployment is a Big&#160;Lie</a>“)</p>
<p>Clifton wrote:</p>
<p>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….</p>
<p>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 — the Department of Labor doesn’t count you as unemployed….</p>
<p>There’s another reason why the official rate is misleading…. If you perform a minimum of one hour of work in a week and are paid at least $20 — maybe someone pays you to mow their lawn — you’re not officially counted as unemployed in the much-reported 5.6%. Few Americans know this.</p>
<p>Yet another figure of importance that doesn’t get much press: those working part time but wanting full-time work…the government doesn’t count you in the 5.6%. Few Americans know this.</p>
<p>There’s no other way to say this. The official unemployment rate…amounts to a Big Lie.</p>
<p>At the time when I posted Clifton’s op/ed, FOTM writer Trail Dust and I exchanged comments marveling at Clifton’s truth-telling. TD wrote: “I wonder what triggered him to dare such a dangerous enemy out in the open like that.”</p>
<p>Well, that thought had occurred to Clifton as well.</p>
<p>The day after his op/ed was published, on Feb. 4, 2015, Clifton told CNBC that he was worried he might “suddenly disappear” and not make it home that evening if he <a href="" type="internal">disputed the accuracy</a> of what the U.S. government is reporting as unemployed Americans.</p>
<p>Pam and Russ Martens report for <a href="http://wallstreetonparade.com/2015/02/gallup-ceo-fears-he-might-suddenly-disappear-for-questioning-u-s-jobs-data/" type="external">Wall Street Parade</a>:</p>
<p>The <a href="http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000352013" type="external">CNBC interview</a> came one day after Clifton had penned a gutsy opinion piece on Gallup’s web site, defiantly calling the government’s 5.6 percent unemployment figure “The Big Lie” in the article’s headline. His appearance on CNBC was apparently to walk back the “lie” part of the title and reframe the jobs data as just hopelessly deceptive.</p>
<p>Clifton stated the following on CNBC:</p>
<p>“I think that the number that comes out of BLS [Bureau of Labor Statistics] and the Department of Labor is very, very accurate. I need to make that very, very clear so that I don’t suddenly disappear. I need to make it home tonight.”</p>
<p>Clifton then went on to eviscerate the legitimacy of the cheerful spin given to the unemployment data, telling CNBC viewers that the percent of full time jobs in this country as a percent of the adult population “is the worst it’s been in 30 years.”</p>
<p>Jim Clifton is not the first to raise questions about the Department of Labor’s unemployment numbers.&#160;For years,&#160;Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal&#160;and former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, has written about the lack of attention to the measurement known as U6 – which covers the unemployed, underemployed and those who are not looking but want a job. In contrast to the government’s official 5.6% unemployment figure, U6 was an alarming 11.2% in December 2014 — exactly double the official unemployment rate known at U3.</p>
<p>The fact that hourly earnings are not improving with the improvement in the official unemployment rate and that the <a href="" type="internal">labor force participation rate</a> of working age men (ages 25 to 54) now stands at the lowest level since the BLS started keeping records more than 60 years ago adds further fodder to “The Big Lie” theory.</p>
<p>H/t <a href="http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/02/gallup-ceo-i-may-suddenly-disappear-for-telling-the-truth-about-obama-unemployment-rate-video/" type="external">Gateway Pundit</a> and FOTM reader “Barry Soetoro, Esq.”</p>
<p>Good grief. What has become of America?</p>
<p>If I had told you in 2008 that the day will soon come when the CEO of Gallup says he may be “ <a href="" type="internal">disappeared</a>” for speaking the truth about the government, would you have believed me?</p>
<p>See also:</p>
<p>~Éowyn</p>
<p>Dr. Eowyn’s post first appeared at <a href="http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/2015/02/08/gallup-ceo-says-he-may-be-disappeared-for-saying-5-6-unemployment-is-a-big-lie/" type="external">Fellowship of the Minds</a>.</p>
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<p /> | Gallup CEO says he may be “disappeared” for saying 5.6% unemployment is a “Big Lie” | true | http://dcclothesline.com/2015/02/09/gallup-ceo-says-may-disappeared-saying-5-6-unemployment-big-lie/ | 2015-02-09 | 0 |
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<p>Barring some late struggles, the Eagles (18-6) are in line for a top-eight seed and first-round home game for the upcoming Class 5A state tournament.</p>
<p>“The first thing was, we had to learn how to behave the right way,” Mondragon said. His Eagles lead District 5-5A despite a road loss Tuesday at Los Lunas. “We had to learn how to create a culture of respect for the game.</p>
<p>“Then we had to teach them how to work hard and play together and how to believe. That last one was the hardest one. We had teams that worked hard, but missed some of that belief. This team has a lot of confidence, and they believe.”</p>
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<p>Belen — which was ranked No. 2 in the coaches’ poll behind Roswell before Tuesday’s setback — owns some solid wins this season, with Roswell, St. Pius and Los Lunas among them. The Eagles have just two games left: Tuesday against St. Pius and next Friday at Grants.</p>
<p>“I think we have a team this year that is good enough to win it all,” said Mondragon, whose younger brother Michael is Artesia’s head coach. “But we still have a lot of work to get prepared for that.”</p>
<p>Belen returned four starters off a team that won 17 games last season and lost in the first round of state. The Eagles, led by forward Nick Trujillo and shooting guards Garrett Gallegos and Gabriel Chavira, have their sights set on getting to the Pit next month. Belen has just two seniors — Chavira and Trujillo.</p>
<p>“We don’t have one kid who’s a stud that you have to shut down,” said Mondragon, who once was a football assistant coach under Cooper Henderson at Artesia. “We have a few, and that’s how we get it done each and every night.”</p>
<p>CLOSING IN: West Las Vegas’ D.J. Bustos needs just 14 more points to break New Mexico’s boys career scoring record.</p>
<p>The senior guard put up 23 points on Robertson in a victory Wednesday night. He should probably eclipse the record when the Dons play host to Taos on Saturday night.</p>
<p>The mark has belong to Alfred Romero Jr. of Wagon Mound since 1977. He totaled 2,591 points.</p>
<p>WELCOME BACK: It was great to see Al Coleman, the father of Valley boys basketball coach Joe Coleman, back in the Vikings’ gym last week. He suffered a major stroke Dec. 10 and was hospitalized for about seven weeks.</p>
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<p>He has not yet regained the ability to speak, and he has lost quite a bit of weight as a result of his hospitalization, but he was moving well and was in good spirits Friday night after Valley’s loss to Atrisco Heritage.</p>
<p>His face is always one of the most familiar in the building when Valley is playing.</p>
<p>“It’s probably a good thing he can’t talk,” Joe Coleman said Friday, tongue firmly in cheek after a Vikings loss. “He’d probably tell me how bad we played.”</p>
<p>WHAT COMES AROUND: Belen’s girls buried 16 shots from behind the arc in a victory against last Friday against Valencia. That tied the state record. The only other time it happened, according to the state records list? January 2016 — by Española Valley.</p>
<p>Against Belen.</p>
<p>“It’s the equivalent of being posterized,” Eagles coach Richard Armijo said with a laugh. “That’s not something you want publicity for.”</p>
<p>During the latter stages of the Valencia game, Armijo said he asked his coaches how many his team had made. The Eagles were well into double digits by then.</p>
<p>“I said, ‘We have a chance to get ourselves out of that record book,’ ” he said.</p>
<p>He will settle for a tie.</p>
<p>“A little weird,” he said. “But we’ll take it.”</p>
<p>NEED YOUR HELP: Elida girls coach Jaden Isler last week had his backpack stolen from his car in Clovis. Sadly, it was filled with personal items that surely will be missed.</p>
<p>Among the items inside the backpack were championship rings, plus numerous letters written to Jaden by his late father J.D., who was killed a couple of years ago in a car accident.</p>
<p>Jaden Isler is offering $200 for the backpack’s return; he merely wants the letters from his dad. The last of those letters was written the night before J.D. Isler died.</p>
<p>Former Clovis High athlete Hank Baskett has added $1,000 to the reward total, and others have chipped in, as well, in the hopes that the thief, or thieves, will return the letters.</p>
<p>THIS AND THAT: West Mesa’s leading scorer, guard Esperanza Varoz, suffered a knee injury last week against Highland and is expected to miss the remainder of the regular season and District 4-6A tournament, coach Manny Otero said. Her loss, if extended through the playoffs, deals a serious blow to the Mustangs’ hopes for a deep postseason run. “We hope to have her back for state,” Otero said. Varoz was trying to box out a Highland player when she was hurt. … One of Tuesday night’s under-the-radar boys games had Class 2A’s No. 1 ranked team, Magdalena, improving to 22-0 with a 62-61 overtime road win against Class 1A’s No. 2, Quemado (21-2). … Madie Trainor of Sandia Prep was looking at colleges on Tuesday and didn’t play against Bernalillo, but Mari Yepa stepped in nicely and delivered a 33-point performance for the Sundevils in a 70-45 victory.</p> | Belen boys should be a handful in state basketball tournament | false | https://abqjournal.com/945796/belen-boys-should-be-a-handful-in-state-basketball-tournament-2.html | 2017-02-08 | 2 |
<p>In a major retreat for Canada's flagship transportation company, Bombardier Inc. said Monday it had agreed to a joint venture with Airbus SE for its most important commercial-jet business in the wake of a crippling tariff ruling by the U.S. and sluggish sales for the aircraft.</p>
<p>The companies said Airbus would acquire a 50.01% stake in Bombardier Inc.'s CSeries jets. Airbus CEO Tom Enders said the company was not investing any money upfront for its majority stake, but it will provide ongoing funding support.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>When the partnership deal closes, Bombardier will be left with a 31% stake in the CSeries, a major concession following the company's billions of dollars of investment and decade-long development an aircraft line, meant to strengthen its position in the global aerospace sector.</p>
<p>The proposed deal would intensify competition between the Airbus and Boeing Co. and potentially inflame a trade dispute between the U.S. and Canada over alleged state subsidies to Bombardier by having some Canadian-developed jets assembled on American soil. The commerce department's preliminary decision to hit Bombardier with tariffs that would quadruple the price of a CSeries aircraft in the U.S. came after Boeing complained of predatory pricing.</p>
<p>The deal would also mark the biggest shakeup in the commercial jet market since Boeing bought rival McDonnell Douglas in 1997, marrying two rivals even as new challengers emerge in China and Russia.</p>
<p>Canada's Innovation Minister, Navdeep Bains, said in a statement the Airbus-Bombardier pact would be subject to a review under the country's foreign-investment laws. Under Canadian law, the government reserves the right to reject a foreign takeover or investment if officials deem the transaction would not bring a substantial benefit to the economy.</p>
<p>However, Mr. Bains said that "on the surface," the Airbus deal for Bombardier's CSeries "would help position the C Series for success by combining excellence in innovation with increased market access and an unrivaled global sales force."</p>
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<p>Canada's Trade Minister, Francois-Philippe Champagne, went further, telling reporters Monday night the deal could "save" the Canadian aerospace sector, which employs over 200,000 people across the country -- including many in the politically-important greater Montreal region.</p>
<p>Canada has been a crucial backer of the CSeries. It provided financial assistance earlier this year to Bombardier, in terms of a C$372.5 million loan, to help the company develop the CSeries and Global 7000 aircraft. However, the federal financing was short of the initial demand from Bombardier for a $1 billion lifeline.</p>
<p>If the new CSeries partnership experiences a cash shortfall, Bombardier has agreed to inject up to $350 million of cash in the first year of operation. If the shortfall continues during the second and third year, Bombardier has agreed to supply additional funds. In exchange for the cash Bombardier, will receive additional, but non-voting shares, in the partnership.</p>
<p>Bombardier's CEO Alain Bellemare said the partnership will allow the company to sidestep heavy tariffs imposed by the U.S. government in recent weeks over allegations that it selling CSeries planes at below market prices. Airbus plans to expand its jet production facilities in Alabama to build CSeries jets for U.S. buyers.</p>
<p>"This is exactly the right thing for the C-series," said Mr. Bellemare to reporters Monday night. "We will be producting more C series to deliver to customers around the world."</p>
<p>Although many people familiar with the deal said the Boeing action spurred the talks, Mr. Bellemare denied it was the primary motivation.</p>
<p>"We're doing this deal because is the right strategic deal for Bombardier," he said. But he added that having access to Airbus's Alabama plant allows the company to skirt the tariffs, because any planes assembled there will be deemed a domestic product in the U.S.</p>
<p>Delta Airlines Inc. has ordered 75 CSeries aircraft which are set to start deliveries next spring.</p>
<p>Mr. Enders said Airbus' investment brings certainty to the future of a jet series that has not been able to land a new order since last December. Bombardier's share price has fallen steadily in the past year over concerns about the company's heavy debts and continued losses.</p>
<p>Customers would "love to buy the CSeries but have so far held back because they were not entirely sure of the program," he said.</p>
<p>Airbus and Bombardier discussed a CSeries alliance more than two years ago, but Mr. Enders said talks broke off because the new jets had not yet been certified. "This was the right time," he said.</p>
<p>The loss of control to Airbus is a blow to Bombardier's controlling families, which over a decade ago bet the future of the company on a new line of fuel efficient narrow body jets. Frequent product delays, equipment problems allowed Bombardier competitors such as Airbus and Boeing to beat the company to the market with similar aircraft.</p>
<p>--Doug Cameron and Vipal Monga contributed to this article</p>
<p>Write to Jacquie McNish at [email protected] and Paul Vieira at [email protected]</p>
<p>Corrections &amp; Amplification</p>
<p>This article was corrected October 16, 2017 at 10:33 p.m. EST to show that Canada provided Bombardier with financial assistance to help the company develop the CSeries and Global 7000 aircraft. The original version of this article incorrectly identified the Global 7000 as the Global 700.</p>
<p>Canada provided Bombardier with financial assistance to help the company develop the CSeries and Global 7000 aircraft. "Airbus and Bombardier Ink 20-Year Passenger Jet Partnership -- Update," at 19:40 ET, incorrectly identified the Global 7000 as the Global 700 in the fifth paragraph, and "Airbus and Bombardier Ink 20-Year Passenger Jet Partnership -- 2nd Update" at 21:16 ET, made the same mistake in the ninth paragraph. (Oct. 16, 2017)</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>October 16, 2017 22:40 ET (02:40 GMT)</p> | Correction to article on Airbus and Bombardier joint venture | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/10/16/airbus-and-bombardier-ink-20-year-passenger-jet-partnership-2nd-update.html | 2017-10-16 | 0 |
<p />
<p>Infrared sensing is FLIR's business, and business is getting ready to boom. Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>It was a mystery wrapped in an enigma enshrouded in an 11% jump in stock price.</p>
<p>Last week, see-in-the-dark specialist FLIR Systems (NASDAQ: FLIR) reported fiscal third-quarter earnings of $0.43 per share -- one penny short of Wall Street estimates. Yet FLIR stock immediately soared on the news, and ended the week up more than 11% from its pre-earnings price. So what was all the fuss about?</p>
<p>For its fiscal third quarter 2016, FLIR <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/flir-systems-announces-third-quarter-113000203.html" type="external">reported Opens a New Window.</a> sales growth of just 6%, for $1.19 billion total, but only $0.43 per share in net profit. Not only was this a penny short of estimates, but it was actually 17% less profit than FLIR had earned one year prior.</p>
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<p>Granted, management called the results "in line with our expectations," and in particular reminded investors that it had expected to see "continued softness in our Security segment's retail channels." So perhaps the profits news wasn't quite as big a disappointment as it appeared at first glance. At the same time, management didn't raise guidance a whit, saying instead that it only "continues to expect revenue in 2016 to be in the range of $1.6 billion to $1.65 billion and adjusted net earnings to be in the range of $1.60 to $1.65 per diluted share."</p>
<p>And yet investors didn't just stoically endure these results. They went downright wild over them, and bid up FLIR stock strongly. So what was it that investors found so very encouraging in last week's report? There were actually two items worth highlighting.</p>
<p>No two ways about it: GAAP earnings at FLIR last quarter were miserable. At the same time, though, FLIR's cash flow statement shows that the company generated $88.6 million in cash from operations during the quarter and spent just $6.8 million on capital improvements. That yielded $81.8 million as real free cash flow -- cash profits nearly 40% above the $58.6 million in net income the company reported, and 51% better than what the company produced one year ago.</p>
<p>As a result, FLIR has more than repaired the disconnect between reported GAAP earnings and actual free cash flow profits that we saw last year. As of today, the company's trailing free cash flow of $248 million dwarfs reported income of $175 million. And as a result, FLIR stock that appears at first glance to sell for a pricey 26 times GAAP "earnings," actually costs just 18 times free cash flow.</p>
<p>If you factor the company's net cash into the picture, FLIR stock is even cheaper than that. In fact, I calculate an enterprise value-to-free-cash-flow ratio of just 17.6 on FLIR stock. For a company paying a 1.5% dividend yield and, according to analysts cited on <a href="https://www.capitaliq.com/" type="external">S&amp;P Global Market Intelligence Opens a New Window.</a>, expected to grow its profits at 15% annually over the next five years, that's not a bad price at all.</p>
<p>Of course, this does raise the obvious question of whether FLIR can in fact grow at 15% -- which brings us to our second important number in the earnings report: backlog.</p>
<p>FLIR management noted that backlog at the company currently stands at $644 million, which is up 2% sequentially, and up 13% from this time last year. This implies that the 6% sales growth we saw in Q3 is not nearly representative of the rate at which FLIR can grow. With backlog growing strongly, sales are sure to follow. And with just a bit of margin improvement, I see no reason why FLIR cannot hit the 15% profits growth target that Wall Street has set for it.</p>
<p>In a nutshell, is FLIR as good a bargain today as it was last week, when it sold for 11% cheaper? Of course not. But even at today's valuation, the stock's not a half-bad bet. And with even just a little of a pullback, it could become an obvious buy.</p>
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<p>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&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/motley.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | FLIR Systems Stock Flies on Earnings Miss | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/11/01/flir-systems-stock-flies-on-earnings-miss.html | 2016-11-01 | 0 |
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<p>Udall, a New Mexico Democrat, next week will introduce a bill with two U.S. House colleagues that would put the USADA — the agency that doggedly pursued doping allegations against seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong — in charge of regulating drug use in horse racing. ”</p>
<p>The chronic abuse of race horses with painkillers and other drugs is dangerous and just plain wrong,” Udall said. “Racing groups have promised drug reform for decades, but this bill would bring in real standards and enforcement from an organization with a proven record for cleaning up sports.”</p>
<p>Travis Tygart, the USADA’s president and one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world for 2013, is widely credited with forcing Armstrong’s admission last year that he had routinely used performance enhancing drugs. Armstrong has since been stripped of his Tour de France titles and banned from professional cycling for life. In a Journal interview, Tygart said the USADA is eager to help clean up the horse racing industry.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“The world now knows the only truly effective way to police a sport is through independent agencies,” Tygart said. “We’re willing to do whatever we can to help the industry and Congress solve the problem.”</p>
<p>A New York Times investigation published last year found that horse doping and its damaging consequences are particularly pervasive in New Mexico. The Times investigation revealed that New Mexico’s five racinos collectively had the worst safety record in the nation. Lax rules allow trainers to inject horses with painkillers to mask injury and then race them, which can lead to fatal injuries for jockeys and horses.</p>
<p>Responding to scathing criticism that followed the New York Times investigation, the governor-appointed New Mexico Racing Commission rushed to adopt stricter state regulations and penalties for horse doping. The New Mexico Legislature earlier this year approved creation of a fund to finance drug testing of racehorses at laboratories that meet national standards.</p>
<p>Udall’s bill — dubbed the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act — would provide USADA with authority to clean up the sport and enforce anti-doping standards in races with simulcast wagering. USADA is a non-governmental organization that polices U.S. Olympic athletes and works to strengthen clean competition policies in sports. Under Udall’s bill, the costs associated with policing the sport would be covered by tracks, horse breeders and others in the industry instead of taxpayers, his office said.</p>
<p>Tygart said the integrity of the horseracing industry is at stake. “Races are essentially rigged and those that know about it have an advantage and they can go rob the bank unbeknownst to someone else and come out looking like heroes in the public’s eye,” Tygart said.</p>
<p>“The industry can’t afford that anymore. It has to clean itself up and give people confidence in what they are putting their hard-earned dollars on and that it has integrity.”</p>
<p>Tygart said the Udall legislation would also help the horses themselves, some of which have been euthanized after races in which they suffered serious injury.</p>
<p>“These athletes (horses) don’t have a choice in this,” he said. “And the market value of their stud lines has decreased significantly on the world market because of performance enhancing drugs. The sport wants to recapture the beauty it once had.”</p>
<p>The legislation marks Udall’s second attempt to tackle the horse doping issue. Last year, the New Mexico senator offered a bi-partisan bill that would have forced states to enact anti-doping rules for horse racing and required the Federal Trade Commission to issue penalties if the rules were broken. But the legislation stalled without the support of some Republicans opposed to federal government intervention.</p>
<p>The Association of Racing Commissioners International, an organization that regulates horse and greyhound racing in the U.S. and elsewhere, opposes Udall’s latest bill.</p>
<p>“While we have the utmost respect for what the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency does in human sport, we are concerned that the program they deploy permits the use of prohibited substances in competition upon receipt of a therapeutic-use exemption, something we do not allow in horse racing,” Ed Martin, the organization’s president, said in a prepared statement. “If those standards were applied to horse racing, they would considerably weaken the current program as well as undermine some of the reforms we are currently working to implement,” he said.</p>
<p>Vince Mares, director of the New Mexico Racing Commission, did not respond to requests for comment from the Journal on Friday.</p>
<p /> | Udall bill would tighten law on horse doping | false | https://abqjournal.com/195724/udall-bill-would-tighten-law-on-horse-doping.html | 2013-05-04 | 2 |
<p>ISLAMABAD - Hundreds of angry Pakistanis attacked a Hindu temple and set it on fire in southern Pakistan overnight following a rumor that a member of the Hindu community had desecrated the Koran, police and community leaders said on Sunday.</p>
<p>The incident took place just before midnight on Saturday after locals in Larkana district alleged that Sangeet Kumar, 42, had torn out pages of Islam's holy book and tossed them down on the street from the roof of his home.</p>
<p>"Our Dharamshala (community centre) has been gutted and the temple has been partially damaged. All the statues have been destroyed by the attackers," Kalpana Devi, chairperson of the local Hindu committee, told Reuters.</p>
<p>Hundreds of students from local Islamic seminaries attacked the temple holding batons, one witness, Javed Shah, said. Police arrived quickly to protect Kumar from the angry crowd.</p>
<p>"They acted smartly and took him out after making him put on a police uniform to save him from the wrath of the crowd," said Shah.</p>
<p>"It took nearly 20 minutes to break down the doors (of the temple) before they entered the compound and set it on fire. They also set fire to the temple before ransacking it."</p>
<p>Sindh province, where the attack took place, is home to most of Pakistan's small Hindu community which numbers about two million among a population of about 180 million.</p>
<p>Pakistan's rocky relationship with neighboring India, a predominantly Hindu country, has fed tension between the two communities in smaller towns but outright acts of violence are rare.</p>
<p>Police said they were investigating the matter.</p>
<p>"The situation is not satisfactory," Deputy Inspector General of Larkana, Khadim Rind, told Reuters. "Sanjeet Kumar has been accused of desecrating the holy book by the locals. The accused is in our custody."</p> | Hindu Temple Set on Fire in Pakistan Over Blasphemy | false | http://nbcnews.com/news/world/hindu-temple-set-fire-pakistan-over-blasphemy-n54016 | 2014-03-16 | 3 |
<p><a href="http://d1o2xrel38nv1n.cloudfront.net/files/2013/06/Trentfranks.jpg" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;cad=rja&amp;ved=0CDIQqQIwAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fthinkprogress.org%2Fhealth%2F2013%2F06%2F12%2F2144521%2Fgop-congressman-channels-todd-akin-the-incidence-of-rape-resulting-in-pregnancy-are-very-low%2F&amp;ei=yuy4UfqfK8iy0QGc_oDACw&amp;usg=AFQjCNG9wZF9xmJ947E-g85YJYi5WmbWKw&amp;sig2=UgKE2zVt2JcFfBmR21GBKg&amp;bvm=bv.47810305,d.dmQ" type="external">GOP Congressman Channels Todd Akin: ‘The Incidence Of Rape Resulting In Pregnancy Are Very Low</a>’</p>
<p><a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/06/12/female-anti-immigrant-lawmaker-tells-men-to-patronize-danish-prostitutes-to-combat-trafficking/" type="external">Female anti-immigrant lawmaker tells men to patronize Danish prostitutes to combat trafficking</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2013/6/12/headlines#61210" type="external">Cambodian Nike Factory Fires 300 Striking Workers</a></p>
<p><a href="http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/06/11/we-are-beatriz-these-are-our-stories/" type="external">We Are Beatriz: These are our Stories</a></p>
<p><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/killer-kansas-abortion-doctor-disciplined-prison-comments-204613577.html" type="external">The man imprisoned for killing Kansas late-term abortion provider Dr. George Tiller will be penalized for trying to intimidate a woman who reopened Tiller’s clinic</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.choiceusablog.org/we-make-the-road-by-walking-trans-inclusive-language-and-reproductive-justice/" type="external">We make the road by walking: trans-inclusive language and reproductive justice</a></p>
<p><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/06/12/2142921/disabled-students-forced-labor/" type="external">Mentally disabled students forced into manual labor in Rhode Island</a></p>
<p><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2013/06/11/2137301/french-mayor-faces-fine-for-refusing-to-perform-same-sex-marriage/" type="external">French Mayor facing fines for refusing to officiate same-sex marriages</a> <a href="http://www.clutchmagonline.com/2013/06/black-womens-blueprint-launches-truth-commission-to-address-sexual-violence-in-the-black-community/" type="external">Black Women’s Blueprint launches “Truth Commission” to address sexual assault</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.blackyouthproject.com/2013/06/sesame-street-teaches-kids-about-incarceration/" type="external">Sesame Street teaches kids about incarceration… but the program is funded by BAE systems, a contractor that depends on the labor of prisoners at for-profit prisons</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/06/12/191011117/legos-are-getting-angrier-and-thats-not-funny-study-says?ft=1&amp;f=1001&amp;utm_source=feedly" type="external">The faces on Legos are getting angrier and researchers are concerned about the effects on children</a></p> | Daily Feminist Cheat Sheet | true | http://feministing.com/2013/06/12/daily-feminist-cheat-sheet-106/ | 4 |
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<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) – Americans’ access to credit improved while their perceived vulnerability to a financial shock declined, according to a Federal Reserve Bank of New York survey that painted a slightly more optimistic picture of U.S. households.</p>
<p>The so-called survey of consumer expectations found that respondents who were too discouraged to apply for credit over the past 12 months declined to 4.9 percent in October, continuing a downward trend and reaching its lowest level since the survey began in 2013.</p>
<p>The survey, done every four months, also found a rise in those applying for and accessing credit, and a drop in rejections. It focuses on mortgages and refinancing, credit cards and limit increases, and auto loans.</p>
<p>The New York Fed also updated its gauge of so-called financial fragility, which measures expectations.</p>
<p>While the average probability of respondents needing $2,000 for an unexpected expense in the next month rose to 33 percent, from 32 percent previously, the probability of being able to come up with the funds also rose to nearly 70 percent, from 67 percent.</p>
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<p>Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.</p> | U.S. credit access, financial fragility improve: Fed survey | false | https://newsline.com/u-s-credit-access-financial-fragility-improve-fed-survey/ | 2017-11-20 | 1 |
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<p>WACO, Texas — Waco police say a Baylor University student was killed while bicycling with his girlfriend when a vehicle struck him and then fled.</p>
<p>Police say that 19-year-old David Grotberg was hit late Thursday night. Police say witnesses told officers that the vehicle was traveling at a high rate of speed when it struck the bicyclist. The driver didn’t stop and fled the scene.</p>
<p>Grotberg’s girlfiend, also a Baylor student, was not injured but she did see the crash.</p>
<p>Grotberg, who is from Fergus Falls, Minnesota, was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Baylor student on bicycle fatally struck by car that fled | false | https://abqjournal.com/862645/baylor-student-on-bicycle-fatally-struck-by-car-that-fled.html | 2 |
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<p>Post Holdings Inc said it will buy private label peanut butter maker Golden Boy Foods Ltd and protein bar maker Dymatize Enterprises LLC for about $680 million to build up its nutritional and private-label foods.</p>
<p>Post, known for its breakfast cereals, agreed to buy Golden Foods from affiliates of private equity firm Tricor Pacific Capital Inc and other shareholders for C$320 million ($301 million).</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Golden Boy makes private label peanut butter and other nut butters. It also sells dried fruit, baking and snacking nuts.</p>
<p>Post said it will also buy privately held Dymatize from affiliates of TA Associates for $380 million.</p>
<p>Dymatize manufactures protein powders, bars and nutritional supplements under the Dymatize and Supreme Protein brands.</p>
<p>Post is strengthening its nutritional products brands, a market it believes will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 7 percent between 2014 and 2017.</p>
<p>It bought Premier Nutrition Corp in August and the Natural Cereal, Granola and Snacks Business of Hearthside Food Solutions in May.</p>
<p>Golden Boy had net sales of C$164 million and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of C$23 million, for the nine months ended September 30, 2013, Post Holdings said in a statement.</p>
<p>Dymatize had net sales of $146 million and adjusted EBITDA of $23 million, for the nine months ended September 30, 2013, Post Holdings said.</p>
<p>St. Louis, Missouri-based Post said it will fund both the acquisitions with cash on hand and available debt borrowings.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | Post Makes Effort to Pump Up Nutrition, Private-Label | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2013/12/09/post-makes-effort-to-pump-up-nutrition-private-label.html | 2016-01-26 | 0 |
<p>Buzzfeed News has obtained and published “an explosive cache of documents” confirming Breitbart as the mouthpiece for neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and the racist right-wing movement known as the alt-right. Buzzfeed’s entire report on Breitbart management’s courting of neo-Nazis and white supremacists can be <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/heres-how-breitbart-and-milo-smuggled-white-nationalism?utm_term=.ydy2GMWbO#.rjN2YVkQx" type="external">found here</a>.</p>
<p>Buzzfeed reports that a March 29th Breitbart article titled “An Establishment Conservative’s Guide to the Alt-Right” was written with editorial input from numerous white nationalists and neo-Nazis. Prior to writing the article, Breitbart’s Milo Yiannopoulos reached out to the system administrator for the neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer, Andrew “Weev” Auernheimer, editor of the white nationalist magazine American Renaissance, Devin Saucier, and “neoreactionary” Curtis Yarvin to solicit ideas. All responded at length with suggestions. Saucier, who Yiannopoulos described as his “best friend,” responded that Steve Bannon was “sympathetic to much of it.”</p>
<p>Additionally, Saucier suggested ideas for articles that were later published on Breitbart, including in an email titled “Article idea: How trolls could win the general for Trump.” Yiannopoulos forwarded the email to a Breitbart writer and ordered him to “Drop what you’re doing and draft this for me.” The following day the article appeared on Breitbart. Saucier also killed a story Yiannopoulos had written on class-based affirmative action. After sending a draft of the article to Saucier, he replied, “I would honestly spike this.” The story never appeared on Breitbart.</p>
<p>In a July speech in Warsaw “that was celebrated by the alt-right,” President Trump used a line from a Breitbart story that Buzzfeed reported was “all but line-edited by a white nationalist.” Referring to remarks about free speech on college campuses, Yiannopoulos remarked that Trump “used phrases extremely close to what I say -- Bannon is feeding him.”</p>
<p>Furthermore, the Breitbart article written with the help of white nationalists and neo-Nazis, “An Establishment Conservative’s Guide to the Alt-Right,” received notes from former Reagan and George H.W. Bush staffer James Pinkerton. Buzzfeed also reports the collaboration of “conservative thinkers” with Yiannopoulos that led to Breitbart articles, such as correspondences that included Rachel Fulton Brown, a University of Chicago medievalist, Scott Walter, president of the Capital Research Center, and Ghaffar Hussain of the controversial organization Quilliam.</p>
<p>After <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/18/us/politics/donald-trump-stephen-bannon-paul-manafort.html" type="external">joining</a> the Trump campaign on August 17, 2016, Bannon “continued to run aspects of Breitbart.” Buzzfeed cites emails from Bannon to Yiannopoulos on September 1, September 3, and attempts to arrange a meeting between Yiannopoulos and digital strategist and Trump supporter Oz Sultan on September 11. Buzzfeed also reports that “there were also signs that Bannon was using his proximity to the Republican nominee to promote the culture war pet causes” of Breitbart.</p>
<p>Buzzfeed reports that for Yiannopoulos,“maintaining a sufficiently believable distance from overt racists and white nationalists was crucial to the machine he had helped Bannon build.” Buzzfeed cites an email chain that had been forwarded to Bannon and Breitbart editor Alex Marlow by an assistant to Yiannnopoulos with a story bylined by Yiannopoulos that was actually written by his deputy and ghostwriter Allum Bokhari. Yiannopoulos replied with instructions not to “forward chains like that … everyone knows; but they don’t have to be reminded every time.” In another email, Yiannopoulos admitted that it was important for him to remain “clean enough” in his public interactions with white supremacy, despite his courtship of the movement.</p>
<p>Hedge fund billionaire, Robert Mercer and his family who Buzzfeed describes as “a major funder of Breitbart” are described as having control over articles that are published on the website. In one instance detailed by Buzzfeed, Robert’s daughter Rebekah emailed Steve Bannon to demand an article she wanted written about a phone app game mocking Hillary Clinton that was rejected by the Apple App Store. Mercer wanted “an article up detailing his 1st amendment political persecution.” Breitbart published two articles about the app and Bannon described Apple’s reversal of their original decision a “Huge victory.”</p> | Here's what you need to know about BuzzFeed's Breitbart bombshell | true | https://mediamatters.org/blog/2017/10/05/heres-what-you-need-know-about-buzzfeeds-breitbart-bombshell/218155 | 2017-10-06 | 4 |
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<p>Elijah Fernandez</p>
<p>Elijah Fernandez, the boyfriend of the baby’s mother, pleaded guilty in September to rape and reckless child abuse resulting in death, according to court documents. That agreement specified that he would be sentenced to 30 years in prison and must register as a sex offender.</p>
<p>According to police, on Feb. 7, 2014, the baby was unresponsive and was taken to a hospital, where she died Feb. 23, 2014. Izabellah Montano suffered severe brain damage and had injuries consistent with rape, police said.</p>
<p>Fernandez was 19 at the time, and was watching the baby while her mother did laundry. According to a transcript of his police interview, he had been with the baby’s mother for about seven months and cared for the child periodically.</p>
<p>In the interview, Fernandez first said the baby fell off of a bed as he changed her diaper. Later, he admitted hitting her in the face because he was upset that she was crying.</p>
<p>“I hit her like – and then, she kept crying like some more, so I hit her again,” Fernandez said, according to a transcript. He said the child stopped moving, and he sought help from the baby’s grandfather.</p>
<p>Police lapel camera video shows the grandfather attempting to revive the infant using chest compressions before an officer takes over CPR efforts. Izabellah was then transported to the University of New Mexico Hospital.</p>
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<p>The infant’s mother told detectives at the time that the girl had older bruising because a piece of her bed popped off and hit her. A member of the baby’s family said Fernandez regularly smoked “Spice,” a synthetic cannabis, according to police.</p>
<p>Fernandez took an Alford plea, which allows a defendant to assert innocence but acknowledge that the evidence might support a conviction. His attorney could not be reached for comment Thursday.</p>
<p>Fernandez’s plea agreement requires him to complete a sex offender treatment program after his release.</p>
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<p /> | 30 years for rape, death of baby girl | false | https://abqjournal.com/1087086/man-gets-30-years-in-babys-rape-death.html | 2017-11-02 | 2 |
<p>Published time: 18 Aug, 2017 13:04</p>
<p>FC Barcelona have led tributes to those killed and injured in the terrorist attacks in the Catalan city on Thursday.</p>
<p>Thirteen people died and more than 100 were injured when a van plowed into pedestrians in tourist hotspot Las Ramblas in the center of the city. Police have confirmed the incident was a terrorist attack.</p>
<p>Hours after the horrific events, the club offered its condolences on its official Twitter account.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/sport/399968-fcbarcelona-condolences-terror-attack/" type="external">READ MORE:&#160;FC Barcelona offer condolences following terrorist attack</a></p>
<p>“Deeply saddened by the attack on our city. All our thoughts are with the victims, their families and with the people of Barcelona,” the tweet read.</p>
<p>On Friday, a vigil was organized by the Catalan government and Barcelona’s City Council in memory of the victims of the attack at Placa de Catalunya, a prominent central square in the city. The memorial service was led by Spain’s King Felipe and Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.</p>
<p>Barca president Josep Maria Bartomeu and directors Pau Vilanova and Maria Teixidor Teixidó were among the club officials present to remember the dead.</p>
<p>FC Barcelona join the minute’s silence. The President Bartomeu and Directors Vilanova and Teixidor represented the Club at Pl.Catalunya. <a href="https://t.co/hYePU3Yz9b" type="external">pic.twitter.com/hYePU3Yz9b</a></p>
<p>— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) <a href="https://twitter.com/FCBarcelona/status/898498076544876548" type="external">August 18, 2017</a></p>
<p>The club also posted videos of a minute’s silence held by players and coaching staff at the team’s Camp Tito Vilanova training ground with similar memorials being held at academy grounds Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper and The Masia.</p>
<p>Uruguayan forward Luis Suárez was among the Barcelona players to express his sympathies on Twitter with the post: “Very shocked for what happened in Barcelona. All my support to the city and families!”</p>
<p>Goalkeeper Marc ter Stegen tweeted: “I’m deeply touched by what happened yesterday in my beautiful city. T’estimo (I treasure) Barcelona. We all need to be more united than ever!”</p>
<p>I’m deeply touched by what happened yesterday in my beautiful city. T’estimo Barcelona We all need to be more united than ever ! <a href="https://t.co/uZe97nCaHI" type="external">pic.twitter.com/uZe97nCaHI</a></p>
<p>— Marc ter Stegen (@mterstegen1) <a href="https://twitter.com/mterstegen1/status/898425682723614720" type="external">August 18, 2017</a></p>
<p>“Shocked by the tragedy at the Ramblas of Barcelona,” Croatian midfielder Ivan Rakitic wrote.</p>
<p>The club announced Ernesto Valverde’s team will wear black armbands at their Spanish league opener against Real Betis on Sunday – as will all other La Liga clubs – and will also hold a minute’s silence at the game.</p>
<p>“FC Barcelona wants to express its profound sorrow and utter disgust at the terrorist attack that has hit the heart of our city, la Rambla de Barcelona,” the club said in a <a href="https://www.fcbarcelona.com/club/news/2017-2018/fc-barcelona-announcement-thoughts-are-with-the-victims-of-the-barcelona-attack" type="external">statement</a>.</p>
<p>“The Club wishes to send our support and thoughts to the victims, their families and friends as well as the people of Barcelona and its visitors.</p>
<p>“As a mark of respect, the flags will fly at half-mast at the Club’s facilities.”</p> | FC Barcelona lead tributes to dead & injured in terrorist attack | false | https://newsline.com/fc-barcelona-lead-tributes-to-dead-injured-in-terrorist-attack/ | 2017-08-18 | 1 |
<p>Apparently some woman wishes to change ‘Father’s Day’ to ‘Special Person’s Day’ so kids without fathers won’t feel left out.</p>
<p>Crikey! As they say down-under. This chick may have lost her mind and the funny thing is that she is a ‘doctor’.</p>
<p>Her name is Dr. Red Ruby Scarlet (really) and she is an early childhood activist and university academic. The doctor, along with other campaigners, are pushing for this name change.</p>
<p>People have labeled her proposal ‘offensive’ though.</p>
<p>Dr. Scarlet simply denied that this had anything to do with political correctness gone awry during an interview on&#160;Australia’s <a href="https://www.todaytonightadelaide.com.au/stories/politically-correct-kindies" type="external">Today Tonight</a></p>
<p>She told host Rosanna Mangiarelli,&#160;“If we think about children’s rights and how they get to participate in a community and feel a sense of belonging, sometimes shifting the language around those emotive and important days can be significant and more inclusive than the current way we describe them.</p>
<p>There is a whole range of different family structures. We have single parent families, satellite families, extended families, lesbian and gay families.”</p>
<p>The movement has been well received by many schools, unfortunately, and families without fathers are all adopting the idea.</p>
<p>Thankfully not everyone is as dense though…</p>
<p>Dr Scarlet added,&#160;“There’s a lot of Australian research that has actually informed a lot of international research that has demonstrated children’s capacity to be really inclusive once they know about these ideas and they think, ‘Wow, why are people seeing this as a controversy?</p>
<p>Why are we calling this political correctness when it is in fact about our rights?</p>
<p>There has been a backlash but the backlash hasn’t necessarily come from families in those communities, it’s people outside those particular contexts.”</p>
<p>New South Wales Liberal minister David Elliott is a harsh critic of her campaign.&#160;He said on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DavidElliottMP/?fref=ts" type="external">Facebook</a>,&#160;“Can’t believe that someone who professes to be ‘enlightened’ would advocate such crap.</p>
<p>People still celebrate fatherhood even after their father and grandfathers have passed away, in fact for many people Father’s Day is a wonderful time of reflecting and remembering.</p>
<p>Dr Red Ruby Scarlet — you are the offensive one. Maybe we should start a campaign to address that.”</p>
<p>It’s interesting how this woman is specifically targeting ‘Father’s Day’ and not ‘Mother’s Day’ also. Wouldn’t you agree?</p> | Chick Wants to Change ‘Father’s Day’ To ‘Special Persons Day’ — Watch Her Explain This One… | true | http://girlsjustwannahaveguns.com/chick-wants-to-change-fathers-day-to-special-persons-day-watch-her-explain-this-one/ | 0 |
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<p>NEED TO KNOW</p>
<p>Mali's rebels are losing ground. French and Malian troops have <a href="http://www.france24.com/en/20130128-france-mali-timbuktu-gao" type="external">taken control of the airport</a> in <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/africa/120702/islamists-trash-timbuktu-mali-fabled-desert-city" type="external">Timbuktu</a>, the fabled desert city that Islamist militants have held for more than six months. Now, it seems, the rebels have abandoned it. The joint force controls all access routes and is preparing to secure the key town itself.</p>
<p>When it succeeds, Timbuktu will be the second rebel stronghold to fall in three days. <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/africa/130126/gao-airport-bridge-captured-mali-french-led-troops" type="external">Gao</a>, Mali's most populous northern city, was taken on Saturday. That leaves just Kidal, near the eastern border with Algeria. And then an even harder task begins: pursuing the rebels deep into the Sahara desert, which they know better than any soldier.</p>
<p>It's a (partial) emergency in Egypt. President Mohamed Morsi has declared <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/egypt/130127/egypt-morsi-declares-state-emergency-suez-canal-port-said" type="external">a state of emergency</a> in the Suez Canal cities of Port Said, Ismailiya and Suez after days of clashes that have left more than 50 people dead.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/egypt/130126/port-said-clashes-kill-22-after-judge-delivers-verdic" type="external">death sentences</a> handed out for last year's Port Said football riots triggered some of the worst of the violence, but wider discontent with Morsi's rule is also fuelling the unrest. The president has invited members of the opposition to national unity talks later today; it's unclear who, if anyone, will turn up.</p>
<p>WANT TO KNOW</p>
<p>Brazil is grieving. The country is beginning three days of national mourning for the victims of this weekend's <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/brazil/130127/brazil-night-club-fire-kills-at-least-180" type="external">devastating Santa Maria nightclub fire</a>. At the last count, 231 people were dead and more than 100 in hospital. Most of the victims were students; some were as young as 16.</p>
<p>President Dilma Rousseff has called it "a tragedy for all of us." And once the tragedy has sunk in, all of us will want to know how it was allowed to happen.</p>
<p>After the fires, the floods. Hundreds of people in the Australian state of Queensland have been trapped by <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/130127/queensland-braces-flooding" type="external">record flooding,</a> after a tropical cyclone dumped torrential rain over the country's northeast.</p>
<p>Local officials are now warning that the floods will be worse than those in 2011 that left 35 people dead. Anyone who can still get out is being told to do so, now.</p>
<p>In China, trolling is a full-time job. Social media have exploded in recent years, and with them criticism of corruption and the Communist Party. Now the government has decided that censorship isn't enough: in addition, millions of propagandists will be deployed to drown out the negativity with their own pro-party posts.</p>
<p>GlobalPost's Benjamin Carlson tunes in to <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/china/130125/chinese-propaganda-social-media-weibo" type="external">China's Twitter</a>, which is starting to sound a lot like 1984.</p>
<p>STRANGE BUT TRUE</p>
<p>Soldiers' latest sacrifice? Growing man boobs. In Germany, members of an elite military battalion have reported <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/weird-wide-web/man-boobs-are-growing-problem-german-military" type="external">unusual growths on their chest</a> – though only on one side. Researchers say it's to do with a ceremonial drill that requires soldiers to thump a rifle into their left side, which can apparently stimulate production of the hormones that cause breast growth.</p>
<p>Putting up with moobs (or a moob) is apparently too much to ask of the nation's defenders: officers say they're considering changing the dangerous drill.</p> | Chatter: Mali's rebels are losing ground | false | https://pri.org/stories/2013-01-28/chatter-malis-rebels-are-losing-ground | 2013-01-28 | 3 |
<p>CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) - An autopsy has been scheduled for a Charlottesville woman who was found dead in her home after an extensive search.</p>
<p>Charlottesville Police Lt. Steve Upman tells <a href="http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/local/autopsy-scheduled-for-wednesday-in-fifeville-death/article_48a080c8-eff4-11e7-bda1-bbfdbfb27cba.html" type="external">The Daily Progress</a> the autopsy for 31-year-old Molly Meghan Miller will be conducted Wednesday.</p>
<p>Police found Miller's body inside her residence Monday evening. She had last been seen Friday evening, and her fiance reported her missing a day later.</p>
<p>Before Miller's body was found, Deputy Chief Gary Pleasants said police had deployed bloodhounds and were checking security cameras near her home.</p>
<p>Authorities did not say if they're treating the case as a homicide and did not release details of earlier searches of the home.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Daily Progress, <a href="http://www.dailyprogress.com" type="external">http://www.dailyprogress.com</a></p>
<p>CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) - An autopsy has been scheduled for a Charlottesville woman who was found dead in her home after an extensive search.</p>
<p>Charlottesville Police Lt. Steve Upman tells <a href="http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/local/autopsy-scheduled-for-wednesday-in-fifeville-death/article_48a080c8-eff4-11e7-bda1-bbfdbfb27cba.html" type="external">The Daily Progress</a> the autopsy for 31-year-old Molly Meghan Miller will be conducted Wednesday.</p>
<p>Police found Miller's body inside her residence Monday evening. She had last been seen Friday evening, and her fiance reported her missing a day later.</p>
<p>Before Miller's body was found, Deputy Chief Gary Pleasants said police had deployed bloodhounds and were checking security cameras near her home.</p>
<p>Authorities did not say if they're treating the case as a homicide and did not release details of earlier searches of the home.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Daily Progress, <a href="http://www.dailyprogress.com" type="external">http://www.dailyprogress.com</a></p> | Autopsy scheduled for Charlottesville woman found dead | false | https://apnews.com/amp/73fb00f824cb44d889bff3cc5e594ffb | 2018-01-03 | 2 |
<p>The story behind the CPR doll Rescue Annie involves a drowned woman, a pathologist and a toy maker.</p>
<p>It's a magical story. It's satisfying.</p>
<p>The BBC's Jeremy Grange <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24534069" type="external">tells the full story</a> in a new post for the BBC.&#160;The short version goes like this: The body of a drowned woman was pulled from the Seine in Paris in the last 1800s. A pathologist was so smitten with the unknown woman's face that he made a plaster cast of it. That became a death mask that was sold all over the country.</p>
<p>It had Mona Lisa's smile. Poets and writers used the mask as a muse. And year later, a toy maker was asked to create a CPR doll. He needed a face for the body, and he remembered seeing a mask in his grandparents' home. That mask, of course, was the unknown woman of the Seine, or the "Inconnue." The toy maker thought it would be perfect for the CPR doll. And Resusci Anne came into existence.</p>
<p>She's got many names: CPR Annie, Rescue Annie, Resusci Anne. Whatever her name, millions have put their lips on hers.&#160;</p>
<p>Grange told the story and thought that was that. But new origin stories keep cropping up about her. Everyone wants to know who she really was and that's causing facts to blend with fictions and fictions being mistaken as fact. Grange ran into one such example near his home in Liverpool, England.</p>
<p>The first came a few weeks after the program was broadcast in 2009. I was visiting Edward Chambre Hardman's photographic studio in Liverpool, the National Trust's perfectly preserved time capsule from the first half of the 20th Century, where anyone who was anyone in Liverpool sat for a portrait with Hardman. Seeing the mask of the Inconnue on the wall of his waiting room, I asked the guide, disingenuously, who the young woman was.</p>
<p>Without hesitating, &#160;she told me the story of two sisters, identical twins, who'd been born in Liverpool more than a century ago. One of them, she said, had embarked on a love affair with a rich suitor and eloped to Paris, never to be seen again. Many years later the other sister had visited Paris on holiday. Walking down a street she was shocked to see the mask of the drowned Inconnue hanging outside the mouleurs' workshops. She had instantly recognized the girl as her long-lost twin, condemned — or blessed — to remain forever young, while her sister grew old.</p>
<p>Grange says that once again, a tapestry of imagination had been woven around the enigma of the Inconnue. And that imagination keeps spreading.</p>
<p>The Oxford-based artist, John Goto, created an entire backstory for the Inconnue years ago. Grange says Goto turned her into a Hungarian actress named Ewa Lazlo, who was murdered by her lover, Louis Argon. The project faded away. Or so they thought.</p>
<p>Just last week, Grange came across a little detail in the London symposium for European Restart a Heart Days. It's a symposium of sorts for CPR:</p>
<p>During the day, a series of speakers share the latest research on improving survival rates after cardiac arrest. But in the evening. entertainment is provided by the ensemble Mulberry Hawk. They're putting on a performance which, according to the blurb, "tells the story of Ewa Lazlo who became the inspiration for the face of Resusci Anne, the first CPR training manikin, and the most kissed girl in the world".&#160;So, I thought, Ewa is beginning to take on a life of her own.</p>
<p>Fiction had been treated as fact. Grange says that's OK. He says we'll never know the face behind the Inconnue. But it's better that way.</p>
<p>"It allows our imaginations to run with the idea of the unknown woman of the Seine."</p> | Here's the story behind the 'most kissed face' in the world | false | https://pri.org/stories/2013-10-21/heres-story-behind-most-kissed-face-world | 2013-10-21 | 3 |
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<p>Victoria Crenshaw, 29 (MDC)</p>
<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The woman arrested after a SWAT standoff in Northwest Albuquerque Monday afternoon was wanted on a felony warrant for not attending a hearing in a stolen motor vehicle case, according to an Albuquerque Police Department spokesman.</p>
<p>Fred Duran said officers were called to the 2900 block of Vista Grande NW, near Coors and Interstate 40, for reports of a stolen trailer in the backyard. He said when they got there they discovered Victoria Crenshaw, 29, inside the house.</p>
<p>She had felony warrants out for her arrest after she did not appear at a hearing about a December 2016 case charging her with receiving or transferring a stolen motor vehicle and bribery of a witness.</p>
<p>“Officers made several attempts to have her exit on her own and she refused to do so,” Duran wrote in an email. “The SWAT team responded and the Crisis Negotiation Team was able to eventually get her to exit peacefully and without incident.”</p>
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<p>Crenshaw was arrested around 3 p.m. and booked into the county jail.&#160;The stolen trailer was recovered, Duran said.</p>
<p>He said more charges are possible since detectives are still investigating.</p>
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<p /> | Woman arrested after SWAT standoff in NW Albuquerque Monday | false | https://abqjournal.com/1034497/woman-arrested-after-swat-standoff-in-nw-albuquerque-monday.html | 2 |
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<p>Author and critic’s critic Greil Marcus takes a scholarly approach to writing about pop music. He’s covered all the greats of rock ‘n’ roll for a variety of publications over the years, including Rolling Stone, where he was the magazine’s first reviews editor. Among the 18 or so books he’s written or edited is 1975’s acclaimed Mystery Train, in which he hones in on a handful of musicians in his quest to cement rock ‘n’ roll within a larger American cultural context. Marcus has paid special attention to the likes of Elvis Presley, Van Morrison—the subject of a book earlier this year—and particularly Bob Dylan. His new collection, out this month, is called Bob Dylan by Greil Marcus: Writings 1968-2010. I reached out to Marcus with a few questions on his current and all-time music faves, new surprises, and, of course, His Royal Bobness.</p>
<p>Mother Jones: What’s your favorite new release this year within your usual realm?</p>
<p>Greil Marcus: <a href="" type="internal">Carolina Chocolate Drops</a>, Genuine Negro Jig (Nonesuch). Very educated people who somehow get inside the blackface minstrel music of 150 years ago, and come out the other side.</p>
<p>MJ: What about something totally outside your genre?</p>
<p>GM: I like to think there’s no outside; that I can hear whatever has a claim to make, but if you’d asked me if I were interested in poetry set to music, I’d probably say no. When I heard Ellen Maybe’s “City Streets” on KALX in Berkeley I had no idea what it was, just that I was transfixed. I called up the DJ, went to Amoeba Records, couldn’t find it, wrote away—and after listening to Maybe’s album Rodeo for the Sheepish (Hen House) half a dozen times, I had no idea who the people behind it were—a poet, and a musician/singer who sounds like many of himself, or for that matter her-himself. But there’s a pathos cut with self-lacerating humor that makes this the most surprising and painful music I’ve come across.</p>
<p>MJ: Shuffle your iPod and name the first five songs that pop up.</p>
<p>GM: Don’t have an iPod…1.&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160; Jan and Dean, “Dead Man’s Curve”2.&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160; Robert Johnson, “Come on in My Kitchen”3.&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160; Kim Carnes, “You Keep Me Hanging On”4.&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160; Supremes, “Stop! In the Name of Love”5.&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160; Cyndi Lauper, “Money Changes Everything”</p>
<p>MJ: If you don’t have an iPod, what was it that you just shuffled?</p>
<p>GM: My head.</p>
<p>MJ: What’s the latest song, good or bad, that super-glued itself in your brain?</p>
<p>GM: Lady Gaga, “Bad Romance”</p>
<p>MJ: Three records or singles you never get sick of listening to?</p>
<p>GM: Cream, “Crossroads” Crickets, “Looking for Someone to Love” Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, “American Girl”</p>
<p>MJ: Name a guilty pleasure—something you like to listen to but don’t like to admit it.</p>
<p>GM: Short of reading or listening about mass murder, torture, and child rape and pornography for pleasure, I don’t buy the concept.</p>
<p>MJ: Favorite holiday-related song or album?</p>
<p>GM: From Phil Spector’s A Christmas Gift for You: Darlene Love’s “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” now and forever—though it’d be hard to top <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJcYUj89JiU" type="external">what she did with it on David Letterman</a> last year.</p>
<p>MJ: Favorite politically themed song or album?</p>
<p>GM: Barry McGuire, “Eve of Destruction”</p>
<p>MJ: Do you have any new favorite bands that we might not have heard of?</p>
<p>GM: Jockey, Yellow Fever, Woods, DeSoto Rust</p>
<p>MJ: Your new book out this month contains four decades of your writings on Bob Dylan. Can you think of any rising young musicians who embody the Dylan spirit without being derivative?</p>
<p>GM: Dylan when, where, how, why? The Handsome Family, Be Good Tanyas, Crooked Still, New Model Army.</p>
<p>MJ: Let’s say an alien came down and wanted to hear the Dylan album that best demonstrates what he’s about, which one would you hand the creature?</p>
<p>GM: Another Side of Bob Dylan. Confuse the thing. No reason to give away all our secrets just like that.</p>
<p>MJ: Can you still listen to Dylan for pleasure?</p>
<p>GM: Reminds me of what John Lennon said when asked who the new Chuck Berrys and Jerry Lee Lewises were: “Are they dead?” Bob Dylan continues to release odd and unsettling records, and to do odd and unsettling things on stage. So the term “still” seems meaningless to me. But the real answer is simple: I listen to Bob Dylan for pleasure more than I listen to anyone else for pleasure.</p>
<p>MJ: As a longtime critic, can you listen to a song purely emotionally, without thinking about context and structure and history and all of that?</p>
<p>GM: Almost always, that’s how I listen. I never find myself even catching lyrics until something in the sound has taken me captive. Thinking about anything else is just the pleasurable byproduct of wow.</p>
<p>Click <a href="" type="internal">here</a> for more Music Monday features from Mother Jones.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p /> | This is Greil Marcus’ Brain on “Shuffle” | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2010/10/greil-marcus-bob-dylan/ | 2010-10-18 | 4 |
<p>McDonald's has started rolling out its new mobile app in the U.S., and one of the main features is a loyalty program for the chain's drinks.</p>
<p>The app, which was made available recently for people in the San Diego area, lets people earn a free beverage after five purchases of McCafe drinks like coffees and shakes. The company said it plans to make the mobile app available nationally by October, after tinkering with variations in tests.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>McDonald's CEO Steve Easterbrook, who is trying to revive the chain's slumping sales, has conceded that the company has been a "little behind some others" with its app. As fast-food chains try to court younger customers, mobile apps have increasingly been seen as a way to offer convenience and build customer loyalty.</p>
<p>Starbucks Corp., for instance, has underscored the importance of its mobile app in boosting business. Last month, the coffee chain said that about 20 percent of purchases in the U.S. are now made through its app. And later this year, it plans to let customers in the U.S. use its app to place orders before getting to the store.</p>
<p>The McDonald's app made available in San Diego this week is still fairly limited. It has a store locator and lets people scroll through the chain's menu and see the nutritional information for various items. A Quarter Pounder with Cheese, for instance, has 520 calories, while a Cheeseburger has 290 calories. Customers can't order or pay for food through the app.</p>
<p>Becca Hary, a McDonald's Corp. spokeswoman, said franchisees will also be able to promote the local deals in their respective regions through the new app. In the San Diego area, McDonald's said initial offers include a buy one, get one free coupon for Big Macs.</p>
<p>Hary said the company will continue refining the app and that promotional offers will become more tailored over time. She said the app is launching in New York City this week as well.</p>
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<p>The McCafe loyalty program is set to expire at year-end and the company will determine then whether to continue it, she said.</p> | McDonald's begins rollout of mobile app in US; drink loyalty program featured | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2015/08/11/mcdonald-begins-rollout-mobile-app-in-us-drink-loyalty-program-featured.html | 2016-03-06 | 0 |
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<p>DETROIT (AP) — Aretha Franklin's <a href="https://twitter.com/GerrenPeterson/status/801851586674823172" type="external">lengthy version of the national anthem</a> ahead of the Detroit Lions-Minnesota Vikings matchup may have been as much a topic at Thanksgiving dinner as the game itself.</p>
<p>Franklin's “Star Spangled Banner” clocked in at 4-minutes, 35 seconds on Thursday. That's compared to about 2-minutes, 20 seconds for Whitney Houston's iconic rendition of the song ahead of the Super Bowl in 1991.</p>
<p>Franklin quickly started trending on social media. One Twitter user <a href="https://twitter.com/BlaiseInKC/status/801842112186695681" type="external">joked</a> that there was enough time to cook a turkey, eat and do the dishes during the performance. Others opined that the 74-year-old “Queen of Soul” had earned the right to sing the anthem for as long as she wanted.</p>
<p>The CBS production team got in on the fun during the game by including Franklin in <a href="https://twitter.com/NFLonCBS/status/801867315956609026/photo/1" type="external">a time of possession graphic</a> .</p>
<p><a href="#8e2bcf50-e671-47a7-9fb2-71c20ff629d0" type="external">© 2016 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> | Long Song: Aretha's anthem gobbles Thanksgiving conversation | false | https://abqjournal.com/895828/long-song-arethas-anthem-gobbles-thanksgiving-conversation.html | 2016-11-25 | 2 |
<p>The GOP’s election night power grab in the U.S.Congress has officially launched the 2016 Republican presidential primary race.</p>
<p>All three Republican Senators and potential 2016 presidential candidates, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz, will now be able to point at Tuesday night’s election results,look donors and future supporters in the eye, and asked them to support their presidential campiagns.</p>
<p>Again, that is if they run in 2016.</p>
<p>While Rubio stayed under the radar (by design), Paul and Cruz put themselves out there.</p>
<p>Here is what they tweeted.</p>
<p />
<p>. <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRandPaul" type="external">@SenRandPaul</a>: “Tonight, we say to the president, yes, we did build that.” <a href="http://t.co/cVQnacKMt5" type="external">pic.twitter.com/cVQnacKMt5</a> — TheBlazeNOW (@TheBlazeNOW) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheBlazeNOW/status/529880976240148480" type="external">November 5, 2014</a></p>
<p />
<p>Rubio put out this statement the following day:</p>
<p>Voters across the country have sent a clear message that they are not ready to give up on the American Dream. The American people have elected a new crop of reformers to go to Washington, end the dysfunction and achieve real solutions to the many obstacles standing in the way of all people who are trying to achieve a better life.</p>
<p>“I hope President Obama will listen carefully to the message the American people sent him in this election, and work with Congress to solve the pressing issues facing all Americans. The American people deserve it.</p>
<p>“In the coming months, I look forward to working in a Senate Republican majority to advance the reform agenda I’ve presented this year to promote job creation and higher education, help people save for retirement, improve our anti-poverty programs, and rebuild and modernize our military to meet the challenges we’ll face throughout this century.”</p> | Big GOP Wins Mark The Beginning Of The 2016 Republican Presidential Primary Race | true | http://shark-tank.com/2014/11/05/big-gop-wins-mark-the-beginning-of-the-2016-republican-presidential-primary-race/ | 0 |
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<p>The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell last week, pointing to labor market strength that could keep Federal Reserve interest rate hikes on the table this year.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Initial claims for state unemployment benefits decreased 7,000 to a seasonally adjusted 262,000 for the week ended Feb. 13, the lowest reading since November, the Labor Department said on Thursday. The prior week's claims were unrevised.</p>
<p>Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims rising to 275,000 in the latest week.</p>
<p>The four-week moving average of claims, considered a better measure of labor market trends as it irons out week-to-week volatility, fell 8,000 to 273,250 last week.</p>
<p>The health of the jobs market could determine whether the U.S. central bank raises rates this year. Bets for a March rate hike have largely been eliminated against the backdrop of tightening financial market conditions and worries about the U.S. and global economies.</p>
<p>A Labor Department analyst said there were no special factors influencing last week's claims data and that claims were estimated for Pennsylvania, Virginia and Puerto Rico. Pennsylvania experienced a computer glitch and Virginia was unable to provide data on time, though the issues were considered minor.</p>
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<p>Claims are being closely monitored for signs of a pickup in layoffs in the wake of the recent massive stock market sell-off. There is no indication so far that companies have responded to the tightening in financial market conditions by reducing headcount.</p>
<p>Claims have now been below the 300,000 threshold, which is associated with a strong labor market, for 50 straight weeks - the longest stretch since the early 1970s. The claims data covered the survey period for February's nonfarm payrolls.</p>
<p>The four-week average of claims declined 12,000 between the January and February survey periods, suggesting a pickup in job growth. Nonfarm payrolls increased by 151,000 in January.</p>
<p>The claims report showed the number of people still receiving benefits after an initial week of aid increased 30,000 to 2.27 million in the week ended Feb. 6. The four-week average of the so-called continuing claims rose 13,500 to 2.26 million.</p> | Weekly Jobless Claims Fall by 7,000 | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/02/18/weekly-jobless-claims-fall-by-7000.html | 2016-03-05 | 0 |
<p>JS's 15-year-old sister wound up as the wife to the man her parents had originally selected for her. LM �how did you find out about this man, how old were you at the time?� JS �I was 14 years old at the time my mother said to me with a photograph of the man, she said that was going to be my husband. And at that age, I didn't contemplate anything. However I had the experience of watching my sisters being taken out of school when they were 15 and to marry men they had only met in photographs. And when I was 15 years old I asked, who's getting married, mom? My mother said, you are. And I clearly protested and I said, I don't want to get married, mom, I want to finish school, maybe go to college and university. I soon realized no was not an option and I was taken out of school, made prisoner in my own home, locked in my room until I agreed to the marriage.� LM �What were they worried about, that you'd somehow leave the house and not come back?� JS �absolutely. I was promised to this man from the age of 8, that's what was realized later on, and this problem had to be realized by my parents. So they were very concerned that if I didn't go through with the marriage it'd bring dishonor and shame on the family. Later on I decided to say yes only because I knew it would buy back my freedom while I planned my escape, and escape I did. I escaped when I was 16 and I ran away from home 27 years ago to make the point that I'm not marrying this man. And when I rang my mom to say I want to come home now, she said you're either marrying this man who we have chosen for you or you're dead in our eyes.� LM �and you never did marry him, is that correct?� JS �no, I never married him, however my younger sister had to marry him.� LM �how old was she when she got married?� JS �she was 15 and a half.� LM �and he was?� JS �he was at least seven years older.� LM �Was this man in Britain at the time?� JS �no he was in India, so he was identified there, where my father originated from. And he would've come over to the UK as somebody who was sponsored by me, being the British subject and then he would've become the British subject over time.� LM �so has that happened with your sister then who did marry him? JS �She did marry him and that did happen. And inevitably they've divorced and he's gone off and married someone else.� LM �is the divorce in these cases generally initiated by the man, could your sister have done it?� JS �the whole thing about my experience is that I was brought up to believe there are certain things an Asian woman mustn't do in order protect the family name and the honor of the family and dishonoring the family meant going against the beliefs and the value system. And one of those things was to say no to a forced marriage, and clearly divorce had a status of shame to. And in the case of my older sister who's a year and a half older than me, she was in the end in such a dire situation, suffering domestic violence, she went home, to go back to the husband and make the marriage work for the sake of our honor. And in the end, my sister committed suicide, she set herself on fire and suffered burns on 80% of her body and died. The thing about our experiences, that our family are the perpetrators and when we turn to them they send us back to abusive situations because they don't want us to shame them in any way yet it is them that should be shamed.� LM �you are now an activist on this issue, that's one of the reasons you're going to speak before British Parliament. You founded the Karma Nirvana Project which as you say supports Asian women and men fleeing forced marriage. Now it is not a crime to force a child into marriage, but how often is there a tie, as you just alluded to with your sister, between forced marriage and domestic violence?� JS �forced marriage is a form of domestic violence because if you consider the kind of victims we see and what is happening to them, physically abused, psychologically, many are kidnapped, harassed, black mailed and even raped and beaten, we don't have a specific criminal offense against forced marriage, although there is criminal activity engaged in these cases. So yes it is a form of domestic violence and part of my campaign is that we would like specific criminal legislation designed to deal with this case because not many people are dealing with it as criminal activity.� LM �And what are the numbers here in terms of forced marriage? Are you talking about hundreds or thousands of cases in say especially the UK and the US?� JS �in the UK we only have the figures that are monitored by our government here. We have a Forced Marriage Unit that deals with these cases. They tell us that 5,000 people a year make contact with their unit for help and advice. The repatriate 300 British subjects every year back into the UK who've been taken abroad and forced into marriage. A third of those cases are minors, they're as young as 9, 10, 11, 12. now the thing about the figures, I believe, as many others do, it is far greater than that and actually this is the tip of the iceberg. If you look at Karma Nirvana for example, we deal with 15 new cases a week and we deal with over 200 support calls a month.� LM �so you also get calls not just from women but from men who've been forced into marriage. Give me an example.� JS �We have a male project worker, he was 10 years old when he was taken abroad and forced to marry a five year old girl. He was brought back to England and then taken abroad when he was 16 and then he was forced to marry and consummate the marriage. And he now is pioneering work around men. He sees young men who are being forced to marry because of their sexuality, we see gay men, the family want to hide the fact that they are gay and force them into a marriage because it's hugely shameful to the family for communities to find out he's gay. We see young men who fall in love that the family don't approve of, we see men who got married at very young ages thinking it was a party when actually it was their wedding.� LM �is the problem of forced marriage domestic violence as a result of this including honor killings, is it worse in an immigrant community such as Darby, England or someplace here in the United States than it is in India or Pakistan or wherever?� JS �there is an assumption made because we are British born subjects, with that comes this inherent amount of freedom and independence. That is a myth because our families and communities feel challenged by that myth so they hold onto the oppressive practices even more. And the same thing will happen in America. I've been to India and almost everywhere in India you can see it in your face, the way people are treated. In places like the UK it's more of a hidden issue and it's happening behind closed doors and that's part of the problem because people think, if you view me as an independent Asian woman, everything's fine at home, that is not the case.�</p> | Resisting forced marriage in the UK | false | https://pri.org/stories/2008-01-24/resisting-forced-marriage-uk | 2008-01-24 | 3 |
<p>Shares of Time, Inc. (NYSE: TIME) have popped today, up by 9% as of 11:15 a.m. EST, following the company's announcement&#160;that it would be acquired by Meredith Corporation (NYSE: MDP). The deal had been rumored to be in the works <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/11/16/why-time-inc-stock-soared-today.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=172af8ea-d391-11e7-ac68-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">earlier this month Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
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<p>Meredith will acquire Time for $18.50 per share through an all-cash tender offer, representing a 46% premium compared to the closing price on Nov. 15, 2017, before the deal started leaking to the media and driving up Time's stock price. The total transaction is valued at $2.8 billion, including Meredith assuming Time's debt and net of cash. The boards of both companies have unanimously approved the deal, which is expected to close in Q1 2018.</p>
<p>In line with earlier rumors, the Koch brothers are helping finance the deal. Meredith has secured&#160;$650 million through a preferred equity commitment from Koch Equity Development, but Meredith says that Koch Equity Development will have "no influence on Meredith's editorial or managerial operations."</p>
<p>The deal represents a consolidation of two of the largest magazine publishers, which generated a combined $2.8 billion in revenue in 2016. The new company will have a readership of 135 million, including paid circulation of 60 million. It will also bolster Meredith's digital position and ongoing push into video advertising.</p>
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<p>Meredith estimates that it can generate cost synergies of $400 million to $500 million within the first two full years of operation, which will inevitably translate into layoffs. The transaction should be accretive to free cash flow in the first full year of operation, and Meredith intends on aggressively paying down debt to strengthen its balance sheet. The company says it remains committed to capital returns and annual dividend increases.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than TimeWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*</p>
<p>David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the <a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-static%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=855b47ef-6923-4c29-a140-21764689bfc8&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=172af8ea-d391-11e7-ac68-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and Time wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.</p>
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<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of November 6, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFNewCow/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=172af8ea-d391-11e7-ac68-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Evan Niu, CFA Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=172af8ea-d391-11e7-ac68-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Why Time, Inc. Shares Popped Today | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/11/28/why-time-inc-shares-popped-today.html | 2017-11-28 | 0 |
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<p>The historic reduction in consumer debt since the start of the Great Recession has come substantially from households tightening their belts, not merely as a result of banks writing off bad loans, according to economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.</p>
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<p>Even during a time of deep job cuts, households pulled back sharply on borrowing, according to a report out April 22. What is more, at least part of the move was voluntary, not a reaction to higher lending standards.</p>
<p>"Holding aside defaults, from 2007 through 2011 consumers&#160; reduced their debt at a pace not seen over the last 10 years," said the report, " <a href="http://www.newyorkfed.org/research/current_issues/ci19-2.pdf" type="external">The Financial Crisis at the Kitchen Table: Trends in Household Debt and Credit. Opens a New Window.</a>"</p>
<p>Consumers themselves paid down more than one-third of the overall reduction in combined credit card and auto loan balances, the report said, shedding new light on consumer behavior during a period of wrenching economic change.</p>
<p>Consumers stopped charging</p>
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<p>Until now, the decline in household debt seen since 2008 has been largely attributed to lenders shedding bad loans while they shut the door on new borrowing. While it is true that write-offs accounted for most of the debt decline, the new Fed analysis -- which draws on credit report data -- provides a finer-grain look at the plunge than previously available.</p>
<p>"An analysis ... reveals that households actively reduced their obligations during this period by paying down their current debts and reducing new borrowing," the report said.</p>
<p>Looking at credit cards and auto loans combined, consumers paid down $68 billion in 2009 and another $15 billion in 2010. The figures do not include write-offs by banks.</p>
<p>When write-offs are included, the overall decline in credit card balances during the two-year period was $136 billion, Fed data show. Car loans fell $80 billion in the period.</p>
<p>The Fed analysis indicates that household frugality was responsible for about 38% of the cutback in combined credit card and auto loan obligations.</p>
<p>Looking at debt a different way, by the number of open credit card accounts, reinforces the findings. Open accounts peaked near 500 million at mid-2008, then plunged to 378 million by the third quarter of 2010, where they leveled off.</p>
<p>Key evidence: credit applications</p>
<p>But how much of that drop came from consumers, and how much was the result of banks closing their vaults? Although the two effects are difficult to separate, the Fed analysis provided a peek into an aspect of the debt drawdown that was previously opaque. A look at credit report data found that credit inquiries triggered by account applications fell in step with the overall reduction in accounts, indicating that consumers cut their appetite for new credit.</p>
<p>"The available evidence suggests that fewer applications for credit ... contributed to the decline in new account openings," the Fed economists concluded.</p>
<p>Some of the reduction may have been from consumers not bothering to apply for credit on the assumption they would be turned down. Nevertheless, the abstemious behavior came in the face of rapid rises in unemployment starting in the second half of 2008. That suggests that the precautionary urge to set aside more savings in lean times outweighed the desire to maintain spending levels by using credit to replace lost wages.</p>
<p>As for closing of existing card accounts, banks played a major role, the paper said, citing previous research that found 13% of consumers had an account closed by a bank during 2009.</p>
<p>Mortgages also showed that consumers pushed to pay down debts, beyond the massive reduction caused by foreclosures. Non-foreclosure pay-downs of housing debt reached $241 billion in 2011, reversing what had been steady increases in housing debt through 2007.</p>
<p>Will borrowing resume?</p>
<p>Overall household debt of all types has fallen $1.3 trillion since the financial crisis began in 2008. While the Fed's new look shows how hard consumers bit the bullet, the big question now is how consumer borrowing -- and spending -- will pick up and provide fuel for the economic recovery. If consumers voluntarily cut debt, will they resume borrowing on their own timetable as well?</p>
<p>"We certainly think demand for borrowing is likely to pick up," said Scott Hoyt, senior director for consumer economics at Moody's Analytics. Borrowers who hit the brakes on spending voluntarily will start needing to replace appliances and other put-off purchases. Car loans have picked up, but lenders still seem hunkered down when it comes to unsecured lending such as with credit cards.</p>
<p>"Banks say they're loosening (lending) standards," Hoyt said, "but it appears that's happening for higher quality borrowers."</p>
<p>Since the <a href="http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/credit-card-law-interactive-1282.php?aid=52aae854" type="external">Credit CARD Act of 2009</a>, lenders are being more cautious, said Keith Leggett, senior economist at the American Bankers Association. "I think the environment is different now," he said. "With the CARD Act, lenders are restricted in their ability to price for risk -- they're going to be more cautious in extending credit."</p>
<p>See related: <a href="http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/credit-card-debt-fed-consumer-finances-survey-2012-1276.php?aid=52aae854" type="external">Fed survey: Recession shrank card debt, but crushed household wealth</a></p> | Fed Study: Recession Really Changed our Spending Habits | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2013/04/23/fed-study-recession-really-changed-our-spending-habits.html | 2016-03-05 | 0 |
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<p>Karl Rove’s game sure has improved since he was a young Republican on the make in the early 1970s. The New York Times recently found a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/14/washington/14rove.html?_r=2&amp;oref=slogin&amp;oref=slogin" type="external">letter written by Rove</a> in the Nixon archives in which the 22-year-old Capitol Hill aide outlines his ideas to recruit kids for a sexy-sounding group called “New Federalism Advocates.” His big idea: midnight showings of John Wayne movies and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reefer_Madness" type="external">Reefer Madness</a>. Like many a former fan of the cult antidrug flick, Rove now pleads memory loss. “God, this is 1973!” he told the Times. “You work the math. I don’t remember it all.”</p>
<p>Rove also said he’s not surprised his old letter was found, explaining, “When you send something to a White House person, it tends to be collected and remain.” Yeah, unless that White House person happens to be <a href="/mojoblog/archives/2007/04/4151_rove_and_co_bro.html" type="external">“Dude, Where’s My Email?”</a> Rove.</p>
<p /> | Karl Rove’s Reefer Madness-Induced Memory Loss | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2007/07/karl-roves-reefer-madness-induced-memory-loss/ | 2007-07-16 | 4 |
<p>Disney's (NYSE: DIS)live-action remakes have already proved to be magic makers at the box office, and the company is going full-bore on remaking its animated catalog. Besides upcoming sequels to already released remakes such as Maleficent and Jungle Book and a spinoff based on Cinderella's Prince Charming character, the company has many other live-action reimaginings in development. These projects have big potential and look to have a significant impact on Disney's film business in the coming years.</p>
<p>Click through the following presentation for a look at the company's slate of updated takes on animated classics.</p>
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<p>Find out why Walt Disney is one of the 10 best stocks to buy now</p>
<p>Motley Fool co-founders Tom and David Gardner have spent more than a decade beating the market. (In fact, the newsletter they run, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market!*)</p>
<p>Tom and David just revealed their ten top stock picks for investors to buy right now. Walt Disney <a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-dyn%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0000450%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6313%26ftm_veh%3Darticle_pitch&amp;impression=305f1d11-dc71-4194-920d-b4336f92b9f7&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">is on the list Opens a New Window.</a>-but there are nine others you may be overlooking.</p>
<p><a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-dyn%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0000450%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6313%26ftm_veh%3Darticle_pitch&amp;impression=305f1d11-dc71-4194-920d-b4336f92b9f7&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Click here to get access to the full list! Opens a New Window.</a></p>
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<p><a href="//www.slideshare.net/TheMotleyFool/11-disney-live-action-remakes-poised-for-box-office-magic" type="external">11 Disney Live Action Remakes Poised for Box Office Magic Opens a New Window.</a> from <a href="//www.slideshare.net/TheMotleyFool" type="external">The Motley Fool Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/keithnoonan/info.aspx" type="external">Keith Noonan Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Walt Disney. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=isiedilnk018048&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/motley.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | 12 Disney Live-Action Remakes Poised for Box Office Magic | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/11/26/12-disney-live-action-remakes-poised-for-box-office-magic.html | 2016-11-26 | 0 |
<p>Addressing the House of Commons on November 11, 1947, Winston Churchill famously said, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” I’ll borrow his sentiment and suggest the same rings true of the United States of America. All nations have flaws because they are the product of humans, who in their nature are often deeply flawed. Our great country is no different. The U.S. is home to thieves, rapists, murderers, pedophiles, religious extremists, sexists and racists. But this small minority do not define us and they do not represent We The People.</p>
<p>Colin Kaepernick, Black Lives Matter, Antifa, leftists, and now the NFL are all pushing a pernicious myth that the United States is a bad and racist place. They lie and say that large swaths of our citizenry are oppressed. They lie and say that the United States is a land characterized by white privilege, income inequality, political corruption and persecution. They lie and say that kneeling during our anthem is not disrespecting our flag.</p>
<p>On September 25, the FBI released their violent crime statistics for 2016. According to <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/html/hard-data-hollow-protests-15458.html" type="external">Heather Mac Donald's analysis</a> of this report and Washington Post data, 16 unarmed black men were killed by police officers last year. She makes an important distinction that a suspect’s categorization as “unarmed” does not lend insight into whether they were violently engaging an officer, or putting the lives of others at risk, only that they were not carrying a firearm or knife at the time of the shooting. With this in mind, truly unjustified police shootings of young, unarmed black men are rarer than the 16 identified by the Post.</p>
<p>There are slightly more than 37 million black people living in the United States. This means that, even if it's assumed that all 16 shootings involved excessive use of force, unarmed black Americans have a 0.000043% chance of being shot by a police officer. To put that in perspective, the average person has roughly a 0.033% chance of being struck by lightning in their lifetime.</p>
<p>This is what Colin Kaepernick and the NFL are protesting. Imaginary, fictitious, systemic police racism. This is why they refuse to take pride in our flag. And that begs the question: Is there any flag Kaepernick would stand for?</p>
<p>What country is more generous than the United States? Last year, individuals <a href="https://givingusa.org/giving-usa-2017-total-charitable-donations-rise-to-new-high-of-390-05-billion/" type="external">broke the previous world record</a> (also set by us) by donating $390.05 billion to charitable organizations.</p>
<p>What country treats the LGBT community with more tolerance than the United States? Certainly not Jamaica, where anal intercourse is punishable by up to <a href="https://antigaylaws.org/regional/americas/" type="external">10 years imprisonment with hard labor</a>. Not in <a href="https://antigaylaws.org/regional/middle-east/" type="external">Middle Eastern countries</a>, where homosexuals are punished even more harshly. In Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, to be gay is a death sentence. Here in the U.S., if a private business owner doesn’t want to make a cake for a gay wedding, they’re publicly shamed and make national news.</p>
<p>What country has greater economic opportunity than the United States? The <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/brief/global-poverty-line-faq" type="external">World Bank</a> lists the global poverty line at $1.90 per day. Assuming one works every day of the year at that rate, their annual income would be only $693.50. Compare that with the United States, which marks it’s poverty line at $22,162 a year. Our poverty line starts 31 times higher than the global rate. Our economy represents 25% of the world’s GDP. The United States and its wealth have been vastly more instrumental in lifting human beings out of poverty than any nation in history.</p>
<p>What country has contributed more to the world than the United States? We invented the modern suspension bridge, the electric light bulb, photographic film, the skyscraper, electric traffic lights, frozen food, automatic car transmissions, the assembly line, airplanes, credit cards, disposable diapers, the integrated circuit, lasers, personal computers, mobile phones, space shuttles, the internet, GPS, and perhaps most importantly, chocolate chip cookies.</p>
<p>And now, the question at hand. What predominantly white country has provided more opportunity and equality to its minority black population than the United States? Yes, the legacy of slavery hangs over our founding like a shroud, but to pretend we are alone in this is pure fiction. Slavery was a worldwide evil. In 1778, the state of Virginia abolished the importation of slaves. This effort was led by Thomas Jefferson, who, as president, also signed legislation that criminalized the international slave trade in 1807. England passed similar legislation that same year. Sweden abolished the slave trade in 1813, The Netherlands in 1814, France in 1826, Brazil in 1851. Almost the entire developed world decided that slavery was evil in a period of about 50 years. No one would pretend that it’s been roses since then. But in fighting the civil war, abolishing Jim Crow, and amending our constitution to provide equal protections and rights under the law, the United States has made more progress toward living our ideals than most modern nations.</p>
<p>There are still approximately 30 million people enslaved in the world today. Slave trading still exists in countries like Haiti, Pakistan, and India, and is still practiced widely across the African continent. Black Americans are afforded more opportunity here than they would be anywhere else on Earth. No country in Europe has ever elected a black Chief Executive. Neither has Canada. In fact, no country with a minority black population, apart from us, has done so. We cherished black musicians, actors, poets, writers, scholars, athletes, politicians, judges, and businessmen. Above all other labels, those people are viewed as great Americans. And why is that?</p>
<p>Because America is not racist.</p>
<p>It’s the worst country on Earth, except for all the others. And that is why I will always stand for our flag and our anthem. Because I’m honored, and grateful to live in what is still, and hopefully always will be, the land of the free and the home of the brave.</p> | A Friendly Reminder That America Is Still The Most Exceptional Country Of All Time | true | https://dailywire.com/news/21734/friendly-reminder-america-still-most-exceptional-tyler-dahnke | 2017-09-30 | 0 |
<p>FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Gov. Matt Bevin says he will end Medicaid benefits for more than 400,000 Kentuckians if the courts stop him from requiring many of them to work.</p>
<p>Kentucky was among 32 states that expanded Medicaid under President Barack Obama’s health care law, and many more people signed up than forecast. The program now covers more than a quarter of the state’s population. Federal spending covers almost all the cost of the expanded program. But the state’s share is poised to grow and Bevin, a Republican who took office after the expansion, says Kentucky can’t afford to maintain it without changes.</p>
<p>Bevin’s solution, approved by the Trump administration on Friday, is to impose work requirements for many of these Medicaid recipients. It’s the first time the federal government has allowed a state to make having a job or volunteering for community service a requirement for receiving government-funded health insurance.</p>
<p>Some health advocacy groups question the legality of such requirements. No lawsuits have been filed yet, but Bevin indicated he expects challenges. And in an executive order filed Friday but not made public until Tuesday, he directed his administration to end the state’s Medicaid benefits for the more than 400,000 people in the expansion if the courts strike down any part of his plan.</p>
<p>“The Commonwealth will not be able to afford to continue to operate its Medicaid expansion program as currently designed in the event any one or more of the components of (the new program) are prevented by judicial action from being implemented,” Bevin wrote.</p>
<p>Bevin wants to make the program smaller, saving the state more than $300 million over the next five years. He also predicts that least 95,000 people will lose Medicaid benefits either because they did not comply with the new work requirements, or because they find jobs that pay too much for them to be eligible.</p>
<p>The governor said Friday that he doesn’t know “nor do I really care” what the ultimate cost savings would be, because he believes people will improve their health if they have to do more to earn their benefits. For example, his plan would eliminate Medicaid’s basic vision and dental coverage for the expansion population, but enable people to get those benefits back through a “rewards” program that includes health assessments, smoking cessation programs and other preventive care.</p>
<p>“It has gone well beyond any projections about cost or number of individuals that would go onto the rolls, therefore creating a real fiscal problem which I think Gov. Bevin is trying to address,” Republican Senate President Robert Stivers said.</p>
<p>Joni Jenkins, a Democratic state representative from Louisville, is concerned that these changes could “hurt the very people we need to help.”</p>
<p>“I just think it’s interesting that he feels that he has to start out with threats instead of coming from a place of, ‘let’s work together, let’s see if we can make this work,’” she said.</p>
<p>Bevin’s Medicaid changes take effect in July. They require adults between the ages of 19 and 64 to complete 80 hours per month of “community engagement” to keep their coverage, including working in a job, going to school, taking a job training course or performing community service.</p>
<p>Exemptions extend to pregnant women, full-time students, former foster care youth and primary caregivers of children and the elderly. They also do not apply to the “medically frail,” a broad term that includes people suffering from alcohol and drug addiction along with cancer patients and those with mental illness.</p>
<p>All of those people would lose their health benefits if Bevin ends the expanded Medicaid program altogether.</p>
<p>“I’m afraid this executive order will cause a lot of anxiety for people who are already struggling with too many unknown variables in their lives,” said Emily Beauregard, executive director of Kentucky Voices for Health, a patient advocacy group.</p>
<p>FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Gov. Matt Bevin says he will end Medicaid benefits for more than 400,000 Kentuckians if the courts stop him from requiring many of them to work.</p>
<p>Kentucky was among 32 states that expanded Medicaid under President Barack Obama’s health care law, and many more people signed up than forecast. The program now covers more than a quarter of the state’s population. Federal spending covers almost all the cost of the expanded program. But the state’s share is poised to grow and Bevin, a Republican who took office after the expansion, says Kentucky can’t afford to maintain it without changes.</p>
<p>Bevin’s solution, approved by the Trump administration on Friday, is to impose work requirements for many of these Medicaid recipients. It’s the first time the federal government has allowed a state to make having a job or volunteering for community service a requirement for receiving government-funded health insurance.</p>
<p>Some health advocacy groups question the legality of such requirements. No lawsuits have been filed yet, but Bevin indicated he expects challenges. And in an executive order filed Friday but not made public until Tuesday, he directed his administration to end the state’s Medicaid benefits for the more than 400,000 people in the expansion if the courts strike down any part of his plan.</p>
<p>“The Commonwealth will not be able to afford to continue to operate its Medicaid expansion program as currently designed in the event any one or more of the components of (the new program) are prevented by judicial action from being implemented,” Bevin wrote.</p>
<p>Bevin wants to make the program smaller, saving the state more than $300 million over the next five years. He also predicts that least 95,000 people will lose Medicaid benefits either because they did not comply with the new work requirements, or because they find jobs that pay too much for them to be eligible.</p>
<p>The governor said Friday that he doesn’t know “nor do I really care” what the ultimate cost savings would be, because he believes people will improve their health if they have to do more to earn their benefits. For example, his plan would eliminate Medicaid’s basic vision and dental coverage for the expansion population, but enable people to get those benefits back through a “rewards” program that includes health assessments, smoking cessation programs and other preventive care.</p>
<p>“It has gone well beyond any projections about cost or number of individuals that would go onto the rolls, therefore creating a real fiscal problem which I think Gov. Bevin is trying to address,” Republican Senate President Robert Stivers said.</p>
<p>Joni Jenkins, a Democratic state representative from Louisville, is concerned that these changes could “hurt the very people we need to help.”</p>
<p>“I just think it’s interesting that he feels that he has to start out with threats instead of coming from a place of, ‘let’s work together, let’s see if we can make this work,’” she said.</p>
<p>Bevin’s Medicaid changes take effect in July. They require adults between the ages of 19 and 64 to complete 80 hours per month of “community engagement” to keep their coverage, including working in a job, going to school, taking a job training course or performing community service.</p>
<p>Exemptions extend to pregnant women, full-time students, former foster care youth and primary caregivers of children and the elderly. They also do not apply to the “medically frail,” a broad term that includes people suffering from alcohol and drug addiction along with cancer patients and those with mental illness.</p>
<p>All of those people would lose their health benefits if Bevin ends the expanded Medicaid program altogether.</p>
<p>“I’m afraid this executive order will cause a lot of anxiety for people who are already struggling with too many unknown variables in their lives,” said Emily Beauregard, executive director of Kentucky Voices for Health, a patient advocacy group.</p> | Kentucky governor readies for Medicaid legal challenge | false | https://apnews.com/0f46dfcf4c26450293962ef963f3f370 | 2018-01-16 | 2 |
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<p>SANTA FE — The state of New Mexico would surge its investment in the annual New Mexico Bowl to $1.5 million over the next three years under a bipartisan bill proposed Tuesday in the state Legislature.</p>
<p>That new funding of $500,000 per year would represent a tenfold increase over the $50,000 per year the state paid in 2012 to retain a naming right in the Gildan New Mexico Bowl. Previously, the highest contribution from the state general fund to the New Mexico Bowl was $330,000 for the 2009 bowl.</p>
<p>The new state funding would ensure financial stability for the New Mexico Bowl, while purchasing a significant amount of TV airtime for New Mexico Tourism Department commercials during the game’s national broadcast on ESPN, Rep. Antonio “Moe” Maestas, D-Albuquerque, said.</p>
<p>“To have a bowl of this magnitude touting New Mexico in our largest city, I think, is a win-win,” Maestas said. “… The economic impact is clear to the city of Albuquerque, and the advertising for the entire state bolsters the entire state tourism industry.”</p>
<p>The effort to increase the state funding for the game is co-sponsored by Rep. Nate Gentry, R-Albuquerque.</p>
<p>An estimated 24,610 fans attended the 2012 Gildan New Mexico Bowl to see Arizona beat Nevada 49-48. That attendance fell far below the game’s previous attendance record of 34,111 set during the inaugural game in 2006, when the University of New Mexico lost 20-12 to San Jose State.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Tourism Department Secretary Monique Jacobson, prior to the 2012 game, said her office hadn’t see a significant return on its investment in the game beyond the $50,000 cost of keeping New Mexico in the bowl title.</p>
<p>Maestas on Tuesday called the decrease in state funding for the game “troubling.”</p>
<p>“This year may have been a little off par, but the bowl is on the rise,” Maestas said. “We want to keep it here and, for New Mexico to reap the benefits, maintain the naming rights. It’s proven that the money spent by the tourists, the TV coverage it gets, I think, is a good investment.”</p>
<p>The bowl game also is sponsored by the Albuquerque Convention and Visitors Bureau. The ACVB is expected to contributed about $208,000 to the 2013 game, after which its four-year sponsorship contract expires.</p>
<p>New Mexico Bowl Executive Director Jeff Siembieda did not return a call for comment Tuesday.</p> | Bill seeks $1.5M state investment in N.M. Bowl | false | https://abqjournal.com/238885/bill-seeks-1-5m-state-investment-in-n-m-bowl.html | 2 |
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<p><a href="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/08/29/report-russia-now-sending-warships-to-the-mediterranean/" type="external">Reports say that an unspecified number of Russian ships</a>are making their way to the Mediterranean Sea, to counter US warships already in the area.&#160; Russia is a supporter of Assad and has spoken harshly against any strike against his government.</p>
<p>The Russian government claims that this a long planned rotation of ships, but the initial Interfax report said that Russia was increasing the number of ships in the area and not rotating ships as they assert.&#160; Their presence will add to the pressure Obama already feels as intelligence sources say that it not a slam dunk that Assad ordered the attack, and in fact, intelligence doesn’t even know which side controls which WMDs, and the UK has voted to delay action until after the UN report is completed.</p>
<p>Reuters is reporting that Interfax has told them that the Russians will have a missile cruiser and an anti-submarine ship arriving in the area within days, in anticipation of the change in the situation there.&#160; Interfax says they were quoting an unnamed Russian source.</p>
<p>Let me note that in Bush’s “illegal wars”, he consulted with and got two affirmative votes from congress and another two affirmative votes from the UN security council before acting.&#160; Obama plans to do neither, just as he failed to do with Libya.</p>
<p>(Editor’s note: Obama met with Magic Johnson, had no time to meet with Congress.&#160; More <a href="http://www.examiner.com/article/obama-meets-with-magic-johnson-snubs-congress-on-syria" type="external">here</a>.)</p> | Russia Sending War Ships to the Mediterranean | true | http://conservativefiringline.com/russia-sending-war-ships-mediterranean/ | 2013-08-29 | 0 |
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<p>The department is hailing the March figures as being the lowest residential burglary rate since 2006.</p>
<p>Figures released by police show a decrease from 179 incidents in March 2012 to 119 incidents this year.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, burglaries in January of this year are down by about 11 from 2012 and February’s property crimes increased by about 15 incidents from last year, according to first-quarter statistics released by the department.</p>
<p>The figures include statistics for residential, commercial, automobile and attempted burglaries as well as unlawful entry crimes.</p>
<p>The department credits its ongoing burglary initiative, Operation Full Court Press, as a factor in March’s reduced numbers.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Parts of the program include keeping officers in high-crime areas, prioritizing reports that have the best information, and serving outstanding warrants on people who have a history of property crimes in the city.</p>
<p>“The statistics prove new tactics implemented by the Santa Fe Police Department are working, keeping residents safe and targeting one of the most disturbing and fastest growing crime trends in our area,” Police Chief Ray Rael states in a news release.</p>
<p>The Santa Fe metro area is No. 2 in the country in terms of burglaries per 100,000 residents, according to FBI crime statistics for 2011. This region was first in the nation in 2010, but in the following year it fell behind Pine Bluff, Ark.</p>
<p>The news release states that officers in the crime prevention unit will evaluate neighborhoods or individual homes, looking for safety hazards or vulnerabilities that can be targeted by criminals. Interested people should call 505-428-3710 to arrange such an evaluation.</p> | SF burglaries for March at lowest rate since 2006 | false | https://abqjournal.com/186571/sf-burglaries-for-march-at-lowest-rate-since-2006.html | 2013-04-09 | 2 |
<p />
<p>A quick look at the week that was in the world of&#160; <a href="" type="internal">political dark money</a>…</p>
<p />
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>“The irony is that the more explicitly the ad pushes one particular candidate, the less disclosure is required.” — <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/shining-light-karl-roves-dark-money-group/story?id=16899709&amp;singlePage=true#.UBrc_EzLwTE" type="external">Paul Ryan</a>&#160;(no relation to the congressman) of&#160;the Campaign Legal Center, which helped successfully argue <a href="http://www.fec.gov/law/litigation/van_hollen.shtml" type="external">Van Hollen v. FEC</a>. The ruling requires 501(c)(4) groups operating as “social welfare”&#160;organizations to disclose the names of donors who contribute money for so-called issue ads. Those ads air within 60 days of a general election and mention candidates without explicitly telling viewers how they should vote. In response, some dark-money groups <a href="" type="internal">plan to push the limits</a> of their tax-exempt status even further and dodge Van Hollen with ads urging viewers to vote for or against candidates.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>The dark-money group Secure America Now has released an ad that hammers President Obama’s foreign policy, juxtaposing footage of 9/11 and other terrorist attacks with a woman firing off a litany of claims, <a href="http://www.iwatchnews.org/2012/08/01/10547/daily-disclosure-misleading-ad-seeks-scare-voters-away-obama" type="external">which the Center for Public Integrity fact-checked</a>. Among other things, she says Obama has “all but abandoned Israel,” implies that Iran has a nuclear weapon, and suggests that torture led to the discovery of Osama bin Laden. Watch:</p>
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<p />
<p>&#160;&#160;</p>
<p>$5.8 billion: <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2012/08/2012-election-will-be-costliest-yet.html" type="external">The Center for Responsive Politics’ estimate</a> of how much the 2012 elections will cost, a 7 percent jump from 2008. For perspective, that’s how much JP Morgan has said it lost <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_21070728/bad-trade-could-cost-jp-morgan-almost-6" type="external">in its much-publicized deal gone bad</a>, and it’s also more than double <a href="http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2012/02/updated-presidents-fy13-26-billion-budget-request-national-park-service-carries-1-million-cut9460" type="external">the entire budget for the National Park Service</a>. The Center estimates that the presidential race alone will cost $2.5 billion, including “wild card” outside spending groups. (The Obama campaign’s fundraising is <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/31/barack-obama-fundraising-2012_n_1721176.html" type="external">just shy of the record pace he set in 2008</a>.) In addition to the ramped-up spending by outside groups, congressional candidates and political parties are both expected to outdo their 2008 spending.</p>
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<p>With the help of super-PACs and dark-money groups, tea party favorite— <a href="" type="internal">and conspiracy theorist</a>—Ted Cruz narrowed a 3-to-1 fundraising deficit and defeated Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst <a href="http://www.iwatchnews.org/2012/07/31/10488/super-pacs-help-tea-party-candidate-win-senate-runoff-texas" type="external">in a Senate primary runoff election</a> Tuesday in Texas. Dewhurst’s campaign raised $33 million ($25 million of which came from the candidate, a wealthy energy investor) to Cruz’s $10.2 million. But outside groups supporting Cruz outspent those backing Dewhurst by $8 million to $6.5 million. The anti-tax super-PAC Club for Growth Action spent $5.5 million helping Cruz, the most it’s invested in any race so far this year. Here’s one of the group’s spots:</p>
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<p />
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>• <a href="" type="internal">IRS: Toothless. FEC: “Thoroughly Broken”</a>: What little campaign money regulation remains isn’t enforced any more. • <a href="" type="internal">Karl Rove’s Catch-22</a>: Crossroads GPS and other nonprofits face new pressure to reveal who bankrolls their ads. • <a href="" type="internal">Political Ad Data Comes Online—But It’s Not Searchable</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>• Americans for Prosperity, a dark-money group backed by the Koch brothers, says it’s modeling its voter-turnout drive after George Soros’. <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-02/kochs-take-tip-from-soros-investing-in-voter-registration.html" type="external">Bloomberg</a> • Outside groups are prohibited from coordinating with campaigns, but that didn’t stop Karl Rove from holding an off-the-record fundraising session with a top Romney strategist. <a href="http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/02/first-on-cnn-rove-gillespie-hosting-joint-political-briefing-in-aspen/" type="external">CNN</a> • How many Americans think a super-PAC is a “popular video game for smartphones”? <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/why-attacking-super-pacs-wont-work/2012/08/01/gJQAmKmYQX_blog.html" type="external">Washington Post</a></p> | This Week in Dark Money | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2012/08/rove-bin-laden-cruz/ | 2012-08-03 | 4 |
<p>&lt;a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/kcolwell/3326493725/in/photolist-m4CRHm-8TGZ4z-8TGYWV-3LCiom-iWkjLe-6xqpjH-ezvde4-6M5RcK-f7VHov-dn3oTb-eGAc2h-fEEpNM-8BDsP-fAyfha-64X9G6-htLSiS-84ZwtS-6Hkcud-btA62Q-2VgqH-aGrQdB-eNgrTW-5HmJ79-7oq7eC-e5XQA6-fnrfJS-k8ZF8V-dn3mde-jEMyLA-cLva5C-ik9St4-7K8fR8-xKAHB-6RtwxR-ecWx5d-711315-dsEYgg-f69gsP-4N2QDz-eJ3YTo-9Uf6aW-2pjFLq-n7utfV-a9M22b-n1hrTg-i1Pxf-a8tVTq-e2kt5j-nmnYkM-fznGaZ"&gt;Ken Colwell&lt;/a&gt;/Flickr</p>
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<p>Late last month, the Federal Communications Commission announced that it would propose new rules allowing companies like Netflix or Google to pay internet service providers (ISPs) like Verizon or Comcast for faster data lanes to deliver video and other content to their customers. In other words, the FCC was proposing to replace net neutrality—the egalitarian internet that we all know—with a pay-to-play platform designed to favor the biggest and richest players.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://time.com/74703/net-neutrality-fcc-rules-plan-angers-advocates/" type="external">backlash online</a> was so huge, swift, and predictable that one might wonder what the hell the FCC bureaucrats were thinking. Could a handful of powerful companies really matter more to the commission than pretty much everybody else who uses the internet? The charts below show how a few wealthy special interests wield huge sway within the FCC, particularly with regard to the net neutrality debate. But first, a quick refresher on what net neutrality means:</p>
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<p />
<p>Proponents of net neutrality, also known as the open internet, fear that allowing a fast lane on the web would hurt startups, nonprofits, activists, and anyone else who couldn’t afford to pay the toll. Bigger tech companies such as Google also tend to favor net neutrality, though sometimes more for the sake of <a href="http://mashable.com/2010/08/05/google-verizon-net-neutrality-2/" type="external">public relations</a> <a href="http://www.wired.com/2013/07/google-neutrality/" type="external">than principle</a>. But, you might ask, since the internet is already quite fast today compared with a few years ago, is a few seconds’ difference in the time needed to load a web page really all that important? Actually, yes, <a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/1825005/how-one-second-could-cost-amazon-16-billion-sales" type="external">it is</a>. Here’s why:</p>
<p />
<p>This might be one reason Barack Obama visited the Googleplex during his first presidential campaign and painted himself as one of net neutrality’s staunchest defenders.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Obama’s first pick to lead the FCC, Julius Genachowski, was initially a strong proponent of net neutrality. Genachowski made a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aiRoZ63UtE" type="external">video</a> explaining why he wanted to reclassify ISPs as “telecommunications services,” a legally bulletproof way of preserving an open internet that had long been favored by consumer groups. But he ultimately <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/04/24/fcc_s_new_net_neutrality_proposal_is_even_worse_than_you_think.html" type="external">backed off</a> in the face of an onslaught of lobbying by ISPs. By then their main trade group, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA), was spending about 95 times more money lobbying the FCC than the Internet Association, which represents the tech companies that favor net neutrality.</p>
<p>Last May, two months after Genachowski stepped down, Obama replaced him with Tom Wheeler, a veteran telecommunications lobbyist who’d served as president of the NCTA before taking the helm of the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CITA), the lobbying arm of the wireless industry. Obama called him “the Bo Jackson of telecom.” The New Yorker‘s John Cassidy <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2013/05/tom--wheeler-federal-communications-commission.html" type="external">suggested</a> that a more apt sports metaphor might have been “to compare him to one of the lawyers who helped finagle a lucrative anti-trust exemption for professional football and baseball.”</p>
<p />
<p>Did Obama like that Wheeler represented two of the most powerful groups that oppose net neutrality, or could he have picked him for some other reason? See below.</p>
<p>It’s too early to say whether Wheeler’s new net neutrality rules will be the nail in the coffin for an open internet. The FCC won’t officially reveal them until May 15 ( <a href="http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/washington/pai-nab-delay-net-neutrality-vote/131007" type="external">or later</a>), and even then, a lot will depend on the FCC’s discretion. Wheeler has <a href="http://www.fcc.gov/blog/setting-record-straight-fcc-s-open-internet-rules" type="external">said</a> that the commission won’t allow ISPs to “act in a commercially unreasonable manner to harm the internet,” but what, exactly, does that mean? Is it commercially unreasonable to price the little guys out of faster internet service, or to effectively force people to pay more to watch House of Cards? Who knows? The only certainty is that Wheeler’s former employers, the ISPs and wireless carriers, will flood the zone with lobbyists.</p>
<p>With a few notable exceptions, you can assume that tech companies, consumer groups, and content producers favor net neutrality, while ISPs oppose it. Which is to say, if the lobbyists have their way, the future clearly lies in net discrimination.</p>
<p /> | Why the FCC Is Ditching Net Neutrality | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2014/05/charts-why-fcc-ditching-net-neutrality/ | 2014-05-09 | 4 |
<p>HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Friday afternoon's drawing of the Pennsylvania Lottery's "Treasure Hunt" game were:</p>
<p>03-04-14-19-27</p>
<p>(three, four, fourteen, nineteen, twenty-seven)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $10,000</p>
<p>HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Friday afternoon's drawing of the Pennsylvania Lottery's "Treasure Hunt" game were:</p>
<p>03-04-14-19-27</p>
<p>(three, four, fourteen, nineteen, twenty-seven)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $10,000</p> | Winning numbers drawn in 'Treasure Hunt' game | false | https://apnews.com/amp/8c29e2c8a298481f874284c7eacb28ae | 2018-01-05 | 2 |
<p>Aug. 31 (UPI) — As the United States prepares to implement a <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/North_Korea/" type="external">North Korea</a> travel ban on Sept. 1, some humanitarian organizations are concerned the policy could jeopardize ongoing projects.</p>
<p>Americans are reportedly leaving Pyongyang ahead of the ban, but others are more concerned the government restrictions could disrupt programs that include deliveries of medication to North Korea, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/31/world/asia/us-north-korea-travel-ban.html" type="external">The New York Times reported</a> Thursday.</p>
<p>Kim Taehoon, founder of a U.S.-based humanitarian group that has been carrying out an <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/HIV/" type="external">HIV</a>-diagnosis and treatment program in North Korea for several years, told The Times the ban poses potential problems for aid workers.</p>
<p>“I didn’t want any of the staff or any of the colleagues to potentially face issues when they were getting out,” Kim said. “Because of the uncertainty of the travel ban, we don’t know if we will be able to do on-the-ground work anymore.”</p>
<p>Humanitarian workers are still eligible to apply for a special validation visa, issued by the U.S. State Department, but only “in extremely limited circumstances.”</p>
<p>Aid workers, officials and journalists must also travel for “the national interest,” according to new U.S. guidelines.</p>
<p>Announcement of the ban came in July, following the death of U.S. college student Otto Warmbier.</p>
<p>Warmbier was released in June in a coma, and his father, Fred Warmbier, claimed his son may have been tortured while in detention.</p>
<p>About 1,000 Americans traveled to North Korea annually before the incident.</p>
<p>North Korea has called the ban “childish” and has said it would keep doors “wide open to any U.S. citizen who would like to visit our country out of good will.”</p> | North Korea travel ban looms for Americans | false | https://newsline.com/north-korea-travel-ban-looms-for-americans/ | 2017-08-31 | 1 |
<p />
<p>In a bold attempt to reshape the wireless market, AT&amp;T (NYSE:T) unveiled a mega deal over the weekend to acquire rival T-Mobile USA for $39 billion -- marking the largest transaction of the year.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>If the acquisition manages to receive the green light from regulators who are likely to have antitrust concerns, it would create an industry leader with almost 130 million customers -- dwarfing No. 2 Verizon Wireless’s 94.1 million.</p>
<p>AT&amp;T agreed to pay Deutsche Telekom $25 billion in cash and the rest in stock, giving the German company an 8% stake in AT&amp;T and a representative on its board.</p>
<p>Due to serious regulatory concerns, the transaction could prove costly for AT&amp;T, which agreed to pay $3 billion and transfer lucrative spectrum assets to T-Mobile USA if the deal does not receive approval.</p>
<p>“This transaction delivers significant customer, shareowner and public benefits that are available at this level only from the combination of these two companies with complementary network technologies, spectrum positions and operations,” AT&amp;T CEO Randall Stephenson said in a statement.</p>
<p>Shareholders largely cheered the announcement, bidding AT&amp;T’s stock jumping 5.87% to $29.58 ahead of Monday’s opening bell. Deutsche Telekom’s stock leaped more than 12% in Frankfurt trading.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>The companies see the acquisition closing within 12 months and creating more than $40 billion in cost savings. The deal is likely to result in thousands of job cuts.</p>
<p>“After evaluating strategic options for T-Mobile USA, I am confident that AT&amp;T is the best partner for our customers, shareholders and the mobile broadband ecosystem,” Deutsche Telekom CEO Rene Obermann said.</p>
<p>Analysts were skeptical the deal will receive approval from the Federal Communications Commission -- which would need to sign off on the transfer of T-Mobile's spectrum licenses to AT&amp;T -- and the Justice Department, which is expected to examine possible antitrust matters.</p>
<p>However, AT&amp;T said the deal will help extend high-speed, wireless service in rural areas and said the U.S. already has one of the most competitive wireless markets, with 18 of the top 20 U.S. local markets having five or more providers to choose from.</p>
<p>The AT&amp;T/T-Mobile deal has left Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S) -- the industry’s No. 3 player -- scrambling. Its stock tumbled 12.87% to $4.40 ahead of Monday’s open.</p>
<p>Sprint, which had reportedly been in talks with T-Mobile about a possible deal, said the deal would result in a “wireless industry dominated overwhelmingly by two vertically-integrated companies that control almost 80% of the U.S. wireless post-paid market.”</p> | AT&T Unveils Mega Deal to Acquire Rival T-Mobile | true | http://foxbusiness.com/2011/03/20/3-bln-t-mobile-usa-buy-att-creates-industry-leader.html | 2016-03-04 | 0 |
<p>Katy Grimes: Under the cover of California’s global warming act, legislators want to create another quasi-state agency to assist with implementing <a href="http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/California's_AB_32,_the_%22Global_Warming_Solutions_Act_of_2006%22" type="external">AB 32</a>, but this time, imposing the restrictions on the agriculture industry.</p>
<p>At a time when California should be cutting government, some legislators are increasing the long arm of regulations and government oversight.</p>
<p><a href="http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/sen/sb_0201-0250/sb_237_bill_20110329_amended_sen_v98.pdf" type="external">SB 237</a>, authored by Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, plans for the creation of the California Agricultural Climate Benefits Advisory Committee along with the funds necessary to pay for it.</p>
<p>The bill states “California agriculture is uniquely vulnerable to global warming.” And then the bill makes the statement, “the industry will have to adapt to changing weather&#160;patterns and conditions.”</p>
<p>Wolk’s bill already has a number of amendments and changes to it, but still is rather suspicious in its intent. The language used throughout the bill makes it evident that growing government, and not food crops, is the objective.</p>
<p>Where the bill would have allowed proceeds from the sale of carbon credits to fund the new advisory committee, it now says the bill “will establish uses of funds allocated to the agricultural sector from market-based compliance mechanisms…” And, an unspecified agency will administer the funds.</p>
<p>The bill further states:&#160;“The following are eligible uses of moneys allocated&#160;to the agricultural sector from revenue generated from&#160;market-based compliance mechanisms for the reduction of&#160;emissions of greenhouse gases pursuant to this division:&#160;(1) Grants for any of the following:</p>
<p>(A) Research and demonstration projects that reduce greenhouse&#160;gas emissions, sequester atmospheric carbon through, or assist the&#160;agricultural sector to adapt to global warming through the use of&#160;agricultural technologies, practices, or farming systems, or adapt&#160;to global warming, and that also provide environmental cobenefits.&#160;Eligible recipients may include California producers, any California&#160;institutions of higher education, state or local agencies, and&#160;nonprofit organizations. Priority shall be given to proposals that&#160;include multiple coapplicants and that include at least one&#160;agricultural producer in the development and implementation of&#160;the project.”</p>
<p>The bill is being heard today in the Senate Environmental Quality committee at 1:30.</p>
<p>APR. 4, 2011</p> | Growing Government, Not Crops | false | https://calwatchdog.com/2011/04/04/growing-government-not-crops/ | 2018-04-20 | 3 |
<p>If looking for a spot to watch the eclipse makes you hungry, then a number of chains have special deals or promotions for the extremely rare total solar eclipse that will occur on August 21, 2017.</p>
<p>Some of these offers last longer than the actual event, while others will be nearly as brief as the extremely rare solar eclipse. And though you're more likely to make memories watching the day turn to night than you are to remember that short-term deal on a doughnut you got, there are some decent values being offered.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Don't miss the eclipse in search of cheap meal or snack, but go ahead and save some money before or after the big events. Remember though, while it's perfectly fine to gaze upon the wonder of your discount treat, don't look at the actual eclipse unless you have the proper eye wear.</p>
<p>Dairy queen has a somewhat uninspired offer of buy-one, get-one for $0.99 Blizzards beginning on the day of the eclipse running through September 3. The ice cream chain also has a limited-edition version of the treat, the Triple Truffle Blizzard with fudge, peanut butter, and caramel truffles blended with vanilla soft serve offered during the same period.</p>
<p>Dunkin' Donuts (NASDAQ: DNKN) doesn't have an eclipse deal, but it is running eclipse trivia on its <a href="https://twitter.com/DunkinCarolinas/status/898605062204702724" type="external">Twitter feed Opens a New Window.</a>. Winners get a gift card. When it comes to the sun-blocking event <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/08/07/why-a-name-change-wont-help-dunkin-donuts.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=2c5fca3a-85ab-11e7-b162-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Dunkin' Opens a New Window.</a> has been eclipsed by rival Krispy Kreme. The doughnut chain will be covering its signature glazed doughnut with chocolate on eclipse day.</p>
<p>"The solar eclipse is a rare occasion providing a total sensory experience for viewers across the continental U.S. Chocolate will have the same effect as we introduce a first-time chocolate glazing of our iconic Original Glazed Doughnut," said Chief Marketing Officer Jackie Woodward in a press release.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>In addition to those offers, Pilot Flying J is offering a free Milky Way or a pack of Eclipse gum with the purchase of any non-alcoholic beverage through its mobile app from eclipse day through August 25.</p>
<p>7-Eleven does not have an eclipse deal, but it does sell glasses that let people safely look at the phenomenon, though they are sold out in many locations. It also recommends that consumers should "purchase the exclusive shiny, selfie-inducing Chrome Dome Slurpee cup and lid," according to a press release. "The metallic dome top is perfect for taking reflective photos to be shared on social media.</p>
<p>Denny's (NASDAQ: DENN) has been running one of the more amusing eclipse promotions advertising "mooncakes." In the ad the company admits that "mooncakes" are really just its regular pancakes, but points out that they do look a lot like moons. On eclipse day, the chain will be offering $4 all-you-can-eat "mooncakes."</p>
<p>Shoney's will offer what it calls an Eclipse Survival kit with any purchase of an entree, sandwich, or buffet. The kits includes a pair of eclipse viewing glasses and a chocolate MoonPie.</p>
<p>Warby Parker, the eyeglasses chain, will be handing out eclipse glasses at all of its locations across the country through eclipse day. If your local store has run out, or you don't live near one of the chain's locations, the company also has <a href="https://www.warbyparker.com/solar-eclipse" type="external">template Opens a New Window.</a> for making a pinhole projector on its website.</p>
<p>In addition to the deals above, a number of chains have local deals in areas that fall along the "path of totality" where the eclipse can be viewed fully. And, of course, if you just want to sit inside with a cold beverage, Frigidaire will hold its first-ever Blackout Sale, featuring products from the company's new Black Stainless Steel collection. Running through August 23, the sale will offer items in the collection at least 30% off.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Denny'sWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*</p>
<p>David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the <a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-static%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=c4fb46d3-e60d-4c67-9111-d470f5a70f26&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=2c5fca3a-85ab-11e7-b162-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and Denny's wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.</p>
<p><a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-static%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=c4fb46d3-e60d-4c67-9111-d470f5a70f26&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=2c5fca3a-85ab-11e7-b162-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Click here Opens a New Window.</a> to learn about these picks!</p>
<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of August 1, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/Dankline/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=2c5fca3a-85ab-11e7-b162-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Daniel Kline Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Dunkin' Brands Group. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=2c5fca3a-85ab-11e7-b162-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Which Chains Have Eclipse Deals and Promotions? | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/08/20/which-chains-have-eclipse-deals-and-promotions.html | 2017-08-20 | 0 |
<p />
<p />
<p><a href="#time" type="external">Timeline</a> | <a href="#else" type="external">Elsewhere</a></p>
<p>| <a href="#short" type="external">In Short</a></p>
<p><a href="#askcat" type="external">Ask Catalyst</a> | <a href="#math" type="external">Math Class</a></p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>TIMELINE <a type="external" href="" /></p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Sept. 10: Retention</p>
<p>The number of kids who will have to repeat a grade drops, but the percentage</p>
<p>rises. About 7,900 students were retained after they completed mandatory summer</p>
<p>school, down from about 10,800 last year. But that figure is 32 percent of summer</p>
<p>school students, up from 30 percent last year. Students with substandard math</p>
<p>performance were not required to attend summer school this year, and no student</p>
<p>could be retained twice in the same grade grouping, even if their test scores</p>
<p>remained low.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Sept. 14: E-rate ruckus</p>
<p>Mayor Richard M. Daley defends Schools CEO Arne Duncan’s efforts to implement</p>
<p>the federal E-rate program in the wake of an August federal probe. Government</p>
<p>records revealed a program fraught with odd billing practices, dubious no-bid</p>
<p>contracts and general disorder, according to an investigation by the Chicago</p>
<p>Tribune. The district was heavily criticized for allowing about $8 million in</p>
<p>equipment to sit unused in storage. In October, a House subcommittee will hear</p>
<p>testimony on the E-rate from CPS officials.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Sept. 23: Probation</p>
<p>A third of schools, 212, are placed on academic probation because too few students</p>
<p>met state standards or national norms on standardized tests. To avoid probation,</p>
<p>40 percent of students at elementary schools and 30 percent of students at high</p>
<p>schools had to meet the standards or norms. Last year, the thresholds were 25</p>
<p>percent and 15 percent respectively. Schools on probation must spend their discretionary</p>
<p>funds on designated programs, such as full-day kindergarten or reading specialists.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p><a href="#top" type="external">(Back to top)</a></p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>ELSEWHERE <a type="external" href="" /></p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Minnesota: Performance pay</p>
<p>Under a federal grant, teachers in the Minneapolis and Waseca school districts</p>
<p>may qualify for bonuses based on peer reviews and improved student achievement,</p>
<p>according to the Sept. 14 St. Paul Pioneer Press. Teachers will get bonuses</p>
<p>of $500 to $3,500 based on test score gains and peer evaluations, and can qualify</p>
<p>to become master teachers and coaches for additional bonuses of up to $8,000.</p>
<p>Three Minneapolis schools and all four schools in Waseca will participate. Each</p>
<p>district will receive $2.6 million. Minnesota is one of eight states in the</p>
<p>federal program.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>North Carolina: Best teachers</p>
<p>State officials are planning for school districts to begin pairing their best</p>
<p>teachers with the lowest-achieving students, according to the Sept. 9 Post and</p>
<p>Courier. The state Supreme Court ruled in July that school districts need to</p>
<p>do a better job of educating needy children. Local school superintendents say</p>
<p>experienced teachers are likely to resist reassignment without incentives. One</p>
<p>idea up for debate would offer teachers $16,000 in incentive pay over seven</p>
<p>years.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Washington D.C.: Unused vouchers</p>
<p>More than one in five students who qualified for the nation’s first federally</p>
<p>funded voucher program have not taken advantage of the chance to attend private</p>
<p>schools in the city, according to the Sept. 1 Washington Post. Parents cited</p>
<p>a variety of reasons for their decision, including transportation challenges</p>
<p>and a preference for programs in public or charter schools. Of the 1,359 students</p>
<p>who were awarded vouchers, 1,069 had been placed or were being matched to private</p>
<p>schools.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p><a href="#top" type="external">(Back to top)</a></p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>IN SHORT <a type="external" href="" /></p>
<p />
<p />
<p>“75 schools rise to challenge, scale new probation bar”</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Headline on a Sept. 23 press release from CPS announcing that</p>
<p>212 schools, instead of the expected 289, have been placed on probation. Eighty-two</p>
<p>schools were on probation last year.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p><a href="#top" type="external">(Back to top)</a></p>
<p />
<p />
<p>ASK CATALYST <a type="external" href="" /></p>
<p />
<p />
<p>I have two siblings who were accepted last year into the magnet</p>
<p>cluster program at Mayer Elementary in Lincoln Park. We cannot drive them to</p>
<p>school from Pilsen. Why doesn’t CPS provide more busing to promote choice?</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Nancy Maldonado, older sister</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>CPS provides busing to some special elementary programs—including regional</p>
<p>gifted centers, academic centers, magnet schools and classical schools—for</p>
<p>students who live more than 1.5 miles away or within designated boundaries.</p>
<p>But magnet cluster programs, like Mayer’s, do not offer busing and are</p>
<p>meant to provide educational options primarily for students in the community.</p>
<p>You might choose a magnet cluster program in your neighborhood, but you still</p>
<p>are responsible for your siblings’ transportation. CPS has no plans to increase</p>
<p>busing because of the cost, says a district spokesman.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>E-mail your question to <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external" /></p>
<p>or send it to Ask Catalyst, 332 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 500, Chicago,</p>
<p>IL 60604.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p><a href="#top" type="external">(Back to top)</a></p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>MATH CLASS <a type="external" href="" /></p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Since 1995, Chicago Public Schools has raised</p>
<p>property taxes by 31.2%, far more than other local taxing bodies,</p>
<p>according to a report by the Civic Federation, a non-partisan research group</p>
<p>that analyzes the CPS budget each year. Between 1995 and 2004,</p>
<p>the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District raised taxes by 19.5%;</p>
<p>the Chicago Park District by 10.8%; the City of Chicago by</p>
<p>9.7%, and Cook County by 6.6%. The Civic Federation</p>
<p>also noted that $200 million, or 97%, of the</p>
<p>district’s $250 million deficit was due to salary and</p>
<p>benefit increases included in the 2003 teachers’ union</p>
<p>contract.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p><a href="#top" type="external">(Back to top)</a></p>
<p />
<p /> | Notebook | false | http://chicagoreporter.com/notebook-2/ | 2005-09-14 | 3 |
<p />
<p>#BlackTwitter has always been that special place in the Twitterverse where African Americans have congregated to discuss issues germane to the black experience, but recent events in Ferguson, Mo., have solidified it as something more: a vital 24-hour news source.</p>
<p>After unarmed 18-year-olf Michael Brown was shot dead by Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson on Aug. 9, national media began to parachute in to the St. Louis suburb. Right behind them (or some would argue ahead of them), black bloggers and activists were online, <a href="//www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3b9243ce-2984-11e4-8b81-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3BDu4AT89" type="external">critiquing the stories and tweets</a> of reporters on the ground for cultural accuracy. In any story involving a black young person killed by a white one, the subject of race tends to lead the narrative.</p>
<p>Many critics believed from the onset that media coverage of the unrest--esepcially the looting that followed--unfairly described the residents' grievances. Nikole Hannah-Jones at ESSENCE <a href="//www.essence.com/2014/08/12/how-media-missed-mark-coverage-michael-brown%E2%80%99s-killing/" type="external">wrote</a> that initial coverage of the rioting overshawdowed the fact that a teenager's life was taken.</p>
<p>"As a journalist, I get it," she wrote. "The images of the rioting were gripping. But coverage of the riots should not overshadow the cause of the riots. The real story has taken a backseat to the sensational. A young Black man lost his life in a confrontation with police under very controversial circumstances. Ferguson is policed by a <a href="//www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/12/us-usa-missouri-shooting-idUSKBN0GA0Q420140812" type="external">nearly all-White police force</a>. This context has been missing in too many of these stories. And in the eyes of many people commenting on social media, this type of reporting has rendered the destruction of property more important than the destruction of Black life."</p>
<p>To counter that narrative, one Twitter user and activist who goes by the handle "@Awkward_Duck" <a href="https://twitter.com/Awkward_Duck/status/500529115888230401" type="external">tweeted a photo</a> of young men (pictured above) in Ferguson protecting a store from looters with the caption, "What the news won't show you is protestors standing in front of stores, hands up, blocking looters from getting in. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ferguson?src=hash" type="external">#ferguson</a>."</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/Awkward_Duck/status/500528327124201472" type="external" /> <a href="https://twitter.com/Awkward_Duck/status/500529115888230401#" type="external" /></p>
<p>After several media outlets used photos from Brown's Facebook page showing him posed in a less than diginified matter, African Americans on Twitter started the hashtag " <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23IfTheyGunnedMeDown&amp;src=tyah" type="external">#IfTheyGunnedMeDown</a>." Users combined photos of themselves in one image--one photo of themselves dressed in college graduation wear, for example, and the other of themselves flashing what could be percieved as gang signs or some other pose that could be percieved as negative. Some of the captions read,"#IfTheyGunnedMeDown which pic would they use?" or, pictured below, "#IfTheyGunnedMeDown they would probably use the pic on the left before I changed and grew up #flashbackfriday."</p>
<p>One of the tweets was shared as many as 22,000 times. Other were retweeted thousands of times as well.</p>
<p />
<p>The story behind the hastag would eventually make it on the <a href="//www.nytimes.com/2014/08/13/us/if-they-gunned-me-down-protest-on-twitter.html" type="external">front cover of the New York Times</a>.Kimberly C. Ellis, Ph.D, American and Africana Studies Scholar and Public Intellectual who is completing a book titled " <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa0r9AXuu-s" type="external">The Bombastic Brilliance of Black Twitter</a>," told AlterNet that the hastag played a very influential role in how the media covered Ferguson after it began trending.</p>
<p>"That set the precursor for the media and they had to think about how they were going to present Mike Brown," Ellis said, who goes by the handle " <a href="https://twitter.com/drgoddess" type="external">@drgoddess</a>" on Twitter. "I honestly believe that #IfTheyGunnedMeDown prevented mainstream media from doing their usual lazy presentation on black youth in particular and black people in general."</p>
<p>To be sure, there are many reporters on the ground who are using their large platforms to provide nuanced coverage of Ferguson. Twitter-savvy reporters like <a href="https://twitter.com/WesleyLowery" type="external">Wesley Lowery</a>, of the Washington Post, <a href="https://twitter.com/blackink12" type="external">Joel D. Anderson</a>, of BuzzFeed, <a href="https://twitter.com/Yamiche" type="external">Yamiche Alcindor,</a> of USA TODAY, <a href="https://twitter.com/ryanjreilly" type="external">Ryan J. Reilly</a>, of the Huffington Post, are some of them.</p>
<p>But independent bloggers on Twitter have begun blogging from Ferguson after their loyal audiences began raising funds to finance their living expenses.</p>
<p>Elon James White, CEO of " <a href="//thisweekinblackness.com/" type="external">This Week In Blackness</a>" with a following of <a href="https://twitter.com/elonjames" type="external">more than 35,000 followers</a> on Twitter, told AlterNet that he began reporting from Ferguson after his audience raised money for him and his team in less than 24 hours. During his first day in Ferguson, he said noticed how police were aggressively engaging peaceful protesters and that he documented much of it.</p>
<p>"I spoke with people directly to find out what was happening and it wasn't just about this incident," he said. "There is a history of issues and this was not being reported in the media at the time. But it was because I was able to come down and talk to people directly and find out exactly what was happening that I got to witness what was going on."</p>
<p>African-American blogger, Zellie Thomas, who blogs from <a href="//black-culture.com/#sthash.U5lRq8l0.dpbs" type="external">Black Culture</a>, told AlterNet that <a href="https://twitter.com/zellieimani" type="external">his Twitter followers</a> also financed his travel to Ferguson after being unsatisfied with mainsteam coverage. "I think that a lot of people trust our news source more than the media," Thomas said. "Most of us are people of color and we already have good reputations online, so people trust our facts."</p>
<p>A lack of diversity impacts how media cover stories. Recent data reveal troubling numbers that show the lack of people of color in America's newsrooms. <a href="//www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/08/01/as-news-business-takes-a-hit-the-number-of-black-journalists-declines/" type="external">The Pew Research Center reports</a> that "The number of black journalists working at U.S. daily newspapers has dropped 40% since 1997" and that&#160; "just 10% of the local TV news workforce was black in 2013, the most recent available data. That’s a decline from 2009, when the rate peaked at 12%."</p>
<p>One area where African Americans are the majority is in their use of Twitter--especially younger users. Forty percent of African Americans between the ages of 18-29 use Twitter, as conpared to just 28 percent of whites in the same age range, <a href="//www.pewinternet.org/2014/01/06/african-americans-and-technology-use/" type="external">accordiing to the Pew Reseach Internet Project</a>. African Americans are also just as likely to own a cellphone; 96 percent own one, with 56 percent of that number using a smartphone.</p>
<p>As far as when #BlackTwitter first appeared, no one is exactly sure and no one person has been credited for coining the phrase to describe the set of communities, with or without the hashtag. The name grew on people organically and they began vacillating between #NegroTwitter and #BlackTwitter around 2009-2010, Ellis said. She, for example, used, "The Twittuh," to describe the community of African American users active on the platform.</p>
<p>"There was no particular need for users to label the community, as blacks who used Twitter regularly already interacted with one another and did not need a hashtag to centralize their activity," she said. "But #BlackTwitter organically became popular and partly in response to mainstream media, the name took on a life of its own."</p>
<p>Sherri Williams, an educator at Syracuse University and former journalist, told AlterNet that social media and mobile technolgy puts storytelling power in the hands of everyday people, empowering them to add cultural nuance to stories about their communities that many newsrooms aren't always able to accomplish because of their dearth of diversity. While Williams believes diversity across the board is needed in newsrooms--economic, sexual orientation, racial etc--, she says the Michael Brown story is an especially vital time to have people of color on the ground to cover what is happening in Ferguson.</p>
<p>"In a case like this, it's really important for mainstream newsrooms to have people of color on staff because there is a lived experience and a knowledge that they have, insider information and personal experiences with law enformement that others outside of the community don't have," she said. "That information is helpful with understanding the community that they are reporting on. If you have someone who grew up in an area and having&#160; a lifestyle of privilege where they've only had friendly encounters with law enforcement, this kind of outrage that the community is experiencing would be totally foreign to them."</p>
<p>But Ellis says that the Afican-Amercian community that comprises #BlackTwitter are filling in the gap and doing a very good job of serving as its own newsroom.</p>
<p>"Chuck D would say, 'We're the Black CNN.' Well, #BlackTwitter is the new CNN," she said. "In fact, we're better than them."</p>
<p>Terrell Jermaine Starr is a senior editor at AlterNet. Follow him on Twitter&#160; <a href="https://twitter.com/Russian_Starr" type="external">@Russian_Starr</a>.</p> | #BlackTwitter, The New CNN | true | http://alternet.org/civil-liberties/blacktwitter-new-cnn | 2014-08-22 | 4 |
<p>Aug. 7 (UPI) — <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Vince_Wilfork/" type="external">Vince Wilfork</a> announced his retirement the same way he did everything during his 13-year career: in large scale. The defensive tackle released a video Monday.</p>
<p>Wilfork, 35, tweeted the video at noon Monday in coordination with his sponsorship with Kingsford.</p>
<p>“Well y’all – it’s been a great run, but the time has come,” Wilfork tweeted.</p>
<p>“No more cleats. I’m moving on to smoke meats fellas. Peace out. I’m outta here. Later.”</p>
<p>“Thought it was over, huh? I’ll be back. But not on that field. Peace out.”</p>
<p>Wilfork was the No. 21 overall pick in the 2004 NFL Draft. He played his first 11 seasons for the <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/New_England_Patriots/" type="external">New England Patriots</a> before joining the <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Houston-Texans/" type="external">Houston Texans</a> in 2015.</p>
<p>Wilfork was a five-time Pro Bowl selection and an All-Pro in 2012. He also won two Super Bowls with the Patriots.</p>
<p>In June, <a href="https://www.upi.com/Bill-Belichick-used-food-to-motivate-DT-Vince-Wilfork/8071496505211/" type="external">Wilfork told Barstool Sports</a> that Patriots coach <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Bill_Belichick/" type="external">Bill Belichick</a> used to motivate him with food. Wilfork was recently part of a petition with Kingsford to try to make ribs the national food of America.</p>
<p>Wilfork is listed at 6-foot-2, 325 pounds.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://twitter.com/wilfork75/status/894604103455657984" type="external">56-second video also</a> served as an announcement for “Vince’s Farewell Tailgate.” The event will take place on <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Sept._11/" type="external">Sept. 11</a> before the Patriots host the <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Kansas-City-Chiefs/" type="external">Kansas City Chiefs</a> at Gillette Stadium.</p> | Longtime New England Patriots DT Vince Wilfork announces retirement | false | https://newsline.com/longtime-new-england-patriots-dt-vince-wilfork-announces-retirement/ | 2017-08-07 | 1 |
<p>As Donald Trump’s plan to Make America Great Again unfolds, there is at least one thing he will not need to worry about because the United States is already greatest at it—spending the most money to kill people. With U.S. <a href="https://www.johnlaurits.com/2017/trump-rebuild-depleted-military-math/" type="external">defense spending</a> being more than that of the next seven countries combined, none of our competitors will be catching up to us anytime soon.</p>
<p>In this case, the greatness of the U.S. is beyond question and it comes at a cost—but that is the price we pay for our freedom. And no one can put a price on freedom.</p>
<p />
<p>But have any of you wondered: If you could put a price on freedom, what its cost would be? Or, in other words, how great exactly is the price of things like Hellfire missiles?</p>
<p>Recently, there has been a lot of whining and complaining in the U.S. about things like a lack of affordable health care and budget cuts to programs that feed hungry people. What these crybabies need to understand is that drone campaigns are not cheap. Seriously, how do these people expect the U.S. government to keep <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2014/02/19/wedding-became-funeral/us-drone-attack-marriage-procession-yemen" type="external">blowing up weddings in Yemen</a> and make sure the basic needs of its people are met at the same time?</p>
<p>In addition to being named in a way that leaves zero doubt that we are the good guys in this movie, <a href="https://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/US-Hellfire-Missile-Orders-FY-2011-2014-07019/" type="external">the Hellfire missile</a> has multi-mission, multi-target “precision-strike” abilities and can kill human beings from land, air and sea. Basic models of these laser-guided firecrackers use shaped-charge HEAT (high-explosive anti-tank) warheads, but upgraded models include blast fragmentation sleeves for bulk-murder and thermobaric warheads that suck the air out of Afghan caves and can even collapse buildings. Jointly made by Lockheed-Martin and Boeing, the Hellfire series has become the bread-and-butter missile for the modern helicopter- and drone-based killing industries.</p>
<p>The price of a Hellfire missile like the kind released by the MQ-9 Reaper in a U.S. drone strike is roughly equal to the yearly taxes paid by 74 wage-earning workers, with enough left over to buy a candy bar:</p>
<p>$110,000/$1,486 = 74.02</p>
<p><a href="http://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/104470/mq-9-reaper/" type="external">Reaper drones</a> carry four Hellfire missiles, however, and the average number of weapons released in an airstrike in 2016 was 2.2, which means the price tag for one drone strike’s worth of Hellfire missiles is closer to $242,000.</p>
<p>To understand what a drone strike is, try to imagine the missiles as metal bags stuffed with the taxes of 163 workers being launched at a mosque in Pakistan. You can also think of them as 10 college degrees printed on a few oversized diplomas collapsing a building in Iraq or as an exploding version of the yearly compensation received by nine workers near the median income in the U.S.</p>
<p>The $190.2 million or so spent by the Pentagon to purchase <a href="http://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/fy2016/FY2016_Weapons.pdf" type="external">1,729 Hellfire missiles in 2015</a> is equal to the cost of providing <a href="http://www.housethehomeless.org/the-cost-of-prosecuting-homelessness/" type="external">one year of housing for 19,807 homeless people</a>, including utility subsidies and the salaries to pay one case manager for every 30 recipients:</p>
<p>1,729 Hellfire Missiles/Yearly Cost of Housing for the Homeless $190,190,000/9,602 = 19,807.33 or 9,807 People Housed for 1 Year</p>
<p>And we would still have $3,186 left to buy a <a href="https://www.walmart.com/ip/LG-75UH8500-75-Class-UH8500-Series-4K-Super-UHD-Smart-TV-With-webOS-3-0/124434498" type="external">LG 75″ LED 4K ultra HD smart TV</a> as a housewarming gift to one formerly homeless person, chosen by lottery. It would take a total of $248,558,282 to buy one for all of them, so—if we only have the defense budget for fiscal year 2015—the rest would need to buy their own.</p>
<p>But if we use fiscal year 2016 instead, there would be funds to buy 5,950 Hellfire missiles—and that, my friends, is a game-changer. With $654.5 million, we could buy housing for 19,807 people, subsidized utilities, and a 75″ smart TV in each unit—with nearly $406 million to spare. $216 million out of that can <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/06/flint-water-crisis-lead-pipes-infrastructure-cost" type="external">replace the 10,000 lead pipes</a> in Flint, Mich., and the last $190 million would cover <a href="http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Cost_of_Living" type="external">one month of groceries</a> for every human being in <a href="https://www.biggestuscities.com/" type="external">San Francisco</a>, plus another 20,000 or so in the suburbs.</p>
<p>5,950 Hellfire Missiles – Housing and Smart TVs for 19,807 People $654,500,000 – $248,558,282 = $405,941,718 $405,941,718 – Replacing 10,000 Lead Pipes in Flint $405,941,718 – $216,000,000 = $189,941,718 $189,941,718/Average Monthly Grocery Expenses $189,941,718/$214.75 = 884,478.3 (Population of San Francisco: 864,816 )</p>
<p>But the cost of Reaper drones, Hellfire missiles and the human beings we erase when we use them are only tiny fractions of the price millions of people in the Middle East pay with their blood and that the U.S. demands of its people for what it keeps insisting is their freedom—whatever the hell that means.</p> | The Costs of Freedom | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/the-costs-of-freedom/ | 2018-01-16 | 4 |
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<p>After reading an <a href="" type="internal">exclusive report</a> that appeared at Working In These Times, the Department of Labor has opened an investigation into captive-audience anti-union meetings held on an army base in Fort Lewis, Washington. Ayofemi Kirby, spokeswoman for Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), and International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 286 union organizer Jeff Alexander both say their respective offices were contacted by a Department of Labor agent looking into whether General Dynamics violated the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act during a recent union election held at Fort Lewis. The DoL's Office of Labor-Management Standards would neither confirm nor deny that the investigation was taking place.</p>
<p>But Alexander and General Dynamics' pro-union worker Jason Croic were contacted by an agent of the Office of Labor-Management Standards concerning the anti-union activities carried out by General Dynamics and its consultants on the Fort Lewis Army base. The agent told Alexander and Croic that he had learned of the union-busting activity from reading Working In These Times.</p>
<p>The investigation stems from General Dynamics' failure to report to the Department of Labor any money spent on persuasion activities during a union election, as required by federal law. The law requires corporations to file an LM-10 form within 30 days of hiring an outside third party to assist in a union election. Third-party firms must also file LM-20 forms within 30 days of being hired.</p>
<p>Yet the Department of Labor has no disclosure forms on record from either General Dynamics or any of the third parties that the IUOE alleges it brought in to stop the union drive. The union claims that General Dynamics hired three lawyers – Thomas M. Stanek, Elizabeth M. Townsend and Janet Madsen – from the law firm of Ogletree Deakins to fight the union drive. It also claims that the anti-union captive-audience meetings were conducted in part by Paul Belsito, who claimed that he owned a consulting firm specializing in union elections. A General Dynamics spokeswoman contacted for this story stated that she was on vacation and could not respond at this time. Ogletree Deakins did not respond to request for comment and Belsito could not be located for comment.</p>
<p>Alexander believes General Dynamics may not have filed financial disclosures firms with the Department of Labor in order to hide evidence that they were billing the federal government for union-busting expenses in violation of federal law. Under President Obama’s Executive Order 13494 that went into effect in 2011, federal contractors can no longer receive reimbursement from the federal government for expenses spent on trying to persuade employees against joining a union. If evidence is found that General Dynamics did indeed charge the federal government for union-busting expenses, General Dynamics, which received <a href="http://www.allgov.com/ViewNews/28_Percent_of_Federal_Contract_Funds_Go_to_Just_10_Companies__All_Make_Weapons_Systems_120611" type="external">$19 billion in federal contracts</a> last year, could face debarment from bidding on federal contractors for a period of time.</p>
<p>Croic claims that up until April General Dynamics managers at Fort Lewis instructed the military contractors to bill the anti-union meetings on their timesheets under the training charge code. Costs of training can be reimbursed by the federal government, but anti-union expenses cannot be billed. The union claims that only after it complained to Rep. Smith did General Dynamics instruct the workers to bill the anti-union meetings with a code that could not be billed to the federal government.</p>
<p>General Dynamics has previously denied billing the federal government for the costs of anti-union efforts. In a May 31 letter to Rep. Smith, General Dynamics Land System President Mark C. Roualet wrote, “Meetings held since January 2012 have not been charged as training and have not been billed to our customer."</p> | Department of Labor To Investigate Union Busting on Army Base Following ITT Report | true | http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/13486/department_of_labor_launches_investigation_into_union_busting_on_army_base | 2012-07-05 | 4 |
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<p>A lifelong love of cooking prompted Sarah Hartford, pictured, to open her first restaurant, Hartford Square. This salmon-cream cheese-spinach fritatta was offered during opening week. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis-Journal)</p>
<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — If you visited Hartford Square last Tuesday, you would’ve seen a front case stocked with an eclectic, edible assortment that included a salmon-cream cheese-spinach fritatta, risotto with asparagus, savory bread pudding and mini cheesecakes.</p>
<p>Visit next Tuesday, though, and you’ll see something totally different.</p>
<p>At Sarah Hartford’s new EDo restaurant, the menu changes weekly. That’s to keep things fresh, both figuratively and literally.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“(The menu) will be seasonal,” Hartford said from a shaded patio table on the south side of her new place. “I’m doing a lot of local sourcing – local farmers, local producers.</p>
<p>“That’s something that’s really important to me.”</p>
<p>Hartford, whose background is in art education, is a rookie restaurateur but has long loved to cook. A mother of four who realized her job prospects in art education were limited, she finally decided to pursue a long-held restaurant dream. She spent the past year preparing by working at a local school-lunch company to learn her way around a commercial kitchen. She also crafted a plan modeled on restaurants she fell in love with while living previously in Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., and Vermont.</p>
<p>“It was a little bit of this, a little bit of that from places I really liked,” she said.</p>
<p>Hartford Square took over a previously unoccupied 1,200-square-foot space on the lower level of the BelVedere mixed-used development on Broadway NE.</p>
<p>The restaurant offers dining tables, plus counter seating that looks directly into the open kitchen. The interior design – all black, white and stainless steel – provides a clean canvas for the colorful food and gives the place an urban feel.</p>
<p>“This woman I don’t even know walked in and said ‘I feel like I’m in New York,’ and that just made my day,” Hartford said.</p>
<p>Customers can eat at the restaurant from 6:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Friday and come in for takeout only through 6:30 p.m. Saturday hours are 7:30 a.m.-3 p.m., with takeout until 4 p.m.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“The basic idea is people could eat in here breakfast through late afternoon, and we’d also do these dinners for people to take home so they could pick them up on their way home,” Hartford said. “The idea is to have food that’s as good as food you’d like to be making at home but don’t have time to make.”</p>
<p>Hartford divides her menu into breakfast, lunch/dinner and sweets. She’ll change the lineup weekly but keep the same number in each category and try to keep the selection “thematic.”</p>
<p>A recent breakfast menu included an egg-and-ham sandwich on a herb-and-cheese biscuit ($6) and orange zest scones ($2.25 each).</p>
<p>The accompanying lunch/dinner menu featured steamed halibut wrapped in rainbow chard with ginger ($9.50), chicken marbella ($8.50), and an egg salad sandwich on sourdough ($8 for full-size).</p>
<p>Weekly menus are available online at hartfordsq.com.</p>
<p>Bruno Barachin and his wife Sabine have moved their French bistro, La Quiche, to the Mountain Run Shopping Center from Downtown. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis-Journal)</p>
<p>Hartford Square is located at 300 Broadway NE. The phone number is 265-4933.</p>
<p>France revisited</p>
<p>A pair of French eateries have recently resumed operations, including one that said au revoir to Albuquerque back in 2008 and another that completed a cross-town move.</p>
<p>… Le Café Miche returns: Claus and Linda Hjortkjaer have revived Le Café Miche five years after closing the restaurant they ran at Wyoming and Constitution NE. Le Café Miche reopened Downtown last month, taking over the cozy corner at 228 Gold SW.</p>
<p>Claus Hjortkjaer said bankruptcy cost him Le Café Miche in 2008 – something he blamed in part on competition for diners that occurred with the development of ABQ Uptown – but that the restaurant stayed with him.</p>
<p>“I have an old love affair with Le Café Miche; it was my first restaurant ever and it broke my heart having to close it. It was always in the back of my mind,” he said of the place he and Linda operated from 1996-2008.</p>
<p>So when P’tit Louis Bistro closed its Gold Avenue location and the building became available, the Hjortkjaers decided to get back in the business, albeit on a smaller scale. The new venue seats 26 – less than a quarter of the old restaurant’s capacity.</p>
<p>The space has changed, but Hjortkjaer – a garrulous chef and a Culinary Institute of Denmark graduate – said the French country menu is mostly the same.</p>
<p>“I’m following the same recipes that I’ve done for years,” Hjortkjaer said, noting that former customers have been returning to order old favorites like his veal scallopini ($25) and chicken cordon bleu ($18 at dinner, $16 at lunch).</p>
<p>Menu selections also include boeuf bourguignon, duck confit salad, escargot and, for lunch, open-faced sandwiches like the “Paté du Chef” ($10).</p>
<p>Le Café Miche is open for lunch 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Saturday; dinner is 5-9 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday.</p>
<p>Reservations are accepted but not required. The phone number is 314-1111.</p>
<p>… La Quiche moves: While Le Café Miche has taken up residence in Downtown, La Quiche Parisienne Bistro has traded the area for the Northeast Heights.</p>
<p>Owners Bruno Barachin and his wife Sabine have moved La Quiche out of Downtown’s problem-plagued 4th Street Mall and into the Mountain Run Shopping Center. La Quiche is now located at 5850 Eubank NE, Suite 17, in a space formerly occupied by Glazed Hams &amp; More.</p>
<p>The Paris natives cater to the breakfast and lunch crowds with omelets, soups, salads and sandwiches – like the popular turkey-based “Paris” ($8.99) and the hot roast beef-and-provolone “Frenchy” ($9.99). They also offer nine different quiches, including a blue cheese/roasted walnut version and a veggie option.</p>
<p>Shelves and display cases inside the 2,700-square-foot space show off the couple’s breads, tarts and other goodies, including the giant – and delectable – almond croissant ($2.99).</p>
<p>But Barachin said the move has prompted La Quiche to expand its menu into more restaurant-style fare, like the steak frites entrée ($15.99).</p>
<p>Barachin said La Quiche is trying to obtain a beer and wine license and do more dinner service in the future.</p>
<p>“That’s the next step,” he said.</p>
<p>At this point, La Quiche is open 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday to Friday; 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday; and 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Sunday. The phone number is 242-2808.</p>
<p>Other tidbits:</p>
<p>• The Chocolate Art Gallery has moved about a mile south from its original location. Proprietor Nancy Iris is now selling her art , handmade truffles and other sweet treats at 6902 4th NW, Suite B, in Los Ranchos. Iris says the new location offers more visibility, a better kitchen and superior gallery space for displaying her own work (paintings, sculpture and more) and pieces from a few other artists.</p>
<p>• As I reported recently on my blog, Anytime Fitness is moving from 7900 Carmel NE to 5809 Juan Tabo NE. The new location will take up most of the old Leishman Interiors space. Franchisee Steve Graves said the new gym should open by the end of July.</p>
<p>If you have retail news to share, contact me at <a href="" type="internal">[email protected]</a> or 823-3864. If you want more regular updates on Albuquerque’s shopping and dining scene, visit my blog at abqjournal.com</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>A lifelong love of cooking prompted Sarah Hartford, pictured, to open her first restaurant, Hartford Square. This salmon-cream cheese-spinach fritatta was offered during opening week.</p>
<p>A lifelong love of cooking prompted Sarah Hartford, pictured, to open her first restaurant, Hartford Square. This salmon-cream cheese-spinach fritatta was offered during opening week, but the menu will change every Monday.</p> | Eclectic, fresh define latest eatery in EDo | false | https://abqjournal.com/208657/eclectic-fresh-define-latest-eatery-in-edo.html | 2013-06-10 | 2 |
<p>Nati Harnik/AP</p>
<p />
<p>Attendees to a Ted Cruz event on Sunday held at the farm of a Dover, New Hampshire couple were handed an eyebrow-raising disclaimer before entering the premises. “You may be at serious risk if you enter our property,” the flyer warned, listing off the litany of perils that potentially awaited Cruz supporters, including bees, wasps, hornets, packs of coyotes, rabid raccoons, and, most ominously, very large turkeys.</p>
<p />
<p>According to <a href="http://www.fosters.com/article/20150830/NEWS/150839949" type="external">local press reports</a>, everyone survived the event unharmed by the wildlife.</p>
<p /> | The Hosts of This Ted Cruz Event Warned Attendees They Might Get Murdered By Bees | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2015/08/ted-cruz-hosts-gave-attendees-this-hilarious-disclaimer/ | 2015-08-31 | 4 |
<p>China plans to stick with the economic and political reforms that have brought prestige, wealth and environmental catastrophe to the country, but don't expect Beijing to turn its back on the Communist Party completely. As the official spokesman of the 17th party congress <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7043942.stm" type="external">put it</a>: "We will never copy the Western model of political system."</p>
<p>BBC:</p>
<p>China will never have Western-style democracy, a senior official said on the eve of the country's most important political meeting in five years.</p>
<p>But Li Dongsheng, spokesman for the Communist Party's 17th congress, said China would pursue political reform.</p>
<p />
<p>Mr Li was speaking at a news conference ahead of the congress, which opens in the capital, Beijing, on Monday.</p>
<p><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7043942.stm" type="external">Read more</a></p> | China: Democracy Isn't for Us | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/china-democracy-isnt-for-us/ | 2007-10-15 | 4 |
<p>LOS ANGELES (AP) - Halle Berry, Gal Gadot and Chris Hemsworth are among the first presenters announced for next month's Golden Globe Awards.</p>
<p>Other presenters announced Thursday by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association include Carol Burnett, Shirley MacLaine, Hugh Grant, Kerry Washington, Emma Watson, Ricky Martin, Sarah Jessica Parker, Seth Rogan and Sharon Stone.</p>
<p>Oprah Winfrey also will be on hand, but she's accepting a trophy. She was previously announced as the recipient of the association's annual Cecil B. DeMille Award, which recognizes an outstanding contributor to entertainment.</p>
<p>The 75th Golden Globe ceremony will air Jan. 7 on NBC, with Seth Meyers as host.</p>
<p>LOS ANGELES (AP) - Halle Berry, Gal Gadot and Chris Hemsworth are among the first presenters announced for next month's Golden Globe Awards.</p>
<p>Other presenters announced Thursday by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association include Carol Burnett, Shirley MacLaine, Hugh Grant, Kerry Washington, Emma Watson, Ricky Martin, Sarah Jessica Parker, Seth Rogan and Sharon Stone.</p>
<p>Oprah Winfrey also will be on hand, but she's accepting a trophy. She was previously announced as the recipient of the association's annual Cecil B. DeMille Award, which recognizes an outstanding contributor to entertainment.</p>
<p>The 75th Golden Globe ceremony will air Jan. 7 on NBC, with Seth Meyers as host.</p> | Halle Berry, Carol Burnett among Golden Globe presenters | false | https://apnews.com/amp/b8992598692543e8bcf1a60c79b89fbb | 2017-12-28 | 2 |
<p>In that overnight article from the Times, it noted that Jared Kushner may not have shared the full story of that June 9th, 2016 meeting with the President when they&#160;discussed it last month. That is a problem on a number of levels, not least of which is that&#160;I’m pretty sure it is – big picture – not true.</p>
<p>First, let me excerpt the key passage from the article …</p>
<p>Also under scrutiny is how forthcoming Mr. Kushner was with his father-in-law about the nature of the June meeting. He met with Mr. Trump to discuss the issue, according to advisers to the White House, around the time he updated his federal disclosure form to include Ms. Veselnitskaya’s name on a list of foreign contacts that Mr. Kushner was required to submit to the F.B.I. to obtain a security clearance.</p>
<p>Mr. Kushner supplemented the list of foreign contacts three times, adding more than 100 names, people close to him said.</p>
<p>Mr. Kushner played down the significance of the meeting and omitted significant details, according to two people who were briefed on the exchange. They said Mr. Kushner informed the president that he had met with a Russian foreign national, and that while he had to report the name, it would not cause a problem for the administration.</p>
<p>Another official said Mr. Kushner’s assurance to the president was based on the fact that nothing came of the June meeting.</p>
<p>The upshot of this is that Kushner said something to the effect of, ‘I met with a Russian national. But it was no big deal, not something to worry about.’ That is needless to say, not really what happened at all.</p>
<p>But here’s the thing. The President’s son was in the meeting. The President’s son arranged the meeting. If he had any question about the account he was getting, he could have asked his son. Given the centrality of this entire story to Trump’s presidency, you’d think he’d want to make sure he had the full story.</p>
<p>Now, let me be clear myself. My strong assumption is that President Trump knew all about it at the time. Obviously, however, we do not yet specific evidence that that is the case. So we need to consider the possibility that he actually didn’t know about it at the time and&#160;only learned about it in recent weeks. If that’s the case, and unless Kushner hid from the President that Don Jr was involved, it’s just not credible that the President was left in the dark. Again, his own son was there.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure Trump knew about it all at the time. But if didn’t, and he only found out the real details in the weekend press accounts, it’s because he deliberately avoided finding out.</p> | The Lava Moves Closer to the President | true | http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-lava-moves-closer-to-the-president | 4 |
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<p>Imagine the drama if a three-loss Florida team had a shot to defend its national title, riding the skills of Heisman-winning touchdown machine Tim Tebow. Or if Colt Brennan could throw Hawaii to the Promised Land. Or if the Virginia Tech Hokies might continue their late season momentum and win a national title, providing a sense of collective joy to a school that’s seen such tragedy.</p>
<p>But no. Instead we get something quite different. We get, in the words of my favorite local sports radio guy, “Ohio State and LSU. Two teams that have backed their way into the BCS championship game.” Ah, the majesty of college football: the only sport where after a year of drama two teams can back into a championship game.</p>
<p>Yes, it’s December, time for holiday wreaths, hot cider and blood-curdling whines by fans from coast to coast about the BCS, easily on the Mount Rushmore of hated abbreviations, along with DMV, IRS, and FBI.</p>
<p>There are many aggravating factors in college football: the fact that players don’t see a dime for their labors, the scholarships that get pulled after injury, the Byzantine rules of the NCAA, or that Nick Saban will be making $32 million. Many people of good conscience find themselves on different sides of the above issues. Yet the one question that seems to unite all factions is the BCS — a lightning rod in an endless winter of discontent.</p>
<p>The reason for this is quite basic: the BCS fails the test of sport, finance and most basic logic. A college football playoff system would crown a true and just champion, as well as set record ratings and raise scads of money. A team’s blood, sweat, and tears wouldn’t ride on preseason polls, computers and surly coaches letting equipment managers fill out their rankings. A season’s efforts wouldn’t implode because a team loses late instead of early.</p>
<p>Fans, players and prominent coaches like Auburn’s Tommy Tuberville and South Carolina’s Steve Spurrier, among, others want a playoff system, but it still doesn’t happen. It’s time to move away from anger and to start understanding why.</p>
<p>The BCS has become an anchor around the neck of progress in college football. Think of it like oil dependency. There is broad agreement that the use and overuse of oil in the United States is more dangerous than kissing a light socket. It damages the environment. It costs a fortune. It has become, as General John Abizaid said, the reason we are in the Middle East with no end in sight. Even George W. Bush, a man whose family has always shown a taste for black gold, called for the country to end it’s “oil addiction.” And yet oil is still the lubricant of choice. The U.S. makes up five percent of the world’s population, but uses 25 percent of the oil. This is because there are very powerful interests with remarkable political pull that maintain an oily status quo.</p>
<p>The oil-baron equivalents in college football are university presidents happy with the easy money that comes with the bloated bowl structure. Right now there are 32 bowl games. Sixty-four teams that get the “honor” of playing in bowls, and those teams’ conferences get a piece of that football manna. “You have presidents that for some reason look at it more as for the money than having a national championship on the field,” said Tuberville last year. “Presidents take the money and go spend it, but they don’t worry about the business of making it better.”</p>
<p>Tuberville is echoing the words of W.E.B. DuBois (Is that the first time those two have ever been mentioned in the same sentence?), who worried a century ago about the corrosive effect of “king football,” with its money-generating powers, had on university presidents. DuBois was correct then, and Tuberville is correct now.</p>
<p>The cheap financial fix is blinding university leaders from progress. Granted, it would be a crime to take away the pageantry of the Papajohns.com Bowl from the sports landscape, but this is about more than a playoff system. It’s about the triumph of logic in the face of ideas that can only be described as prehistoric. If we can get rid of the BCS, maybe we can develop some alternative energy … to fix all that ails college sports.</p>
<p>DAVE ZIRIN is the author of “ <a href="" type="internal">The Muhammad Ali Handbook</a>” (MQ Publications) and “ <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1931859418/counterpunchmaga" type="external">Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics and Promise of Sports</a>” . You can receive his column Edge of Sports, every week by e-mailing <a href="http://[email protected]/" type="external">[email protected]</a>. Contact him at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | On Pigskin and Petrol | true | https://counterpunch.org/2007/12/13/on-pigskin-and-petrol/ | 2007-12-13 | 4 |
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<p>COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Texas A&amp;M University has announced the Corps of Cadets will be led by a woman for the first time in the university’s 139-year history.</p>
<p>The university said Monday that junior Alyssa Marie Michalke of the Fayette County town of Schulenburg will assume command of more than 2,400 cadets in the spring.</p>
<p>Michalke currently is corps sergeant major, the highest rank for a cadet who is not a senior. She’s the first woman to hold that rank.</p>
<p>She’s expected to lead the largest A&amp;M corps in 45 years. The university says the Corps of Cadets has increased its ranks by more than 450 students since 2010. The growth has resulted in the reactivation in recent years of seven company-size units.</p>
<p>She will replace Corps Commander David Trigg of San Antonio.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Woman to lead Texas A&M corps for first time in its history | false | https://abqjournal.com/542344/woman-to-lead-texas-am-corps-for-first-time-in-its-history.html | 2015-02-16 | 2 |
<p>As the clock unwinds on the nation’s first black presidency, much of the black political class is scrambling to rewrite the history of their own behavior over the past six or seven years. Suddenly, all of them claim to have been “constructive critics” of the Obama administration, despite the absence of any public record of such criticism when it might have made a difference.</p>
<p>In twenty-one&#160;months, the first black president will leave office having overseen a federal retrenchment more brutal than under Ronald Reagan, a “bipartisan” austerity regime forged in 2010 as Obama pursued his long-sought “grand bargain” with the GOP.</p>
<p>Before even taking office, back in early January 2009, Obama had loudly proclaimed his intentions to plunge directly into austerity mode, once the banks had been rescued from insolvency, by putting all entitlement programs “ <a href="http://blackagendareport.com/content/why-barack-obama-more-effective-evil" type="external">on the table</a>” for chopping, including Social Security. He spent his first two years in office, when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, creating a model for austerity through his hand-picked deficit reduction commission, which recommended $4&#160;trillion in cuts — virtually the same as demanded by the Republicans.</p>
<p>When the GOP won control of the House in 2010, Obama <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/feb/16/barack-obama/obama-says-domestic-spending-headed-lowest-level-e/" type="external">bragged</a> that he had already reduced domestic discretionary spending to “its lowest level since Dwight Eisenhower was president. That level of spending is lower than it was under the last three administrations, and it will be lower than it was under Ronald Reagan.”</p>
<p>In 2011, Obama outdid George W. Bush in unilateral war making, claiming the War Powers Act did not apply to the US/NATO bombing campaign against Libya because no Americans were killed and, therefore, no war — or even “hostilities” — had existed. A new era of proliferating “humanitarian” and proxy wars was inaugurated under the man who ran as a peace candidate in 2008.</p>
<p>Black America has plummeted to such economic depths under Obama’s watch that there is no possibility of ever reaching economic parity with whites absent a social revolution, the beginnings of which we may be witnessing in the growing mobilization against brutal police enforcement of the oppressive social order.</p>
<p>It is no wonder that so many members of the black political class, especially those that style themselves as progressives, are now anxious to revise their Obama-era political histories to put a false distance between themselves and the outgoing administration.</p>
<p>Which is why I found it curious that Georgetown University professor and preacher Michael Eric Dyson thinks this is an auspicious time to unleash a bloated, mean-spirited, and politically flatulent assault on Dr Cornel West, a black public intellectual who risked his “icon” status by breaking with Obama early in the president’s first term, when the center-right nature of his corporation-serving administration became manifest.</p>
<p>Dyson is clearly haunted by “ <a href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121550/cornel-wests-rise-fall-our-most-exciting-black-scholar-ghost" type="external">The Ghost of Cornel West</a>,” as the&#160;New Republic article is titled. In Georgia, the older country folks used to say that when a “haint” (a ghost) got on top of you in your sleep, you became temporarily paralyzed — a condition sometimes called “being rode by a witch.” Dyson’s obsession with West seems to have paralyzed those parts of his brain that process political facts and issues.</p>
<p>In almost ten thousand&#160;words, Dyson makes no reference to any substantive political issues that divide him&#160;and West, and offers only the slimmest assessment of Obama’s stance on the burning issues of the day. Given such a dearth&#160;of actual political analysis of either the Obama presidency or West’s critique of that presidency, the article is a soaring testament to Dyson’s enormous capacity for bloviation.</p>
<p>But, of course, there is method to Dyson’s meanness. The true purpose of his elongated smear of Dr West is to demonstrate to Hillary Clinton’s camp that Dyson remains a loyal Democratic Party operative who is available for service to the new regime. Having observed how hugely Al Sharpton prospered as President Obama’s pit bull against black dissent, Dyson offers unto Caesarius Hillarius (“We came, we saw, he died,” as she said of Gaddafi) the iconic head of the nation’s best known black dissident.</p>
<p>Dyson’s article is as dishonest as it is long and draining. Dyson is not mad at West because the Union Theological Seminary professor has supposedly turned out a “paucity of serious and fresh intellectual work” over the last several years. He was not driven to write a hit piece because his former friend is “not quite up to the high scholarly standard West set for himself long ago.”</p>
<p>Dyson has resorted to icon assassination because West’s highly visible critique of Obama’s domestic and foreign policy is an embarrassment to the administration, to the Democratic Party as an institution, and to the sycophantic black political elite&#160;that has been more loyal to Obama than to black people as a group.</p>
<p>Mostly, Dyson is mad because Dr West called him out, personally. Dyson writes:</p>
<p>It was during an appearance with Tavis Smiley on Democracy Now, shortly after Obama’s reelection. “I love Brother Mike Dyson,” West said. “But we’re living in a society where everybody is up for sale. Everything is up for sale. And he and Brother Sharpton and Sister Melissa and others, they have sold their souls for a mess of Obama pottage. And we invite them back to the black prophetic tradition after Obama leaves.</p>
<p>But at the moment, they want insider access, and they want to tell those kinds of lies. They want to turn their back to poor and working people. And it’s a sad thing to see them as apologists for the Obama administration in that way, given the kind of critical background that all of them have had at some point.”</p>
<p>Dyson attempts to draw the reader into a discussion of the definition of a “prophet,” and who is, or is not, one. But that’s just a long-winded way of asserting that West has no right to criticize Dyson, Harris, Sharpton, and the other black-notables-for-hire.</p>
<p>Dyson attempts to turn the “access” tables on West, noting that West was known to hang with celebrities like Warren Beatty, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Johnny Cochran, Snoop Dogg, and Salma Hayek. As if Warren Beatty has ever maintained a “kill list,” Sean Combs has plans to bomb Africa, or&#160;Snoop Dogg is actively engaged in turning the US government over to Wall Street.</p>
<p>Dyson claims West lives by a double standard. Attempting sarcasm, Dyson writes: “West offers himself a benefit that he refuses to extend to others: He can go to the White House without becoming a presidential apologist or losing his prophetic cool. He can spend an evening with the president, the first of many such evenings, without selling his soul.”</p>
<p>Well, apparently, West can. And, just as clearly, after nineteen&#160;or more <a href="https://twitter.com/adamjohnsonNYC/status/590003602388819968" type="external">visits to the White House</a>, Dyson cannot. He not only sells himself, he tries to defame Dr Martin Luther King Jr as a sell-out access-monger, too. Without shame, honor, or a logical leg to stand on, Dyson writes:&#160;“King was arguably more beneficial to the folk he loved when he swayed power with his influence and vision. When West begrudges Sharpton his closeness to Obama, he ignores the fact that King had similar access.”</p>
<p>Dyson continues:</p>
<p>Sharpton and Jackson moved in the opposite prophetic direction of King. While King kissed the periphery with courageous vigor after enjoying his role as a central prophet, Jackson, and especially Sharpton, started on the periphery before coming into their own on the inside. Jackson’s transition was smoothed by the gulf left by King’s assassination, and while forging alliances with other outsiders on the black left, he easily adapted to the role of the inside-outsider who identified with the downcast while making his way to the heart of the Democratic Party.</p>
<p>Dr King and other members of the so-called “Big Six” organizations enjoyed some access to Lyndon Johnson’s White House because of the power of the movements they led. Dr King did not become influential because he got invitations to the White House; he got invited to the White House because he was influential among millions of black people.</p>
<p>King&#160;made the principled, and possibly fatal, decision to break with&#160;Johnson&#160;on April&#160;4, 1967, with his “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence” <a href="http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html" type="external">speech</a>. He effectively severed ties with an administration that had, at times, been an ally in the civil-rights struggle. Singling out the US as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world, today,” Dr King said:</p>
<p>I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.</p>
<p>Obscenely, Dyson attempts to depict Dr King as of his own ilk in his attack on West, who made his own break with Obama’s wars at home and abroad, early on.</p>
<p>Dyson has for years peppered his talks with references to his nonexistent substantive critiques of Obama, and does the same in the New Republic. “No matter how vehemently I disagree with Obama, I respect him as a man wrestling with an incredibly difficult opportunity to shape history,” he writes. “Throughout his presidency I have offered what I consider principled support and sustained criticism of Obama, a posture that didn’t mirror West’s black-or-white views — nor satisfy the Obama administration’s expectation of unqualified support.”</p>
<p>Yet there is no evidence of “sustained criticism,” in his current attack piece or anywhere else&#160;— only sustained opportunism. The only paragraph in the entire 9,600-word piece with any substantive statement on Obama policies, is a boilerplate pitch straight from the White House:</p>
<p>Obama believes the blessed should care for the unfortunate, a hallmark of his My Brother’s Keeper initiative. West and Obama both advocate intervention for our most vulnerable citizens, but while West focuses on combating market forces that “edge out nonmarket values — love, care, service to others — handed down by preceding generations,” Obama, as Alter contends, is more practical, offering Pell grants; stimulus money that saved the jobs of hundreds of thousands of black state and local workers; the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, which reduced the disparity of sentences for powdered and crack cocaine; the extension of the Earned Income Tax Credit, which kept millions of working poor blacks from sliding into poverty; and the extension of unemployment insurance and food stamps, which helped millions of blacks.</p>
<p>In my own two debates with Dyson on Democracy Now! in <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2008/1/9/barack_obama_and_the_african_american" type="external">January 2008</a>, and <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/7/effective_evil_or_progressives_best_hope" type="external">September 2012</a>, I found it best to ignore the bulk of his “wall of words.” The torrent of syllables is mostly show, much of it pure nonsense designed to dazzle churchgoers. In cold print, Dyson is revealed as a rank careerist in the army of personal upward mobility.</p>
<p>Dr West has nothing to worry about from such quarters. But Dyson’s bosses will kill you.</p> | Why They Hate Cornel West | true | https://jacobinmag.com/2015/04/cornel-west-dyson-obama-glen-ford/ | 2018-10-03 | 4 |
<p>CHICAGO (AP) — The United Soccer League has been sanctioned as a second division league for 2018 by the U.S. Soccer Federation, which says the circuit has been given a two-year path to full compliance with the governing body’s standards.</p>
<p>The USL had been given provisional second-tier status in 2017. It began its professional competition in 2011 and held third-tier status before 2017. It reached an agreement with MLS, the only first division U.S. men’s league, in 2013 to integrate the reserve teams of the top tier.</p>
<p>The USSF board approved the decision last weekend during a meeting in New York. The federation said Tuesday in a statement that the “USL has demonstrated substantial progress toward reaching full compliance since being granted provisional Division II sanctioning.”</p>
<p>The North American Soccer League held second-tier status from 2011 through last year. When its status was not renewed, it filed an antitrust suit against the USSF. The NASL’s application for a preliminary injunction against the USSF was denied in November, and it took the case to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has not ruled.</p>
<p>The USL said last week it plans to have 33 teams this season, which starts March 16-18.</p>
<p>In addition, the National Women’s Soccer League’s first-division status was sanctioned for this year. The USSF said the NWSL and USL must apply for re-sanctioning annually and work toward full compliance by 2020.</p>
<p>CHICAGO (AP) — The United Soccer League has been sanctioned as a second division league for 2018 by the U.S. Soccer Federation, which says the circuit has been given a two-year path to full compliance with the governing body’s standards.</p>
<p>The USL had been given provisional second-tier status in 2017. It began its professional competition in 2011 and held third-tier status before 2017. It reached an agreement with MLS, the only first division U.S. men’s league, in 2013 to integrate the reserve teams of the top tier.</p>
<p>The USSF board approved the decision last weekend during a meeting in New York. The federation said Tuesday in a statement that the “USL has demonstrated substantial progress toward reaching full compliance since being granted provisional Division II sanctioning.”</p>
<p>The North American Soccer League held second-tier status from 2011 through last year. When its status was not renewed, it filed an antitrust suit against the USSF. The NASL’s application for a preliminary injunction against the USSF was denied in November, and it took the case to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has not ruled.</p>
<p>The USL said last week it plans to have 33 teams this season, which starts March 16-18.</p>
<p>In addition, the National Women’s Soccer League’s first-division status was sanctioned for this year. The USSF said the NWSL and USL must apply for re-sanctioning annually and work toward full compliance by 2020.</p> | USL’s second-division status maintained by US Soccer | false | https://apnews.com/5f8b318d2b404a269b9e0b69c8da300b | 2018-01-17 | 2 |
<p>In an inversion of journalistic ethics, the Sacramento Bee reported on opposition to an event before and after it took place, but didn’t cover the event itself.</p>
<p>It featured an entire report on accusations against a flier, but didn’t include a response from the flier’s authors.</p>
<p>It printed claims by powerful local figures that the flier was “an outrageous lie,” but refused to print information showing that the flier’s statements were factual.</p>
<p>Its headline about the allegedly offensive flier emphasized a Muslim connection, even though there was virtually no Muslim connection to the flier.</p>
<p>It neglected to report that one of those attacking the flier had previously attempted to use his official position to prevent the event at which the flier was distributed from taking place.</p>
<p>And finally, the Bee’s parent company, McClatchy, one of the nation’s largest newspaper chains, then sent out the Bee’s deficient story about a flier nation-wide, also emphasizing a (largely non-existent) Muslim connection in its headline, which then appeared on newspaper websites in Florida, Texas, Idaho, Mississippi, Alaska, and elsewhere, generating anti-Muslim comments.</p>
<p>The event in question was part of a national speaking tour that featured an Auschwitz survivor speaking about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. Called “Never Again For Anyone,” it was sponsored by a diverse array of eight national organizations and nine local ones, secular, Jewish and Muslim, who reserved a hall owned by the local Islamic Center as the venue for the event. Also speaking was Dr. Hatem Bazian, a prominent academic from UC Berkeley.</p>
<p>The talk was immediately opposed by the Jewish Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the 13-member Board of Rabbis of Greater Sacramento, who contacted the Islamic center and demanded that the center refuse to allow the event to take place.</p>
<p>The rabbis called it a “program of hate,” claimed that both the theme and the presence of an Auschwitz survivor speaking about the plight of Palestinians were “anti-Semitic,” stated that allowing the 86-year-old Auschwitz survivor to speak would “defile the sacred memory of millions who perished during the Holocaust” (nothing was said of the multitudes of non-Jews, including Arabs and Muslims, who died under the Nazis), and threatened that Jewish-Muslim relations would be fatally jeopardized if the Islamic Center did not renege on its agreement to allow the event to take place on its property.</p>
<p>The Sacramento Bee ran a news story on the rabbis’ complaints, claiming in its lead sentence that because of the proposed event, “Sacramento’s carefully cultivated interfaith bonds are being stretched to the limit,” although there is no indication that the planned talk was interfering with Christian, Buddhist, Hindu or other faith’s relations with the Muslim community.</p>
<p>Despite the attempt to prevent it, however, the event went forward as planned, drawing approximately 500 people. The Bee, despite choosing to cover prior complaints against it, chose not to cover it.</p>
<p>Four days later, however, the Bee carried another news story about the event, this time focusing on a complaint by the President Pro-Tem of the California Senate condemning a flier that was distributed at the talk.</p>
<p>California is in deep trouble. It is over $26 billion in debt and is facing potential bankruptcy. People have lost homes, businesses have failed, university fees have escalated. Yet, the Senate’s President Pro Tem, Darrell Steinberg, one of California’s most powerful politicians, twice took time out of his necessarily busy schedule to lodge semi-official complaints about the “Never Again” event.</p>
<p>Steinberg, who has worked to promote tolerance and build bridges with Muslim leaders to oppose bigotry, is devoted to Israel. In 2008 he was host of “Salute to Israel,” a celebration of Israel’s creation 60 years before, which had involved the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Muslims and Christians to make room for the Jewish state.</p>
<p>According to the Jewish Forward, Steinberg became President Pro Tem “after intense involvement in the Jewish communal world, including stints as chairman of Sacramento’s Jewish Community Relations Council… The lobbyist for the California Jewish Public Affairs Committee, Cliff Berg, said he is looking forward to working more with an old friend.” Both organizations advocate for Israel; JPAC sponsors an annual 9-day trip to Israel for state legislators.</p>
<p>Steinberg was strongly opposed to the “Never Again for Anyone” event. First, although the Bee didn’t mention this, Steinberg tried to stop it, sending a letter on official Senate stationery urging the Islamic Center to revoke permission for it.</p>
<p>Then, after the talk had taken place (which Steinberg did not attend), he sent a second letter to the Bee and to a few individuals in the interfaith community (it’s available only on a pro-Israel website), again on official stationery. In it he condemned a flier that had been distributed at the event.</p>
<p>Produced by the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, a cosponsor of the event, the flier included information about collaboration between Nazis and leaders of the Zionist movement (the political/military movement to create a Jewish state in Palestine that created Israel in 1948).</p>
<p>Steinberg was outraged. In his letter he particularly objected to the flier’s statements that “…Zionist leaders made ‘transfer agreements’ with the Nazis…. refused to observe the international boycott of Nazi Germany… and even kept silent about impending plans to deport Jews into Nazi death camps.”</p>
<p>Steinberg called the statements an “outrageous rewrite of history,” and claimed that “in essence, they are saying the Jews orchestrated the Holocaust,” although the flier said no such thing.</p>
<p>Similarly angered, according to the Bee news report, was one of the rabbis who had tried to prevent the talk, Rabbi Mona Alfi of Sacramento’s prominent Congregation B’nai Israel.</p>
<p>While the Bee didn’t mention this, Alfi is also the official California Senate Chaplain, a position she has held since 2008. She was appointed to this position by Steinberg, a member of B’nai Israel. (According to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, two percent of Californians are affiliated with the Jewish faith.)</p>
<p>According to the Bee, Rabbi Alfi called the flier’s allegations that some Zionists were Nazi collaborators “a disgusting lie.”</p>
<p>While the Bee’s report also included statements defending the talk, it contained no statements in defense of the flier itself, the paper having made no attempt to interview the authors of the flier that was the focus of its article.</p>
<p>As a result, the report contained none of the extensive evidence supporting the flier’s content, thus giving readers the impression that a flier filled with objectionable falsehoods had been distributed.</p>
<p>Worse yet, since the Bee and McClatchy then chose to emphasize the venue of the event in their headline (“Flier at California Muslim center condemned by state senator”), despite the fact that the center had nothing to do with the flier, a headline and news story were sent around the country that served to reinforce the Islamophobic fiction that Muslims are inherently anti-Semitic, generating comments such as:</p>
<p>“Muslims have been successfully trading in anti-Semitism for decades, Steinberg isn’t going to put a dent in it,” “ ‘The holocaust never happened.’ Since that didn’t work, certain Muslims decided to try this disgusting piece of nonsense,” “My, my, those Muslim propaganda sites must be working overtime.”</p>
<p>Zionist-Nazi Collusion</p>
<p>In point of fact, however, the flier’s statements are accurate. There is detailed evidence that some Zionists collaborated with the Nazis, that Zionists sabotaged anti-Nazi boycotts, and that Zionists interfered with efforts to rescue victims of Nazi oppression.</p>
<p>When facts first emerged in the 1950s about Zionist-Nazi collusion, it caused considerable scandal in Israel and led to the fall of the Israeli government of the time. A number of books are dedicated to this subject and it is discussed in numerous others, almost all by Jewish and/or Israeli authors. The topic inspired novels by well-known Israeli writers Amos Elon and Neil Gordon, was the subject of a 1987 British play, and was portrayed in a 1994 Israeli docudrama. It’s surprising that Steinberg and the Board of Rabbis make no indication of ever having heard anything about this.</p>
<p>Popular American playwright and fervent Zionist Ben Hecht wrote the first book on the subject, “Perfidy,” relating the history of a Hungarian Zionist leader who arranged for his family and several hundred prominent Jews to escape while facilitating the movement of the rest of Hungarian Jews to Nazi concentration camps.</p>
<p>Hannah Arendt, in her 1960 book “ <a href="" type="internal">Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report in the Banality of Evil</a>,” writes: “To a Jew this role of the Jewish leaders in the destruction of their own people is undoubtedly the darkest chapter of the whole dark story.”</p>
<p>In “ <a href="" type="internal">The Transfer Agreement: The Dramatic Story of the Pact between the Third Reich and Jewish Palestine</a>” (containing an afterword by ADL head Abe Foxman), pro-Israel writer Edwin Black reports that in 1933 Zionist leaders concluded a secret pact with the Third Reich that transferred 60,000 Jews and $100,000 to Palestine, Zionists promising in return that they would halt the worldwide boycott “that threatened to topple the Hitler regime in its first year.”</p>
<p>Author-researcher Lenni Brenner wrote of Zionist-Nazi collusion in “ <a href="" type="internal">Zionism in the Age of Dictators</a>,” of which the London Times stated: “Brenner is able to cite numerous cases where Zionists collaborated with anti-Semitic regimes, including Hitler’s.”</p>
<p>Brenner’s second book on the topic, “ <a href="" type="internal">51 Documents, Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis</a>,” includes a 1940 letter from underground Zionist terrorist leader Avraham Stern proposing that Jewish militias would fight on Germany’s side in exchange for Nazi help in creating an “historic Jewish state.”</p>
<p>In “ <a href="" type="internal">What Price Israel</a>,” American Council for Judaism member Alfred Lilienthal describes FDR’s efforts to set up a program to rescue refugees, only to find Zionists sabotaging it. Roosevelt explained: “The Zionist movement knows that Palestine is, and will be for some time, a remittance society. They know that they can raise vast sums for Palestine by saying to donors, ‘There is no other place this poor Jew can go.’”</p>
<p>When New York attorney Morris Ernst joined this refugee effort, he was shocked: “I was thrown out of parlors of friends of mine who very frankly said ‘Morris, this is treason. You are undermining the Zionist movement.’” Ernst wrote that he found a fanatical movement of men “little concerned about human blood if it is not their own.”</p>
<p>In “ <a href="" type="internal">The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust</a>,” Israeli historian Tom Segev quotes Zionist leader and future Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion: “If I knew that it was possible to save all the Jewish children of Germany by transporting them to England, but only half of them by transporting them to Palestine, I would choose the second.”</p>
<p>Segev writes that Ben-Gurion worried that ‘the human conscience’ might cause various countries to open their doors to Jewish refugees from Germany and saw this as a threat, warning: ‘Zionism is in danger.’”</p>
<p>In the Bee’s report on the controversy, Sacramento’s Rabbi Alfi is further quoted as saying “there is no comparison” between the treatment of Jews in pre-war Germany and Palestinians. Yet, in 2002 the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reported that the Israeli military was specifically studying Nazi Warsaw Ghetto strategies for use in the Palestinian Occupied Territories.</p>
<p>Journalistic Malpractice</p>
<p>The Bee’s decision not to cover an event about which it had reported prior complaints is highly questionable.</p>
<p>Even more serious, its decision to publish a news report featuring attacks against a flier without also interviewing the flier’s authors violates fundamental journalistic principles. The story was published four days after the event took place; taking the time to follow professional good practices would have made sense.</p>
<p>However, hindsight is always clearer than decisions made under a looming deadline, and in the rush of daily journalism serious lapses sometimes occur. The real test of a newspaper’s commitment to honest, principled journalism is how it handles such lapses.</p>
<p>Bee editors failed this test with flying colors. From here on I speak from personal experience.</p>
<p>I happened to read the Bee’s flier report soon after it was published. Because I’ve studied Israel’s history extensively and own the books mentioned above (and others that mention the topic), I was aware that the flier’s statements were factual and that the undisputed complaints against it were unfounded.</p>
<p>I felt this information needed to be given to readers as soon as possible to correct the misimpression conveyed by the Bee’s one-sided reporting. Since op-ed columns were specifically created as a place for outside writers to convey views and information not otherwise contained in a newspaper, I took several books on the topic and went to the Bee’s offices to propose an op-ed.</p>
<p>From the lobby I called opinion page editor, Stuart Leavenworth, saying that I’d like to discuss a potential op-ed for the paper. He said he was in a meeting and couldn’t meet with me, but asked what I wished to address.</p>
<p>When I told him, he expressed skepticism and said he would not print an op-ed saying that Zionists had collaborated with Nazis.</p>
<p>I told him that I had books on the subject with me that I could show him. He replied that normally someone would schedule such a meeting ahead of time. I agreed and asked when we could schedule such a meeting. He said he would not schedule one. He asked me a few more questions, interrupted my answers, and then told me to submit an op-ed. He said that I must supply citations.</p>
<p>I wrote the article, cited seven books, and said that I would provide more extensive citations if he wished (even though I had already supplied far more references than normally required for an op-ed). I also said that I would be glad to cut the piece if it was too long and said I was very comfortable with rewriting.</p>
<p>He refused to publish it, providing no explanation for this decision.</p>
<p>I am fully aware that editors always retain the power to decide what they will and won’t publish (I’ve been an editor myself). However, since journalistic ethics required the Bee to remedy sloppy, one-sided reporting that gave readers a false impression of a controversial local event, of Muslims at a time when violence and bigotry against them is escalating, and about Israel, with which the U.S. has a unique “special relationship,” I emailed and phoned my concerns to the Bee’s chief editor and others (it has no ombudsman), but to no avail.</p>
<p>The newspaper’s response was disappointing but unsurprising. Editors, particularly when it comes to Israel-Palestine, are far more concerned with daily deadlines, financial necessities, and the need not to anger powerful constituencies than with moral or ethical principles.</p>
<p>This reality, combined with considerable ignorance on the Middle East among many journalists, and pro-Israel, anti-Muslim bias among others, means that there is virtually no effort to correct errors or remedy significant omissions in coverage having to do with Israel.</p>
<p>As a result, Americans are largely left in the dark about the current reality and past history of the tiny, rich nation that receives more of our tax money than any other country on earth, currently at least $8 million per day, and that is at the center of profoundly important issues concerning both the region and our own nation.</p>
<p>Israel and its partisans are working to make sure it stays that way. If Steinberg, Alfi, Leavenworth, the Bee, and McClatchy continue their current pattern, it doesn’t look like this is going to change anytime soon – unless enough people start to demand better.</p>
<p>ALISON WEIR is President of the Council for the National Interest and Executive Director of If Americans Knew, a nonprofit organization that provides information on Israel-Palestine. She splits her time between Sacramento and Washington DC. She can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
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<p /> | Denying Nazi-Zionist Collusion | true | https://counterpunch.org/2011/03/04/denying-nazi-zionist-collusion/ | 2011-03-04 | 4 |
<p>July 14 (UPI) — The digital operations director in President <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Donald_Trump/" type="external">Donald Trump</a>‘s campaign said Friday he’s been called to meet with the House Intelligence Committee this month on the panel’s investigation of potential Russian electoral interference.</p>
<p>Brad Parscale said he is “unaware of any Russian involvement” in the digital section of Trump’s campaign, but added that <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/house/342018-trump-digital-director-to-meet-with-house-intel" type="external">he agreed</a> to the interview with the committee and to “sharing with them everything I know.”</p>
<p>Investigations by Congress and the U.S. Justice Department are focusing attention on whether the president’s team helped Russian operatives find voting districts in key states in which unexpected campaign weaknesses were discovered.</p>
<p>The investigators are also seeking to clarify if Trump campaign aides were involved in assisting Russia in releasing thousands of hacked Democratic Party emails.</p>
<p>Earlier this week, Rep. <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Adam_Schiff/" type="external">Adam Schiff</a>, D-Calif., the ranking Democrat on the committee, told the <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article160803619.html" type="external">McClatchy Co.</a> he wants to know if Russian “fake or damaging news stories” were “coordinated in any way, in terms of targeting or in terms of timing or in terms of any other measure, with the [Trump] campaign.”</p>
<p>Schiff added that the committee will try to determine if Russian cyberattacks on certain voting districts included “any exchange of information [or] any financial support funneled to any organizations doing this kind of work.”</p>
<p>Trump has repeatedly denied that there was any collusion between campaign officials and the Russian government.</p> | Digital director of Trump campaign to meet with House investigators | false | https://newsline.com/digital-director-of-trump-campaign-to-meet-with-house-investigators/ | 2017-07-14 | 1 |
<p />
<p>Skillshare is a startup hawking an interesting product — education. Its marketplace allows curious customers to learn just about any skill from experts in their community.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>After competing in the World Series of Poker in 2010, Michael Karnjanaprakorn kept fielding requests from friends to teach them how to play poker. A professional player, Karnjanaprakorn posted a poker class on Eventbrite — and the idea for the startup Skillshare was born.</p>
<p>Launched in April, New York City-based Skillshare is a community marketplace that allows anyone to learn just about anything from local experts.</p>
<p>“We think that the problem with education today is that it’s very restrictive and constraining,” said CEO and co-founder Karnjanaprakorn, citing access and the skyrocketing costs of <a href="" type="internal">higher education</a>. “Our vision for Skillshare is to turn every single city into a huge campus. We want to create a community around learning and education that’s very accessible.”</p>
<p>Education is a hot commodity Education is a hot sector, with companies like the Khan Academy, Udemy and Altius Education working to disrupt the industry and democratize learning. To that end, Skillshare works like a true marketplace. Anyone can teach a class on any subject. It’s as simple as creating a class description, setting the cost and date, and marketing to the community.</p>
<p>Classes range in subjects that include chocolate making, how to raise money for your startup, delivering a TED-worthy speech, branding for entrepreneurs, and the basics of sake. The average cost for a class is $20 and Skillshare charges the instructor 15 percent for every spot sold.</p>
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<p>“What meetup.com has proven in the market is that people want to meet around shared interests,” said Karnjanaprakorn, who previously worked for Behance and Hot Potato. They’re also looking for more interaction. “I would argue that TEDTalks are probably the most engaging things you can watch on the Internet, and I can’t get past two minutes,” due to numerous digital distractions.</p>
<p>Everyone can teach</p>
<p>Skillshare is working to empower people and convince them that they can become teachers. Some Skillshare teachers are earning $1,000 to $2,000 a month.</p>
<p>“We all have passions that we can lend to others,” said Amber Rae, who taught the class “Things to Do Before You Die: Putting Your Passions First.” “Skillshare is a platform that allows me to easily reach and help those who need it.”</p>
<p>Rae charged $12 for the course and 15 students attended. In the process, she secured a client for a four-week “life boot camp” program she offers. Similarly, some business owners are finding that as an added benefit, Skillshare is a great marketing tool. One bar owner held a bartending class at his business during off hours, bringing new faces and exposure to the establishment.</p>
<p>But above all, “Our business is here to cultivate teachers and make sure they become great teachers,” Karnjanaprakorn said. “We’re going to do all we can to ensure you trust the teacher and that he or she delivers what they say they are.”</p>
<p>To ensure students get a positive experience, Skillshare supports teachers with free workshops, resources, tips and articles. Taking the lead from e-commerce retailers like Etsy, Skillshare has implemented trust and reputation mechanisms into its online community.</p>
<p>A Skillshare revolution?</p>
<p>Karnjanaprakorn is equally interested in cultivating a robust community of engaged students.</p>
<p>“The cost of the class is so minimal compared to the value,” said Jason Wisdom, who works for a digital ad agency and has taken three classes. “It’s everything you miss from college without all the things you never want to revisit.”</p>
<p>Soon Skillshare, which recently raised $550,000 in funding, will offer classes in San Francisco and New Orleans.</p>
<p>With the greater access to education that Skillshare promises to bring, Karnjanaprakorn hopes to see more entrepreneurs tackle solutions for what he calls the “archaic industries” of government, health care and education.</p>
<p>“When an 18-year-old kid doesn’t think about starting the next Instagram and starts thinking about how he can help change health care and utilize all the tools that he knows how to use,” Karnjanaprakorn said, “I think that’s when it gets really exciting.”</p> | Skillshare: A Marketplace for Education | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2011/10/06/skillshare-marketplace-for-education.html | 2016-03-23 | 0 |
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