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<p>The Supreme Court on Tuesday turned back a challenge to a federal law that broadened the government’s power to eavesdrop on international phone calls and e-mails.</p>
<p>The decision, by a 5-to-4 vote that divided along ideological lines, probably means the Supreme Court will never rule on the constitutionality of that 2008 law.</p>
<p>More broadly, the ruling illustrated how hard it is to mount court challenges to a wide array of antiterrorism measures, including renditions of terrorism suspects to foreign countries and targeted killings using drones, in light of the combination of government secrecy and judicial doctrines limiting access to the courts.</p>
<p>“Absent a radical sea change from the courts, or more likely intervention from the Congress, the coffin is slamming shut on the ability of private citizens and civil liberties groups to challenge government counterterrorism policies, with the possible exception of Guantánamo,” said Stephen I. Vladeck, a law professor at American University.</p>
<p>Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said that the journalists, lawyers and human rights advocates who challenged the constitutionality of the law could not show they had been harmed by it and so lacked standing to sue. The plaintiffs’ fear that they would be subject to surveillance in the future was too speculative to establish standing, he wrote.</p>
<p>Justice Alito also rejected arguments based on the steps the plaintiffs had taken to escape surveillance, including traveling to meet sources and clients in person rather than talking to them over the phone or sending e-mails. “They cannot manufacture standing by incurring costs in anticipation of nonimminent harms,” he wrote of the plaintiffs.</p>
<p>It is of no moment, Justice Alito wrote, that only the government knows for sure whether the plaintiffs’ communications have been intercepted. It is the plaintiffs’ burden, he wrote, to prove they have standing “by pointing to specific facts, not the government’s burden to disprove standing by revealing details of its surveillance priorities.”</p>
<p>In dissent, Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote that the harm claimed by the plaintiffs was not speculative. “Indeed,” he wrote, “it is as likely to take place as are most future events that common-sense inference and ordinary knowledge of human nature tell us will happen.”</p>
<p>Under the system of warrantless surveillance that was put in place by the Bush administration shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, aspects of which remain secret, the National Security Agency was authorized to monitor Americans’ international phone calls and e-mails without a warrant.</p>
<p>After The New York Times disclosed the program in 2005 and questions were raised about its constitutionality, Congress in 2008 amended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, granting broad power to the executive branch to conduct surveillance aimed at persons overseas without an individual warrant.</p>
<p>The Obama administration defended the law in court, and a Justice Department spokesman said the government was “obviously pleased with the ruling.”</p>
<p>The decision, Clapper v. Amnesty International, No. 11-1025, arose from a challenge to the 2008 law by Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups and individuals, including journalists and lawyers who represent prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.</p>
<p>The plaintiffs said the law violated their rights under the Fourth Amendment, which bars unreasonable searches, by allowing the government to intercept their international telephone calls and e-mails.</p>
<p>Justice Alito said the program was subject to significant safeguards, including supervision by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which meets in secret, and restrictions on what may be done with “nonpublic information about unconsenting U.S. persons.”</p>
<p>Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas joined the majority opinion, and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined the dissent.</p>
<p>Jameel Jaffer, a lawyer with the A.C.L.U., said the decision “insulates the statute from meaningful judicial review and leaves Americans’ privacy rights to the mercy of the political branches.”</p>
<p>Justice Alito wrote that the prospect that no court may ever review the surveillance program was irrelevant to analyzing whether the plaintiffs had standing. But he added that the secret court does supervise the surveillance program.</p>
<p>It is also at least theoretically possible, he added, that the government will try to use information gathered from the program in an ordinary criminal prosecution and thus perhaps allow an argument “for a claim of standing on the part of the attorney” for the defendant.</p>
<p>Mr. Jaffer said the situations were far-fetched.</p>
<p>“Justice Alito’s opinion for the court seems to be based on the theory that the secret court may one day, in some as-yet unimagined case, subject the law to constitutional review, but that day may never come,” Mr. Jaffer said. In many national security cases, he added, the government has prevailed at the outset by citing lack of standing, the state secrets doctrine or officials’ immunity from suit.</p>
<p>“More than a decade after 9/11,” he said, “we still have no judicial ruling on the lawfulness of torture, of extraordinary rendition, of targeted killings or of the warrantless wiretapping program. These programs were all contested in the public sphere, but they have not been contested in the courts.”</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | In 5-4 Decision, Supreme Court Stands By FISA Eavesdropping Law | true | http://occupy.com/article/5-4-decision-supreme-court-stands-fisa-eavesdropping-law | 4 |
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<p>WASHINGTON — Roused by the first major ISIS-inspired attack on U.S. soil since he took office, President Donald Trump urged swift repeal of an immigration program that brought the suspect to America and laid into a political foe he said was responsible for it — though Republican George H. W. Bush signed the law.</p>
<p>Trump insisted Wednesday that Congress must end the visa lottery program under which Uzbek immigrant Sayfullo Saipov entered the country, and he ordered still tighter scrutiny of immigrants already subject to what he calls “extreme vetting.” But the White House offered no indication of what new steps the president might be planning.</p>
<p>“We have to get much tougher, much smarter, and less politically correct,” Trump said. He also said the U.S. justice system for dealing with such cases must be strengthened, declaring, “What we have right now is a joke and it’s a laughingstock.” Again, there was no elaboration from the White House.</p>
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<p>Trump denounced the 29-year-old suspect in the truck attack, which killed eight and injured many more, as an “animal,” and said he was open to sending the man to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, instead of to trial in New York. “I would certainly consider that. Send him to Gitmo,” Trump said.</p>
<p>Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the White House considered Saipov an “enemy combatant” and had yet to decide whether to seek to move him out of the civilian judicial system to military detention.</p>
<p>A little later, however, prosecutors in New York filed charges in federal court accusing Saipov with providing material support to a terrorist group and committing violence and destruction of motor vehicles.</p>
<p>On the political front, Trump took to Twitter early Wednesday to blame Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat who represents New York, for the bipartisan visa program used by the suspect to enter the country in 2010.</p>
<p>The Department of Homeland Security confirmed that Saipov entered the U.S under the Diversity Visa Lottery Program, which gives people from countries with low rates of immigration an opportunity to come to the U.S. Trump branded the program “a Chuck Schumer beauty,” and called on Congress to immediately begin work to end it.</p>
<p>It was not immediately clear when Saipov was radicalized by the Islamic State group, but the New York City Police Department said he began planning the attack weeks ago.</p>
<p>Schumer did back the lottery program as a member of the House when it was approved with the support of both parties in 1990. It was signed by Republican President George H.W. Bush.</p>
<p>Trump’s broadside against a senator from the state still reeling from the attack drew bipartisan criticism.</p>
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<p>New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that Trump’s attack against Schumer “plays right into the hands of the terrorists,” by sowing division at a time when unity is needed. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said it was “probably not the best way to bring out the best in our country.” Corker, who has announced he will not run for re-election in 2018, has been increasingly critical of Trump’s temperament.</p>
<p>Schumer himself offered this advice: “The president ought to stop tweeting and start leading.”</p>
<p>Sanders later said Trump “has not blamed Senator Schumer and doesn’t feel that the senator is responsible for the attack.”</p>
<p>Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, defended Trump’s criticism of the visa lottery program.</p>
<p>“The diversity lottery visa’s been criticized by many people as being pretty indiscriminate in terms of who’s accepted into the country. I think it needs to be looked at. And I agree with the president that it can certainly be improved by more of a merit-based system.”</p>
<p>Sanders dismissed complaints that Trump was politicizing a tragedy, saying his calls for increasing extreme vetting of immigrants are “something that frankly the president has been talking about for a long time.”</p>
<p>Indeed, Trump has made repeated attempts to restrict entry into the country through various iterations of a travel ban, which have been blocked by federal courts. The administration has argued that it needs a temporary pause on entry from certain countries in order to develop stricter vetting measures and put them in place.</p>
<p>In the meantime, the administration has worked to improve information-sharing with various countries. It also has developed new requirements for entry into the U.S., such as the use of biometric passports that are more difficult to forge.</p>
<p>Officials could not elaborate on what new measures Trump was referring to in his tweet hours after the attack when he said he had “just ordered Homeland Security to step up our already Extreme Vetting Program.”</p>
<p>Sanders said that, since the tweet, the president had spoken several times with members of his national security team to “look and see” what more can be done.</p>
<p>“But,” she said, “we have put in place executive orders already since the president’s taken office that help go as far as we can at this point.”</p>
<p>Trump’s swift political response to the New York attacks contrasts with his wait-and-see approach after the October massacre of 59 people by a Las Vegas gunman. The White House then argued it was “premature” to discuss a legislative response and says now it is still studying whether to seek a ban on the modifications used by the Las Vegas shooter to fire his rifles at near-automatic rates.</p>
<p>The two responses offer the latest suggestions of how the culture wars that defined Trump’s campaign may be coloring his actions.</p>
<p>During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump proposed a total ban on Muslim immigration to the U.S. before embracing “extreme vetting.” He has backed legislation that would curb legal immigration and shift the nation toward a system that would place an emphasis on merit and skills over family ties and diversity criteria.</p>
<p>Trump late Wednesday repeated his call. “CHAIN MIGRATION must end now!” he tweeted. “Some people come in, and they bring their whole family with them, who can be truly evil. NOT ACCEPTABLE!”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writer Jill Colvin contributed to this report.</p> | Trump demands ‘much tougher’ immigration law after NY attack | false | https://abqjournal.com/1086337/trump-faults-schumer-diversity-immigration-in-nyc-attack.html | 2017-11-01 | 2 |
<p>Most of us work for a living; the rest are bankers. These days the news is filled with great tales about how the banks are coming back.</p>
<p>Even that giant corpse Citigroup is showing signs of life. Its stock is now selling for more than five times the lows hit earlier this year. Its market capitalization is up near $57 billion, a bit more than the $45 billion that the government lent them through the TARP. Some are even expecting that the government will make a profit on its Citigroup investment.</p>
<p>These hopes are probably somewhat premature. Citigroup still has many bad assets on its books which it has not yet written down. Furthermore, the government is directly on the hook for $300 billion of these bad assets, having offered a guarantee as part of its December Citigroup Rescue Special.</p>
<p>In this case, Citigroup may be able to prevent losses and boost the value of its government-owned stock because the government is picking up its bad debts. This is a case of money going into one pocket but out of the other one; that’s not the way that most investors make money.</p>
<p>In fact, much of the story of the return of bank profitability has this character of money in one pocket and out the other pocket. To make the story as simple as possible, banks can now borrow money short-term at near zero cost from the Federal Reserve Board. The Fed has pushed rates to near zero in order to boost the economy. On the other side, banks can buy up U.S. government bonds that are currently paying around 3.5 percent interest.</p>
<p>This means that we lend the banks the money that they lend back to us, albeit at a considerably higher interest rate. To take round numbers, let’s say that the banks have borrowed $1 trillion from the Fed’s various lending facilities. (The Fed’s total loans are now over $2 trillion.) Suppose they pay an average interest rate of 0.2 percent on this money. If the banks then buy up government bonds that pay a 3.5 percent interest rate, they can pocket the difference of 3.3 percentage points. On a trillion dollars of lending, this will give the banks $33 billion a year in net interest or profit. This is the extra money that the government is paying the banks to borrow back the money that it lent them through the Fed.</p>
<p>Of course this is not the whole story of the banks’ return to profitability. We also have the shrewd traders like the Goldman Sachs crew. They take the money that they borrowed, either directly from the government or with the government’s guarantee, and use it to speculate in items like oil and other commodities.</p>
<p>These folks are betting that they can outguess the markets. For example, the Goldman boys might catch oil on the way up, so that consumers pay higher gas prices somewhat sooner to cover Goldman’s trading profits. Alternatively, they might short a commodity like oil. This will cause the price to drop more quickly than would otherwise be the case, leaving producers with somewhat less money than if Goldman hadn’t stepped into the market.</p>
<p>In either case, Goldman’s gains come at the expense of other actors in the market. There is not anything necessarily wrong with speculation; informed speculation can provide useful information to the markets. However, in this case the taxpayers are financing it, and taking the risk if it goes bad.</p>
<p>It turned out Goldman’s bets were winners in the second quarter, so this means that the taxpayers paid for Goldman’s profits with the higher gap between the prices paid by gasoline buyers and other consumers and the money received by oil companies and other producers. Of course, if Goldman’s bets had gone badly, taxpayers would have been forced to cough up the money to make up the losses directly through the Treasury. Either way, the taxpayers get to pay.</p>
<p>That is the basic story of the banking industry. These folks have the system set up so that they should be able to make money pretty much regardless of what happens, with the risk of bad outcomes all placed on the taxpayers.</p>
<p>Many people are outraged that the banks intend to pay their top executives large bonuses. But these unthinking populists simply don’t recognize these people’s extraordinary talent. After all, it is not everyone who can get the government to subsidize them to the tune of several billion dollars a year. These people may not fare very well in a market economy, but these bank executives get huge rewards in an economy like the one we have in the United States.</p>
<p>DEAN BAKER is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He is the author of <a href="" type="internal">Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of the Bubble Economy.</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | Bank Profits Are Up | true | https://counterpunch.org/2009/09/01/bank-profits-are-up/ | 2009-09-01 | 4 |
<p>The Dow Jones industrial average fell to 6763.29 Monday. In less than a year and a half, the market has lost more than half of its value. More bad news from the financial sector has some analysts worried that rock bottom is still a long way away.</p>
<p>AP via Google:</p>
<p>Investors' despair about financial companies and the recession has brought the Dow Jones industrial average to another unwanted milestone: its first drop below 7,000 in more than 11 years. The market's slide Monday, which took the Dow down 300 points, was nowhere near the largest it has seen since last fall, but the tumble below 7,000 was nonetheless painful.</p>
<p>The credit crisis and recession have slashed more than half the average's value since it hit a record high over 14,000 in October 2007. And now many investors fear the market could take a long time to regain the lost 7,000.</p>
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<p>"As bad as things are, they can still get worse, and get a lot worse," said Bill Strazzullo, chief market strategist for Bell Curve Trading. Strazzullo said he believes there's a significant chance the S&amp;P 500 and the Dow will fall back to their 1995 levels of 500 and 5,000, respectively.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gHs5OM3gFG_DytQQZFbWfgPT08MAD96M5CRO0" type="external">Read more</a></p> | Dow Slides Below 7000, No End in Sight | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/dow-slides-below-7000-no-end-in-sight/ | 2009-03-03 | 4 |
<p>NASA just reported the drought in eastern Montana is so severe it is a once in a century event.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, despite livestock grazing that some suggest could preclude large blazes, the drought in eastern Montana has spawned some recent wildfires, including the 270,000-acre Lodgepole Fire. The fire raced across grazed public and private pasture and rangelands.</p>
<p>Some ranchers who lost grass to the fire now must sell off their cattle, buy hay or seek out other private pastures for their cattle.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, some of these cowboys have requested the Dept of Interior to open Montana’s Charles M. Russell Wildlife Refuge (CMR) for grazing by their cows. And recently Secretary of Interior Zinke granted their wish and swung open the gate to grazing by their livestock.</p>
<p>It’s ironic that for the most part the livestock industry regularly belittles the government, welfare queens, and paying taxes—yet they are quick to call on the government to assist with taxpayer welfare.</p>
<p>I do not mind helping people who have been impacted by a natural event. That’s what government is for and should do—even people who complain about government all the time.</p>
<p>But allowing cattle to graze the CMR is the wrong solution. The CMR grass is needed more by native public wildlife than by privately owned cattle.</p>
<p>In a drought, wildlife must scramble to find food and cover. During drought, there is often as little as one third grass production. In addition, wildlife displaced by the Lodgepole Fire must also search further for food, and no doubt some will be heading to the CMR.</p>
<p>In addition, livestock grazing during droughts is more likely to help favor the spread of weeds by disturbing soils and consumption of drought weakened native places.</p>
<p>While the ranchers have other options from leasing other private pasture to buying hay to reducing their herds, wildlife has no other options.</p>
<p>Let’s give the ranchers affected by fire a helping hand—provide loans, give emergency assistance, bring in hay from other regions—but let’s not compromise the public’s wildlife by allowing cattle to graze the CMR.</p>
<p>These are public lands that belong to all Americans, and they should be managed to benefit all Americans. Allowing private businesses to expropriate the food and cover that otherwise is needed by the public’s wildlife is not in the public interest.</p> | Zinke and the Welfare Ranchers: Subsidies for Us But Not for Thee | true | https://counterpunch.org/2017/08/04/zinke-and-the-welfare-ranchers-subsidies-for-us-but-not-for-thee/ | 2017-08-04 | 4 |
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<p>Barclays Plc will sell its Africa business as part of a plan by new Chief Executive Jes Staley to simplify the bank's structure and seek higher shareholder returns, after reporting a 2 percent profit drop and slashing its dividend.</p>
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<p>The British bank said on Tuesday it planned to sell its 62 percent stake in Barclays Africa Group over the next two to three years, ending its presence on the continent after more than a century and becoming a "transatlantic" bank focused on the United States and Britain.</p>
<p>It would then concentrate on two divisions, Barclays UK and Barclays Corporate and International, to comply with ring-fencing regulations aimed at safeguarding its retail banking business from riskier operations.</p>
<p>Barclays is "fundamentally on the right path," Staley said in his first results announcement since taking over one of the most prominent roles in British business in December.</p>
<p>Adjusted pretax profit fell to 5.4 billion pounds ($7.5 billion) for the year to Dec. 31 from 5.5 billion a year earlier, below an average forecast of 5.8 billion.</p>
<p>The bank said it was cutting its dividend to 3 pence per share from 2016 from 6.5p in 2015, a move Staley said would help Barclays maintain capital levels while it disposes of unwanted assets. Its shares fell as much as 10.5 percent.</p>
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<p>Staley told reporters he was comfortable with the bank's capital position, dismissing some concerns that Barclays might need a cash call to bring its common equity Tier 1 (CET1) ratio, a key measure of financial strength, closer in line with rivals.</p>
<p>SWEEPING CUTS</p>
<p>The bank's CET1 stood at 11.4 percent, from 10.3 percent a year earlier, while its leverage ratio improved to 4.5 percent.</p>
<p>"While we believe that the cut in dividend will be taken negatively initially, it will help to allay fears of capital weakness," analysts at Haitong Research wrote.</p>
<p>In the few months since Staley's appointment, Barclays has made sweeping cuts across its investment bank and exited several businesses including in Asia, aiming to trim costs, reduce risk and shore up its balance sheet.</p>
<p>However, legacy issues continue to hurt the bank, with 4.01 billion pounds of provisions made against an array of regulatory missteps, compared with 2.36 billion a year earlier.</p>
<p>Barclays made an additional provision in the fourth quarter of 1.45 billion pounds for mis-selling loan insurance, more than doubling its total for the year to 2.77 billion. It has set aside 7.42 billion in total to compensate customers.</p>
<p>It also said it is cooperating with the U.S. department of Justice and the SEC on an investigation into its hiring practices in Asia, becoming the latest bank to disclose involvement in the wide-ranging probe.</p>
<p>Barclays said it will pay ousted CEO Antony Jenkins 3.4 million pounds for 2015, including a pro-rata bonus of 505,000 pounds. Its total bonus pool shrank 10 percent to 1.67 billion.</p>
<p>($1 = 0.7179 pounds) (Additional reporting by Richa Naidu; Editing by Sinead Cruise and David Holmes)</p> | Barclays To Exit Africa in 'Transatlantic' Makeover; Slashes Dividend | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/03/01/barclays-to-exit-africa-in-transatlantic-makeover-slashes-dividend.html | 2016-03-05 | 0 |
<p>Shimon Peres is celebrating. Shimon Peres? The whole world is celebrating with him!</p>
<p>What has he got to celebrate?</p>
<p>Well, he has reached the age of 80. A respectable age. I can’t begrudge him. (After all, I myself am now 80 years old, and I just had a celebration, too.)</p>
<p>When one gets to be 80 years old, it is customary to invite some friends round. So Peres invited a few pals, too. Such as Bill Clinton and Mikhail Gorbachev, Frederick de Klerk and Joschka Fischer, the presidents of Slovenia, Germany and Malta, not to mention the Ivory Coast, several billionaires, an assortment of ministers from various countries, some actors and singers and the holocaustist Claude Lantzman. Diplomacy, entertainment and the holocaust, a tasteful mixture.</p>
<p>A whole luxury hotel has been booked for the 400 exalted guests, 1200 policeman will be mobilized, streets in two cities will be closed. Excellent. Something like the triumph of a victorious Roman Imperator coming home from the wars.</p>
<p>And that is the weird part.</p>
<p>What has he got to celebrate, after all?</p>
<p>He is the chairman of the Labor Party. The Labor Party lies in ruins. It has ceased to exist as a functioning party. Its leaders haunt the corridors like ghosts. Its local branches are in a shambles. It has no program. It has no plan. Nobody knows what it wants. Nobody knows what it exists for. If, indeed, it does exist.</p>
<p>True, Peres does not bear the responsibility for this collapse alone. Its main architect was Ehud Barak, the champion of disasters, who spread the historic lie that we have no partner for peace. With this he opened the way for Ariel Sharon’s rise to power. But Shimon Peres joined Sharon’s government, served him loyally, disseminated around the world the myth that Sharon is a man of peace, paved his way in Washington and lent a willing hand to all his atrocities–the ‘targeted killings”, the wholesale demolition of homes, the enlargement of the settlements at a frantic pace.</p>
<p>Now the Labor Party has reached such a miserable state that Sharon is not even interested in having it as a junior partner in his government. What does he need it for? He has got Tommy Lapid. There are few sights more pitiful than a worn-out whore whom nobody wants anymore.</p>
<p>Since Peres was appointed party chairman by default–with no other credible candidate standing – it has the atmosphere of a graveyard. No whiff of fresh (or indeed any) air reaches it. Nothing happens. From time to time some television channel devotes a few minutes to a party caucus, out of pity or schadenfreude.</p>
<p>Shimon Peres has no time to deal with the Party, because he is busy with the party. That is a full-time job with overtime.</p>
<p>It is also a disaster. The disappearance of the Labor Party has left a black hole in the political system. No democracy can function without an efficient and combative opposition. When the government is headed by a person like Ariel Sharon, who is leading Israel towards a predictable catastrophe, the absence of an opposition is a national crime.</p>
<p>Peres does not think so. “What do we need an opposition for?” he demanded recently in one of his innumerable interviews in the media. And indeed, what for? After all, Peres does not hide his longing for a seat in the government, any government, even (or especially) a government under Ariel Sharon.</p>
<p>And why not? What is the great difference between Sharon and Peres, apart from Sharon’s charisma and Peres’ record of failures? Is Peres against the assassination of Palestinian leaders? No. Does he oppose the “removal” of Yasser Arafat? In one of his interviews, he spoke against it feebly, but he is not mobilizing his party against the approaching disaster. Demolition of homes? Uprooting of trees? A thunderous silence, at best.</p>
<p>In his long career, Peres has been everything. He has been an extreme hawk and a cooing dove. He is the father of Israel’s nuclear bomb and (after intense lobbying) a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. One of the main initiators of the 1956 war, in the company of two foul colonialist regimes (France and Britain, at the time), and a partner to the Oslo agreement. The father of the West Bank settlements and the creator of the Good Fence on the Lebanese border. The advocate of the Lebanon invasion and, just a few days later, the main speaker at the Peace Now demonstration against it.</p>
<p>He has supported everything. At one time he declared that Israel is not a Middle Eastern but a “Mediterranean” country. For years has advocated the “Jordanian Option” that ignored the existence of the Palestinian people. Then he shook the hand of Arafat and invented the New Middle East. And through all these years he has never, never won an election.</p>
<p>What has he got to celebrate?</p>
<p>Shimon Peres bears a major part of the responsibility for the woeful state that Israel is now in, for the continuation of conflict with the Palestinians, for destroying the Israeli peace camp, for strengthening the Likud’s hold on power, for paving the way for Ariel Sharon, who is quite capable of bringing about the destruction of Israel.</p>
<p>Even in the declining years of the Roman empire, they did not celebrate a triumph for a defeated and humiliated general. Only in Israel. Because, in Israel, nothing succeeds like failure.</p>
<p>URI AVNERY is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is one of the writers featured in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/156584789X/counterpunchmaga" type="external">The Other Israel: Voices of Dissent and Refusal</a>. One of his essays is also included in Cockburn and St. Clair’s forthcoming book: <a href="" type="internal">The Politics of Anti-Semitism</a>. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | The Silliest Show in Town | true | https://counterpunch.org/2003/09/20/the-silliest-show-in-town/ | 2003-09-20 | 4 |
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<p>Photo by Tyler Merbler | <a href="" type="internal">CC BY 2.0</a></p>
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<p>Some preliminary thoughts on the Democrats’ failure to beat someone as loathsome as Donald Trump:</p>
<p>1) Insider Democrats did all they could to tilt the scales (Wasserman Schultz, Donna Brazile, et al) to nominate the most out-spokenly neo-liberal candidate ever. Though I wasn’t a Bernie supporter, leading Democrats chose to ignore how their candidate was the least able to defeat anyone in the Republican field – Wall Street had their candidate, and they were with her, and everyone in the Dems’ base just had to suck it up.</p>
<p>In 2008, Obama and Clinton did their best to out anti-NAFTA each other in the Ohio and other rust belt primaries, and despite evidence to the contrary, hope-against-hope, many working class people believed them. Eight years later the evidence was too glaring to ignore — Goldman Sachs speeches, Clinton Fdn pay-to-play, TPP, etc., and for good, and demonstrably bad reasons, white working class voters deserted the Democrats. Any wonder why Trump swept the rust belt?</p>
<p>2) The last two years have, with good reason, seen an explosion of fury against racist police murders – with most of the mayors covering for the cops being Dems of the Rahm Emanuel variety. So is it any wonder that Dems couldn’t more motivate urban areas of Pennsylvania and Ohio to offset the white, rural racist vote?</p>
<p>3) As a political junky I’ve tried to engage as many people of as many different backgrounds as possible to find out their views on the election. Despite many months of conversations, I have yet to have had a face-to-face discussion with anyone who was enthusiastically FOR Clinton. The enthusiasm of her many supporters always went the other way – AGAINST the bigotry of Trump, and “yes she’s got faults, but Trump is SO horrible.”</p>
<p>This was seen in the largest, truly motivated group of Clinton voters – Latinos. After a record 2 million deportations of the undocumented under an incumbent Democrat, Latinos swept to the polls not in an act of pro-Clinton allegiance, but in anti-racist disgust against Trump.</p>
<p>3) The United States has always been much more racist and otherwise bigoted than most liberals congratulated themselves about after the 2008 victory of President Obama. The 2008 election should have been an FDR vs. Herbert Hoover cake-walk victory. We had by far the worst recession since the Great Depression (that year’s October surprise) and yet the incumbent party only narrowly lost?</p>
<p>The explanation should have been clear at the time – the only reason it was close at all was because the challenger was a black man, and racist America largely wasn’t ready to accept a black man as president despite the disaster that was the was the incumbent party.</p>
<p>Seven years later and most working class incomes are just beginning to recover to the pre-Great Recession levels, and that’s not even accounting for the fact that real working class incomes have lost enormous ground since the early 1970s. Enter a racist bloviator who blames that declining income on all the usual scapegoats, and adds in some phony anti-Wall Street populism for good measure.</p>
<p>Just about the only solace the Dems should take from this is that the next recession will likely occur during a Trump first term, and it will likely not be a “usual” recession, but a really bad one that will hurt all working class people enormously.</p>
<p>Here’s why: We already have one of the longest (and weakest) economic expansions in history. The next recession will probably be unusually savage because the usual stimulators for moderating such recessions — lowering interest rates and deficit spending — are already largely tapped out. The savage effects of the next recession will not only be accentuated by a governing party that loathes U.S. cities and their residents.</p>
<p>The incumbent party, in this case the Republicans, will be blamed for it, just as the Democrats have been blamed for the failure of the current anemic expansion to make a real difference in most working class people’s incomes.</p>
<p>But don’t expect the Democrats to offer the sort of truly paradigm-altering programs we saw during the Great Depression — unless forced to by massive opposition to BOTH parties from the ground up. Things like the three general strikes in 1934. Things like the occupations of all major workplaces and the formation of the mass, industrial unions in the immediate few years thereafter that forced the creation of America’s first social safety net after many previous decades’ failures.</p>
<p>Rather than tinker around the edges with phony “help the homeless” vouchers, token job-training programs and other such neoliberal nonsense that is common currency today, massive public works programs put millions to work, massive construction of affordable housing put people in homes, and rights like the 8 hour day and Social Security pensions for the elderly were won.</p>
<p>All of the promises of the early New Deal years began to go down the toilet when the independent left largely threw its lot in with Democrats in the 1936 election and thereafter. With the onset of WWII, McCarthyism and then the more severe recessions beginning in the 1970s, Democratic politicians increasingly attacked their own base. The same was seen after the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, when the remnants of those movements threw their lot in with the Democrats in the 1970s.</p>
<p>Unlike some Bernie supporters, I do not see that even the most robust New Deal style programs will even begin to solve the most fundamental, anti-human, anti-planet problems of capitalism. They will at best ameliorate them.</p>
<p>But this side of overthrowing capitalism, widespread amelioration is a better alternative to the far more savage results we saw during the 1930s in other countries. And for that we need to re-learn the lessons of the struggles of the 1930s, and how BOTH major parties were at the core of the problems, and not the solutions.</p> | Why the Democrats Couldn’t Defeat Someone as Loathsome as Trump | true | https://counterpunch.org/2016/11/10/why-the-democrats-couldnt-defeat-someone-as-loathsome-as-trump/ | 2016-11-10 | 4 |
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<p>Denison: Police say he pointed gun at them</p>
<p>Denison was shot multiple times while running from police near Menaul and Louisiana. He was carrying a revolver at the time, and he had been part of a group of three people who were suspected of trying to sell stolen musical instruments to Music Go Round, according to documents on the shooting, which the District Attorney’s Office has declined to prosecute.</p>
<p>The lawsuit states that infrared police helicopter video of the shooting conflicts with the account the officer who shot Denison gave to police investigators. The suit was filed by Frances Crockett on behalf of Charlotte Ingram, who is a representative for Denison’s estate. His name is also spelled Dennison in police and court documents.</p>
<p>In an interview with police, SWAT officer Anthony Sedler said Denison held his revolver steady and appeared ready to fire as he was running from officers. Sedler also said as Denison was fleeing, he jumped into the air and kicked the outer door of a restaurant, and Sedler fired the first time to prevent him from entering the business. He said Denison then turned and pointed the revolver at him and he fired a second time, but it didn’t appear the bullets were having an effect on Denison, according to a transcript of his interview.</p>
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<p>“I was pretty positive that I was going to end up getting shot, or at least going to be shot at,” Sedler said in an interview with investigators days after the shooting, according to the transcript. He said he then fired a third shot and Denison fell to the ground.</p>
<p>The lawsuit says that in the helicopter video of the shooting it doesn’t appear Denison had anything in his hand and it doesn’t show him point a gun at anyone.</p>
<p>“The video shows that Denison was shot in the back and side as he collided with the doors to the Day Light Café,” the suit says. “After colliding with the doors of the café, Denison falls to the ground and does not get back up. Nor does he point a gun at anyone.”</p>
<p>The infrared video of the shooting shows Denison hiding behind a car before he gets up and runs across a parking lot and then crashes into an outer wall of a restaurant and falls to the ground.</p>
<p>The video, which is about 30 seconds long, was posted to District Attorney Kari Brandenburg’s website in September when she announced there was no probable cause to charge Sedler with a crime for the shooting.</p>
<p>Sedler’s helmet camera was not turned on during the shooting. He said that was because the situation unfolded quickly, according to documents.</p>
<p>SWAT officer Francisco Aragon, who is also named in the lawsuit, shot at a fleeing Denison and missed. The suit also is against an unidentified police supervisor.</p>
<p>The claims in the lawsuit include excessive force and unreasonable seizure. It also claims Albuquerque police have negligent hiring practices and that Sedler is a “problem officer” who has been involved in three fatal shootings and been sued three times.</p>
<p>An Albuquerque police spokesman said he couldn’t comment on the lawsuit Wednesday.</p>
<p>The Albuquerque police SWAT team was criticized by the Department of Justice during its report finding APD had a pattern or practice of excessive force, which included police shootings. A settlement agreement aimed at reforming the department is awaiting approval by a federal judge.</p>
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<p /> | APD, 3 officers sued in deadly shooting | false | https://abqjournal.com/550007/albuquerque-police-dept-3-officers-sued-in-fatal-shooting.html | 2 |
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<p>By Marguerita Cheng via Iris.xyz As parents and professionals, we strive to have the best of both worlds. We want our children to receive the best care while we earn a living. However, as the cost of living rises,&#160;the balance between our worlds becomes unsteady. Click here to read the full story on Iris.xyz. &#160; <a href="http://www.etftrends.com/2016/11/4-ways-to-cut-childcare-costs-regain-balance/" type="external">Click to read more at ETFtrends.com. Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p> | 4 Ways to Cut Childcare Costs & Regain Balance | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/11/21/4-ways-to-cut-childcare-costs-regain-balance.html | 2016-11-21 | 0 |
<p>While discussing Donald Trump's new <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/donald-trumps-child-care-plan-hard-take-seriously" type="external">Child Care</a> plans on <a href="http://www.cnn.com/shows/new-day" type="external">CNN's New Day</a>, Rep Steve King told host Chris Cuomo he only wanted to promote "natural families" [A man and a woman] because "that's the most wholesome thing we can do."</p>
<p>Rep Steve King is a <a href="" type="internal">noted anti-gay Congressman</a> from Iowa and as he was telling CNN's Chris Cuomo why he supports parts of Trump's Child Care plan,</p>
<p>He said, "I would encourage him to promote the expansion of families because if we don't have more babies than we have funerals, we're going to end up like Europe and we're going to be in a situation where we're importing a culture that may be alien to the values of the American way of life."</p>
<p>He solidly supported making more babies in this country because "others" might birth us out of existence like they are in Europe.</p>
<p>In other words, Hispanic and Sharia law babies will rule America!</p>
<p>Rep. King then went off on a weird tangent against same sex couples.</p>
<p>Cuomo then asked, "When you say encourage more babies and all that, would you include the LGBT community in terms of families to encourage having kids and expanding them?"</p>
<p>King replied, "I want to respect all people, but I want to promote the natural family, Chris. That's the most wholesome thing we can do."</p>
<p>Just like b <a href="http://www.autobytel.com/car-ownership/road-trip/baseball-apple-pie-and-chevrolet-1390/" type="external">aseball, hot dogs and apple pie</a>, I guess.</p>
<p>Cuomo continued, "What's the natural family in your opinion?"</p>
<p>Rep. King joyfully replied, "A man and a woman joined hopefully together in holy matrimony, blessed by God, with children."</p>
<p>Cuomo pointed out that <a href="http://www.livescience.com/17913-advantages-gay-parents.html" type="external">research shows LGBT families</a> are doing just as well in parenting, King said he needed to look at that research, claimed global warming wasn't real and then reiterated his bigoted point of view, "I want to encourage the natural family. That's the best and most wholesome way to raise a child and that's been the case throughout thousands of years of human history and we need to go with what works."</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.apa.org/news/press/response/gay-parents.aspx" type="external">American Psychological Association reported:</a></p>
<p>On the basis of a remarkably consistent body of research on lesbian and gay parents and their children, the American Psychological Association (APA) and other health professional and scientific organizations have concluded that there is no scientific evidence that parenting effectiveness is related to parental sexual orientation.</p>
<p>After Chris Cuomo explained him that there are many problems within traditional marriages and child rearing and said, "why not try something that works as well, for the benefit of the children."</p>
<p>Rep. King continued with his religious right talking points which begins with,"I'm not discouraging or disparaging anyone, but..."</p>
<p>Yes, you are disparaging the entire LGBT community when you say same sex couples aren't qualified to raise children.</p>
<p>And when Rep. King boasts about seeing different research on the matter, he never tells us what that research tells us or where that information was from.</p>
<p>Does the Bible count as a scientific research journal? No, it couldn't be that because there's not much in the Bible about the LGBT community anyway.</p>
<p>I wonder where his research comes from?</p>
<p>Isn't it interesting that Trump's policies are not only reaching out to White nationalists, but also to anti-Gay idealogues? Who could have predicted that?!?</p>
<p>Remember, Gov. Mike Pence, Trump's running mate, <a href="http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2016/07/mike-pences-top-seven-homophobic-moments-many/" type="external">is a huge homophobe too.</a></p> | Rep. Steve King Only Supports Child Care For 'Natural Families' | true | http://crooksandliars.com/2016/09/rep-steve-king-only-supports-child-care | 2016-09-14 | 4 |
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<p>Japan's Nikkei share average tumbled to a four-month closing low on Thursday after signs the U.S. Federal Reserve may start cutting its king-sized balance sheet earlier than expected spooked the market.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The Nikkei dropped 1.4 percent to 18,597.06, the lowest close since early December.</p>
<p>Investors were also wary ahead of a potentially tense meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, the first between the world's two most powerful leaders.</p>
<p>The broader Topix dropped 1.6 percent to 1,480.18.</p>
<p>(Reporting by Ayai Tomisawa; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)</p> | Nikkei Tumbles to 4-Month Low After Fed Minutes | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/04/06/nikkei-tumbles-to-4-month-low-after-fed-minutes.html | 2017-04-06 | 0 |
<p>Rex Features via AP Images</p>
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<p>By day, Joe Tien is a math professor at Ohio State University, where he studies the spread of infectious diseases. His research maps how a disease like Ebola jumps from village to village and plots the best way to stop its spread. On his own time, Tien has begun putting his skills in network science toward other subjects, including the connection between white nationalists and American politicians.</p>
<p>After the election, Tien and two other mathematicians set out to map the relationship between white nationalists and US senators on social media. The results produced one clear outlier: Based on an analysis of senators’ Twitter followers, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), President Donald Trump’s nominee to be attorney general, had the most overlap with white nationalist groups and individuals.</p>
<p>“He’s the closest of all senators to the white nationalist groups,” says Tien.</p>
<p>Sessions has a controversial <a href="" type="internal">track record on matters of race</a>, including allegations of racist comments toward black colleagues and the targeted prosecution of civil rights activists. But Tien was still surprised by the outcome of his research. He and his colleagues wrote a short paper on their findings and titled it “The Curious Case of Jefferson Sessions.”</p>
<p>Tien recently joined forces with UCLA mathematician Mason Porter and a third academic who wishes to remain anonymous to launch a new blog under the pseudonym Susan Bourbaki Anthony. (The name is a reference to suffragist Susan B. Anthony and an anonymous group of French mathematicians who published under the pseudonym Nicolas Bourbaki in the 1930s.) The goal is to use their expertise to provide objective data about issues they believe are important and nonpartisan, such as voting rights and racial equality. They plan to post their code online so people can test and use it.</p>
<p>Their first project studied the overlap between the Twitter followers of white nationalists, Trump, and Breitbart News, the right-wing site whose former chairman is now Trump’s top White House strategist. Unsurprisingly, they found that followers of white nationalists are very likely to follow both Trump and Breitbart. Trump, according to their <a href="http://www.susanbourbaki.com/2017/01/11/breitbart/" type="external">analysis</a>, actually has more overlap with white nationalist groups than with either political party.</p>
<p>For their second project on the relationship between white nationalists and politicians, Tien and his collaborators identified the Twitter accounts of seven white nationalist groups from the Southern Poverty Law Center’s <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/groups" type="external">list of extremist organizations</a>. They added two other Twitter accounts to their list: those of prominent white supremacist David Duke and the website The Right Stuff, which Tien learned about through white nationalist propaganda posted on bulletin boards at Ohio State University after the election. <a href="#correction" type="external">*</a> Tien and his colleagues downloaded the list of all the followers of these nine accounts and of the 100 US senators, resulting in a network of about 11 million people. They then identified the overlap, or “co-followership,” between followers of white nationalist groups and individual senators.</p>
<p>This work isn’t too far afield from Tien’s day job. “Rather than sets of communities or cities, we’re looking at Twitter accounts,” he explains. But in both cases, the patterns of connections create a network that can be mined for information.</p>
<p>Generally, the mathematicians’ algorithms found that senators with large numbers of followers were less closely tied to white nationalists, because the co-followership represented a smaller percentage of their overall followers. But there was one exception: Sessions. “Despite [his] reasonably large following,” the authors wrote, “the distance from Sessions to the white nationalist community was the closest of all senators.”</p>
<p>At the time of the analysis, conducted a few weeks after the election, Sessions had about 86,000 followers, more than many of his colleagues. But he had high levels of co-followership with white nationalist groups. About 7 percent of the white nationalists’ followers followed Sessions, compared to about 2 percent for the average senator, according to Tien.</p>
<p>Just five senators have a higher number of co-followers with white nationalist groups than Sessions. But unlike Sessions, each of those five has more than 1 million total followers, probably because they all ran for president at one time. These are Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and John McCain (R-Ariz.). When Tien ran his numbers, about 4 percent of Sessions followers also followed at least one of the nine white nationalist accounts. The average co-followership among all senators was about 1 percent. Paul had the highest number of co-followers, but they represented just 1 percent of his total Twitter following. The senator with the lowest co-followership, Cory Booker (D-N.J.), was at 0.08 percent.</p>
<p>Tien’s analysis doesn’t explain why followers of white nationalist groups also follow Sessions, and he acknowledges that it’s not 100 percent airtight, since it may have factored in the accounts of bots and political reporters who follow white nationalists as part of their jobs. But it does demonstrate that Sessions draws significant interest from followers of prominent white nationalists. Despite Sessions’ record on civil rights, which includes a hardline anti-immigration position, Tien says he was surprised by the findings. “I didn’t think it would show up in the Twitter space,” he says. “I wasn’t sure that these guys were going to bother following Sessions.”</p>
<p>Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated how The Right Stuff propaganda was disseminated.</p>
<p /> | White Nationalists on Twitter Sure Do Love Jeff Sessions. | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/jeff-sessions-close-ties-white-nationalists-twitter/ | 2017-01-30 | 4 |
<p>Stranded for 10 days in her car, in the snow, Arizona State University student Lauren Elizabeth Weinberg survived on two candy bars and melted snow.</p>
<p>Weinberg left her mother's home in south Phoenix on Dec. 11 and got stuck in the snow a day later, <a href="http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45758570/ns/us_news-life/#.TvNxvUpU2lw" type="external">MSNBC</a> reported. She was driving around with no specific destination when she drove off of a paved road onto a dirt road. When Weinberg stopped her car at a fence line and attempted to move a gate she realized it was stuck in the snow, along with her car.</p>
<p>Read more at GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/culture-lifestyle/traveltourism/111104/everest-hikers-himalayas-trekkers-stranded-fog" type="external">2,000 Everest trekkers stranded by severe weather</a></p>
<p>She was found by two US Forest Service employees on snowmobiles who were checking if the gates on forest roads were closed. Weinberg was then taken to Flagstaff Medical Center and was released on Thursday, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/stranded-ariz-student-texas-family-rescued-15211497#.TvNySEpU2lw" type="external">ABC News</a>reported. Coconino County sheriff's spokesman Gerry Blair said the employees described her condition as "coherent and lucid but very hungry, thirsty, and cold."</p>
<p>"I am so thankful to be alive and warm," Weinberg, 23, said through a spokeswoman at the Flagstaff Medical Center, MSNBC reported. "Thank you everyone for your thoughts and prayers, because they worked. There were times I was afraid but mostly I had faith I would be found."</p>
<p>Read more at GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/111220/great-plains-snowstorm-kills-6-strands-hundreds" type="external">Great Plains snowstorm kills 6, strands hundreds (VIDEO)</a></p>
<p>Weather forecasters and authorities said her survival was remarkable since she was stuck in more than two feet of snow and temperatures dipped to near zero some of the nights, the <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jakOMRURBQuLoS1DcU2T9zo0p7LQ?docId=bb2dc7341210402ebf391c2e1bc4ec68" type="external">Associated Press</a> reported. Weinberg did have a cell phone but the battery was dead.</p>
<p>The 23-year-old had just two candy bars with her and would put snow inside of a water bottle and place it atop her car so it would melt, MSNBC reported.</p> | Stranded Arizona University student Lauren Weinberg survives on candy bars and snow for 10 days | false | https://pri.org/stories/2011-12-22/stranded-arizona-university-student-lauren-weinberg-survives-candy-bars-and-snow | 2011-12-22 | 3 |
<p>Truthdig has once again been nominated for a Webby award. This year, we’re up for a Webby in the Politics category, facing fierce (and prestigious) competition for the People’s Voice award from the likes of NPR.org Political, FactCheck.org, The Pew Forum on Religion &amp; Public Life, and MAPLight.org.</p>
<p>The Webby Awards committee has also given Truthdig an extra accolade this year by including us in its Best Copy/Writing Honorees <a href="http://www.webbyawards.com/webbys/current_honorees.php?media_id=96&amp;category_id=76&amp;season=12" type="external">list</a>.</p>
<p>We’d love your help as we shoot for another Webby win — taking home the Best Political Blog award last year was a real honor, and we owe it to our community of readers and contributors. To vote, sign up <a href="http://peoplesvoice.webbyawards.com/" type="external">here</a> and find us under Politics in the Society category. Thanks for your support!</p>
<p /> | Truthdig in Running for 2008 Webby Award | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/truthdig-in-running-for-2008-webby-award/ | 2008-04-13 | 4 |
<p>The Federal Reserve should make itself more predictable about scaling back its massive bond buying campaign, a top U.S. central banker said on Thursday, acknowledging that it had confused markets by not tapering at its meeting last week.</p>
<p>Fed Governor Jeremy Stein said he would have been comfortable starting to reduce asset purchases at the September 17-18 meeting, and that the decision to keep buying at an $85 billion monthly pace had been, for him, a "close call".</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>"But whether we start in September or a bit later is not in itself the key issue - the difference in the overall amount of securities we buy will be modest," he told a monetary policy conference in Frankfurt.</p>
<p>"What is much more important is doing everything we can to ensure that this difficult transition is implemented in as transparent and predictable a manner as possible. On this front, I think it is safe to say that there may be room for improvement," he said in prepared remarks.</p>
<p>The Fed's decision to stand pat on bond buying stunned financial markets, which had anticipated it would begin to slowly reduce the program, signaling the beginning of the end to an unprecedented five years of ultra-easy monetary policy.</p>
<p>The Fed explained by pointing to the disappointing performance of the U.S. economy in the second half of 2013, while also noting the headwinds from restrictive U.S. fiscal policy. These could worsen as leaders in Washington fight over a deal to keep the government funded and lift the U.S. debt limit.</p>
<p>Investors are now focused on Fed meetings in October and December, although some economists say the central bank could hold fire until 2014 to make sure the U.S. economy has decisively regained cruising speed.</p>
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<p>Stein, who has talked about the risk of Fed bond buying leading to asset bubbles, said that one way to reduce uncertainty and accompanying market volatility would be to link future tapering directly to economic data.</p>
<p>"My personal preference would be to make future step-downs a completely deterministic function of a labor market indicator, such as the unemployment rate or cumulative payroll growth over some period," Stein said. "For example, one could cut monthly purchases by a set amount for each further 10 basis point decline in the unemployment rate."</p> | Fed's Stein: More Predictability Needed About Taper | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2013/09/26/fed-stein-more-predictability-needed-about-taper.html | 2016-03-02 | 0 |
<p>“When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing” (Riverhead Books), by Daniel H. Pink</p>
<p>It’s January; time to make room in the self-improvement section of your bookcase.</p>
<p>“When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing” by Daniel H. Pink perfectly executes the tried-and-true formula for social science books. Start with a compelling anecdote, tease it apart with some science and suggest ideas on how applying the underlying principle can better your life. It fits right in next to “The Power of Habit.”</p>
<p>Pink sets out to “unearth the hidden science of timing” — to uncover it as a significant if unrecognized player in our lives — and he largely succeeds. He highlights a study of Danish schoolchildren that found that those who took their yearly standardized test in the morning performed better than those who took it in the afternoon. The p.m. slump is real, which is why Pink advises against scheduling a doctor’s appointment later in the day. According to a study, doctors found an average of more than 1.1 polyps during colonoscopies performed at 11 a.m. By 2 p.m., it dropped to barely half that number, even though the patients were no different. What helps mitigate the slide, Pink explains, are breaks. Judges rule in favor of prisoners about 65 percent of the time early in the day, but by late morning, that rate drops to nearly zero, regardless of the facts of the case, researchers have found. Immediately after the judges take a break, they become more forgiving again, Pink writes, “only to sink into a more hard-line attitude after a few hours.”</p>
<p>Earlier isn’t always better, however. Teenagers’ changing circadian rhythm means they become night owls, making early school start times particularly challenging. Pink ticks off the consequences of teens not getting enough sleep: they’re at higher risk for depression, suicide, substance abuse and car crashes. Being sleep deprived is also correlated with obesity and a weakened immune system. “The evidence of harm is so massive,” Pink writes, that the American Academy of Pediatrics has called for middle and high schools to begin no earlier than 8:30 a.m., and the CDC has also pushed for delaying start times. Schools that have followed this recommendation have noted higher grades, better attendance and increased graduation rates. Still, less than one in five schools has made the change, Pink notes. “We simply don’t take issues of when as seriously as we take issues of what,” he writes. “Imagine if schools suffered the same problems wrought by early start times — stunted learning and worsening health — but the cause was an airborne virus that was infecting classrooms. Parents would march to the schoolhouse to demand action and quarantine their children at home until the problem was solved. Every school district would snap into action,” Pink writes. But because the school start time is “a when problem rather than a what problem,” he concludes, “too many people find it easy to dismiss.”</p>
<p>The breadth of the book’s scope is impressive. It explains why people whose age ends in 9 are overrepresented in first-time marathoners and why singing in a group boosts endorphins and immunity. Pink makes a point to end each chapter with takeaway points that readers can apply to their own lives.</p>
<p>“When” is engaging, conversational and tightly edited, making it an easy yet important read.</p>
<p>“When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing” (Riverhead Books), by Daniel H. Pink</p>
<p>It’s January; time to make room in the self-improvement section of your bookcase.</p>
<p>“When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing” by Daniel H. Pink perfectly executes the tried-and-true formula for social science books. Start with a compelling anecdote, tease it apart with some science and suggest ideas on how applying the underlying principle can better your life. It fits right in next to “The Power of Habit.”</p>
<p>Pink sets out to “unearth the hidden science of timing” — to uncover it as a significant if unrecognized player in our lives — and he largely succeeds. He highlights a study of Danish schoolchildren that found that those who took their yearly standardized test in the morning performed better than those who took it in the afternoon. The p.m. slump is real, which is why Pink advises against scheduling a doctor’s appointment later in the day. According to a study, doctors found an average of more than 1.1 polyps during colonoscopies performed at 11 a.m. By 2 p.m., it dropped to barely half that number, even though the patients were no different. What helps mitigate the slide, Pink explains, are breaks. Judges rule in favor of prisoners about 65 percent of the time early in the day, but by late morning, that rate drops to nearly zero, regardless of the facts of the case, researchers have found. Immediately after the judges take a break, they become more forgiving again, Pink writes, “only to sink into a more hard-line attitude after a few hours.”</p>
<p>Earlier isn’t always better, however. Teenagers’ changing circadian rhythm means they become night owls, making early school start times particularly challenging. Pink ticks off the consequences of teens not getting enough sleep: they’re at higher risk for depression, suicide, substance abuse and car crashes. Being sleep deprived is also correlated with obesity and a weakened immune system. “The evidence of harm is so massive,” Pink writes, that the American Academy of Pediatrics has called for middle and high schools to begin no earlier than 8:30 a.m., and the CDC has also pushed for delaying start times. Schools that have followed this recommendation have noted higher grades, better attendance and increased graduation rates. Still, less than one in five schools has made the change, Pink notes. “We simply don’t take issues of when as seriously as we take issues of what,” he writes. “Imagine if schools suffered the same problems wrought by early start times — stunted learning and worsening health — but the cause was an airborne virus that was infecting classrooms. Parents would march to the schoolhouse to demand action and quarantine their children at home until the problem was solved. Every school district would snap into action,” Pink writes. But because the school start time is “a when problem rather than a what problem,” he concludes, “too many people find it easy to dismiss.”</p>
<p>The breadth of the book’s scope is impressive. It explains why people whose age ends in 9 are overrepresented in first-time marathoners and why singing in a group boosts endorphins and immunity. Pink makes a point to end each chapter with takeaway points that readers can apply to their own lives.</p>
<p>“When” is engaging, conversational and tightly edited, making it an easy yet important read.</p> | Review: ‘When’ by Daniel Pink uncovers the secrets of timing | false | https://apnews.com/3ab1a7fca43841ddb0a82623cd750bad | 2018-01-23 | 2 |
<p>* Morgan Stanley up after Q4 beat</p>
<p>* Alcoa falls after missing earnings estimates</p>
<p>* U.S. jobless claims fall to 45-year low</p>
<p>* Futures: Dow up 8 pts, S&amp;P off 2.25 pts, Nasdaq down 19.75 pts (Adds comment, details, updates prices)</p>
<p>By Sruthi Shankar</p>
<p>Jan 18 (Reuters) - Wall Street was set to open slightly lower on Thursday, a day after the Dow extended a new year rally to close above 26,000 for the first time.</p>
<p>Alcoa fell about 7.8 percent in premarket trading after the aluminum producer’s quarterly earnings missed analysts’ estimates.</p>
<p>Technology majors Facebook, Apple and Intel were slightly lower.</p>
<p>Morgan Stanley wrapped up earnings season for the big U.S. banks with a better-than-expected adjusted profit, sending its shares up 0.85 percent.</p>
<p>“Fourth quarter in terms of net interest margins for money center banks were better than expected, so that’s good news. And with interest rates rising, the outlook for financials are pretty good,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley FBR in Boston.</p>
<p>At 8:58 a.m. ET (1358 GMT), Dow e-minis were up 8 points, or 0.03 percent, with 42,809 contracts changing hands.</p>
<p>S&amp;P 500 e-minis were down 2.25 points, or 0.08 percent, with 179,729 contracts traded.</p>
<p>Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 19.75 points, or 0.29 percent, on volume of 45,319 contracts.</p>
<p>Data showed the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week to the lowest level in 45 years, but the decline likely overstated the health of the labor market as data for several states were estimated.</p>
<p>Strong data from China, which showed its economic growth accelerated for the first time in seven years, put world stocks on a firm footing.</p>
<p>“Economic data continues to accelerate both domestically and globally and that is certainly among the key drivers in the market,” Hogan said.</p>
<p>The Federal Reserve said on Wednesday the U.S. economy and inflation expanded at a modest-to-moderate pace from late November through the end of 2017, while wages continued to push higher.</p>
<p>Republican leaders in the U.S. Congress stepped up their efforts to pass a temporary extension in funding government operations and avert a shutdown, scheduling a vote on the measure for later Thursday.</p>
<p>The government is operating on its third temporary funding extension since the 2018 fiscal year began on Oct. 1.</p>
<p>IBM and American Express are expected to report after market close.</p>
<p>Shares of La Quinta Holdings jumped 13.11 percent after Wyndham Worldwide said it would acquire the company’s hotel operations for $1.95 billion. (Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva)</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices extended recent gains and a gauge of global stocks eased on Friday as concern over a broader conflict in Syria left investors nervous, while U.S. bank shares led Wall Street lower.</p> FILE PHOTO: Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, (NYSE) in New York, U.S., April 10, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
<p>The State Department said on Friday that it had proof that Syria carried out a recent chemical weapons attack in the town of Douma.</p>
<p>The prospect of Western military action in Syria that could lead to confrontation with Russia hung over the Middle East.</p>
<p>Oil prices added to recent gains that drove them to highs not seen since late 2014 and posted their biggest weekly gain since July.</p>
<p>“The geopolitical jitters just keep getting priced in here more and more, as we get closer to the moment of the strikes, if there are any,” said John Kilduff, partner at hedge fund Again Capital Management. He noted that Syria poses a large risk to global stability because of its relationship with powerful oil producers.</p>
<p>On Wall Street, fear of broader conflict in Syria further unnerved investors, while financial stocks led the day’s declines.</p>
<p>Shares of JPMorgan Chase ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=JPM.N" type="external">JPM.N</a>) were down 2.7 percent after its earnings missed estimates, while Citigroup ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=C.N" type="external">C.N</a>) dropped 1.6 percent despite beating profit estimates. An S&amp;P 500 index of bank stocks .SPXBK fell 2.6 percent.</p>
<p>Weak loan growth weighed on bank shares, said RJ Grant, head of trading at Keefe, Bruyette &amp; Woods in New York. “If you didn’t own financials going into the quarter, there was nothing in the numbers today that would make you excited about owning them,” Grant said.</p>
<p>The banks’ results kicked off the U.S. earnings reporting period. Tax cuts are expected to help corporate America post its biggest quarterly profit growth in seven years. Earnings at S&amp;P 500 companies are estimated to grow by 18.4 percent from a year earlier.</p>
<p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.DJI" type="external">.DJI</a> fell 122.91 points, or 0.5 percent, to 24,360.14, the S&amp;P 500 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX" type="external">.SPX</a> lost 7.69 points, or 0.29 percent, to 2,656.3 and the Nasdaq Composite <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.IXIC" type="external">.IXIC</a> dropped 33.60 points, or 0.47 percent, to 7,106.65.</p>
<p>For the week, the S&amp;P 500 was up 2 percent, the Dow rose 1.8 percent and Nasdaq gained 2.8 percent.</p>
<p>The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.FTEU3" type="external">.FTEU3</a> rose 0.10 percent and MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe .MIWD00000PUS shed 0.15 percent. The MSCI index ended the week with its strongest performance in five.</p>
<p>In the oil market, U.S. crude CLcv1 rose 32 cents to settle at $67.39 a barrel, while Brent crude LCOcv1 rose 56 cents to $72.58.</p>
<p>The dollar was little changed against a basket of major currencies as traders waited for more clarity on a possible Western military intervention in Syria.</p>
<p>The dollar index .DXY, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was 0.03 percent higher at 89.78.</p>
<p>The Japanese yen weakened 0.01 percent versus the greenback at 107.36 per dollar.</p>
<p>Aluminum hit a six-year high on Friday and posted its biggest weekly gain since the current contract was launched after the United States imposed sanctions on Russia’s UC Rusal ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=0486.HK" type="external">0486.HK</a>), the world’s second-biggest producer.</p>
<p>London Metal Exchange aluminum CMAL3 hit its highest since March 2012 at $2,340 a ton before retreating to close at $2,285, down 1.7 percent.</p>
<p>Spot gold XAU= added 0.7 percent to $1,345.01 an ounce. U.S. gold futures GCcv1 gained 0.50 percent to $1,348.60 an ounce.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=JPM.N" type="external">JPMorgan Chase &amp; Co</a> 110.3 JPM.N New York Stock Exchange -3.07 (-2.71%) JPM.N C.N .DJI .SPX .IXIC
<p>In the bond market, the U.S. Treasury yield curve hovered at its lowest level in more than decade as short-dated yields have risen more than longer-dated ones this week on expectations of further interest rate increases from the Federal Reserve.</p>
<p>Graphic: U.S. yield curve flattest in a decade</p>
<p>The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) stepped into the currency market and bought another HK$3.368 billion ($429.08 million) in Hong Kong dollars late in the U.S. session on Friday, as the local currency hit the weaker end of its trading range.</p>
<p>Benchmark 10-year notes US10YT=RR last rose 3/32 in price to yield 2.8248 percent, from 2.834 percent late on Thursday.</p>
<p>(GRAPHIC: World stocks set for best week in a month - <a href="https://reut.rs/2IQUDhs" type="external">reut.rs/2IQUDhs</a>)</p>
<a href="https://reut.rs/2IQUDhs" type="external" />
<p>(GRAPHIC: U.S. yield curve flattest in a decade - <a href="http://reut.rs/2CkkWKx" type="external">reut.rs/2CkkWKx</a>)</p>
<a href="http://reut.rs/2CkkWKx" type="external" />
<p>Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch and Rodrigo Campos; additional reporting by Richard Leong, Saqib Iqbal Ahmed, Sinead Carew and Jessica Resnick-Ault in New York, Editing by Dan Grebler and Cynthia Osterman</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - General Electric Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GE.N" type="external">GE.N</a>) said on Friday it took a $4.24 billion equity charge and reduced earnings for the last two years by 30 cents a share, figures in line with expectations the company set earlier this year when it said it would comply with new accounting standards.</p> FILE PHOTO: The General Electric logo is pictured on the General Electric offshore wind turbine plant in Montoir-de-Bretagne, near Saint-Nazaire, western France, November 21, 2016. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe/File Photo
<p>The maker of power plants, jet engines, medical devices and other industrial goods had estimated the after-tax, non-cash impact would be about $4.2 billion, plus reduced earnings for 2016 and 2017 of about 29 cents a share.</p>
<p>The accounting change prompted GE to recast two years of past financial statements to reflect lower income and asset values under the new standard, and those will be reflected when GE reports first-quarter results on April 20.</p>
<p>The value of GE’s contract assets are being written down, but that does not change the value of the long-term contracts GE has, nor does it affect GE’s cash flow or earnings estimates for 2018, GE said.</p>
<p>The adjustments appear within expectations, Edward Jones analyst Jeff Windau said. “Now the focus moves to next Friday’s earnings.”</p>
<p>The figures suggest GE executives have gotten to the bottom of some accounting issues and bolster confidence in Chief Executive Officer John Flannery after a series of financial surprises, including underestimating the impact of insurance policies that prompted a $6.2 billion charge in the fourth quarter, analysts said.</p>
<p>GE shares were down 1 percent at $13.35 in aftermarket trading after rising 2.4 percent on Friday.</p>
<p>The new accounting standard governs how companies estimate and recognize revenue from long-term contracts, and is designed to make a company’s cash flow more closely match its income, accounting experts and analysts said.</p>
<p>The prior standard allowed companies to recognize future revenue from such agreements more quickly. The new standard shifts revenue to later in the contract duration, analysts said.</p>
<p>Companies typically use the cost of providing services as a basis for estimating future revenue from the contracts, but the process can lead to over- or under-estimating the value of the contracts as assets on the balance sheet, experts say.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GE.N" type="external">General Electric Co</a> 13.5 GE.N New York Stock Exchange +0.32 (+2.43%) GE.N
<p>GE’s contract asset tally has soared 70 percent to $28.8 billion in 2017, from $16.9 billion in 2014, most of it in its power and aviation units. The majority of the total reflects revenue GE has already booked but for which it has not billed customers, which creates the gap between profit and cash flow, according to GE’s regulatory filings.</p>
<p>GE also made adjustments for new accounting standards for pensions, cash flow and taxes on Friday.</p>
<p>GE’s accounting is under scrutiny after earnings swung to a loss last year and GE said its 2018 results would be at the low end of its forecasted range of between $1.00 and $1.07 a share.</p>
<p>The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into GE’s accounting for contract assets, raising investor concern but GE has said it is not overly concerned about the investigation.</p>
<p>GE said in February that it expects to make the adjustments as it switches to the new accounting standards for contracts.</p>
<p>GE said it chose to restate 2016 and 2017 earnings, a more exacting standard under the new rules, because it will allow investors to compare 2018 results with the prior years.</p>
<p>Reporting by Alwyn Scott; Editing by Bill Rigby and Clive McKeef</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Financial stocks led a drop on Wall Street on Friday as results from big banks failed to enthuse and fear of broader conflict in Syria further unnerved investors.</p>
<p>The S&amp;P banks index fell 2.6 percent and the broader S&amp;P financial index lost 1.6 percent, the most among the 11 major S&amp;P sectors.</p>
<p>Shares of JPMorgan Chase &amp; Co, the biggest U.S. bank by assets, dropped 2.7 percent after the bank’s quarterly profit fell slightly short of expectations. JPMorgan shares were the biggest weight on the S&amp;P 500.</p>
<p>Wells Fargo sank 3.4 percent after the bank said it may have to pay a penalty of $1 billion to resolve investigations, while Citigroup dropped 1.6 percent despite beating profit estimates.</p>
<p>Weak loan growth weighed on bank shares, said RJ Grant, head of trading at Keefe, Bruyette &amp; Woods in New York.</p>
<p>“If you didn’t own financials going into the quarter, there was nothing in the numbers today that would make you excited about owning them,” Grant said.</p>
<p>U.S. stocks extended losses on Friday after the State Department said that it had proof that Syria carried out a recent chemical weapons attack in the town of Douma.</p>
<p>The renewed possibility of a strike in Syria “is enough to cause heartburn for the market,” said Robert Phipps, a director at Per Stirling Capital Management in Austin, Texas. “There’s a ton of uncertainty right now so investors don’t want to go into the weekend particularly long.”</p>
<p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 122.91 points, or 0.5 percent, to 24,360.14, the S&amp;P 500 lost 7.69 points, or 0.29 percent, to 2,656.3 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 33.60 points, or 0.47 percent, to 7,106.65.</p>
<p>Still, for the week, the S&amp;P 500 rose 1.99 percent, the Dow gained 1.79 percent, and the Nasdaq added 2.77 percent.</p>
<p>Friday’s bank results kicked off earnings season, with Thomson Reuters data predicting profits at S&amp;P 500 companies increased by 18.6 percent in the first quarter from a year ago, their biggest rise in seven years.</p>
<p>While the U.S. economy is performing well, geopolitical issues are weighing on stock markets this year.</p>
<p>Senior Russian lawmakers said on Friday that the lower house of parliament would consider draft legislation giving the Kremlin powers to ban or restrict a list of U.S. imports, reacting to new U.S. sanctions on Russian tycoons and officials.</p>
<p>Boeing fell 2.4 percent after a Russian lawmaker said the country may stop supplying titanium to the company.</p>
<p>Issues with engines for Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner planes also weighed on the company’s shares.</p>
<p>The top gainer among S&amp;P sectors was energy, up 1.1 percent as oil prices rose.</p> Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, (NYSE) in New York, U.S., April 10, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo
<p>Tesla rose 2.1 percent after founder Elon Musk said the electric car maker would be profitable in the third and fourth quarters and would not need to raise any money this year.</p>
<p>Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 1.28-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.64-to-1 ratio favored decliners.</p>
<p>Volume on U.S. exchanges was 5.78 billion shares, compared to the 7.22 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru and Sinéad Carew in New York; Editing by Patrick Graham and Chizu Nomiyama</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>FRANKFURT/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Generic drug maker Mylan NV is in advanced discussions to acquire Merck KGaA’s consumer health business after other bidders failed to meet the German company’s price expectations, people familiar with the matter said.</p> FILE PHOTO: A logo of drugs and chemicals group Merck KGaA is pictured in Darmstadt, Germany January 28, 2016. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski/File Photo
<p>“Although it’s Mylan’s policy to not comment on rumors or speculation, given the egregious inaccuracy of reports issued this morning, the company is compelled to confirm that the Reuters article is untrue,” Mylan said in a statement on Friday.</p>
<p>A Mylan spokeswoman declined to offer details on what in the Reuters story was inaccurate. Merck declined to comment.</p>
<p>The precise value of Mylan’s offer could not be established but the sources said the companies were negotiating a price between 3.5 billion and 4 billion euros ($4.3 billion-$4.9 billion).</p>
<p>There is no certainty that Mylan will secure a deal, the sources said, adding that Merck had also been in talks with private equity groups on the asset.</p>
<p>The sources, who spoke this week, asked not to be identified because the deliberations are confidential.</p>
<p>Mylan shares fell as much as 3.7 percent on Friday but pared losses to trade down 1.2 percent at $40.75 in the afternoon.</p>
<p>Mylan’s talks with Merck came as other contenders for the business, including Nestle and Reckitt Benckiser, dropped out of the bidding.</p>
<p>Merck said last year it was looking to sell its consumer healthcare business, which has annual sales of about $1 billion, to help fund its research into prescription drugs.</p>
<p>Mylan has in the past bought assets from the German rival, paying 5 billion euros in 2007 for Merck’s generics business, which included branded drugs like EpiPen for treatment of life-threatening allergic reactions and DuoNeb for treatment of smokers’ lung.</p>
<p>Consumer health is a fragmented sector ranging from over-the-counter medicines and vitamins to sports nutrition products and condoms.</p>
<p>It has proved fertile ground for deals in recent years, as aging populations and health-conscious consumers drive demand.</p>
<p>But the global consumer health market has slowed, from 4 to 6 percent like-for-like sales growth to zero to 3 percent growth, Morgan Stanley analysts said in December.</p>
<p>Major players in the over-the-counter market have been grappling with pricing pressure stoked by online players such as Amazon.com Inc and private label competitors.</p>
<p>However, buyers and sellers have struggled to agree on deals, as estimates differ over how commoditized many of these products are.</p>
<p>Pfizer Inc’s sales process for its consumer health business, which it was hoping would fetch as much as $20 billion, has also stalled, sources have said.</p>
<p>Merck’s over-the-counter brands up for sale include Neurobion vitamins and Seven Seas nutritional supplements.</p>
<p>Mylan has been looking for acquisitions to bolster growth. It said in February fourth-quarter earnings fell due to declining revenue from EpiPen and weak U.S. prices for generic drugs.</p>
<p>Reporting by Arno Schuetze, Greg Roumeliotis, Ben Martin, Ludwig Burger, Martinne Geller, Patricia Weiss; Editing by Maria Sheahan and Matthew Lewis</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | US STOCKS-Wall Street set to open slightly lower Stocks dip, oil gains as Syria fears go on; U.S. bank shares fall GE books $4.2 billion charge, restates earnings as expected Wall Street falls as bank stocks, Syria conflict weigh Mylan seeks deal for German Merck's consumer products unit: sources | false | https://reuters.com/article/usa-stocks/us-stocks-wall-street-set-to-open-slightly-lower-idUSL3N1PD4GS | 2018-01-18 | 2 |
<p />
<p>Whistleblower organization <a href="http://www.activistpost.com/product/1781688745/US/permacultucom-20/?cart=y" type="external">WikiLeaks</a> delivered a clear message to social media giant Facebook on Friday, demanding the tech company stop censoring their content. The activist group posted a message to their Twitter account, saying "stop censoring our Hillary Clinton email release," with a saved screenshot of a Facebook error message on the attempted post.</p>
<p>Dear @Facebook: stop censoring our Hillary Clinton email release. No, really. Stop it. There is no technical excuse.</p>
<p />
<p>The message was in reference to a court-ordered release of the <a href="" type="internal">former Secretary of State's emails</a> which were managed on a private server, likely in violation of national security policies and federal law. The growing <a href="" type="internal">email scandal</a> has revealed confirmation of multiple educated theories including that she knew Libyan opposition rebels were conducting an <a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-14/emails-prove-hillary-knew-libyan-rebels-were-conducting-ethnic-cleansing-supported-t" type="external">ethnic cleansing campaign</a> and that the reasons for the war were tied to stopping Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's <a href="http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2016/01/06/new-hillary-emails-reveal-true-motive-for-libya-intervention/" type="external">planned gold currency for African nations</a>. <a href="" type="internal">WikiLeaks</a> had been advertising their coverage; and on Wednesday, the group opened a searchable database for <a href="" type="internal">more than 30,000 email records</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/" type="external">WIKILEAKS</a></p>
<p>On March 16, 2016 WikiLeaks launched a searchable archive for 30,322 emails &amp; email attachments sent to and from Hillary Clinton's private email server while she was Secretary of State. The 50,547 pages of documents span from 30 June 2010 to 12 August 2014. 7,570 of the documents were sent by Hillary Clinton. The emails were made available in the form of thousands of PDFs by the US State Department as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request. The final PDFs were made available on February 29, 2016.</p>
<p />
<p>Baran Hines writes for <a href="http://activistpost.com/" type="external">ActivistPost.com</a>. He is the founder of <a href="http://wtfrly.com/" type="external">WTFRLY.com</a>, where you can read more of his work.</p>
<p>Courtesy of <a href="http://www.activistpost.com/2016/03/wikileaks-to-facebook-stop-censoring-our-hillary-clinton-email-release-searchable-database.html" type="external">Activist Post</a></p>
<p />
<p /> | WikiLeaks To Facebook: 'Stop Censoring Our Hillary Clinton Email Release' Searchable Database | true | http://dcclothesline.com/2016/03/20/wikileaks-to-facebook-stop-censoring-our-hillary-clinton-email-release-searchable-database/ | 2016-03-20 | 0 |
<p>Call it the class war economy–a shocking transfer of wealth out of the pockets of working people and the poor and into the overstuffed bank accounts of the super-rich.</p>
<p>Rising profits and a smart 4.3 percent annual growth rate in third-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) are happening side-by-side with falling wages, sinking family income, evaporating pensions and a failing health-care system.</p>
<p>This is the face of the real “new economy” in Bush’s America. It comes without the bubble of the late 1990s economic boom and Bill Clinton’s political salesmanship in the White House. Back then, mainstream economists marveled at rapid growth and low unemployment as evidence of a technology-driven “miracle economy,” with profit rates peaking at levels not seen since the 1960s.</p>
<p>In that long boom following the Second Word War, steady economic growth and rising productivity allowed for regular increases in real wages and a rising standard of living for most workers–giving rise to the belief in an “American Dream.”</p>
<p>By contrast, the 1990s boom was very different for working people. The rise in family income came not from increases in wages, but mostly from growing numbers of women working–and more hours on the job for all wage earners.</p>
<p>Today, however, family income can’t compensate for the decline in wages since the recession. According to an Economic Policy Institute (EPI) analysis of the latest available figures, pre-tax income for married-couple families with children fell by 3.1 percent between 2000 and 2003.</p>
<p>That’s due in large part to the downdraft in wages. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in October that average weekly real earnings–in constant 1982 dollars–were $275.85, down from $279.94 in 2003 and way below the peak of $331.59 in 1973.</p>
<p>As Business Week’s Michael Mandel points out, nonfarm business productivity increased at a 4.7 percent annual rate in the third quarter of 2005, “yet very little of the efficiency gains is being directly passed on to workers. Since the end of 2003, average real wages have fallen by 3.2 percent, while productivity is up by 5.1 percent.”</p>
<p>Where is the money going? Profits. The share of profit in the national income reached 12 percent in the first quarter of 2005, higher than even the peak of the late 1990s boom.</p>
<p>As for jobs, while the 5 percent unemployment rate looks good in the abstract, the number is low because so many have abandoned their search for work. As a recent report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities showed, “employment has grown at an average annual rate of only 0.5 percent since November 2001, as compared with an average for previous comparable post-World War II periods of 2.6 percent” during economic recoveries.</p>
<p>The jobs that are being created in today’s “new economy” are nonunion and low-wage, with few–if any–benefits.</p>
<p>Defined pensions–fixed monthly payments to retirees, one of the mainstays of the American Dream–are on their way to extinction. Just 20 percent of companies offer them today–down from 40 percent in 1980. And the federal corporation that’s supposed to insure those pensions is $450 billion in the red.</p>
<p>Workers are also being forced to bear a share of the fast-rising increases in health care costs–and just 60 percent of employers offer coverage at all, down from 69 percent in 2000, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.</p>
<p>The devastating impact of the one-sided class war can be seen in the auto industry, once the benchmark of the American Dream, thanks to a strong union, the United Auto Workers (UAW). These days, business headlines are dominated by talk of the “restructuring” in auto–a euphemism for job cuts of 30,000 each at General Motors and Ford, multibillion-dollar union concessions in retiree health care at both companies, plus management demands to cut wages by 60 percent at bankrupt auto parts maker Delphi.</p>
<p>Corporate America’s ongoing smash-and-grab assault has been aided and abetted by the politicians in Washington.</p>
<p>The ever-widening gap between rich and poor has been consolidated–and opened further–by the Bush administration’s twin priorities of tax cuts for the wealthy, and cuts in social spending. And the corporate gofers known as members of the House of Representatives are going for more–deeper tax cuts and further cuts in spending.</p>
<p>With Bush’s approval rating so low, former House Majority Leader Tom Delay under indictment, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist under investigation, how can they still be getting away with it?</p>
<p>The Democrats have challenged some of Bush’s policies–and the Republican members of Congress are always ready to screech “class war” at anyone who hints of opposing them. But the differences between the two parities are limited by their shared pro-business policy framework.</p>
<p>From passage of the NAFTA free trade deal to the abolition of welfare, the Clinton White House not only repackaged and advanced the corporate agenda, but gutted much of the New Deal welfare state as well.</p>
<p>The Democrats were the pro-business, pro-imperialist party of the Vietnam War during the prosperity of the 1960s, too. Then, at least, unions were sufficiently powerful and the social movements strong enough to compel Democratic and Republican administrations alike to make concessions–an expansion of social spending and passage of laws guaranteeing affirmative action and environmental protections.</p>
<p>If today’s Republicans can get away with slashing and burning even as their political fortunes plunge, it’s because the Democrats are putting up no real resistance. Instead, leading Democratic presidential candidates bail out Bush’s foreign policy by talking about “winning” the war in Iraq–and carefully tend to corporate interests in Congress to keep campaign contributions rolling in.</p>
<p>When it comes to the class war, the Democrats and Republicans are on the same side. And it’s not the side of the millions of people who are fed up with a discredited political system, steeped in sleaze and utterly dominated by big business.</p>
<p>What’s missing is the confidence–and organization–to fight back. Building resistance to the attacks on working people means not waiting for next year’s elections, but taking action now.</p>
<p>We have to prepare for a fight today–in unions where we have them, and organizing them where we don’t. It means stepping up activism against the war, standing up for immigrant rights, and defending women’s right to choose abortion–all with the aim of building a fighting left that’s rooted in the struggles of working people.</p>
<p>LEE SUSTAR is a regular contributor to CounterPunch and the <a href="http://www.socialistworker.org/" type="external">Socialist Worker</a>. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | The Class War Economy | true | https://counterpunch.org/2005/12/17/the-class-war-economy/ | 2005-12-17 | 4 |
<p />
<p>One controversy surrounding Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) latest MacBook Pro computers is that users can't configure them to include 32 gigabytes of system memory, also known as RAM. Those shiny new computers are limited to 16 gigabytes of RAM.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Image source: Apple.</p>
<p>Though 16 gigabytes is probably more than enough RAM for most consumers, there are professionals, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosumer" type="external">prosumers Opens a New Window.</a>, and possibly even spec-geeks who want even more.</p>
<p>Here's the latest explanation Apple marketing guru Phil Schiller gave one developer for this limitation, via <a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/11/21/phil-schiller-again-defends-touch-bar-macbook-pros-16gb-ram-limitation" type="external">AppleInsider Opens a New Window.</a>:</p>
<p>It has been suggested that Apple could avoid this battery life/RAM capacity trade-off in its MacBook Pro computers if it equipped them with a newer memory type known as LPDDR4.</p>
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<p>Indeed, Apple would probably jump at the opportunity to up-sell potential MacBook Pro buyers to 32 gigabytes of RAM. Computer makers tend to charge premiums that are well in excess of incremental cost for additional memory, and Apple is no different.</p>
<p>It's a tried-and-true way for personal-computer vendors to bring in more revenue and boost their profit margins.</p>
<p>However, the logic that controls how the processor and memory communicate -- called a memory controller -- is built directly into the processor. This means that for Apple to use LPDDR4, the processors that power the systems need to support it.</p>
<p>NeitherIntel's (NASDAQ: INTC) current sixth-generation Core processors, used in the MacBook Pro computers, nor its upcoming seventh-generation Core processors support LPDDR4. As a result, the new MacBook Pro computers are forced to use older LPDDR3 technology.</p>
<p>I had believed that Intel's eighth-generation Core processors would support LPDDR4, lifting the memory-size restriction imposed by LPDDR3. Recent leaks around Intel's next-gen processors suggest that this won't be the case, though.</p>
<p>Technology-news website <a href="https://benchlife.info/intel-coffee-lake-with-14nm-process-will-launch-2018-11192016/" type="external">BenchLife.info Opens a New Window.</a>reports that Intel's next-generation high-end notebook processors, code-named Coffee Lake, will share graphics and processor architectures with Intel's prior sixth- and seventh-generation Core processors:</p>
<p>Image source: BenchLife.info.</p>
<p>This table indicates that Coffee Lake-H and Coffee Lake-U, Intel's eighth-generation Core processors, suitable for MacBook Pro-like systems, will use the same processor and graphics architectures as Intel's prior two processors, Skylake and Kaby Lake.</p>
<p>It's likely, given the other similarities, that Intel will recycle the memory controller used in its sixth- and seventh-generation Core processors in its eighth-generation Core processors -- the very same one that doesn't support LPDDR4.</p>
<p>That means Apple is going to have to wait for the generation after Coffee Lake, which is likely to be a processor family called <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/10/31/intel-corporation-needs-to-deliver-a-revolution-wi.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Ice Lake Opens a New Window.</a>, for LPDDR4 support. For consumers, that means no MacBook Pro options with 32 gigabytes of RAM until those chips are out.</p>
<p>Intel is -- at best -- on an annual product release cadence. Coffee Lake for high-performance notebooks is expected to arrive between February and April of 2018. As such, investors shouldn't expect Ice Lake to arrive until sometime in the first half of 2019.</p>
<p>It's also worth noting that Apple no longer seems interested in being among the first to adopt new Intel processors. Apple's MacBook Pro computers launched last month use processors that launched in September 2015.</p>
<p>As such, Apple might not adopt Ice Lake until the latter half of 2019. It might be years before Apple finally offers MacBook Pro computers configured with more than 16 gigabytes of RAM.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Apple When 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=a96b7b4c-4154-4fb3-b815-efaa06540298&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 Apple 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=a96b7b4c-4154-4fb3-b815-efaa06540298&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 November 7, 2016</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/aeassa/info.aspx" type="external">Ashraf Eassa Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Apple. The Motley Fool has the following options: long January 2018 $90 calls on Apple and short January 2018 $95 calls on Apple. 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> | Apple Inc.'s MacBook Pro Might Not Get a 32GB of RAM Option Until 2019 | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/11/23/apple-inc-macbook-pro-might-not-get-32gb-ram-option-until-201.html | 2016-11-23 | 0 |
<p>Peter Thiel at the Republican National Convention in ClevelandCarolyn Kaster/AP</p>
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<p>At least one person speaking at the Republican convention tonight might actually be a match for Donald Trump when it comes to taking things (ahem) <a href="http://content-img.newsinc.com/jpg/499/31159695/40909627.jpg?t=1468958940" type="external">over the top</a>. Tech investor Peter Thiel used to be best known for his early bet on Facebook—”the <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/07/who-is-peter-thiel-rnc-2016-trump/492380/" type="external">most lucrative</a> angel investment in history”—although recently he’s garnered more attention for his controversial positions and personal vendettas. Here are the 12 things you should know about Silicon Valley’s most eccentric, (now) openly gay, Trump-loving libertarian billionaire.</p>
<p>Thiel was accused of “demagoguery”—by Condi Rice: As a student at Stanford University, Thiel founded the Stanford Review, a highbrow version of the notoriously conservative Dartmouth Review. A few years later, he and another former Stanford Review editor wrote a book titled The Diversity Myth: Multiculturalism and the Politics of Intolerance at Stanford, which criticized political correctness in higher education. Then-Stanford provost Condoleezza Rice (later George W. Bush’s national security adviser) accused the pair of concocting “a cartoon, not a description of our freshman curriculum,” and added that the book was “demagoguery, pure and simple.”</p>
<p>Thiel is known around the Valley as “Don of the PayPal Mafia”: In 1998, Thiel co-founded the online payments company that would later become PayPal. He hired many Stanford Review alums, who, in the company’s early days, were known to keep Bibles in their cubes and hold workplace prayer sessions. Former PayPal counsel Rod Martin later <a href="" type="internal">tried to start a conservative version of MoveOn.org</a>, and former VP Eric Jackson founded the book-publishing arm of the conservative&#160;WorldNetDaily, which famously released the children’s tale&#160;Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed. (Two other members of the PayPal Mafia, Elon Musk and Keith Rabois, also went on to become billionaires.) Thiel later wrote that he’d wanted to create “a new world currency, free from all government control and dilution—the end of monetary sovereignty, as it were.”&#160;</p>
<p>Thiel is a self-described “conservative libertarian.” He supported the presidential bids of Ron Paul, donating more than $2.6 million to a Paul super-PAC in 2012. “I think we are just trying to build a libertarian base for the next cycle,” Thiel <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/02/investor_peter_thiel_is_the_billionaire_behind_ron_paul_s_presidential_campaign_.html" type="external">said at the time</a>. But that was before Trump arrived on the scene in a substantial way.</p>
<p>Thiel launched one company that is extremely non-libertarian. In 2004, he co-founded Palantir Technologies with a $30 million investment. The company’s other major investor is In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the CIA. The FBI and the NSA employ Palantir’s data-mining and surveillance technology to monitor domestic and foreign terrorism suspects. Thiel has said civil liberties advocates should welcome Palantir. “We cannot afford to have another 9/11 event in the US or anything bigger than that,” <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-11-22/palantir-the-war-on-terrors-secret-weapon#p5" type="external">he told Bloomberg</a>. “That day opened the doors to all sorts of crazy abuses and draconian policies.”&#160;</p>
<p>Thiel blames women and welfare for destroying democracy. “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible,” Thiel <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian" type="external">wrote</a> in 2009 on the blog of the libertarian Cato Institute. “The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women—two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians—have rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ into an oxymoron.”</p>
<p>Thiel <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/how-silicon-valley-nails-silicon-valley" type="external">was the inspiration</a> for Peter Gregory, the Aspergers-y billionaire venture capitalist on HBO’s Silicon Valley. In the following clip, Mike Judge’s <a href="" type="internal">arch comedy</a> lampoons the Thiel Fellowship, which each year offers 20 “uniquely talented” teenagers $100,000 scholarships to forego college and pursue “radical innovation that will benefit society.”</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Back in the real world, if you want a job at Thiel Capital, he will expect you to have a “ <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/busted-hypocritical-peter-thiel-demands-you-have-a-college-education-to-work-at-his-new-hedge-fund-2012-5" type="external">high GPA from a top-tier university</a>.”</p>
<p>Thiel is a climate skeptic. The idea that human activity alters the climate is “ <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/07/who-is-peter-thiel-rnc-2016-trump/492380/" type="external">more pseudoscience</a>” than science, he told Glenn Beck in 2014. Thiel is also somewhat uncertain about the veracity of <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/11/28/no-death-no-taxes" type="external">Darwinian evolution</a>.</p>
<p>Thiel bankrolled Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker. He spent $10 million on the Hogan lawsuit to get back at Gawker for outing him as gay (an open secret at the time) in 2007, and for writing negative articles about his friends. “It’s less about revenge and more about specific deterrence,” he <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/26/business/dealbook/peter-thiel-tech-billionaire-reveals-secret-war-with-gawker.html" type="external">told</a> the New York Times.</p>
<p>Thiel recently invested in a marijuana company. His Founders Fund last year sank an undisclosed sum into Privateer Holdings, a Seattle-based company that, among other things, grows pot in Canada and owns “the official Bob Marley cannabis brand.”</p>
<p>Thiel wants to create sovereign micronations on the high seas. He is a major funder of the <a href="" type="internal">Seasteading Institute</a>, a think tank that envisions floating city-states as incubators for alternative models of governance. (On Silicon Valley, the Peter Gregory character has an offshore haven populated by autonomous machines.)&#160;</p>
<p>Thiel wants to cheat death. He has <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/11098971/Peter-Thiel-the-billionaire-tech-entrepreneur-on-a-mission-to-cheat-death.html" type="external">signed up</a> with a cryogenics company to be deep-frozen upon his death in the hope that he will later be revived by future medical advances. And his foundation has supported anti-aging research.</p>
<p>Thiel’s support for Trump is an oddity in Silicon Valley. Trump’s stance on everything from immigration to mass surveillance is anathema to Valley techies. “In the Obama years, much of Silicon Valley has become very close to Democrats,” notes the New York Times‘ Farhad Manjoo. “This year there was an opportunity for a Republican to make overtures to tech—but with Mr. Trump, that chance seems to have passed.”</p>
<p /> | 12 Things to Know About the Other Thin-Skinned Billionaire Speaking at Tonight’s RNC | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2016/07/thin-skinned-billionaire-peter-thiel-trump-rnc-republican-convention/ | 2016-07-21 | 4 |
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<p>By ANDREW MIGA 11/14/12 09:15 AM ET EST</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" />WASHINGTON -- Independent Senator-elect Angus King of Maine says he has decided to caucus with Democrats, which will add to the party's voting edge. His decision ends months of speculation about which party he would align with.</p>
<p>The former Maine governor was elected last week to replace retiring Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, a prominent centrist. GOP and conservative super PACs spent millions of dollars to attack King during the campaign for Snowe's seat.</p>
<p>With King joining their caucus, Democrats will have a 55 to 45 edge in the Senate.</p>
<p>King said Wednesday that caucusing with Democrats will still allow him to take independent positions on issues.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/14/angus-king-to-caucus-senate_n_2122002.html" type="external">Angus King To Caucus With Senate Democrats</a></p> | Angus King To Caucus With Senate Democrats | true | http://egbertowillies.com/2012/11/14/angus-king-to-caucus-with-senate-democrats/ | 2012-11-14 | 4 |
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<p>The judging chamber of FIFA’s ethics committee said it found Makudi guilty of forgery and falsification of documents and refusing to cooperate with investigators. Makudi was also fined 10,000 Swiss francs ($10,100).</p>
<p>A longtime ally of former FIFA presidential candidate Mohamed bin Hammam of Qatar, Makudi was a member of the tainted executive committee for 18 years until Asian federations voted him out in April 2015.</p>
<p>Makudi is the ninth member of the 24-man ruling panel which oversaw the bidding contests for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups who has since been banned for unethical conduct by FIFA.</p>
<p>Four others have been indicted or are under criminal investigation in the United States or Switzerland, though they yet to be banned by the ethics committee. Some of Makudi’s former colleagues have been both banned and indicted.</p>
<p>Makudi’s ethics case centered on his 2013 campaign to win re-election as president of Thailand’s soccer federation (FAT).</p>
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<p>“Makudi made alterations to the FAT Statutes without the approval of the FAT Congress,” FIFA ethics judges said, noting that the case was opened after he was convicted of forgery by a Bangkok criminal court.</p>
<p>FIFA’s ethics committee previously investigated Makudi in 2011 over allegations that more than $800,000 of development money from Zurich was spent on projects built on land he owned near Bangkok.</p>
<p>That case was closed after FIFA accepted documents showing he donated the land to the Thai soccer body.</p>
<p>Makudi was also questioned by FIFA investigators over accompanying Bin Hammam on a presidential campaign visit to Trinidad in May 2011. The Qatari candidate withdrew his challenge to Sepp Blatter days before the vote, while under investigation for allegedly bribing Caribbean voters.</p> | Former FIFA official Makudi banned 5 years for forgery | false | https://abqjournal.com/869489/former-fifa-official-makudi-banned-5-years-for-forgery.html | 2016-10-18 | 2 |
<p>Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian Prime Minister, has embarked on his controversial second visit to the Southern Kuriles, part of a remote island chain seized by Soviet Union at the end of World War II and still claimed by Japan.</p>
<p>Medvedev in November 2010 outraged Japan by becoming the first Russian president to visit the islands, which Tokyo refers to as its Northern Territories, <a href="http://www.rferl.org/content/medvedev-visits-kuriles/24633314.html" type="external">Radio Free Europe reported</a>.</p>
<p>The island of Kunashir, where Medvedev landed Tuesday, is only about less than 10 miles from Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost island. The chain is 4,350 miles from Moscow, off Russia's eastern coast.&#160;</p>
<p>The waters are believed to have oil and natural gas deposits, as well as being prime fishing locations, <a href="http://japandailypress.com/russian-prime-minster-medvedev-visits-kuril-islands-japans-northern-territories-035832" type="external">according to the Japan Daily Press</a>.</p>
<p>Tokyo's claim over the islands has prevented the two nations ever signing a formal World War II peace treaty, meaning they are still technically at war.&#160;</p>
<p><a href="http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120703b5.html#.T_LCLL9_-Js" type="external">The Japan Times also noted</a> that Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and Russian President Vladimir Putin resolved in June to hold bilateral negotiations over the islands.</p>
<p>On Monday, officials said a Russian soldier shot and killed up to three accountants at a branch of the Russian Central Bank on the island of Kunashir before turning the gun on himself.</p>
<p>Medvedev is making the trip as part of a four-day tour of the Russian Far East accompanied by 10 ministers, the Japan Times reported.</p>
<p>Ahead of his visit to the Southern Kuriles, Medvedev called them "an important part of the Russian land."</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/weird-wide-web/wall-street-greed-good-rich-wealthy-unethical-bernie-madoff-cheat-steal-lie" type="external">Rich People have a dirty little secret...</a> &#160;</p> | Dmitry Medvedev visits Far East island chain disputed by Japan | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-07-03/dmitry-medvedev-visits-far-east-island-chain-disputed-japan | 2012-07-03 | 3 |
<p>President Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has agreed to testify in the investigation of the Trump campaign’s possible ties to Russia on the condition of being granted full immunity from prosecution, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/mike-flynn-offers-to-testify-in-exchange-for-immunity-1490912959" type="external">according to the Wall Street Journal.</a></p>
<p>Flynn was forced to resign after being in office for less than a month, after it was discovered that he lied to Vice President Pence about communications that he had with Russian operatives – including&#160;Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak – before Trump was inaugurated.</p>
<p>Since resigning, Flynn has been a&#160;central character in the Trump-Russia investigation. Flynn has since been found to have been paid tens of thousands of dollars by Russian companies, including their state-sponsored media network, for speeches and lobbying work he did before joining the Trump campaign.</p>
<p>One of his former employees, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/30/us/politics/devin-nunes-intelligence-reports.html?_r=1" type="external">Ezra Cohen-Watnick, was discovered today&#160;to have been sending intelligence reports</a>&#160;to Republican Rep.&#160;Devin Nunes. Cohen-Watnick was originally recommended to by fired by Flynn’s replacement, but Trump interceded on Cohen-Watnick’s behalf and gave him another position within the administration.</p>
<p>The FBI has not yet agreed to Flynn’s terms as of this writing.</p>
<p>This is a breaking story and will be updated as it develops.</p>
<p>Nathan Wellman is a Los Angeles-based journalist, author, and playwright. His less-political Youtube channel&#160; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgTX2M68DdRvR5Jd2YHEH7A" type="external">can be found here</a>.&#160;Follow him on Twitter: @LightningWOW</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | Flynn just offered to testify on Trump-Russia ties in exchange for immunity | true | http://resistancereport.com/news/flynn-just-offered-testify-trump-russia-ties-exchange-immunity/ | 2017-03-30 | 4 |
<p>It is now more than three years since I sent a report from Israel to Dissent. That article was composed under the impact of the intifada, then (late January 1988) still in its earliest stages. As a historian, I suffer from the occupational disease of the profession: a reluctance to commit myself to predictions likely to be contradicted even before they appear in print. But at that time, I shared the widespread feeling in Israel that we were witnessing events of momentous importance and that I really had to venture some guesses about the future.</p>
<p /> | Into Year Four of the Intifada | true | https://dissentmagazine.org/article/into-year-four-of-the-intifada | 2018-10-03 | 4 |
<p>Washington PostU.S. News &amp; World Report bosses wouldn't tell Frank Ahrens the size of the remaining editorial staff. Editor Brian Duffy, who laid off about 10 percent of his staff nearly two years ago, says: "While the number [of layoffs] is relatively small, every one of those people is a valued colleague, and it's very painful for the entire staff,"</p> | U.S. News & World Report lays off 12 editorial staffers | false | https://poynter.org/news/us-news-world-report-lays-12-editorial-staffers | 2003-06-11 | 2 |
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<p>State District Judge Lisa C. Schultz filed a tort claim notice in late December alleging whistle-blower retaliation, hostile work environment, failure to maintain a safe building and failure to make reasonable accommodations. Such notice is often a precursor to the filing of a lawsuit.</p>
<p>“The facts that are in the tort claim notice represent just the tip of the iceberg,” said Schultz in a brief phone interview on Thursday. She declined further comment.</p>
<p>Schultz’s nine-page claim focuses on the alleged ramifications of her allegations that state District Judge Michael Murphy made remarks that were tantamount to bribery.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>For instance, Schultz in the notice claims her criminal caseload was increased and she was assigned an intern who spied on her and sprayed her office with perfume knowing she was allergic to it.</p>
<p>Murphy is accused of telling a prospective judicial candidate in 2006 that she could better her chances of appointment to the bench by donating money to a local Democratic Party operative in Las Cruces. Schultz contends Murphy repeated similar comments to her in a private conversation.</p>
<p>Murphy was ultimately indicted on bribery charges in May 2011 and resigned a year ago as he was about to face judicial disciplinary proceedings on an unrelated matter. That matter involved allegations he had made derogatory and biased comments about a group or group of people – remarks captured by Schultz on a secret recording she made of a conversation with Murphy.</p>
<p>While the bribery case has stalled over the past year, trial is now set for May 20. Murphy has pleaded not guilty.</p>
<p>Targeted in Schultz’s notice were the state Administrative Office of the Courts, the Doña Ana County Clerk, and her own Third Judicial District Court based in Las Cruces, including the chief judge of the court.</p>
<p>Secret recordings</p>
<p>Schultz accuses the court hierarchy in Las Cruces of falsifying documents and court statistics and making up false allegations to try to tarnish her reputation. The tort claim also accuses Murphy of telling Schultz, “on numerous occasions, that he wore a gun under his robes.”</p>
<p>Murphy’s attorney, Michael Stout, had no comment on that allegation or the tort claim notice itself earlier this week.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Schultz’s secret audio recordings of conversations with Murphy have been the prime evidence cited by special prosecutor Matt Chandler, the district attorney in Clovis. Schultz made at least 10 secret recordings of conversations with Murphy and other court officials and judges.</p>
<p>New Mexico law allows a person to record his or her own conversations without telling other parties.</p>
<p>Norm Osborne, who is court executive officer for the district courts in Las Cruces, referred a reporter to the state Risk Management division for comment on the tort claim allegations.</p>
<p>Osborne said he was also speaking for Chief Judge Douglas R. Driggers, who was out of the office.</p>
<p>Tim Korte, spokesman for Risk Management, declined comment other than to say his agency had received Schultz’s notice. Schultz filed the notice pro se, in other words representing herself.</p>
<p>Schultz and Murphy, both Democrats, were appointed by then-Gov. Bill Richardson in 2006.</p>
<p>The threats, according to her tort claim notice, began “immediately in September 2007” after she learned of Murphy’s comments to the prospective judicial candidate and confronted him.</p>
<p>Schultz contends that “as my activity intensified as a witness in the Murphy” case, so too did the systemic, and apparently coordinated, efforts by various entities and persons to threaten, harass and intimidate me.”</p>
<p>For instance, the notice alleges:</p>
<p>♦ Judges in the Third District Court, acting with the Administrative Office of the Courts, lodged false complaints against Schultz, accusing her of being biased for the prosecution, unintelligent and unethical.</p>
<p>“These are exactly the claims needed to destroy the credibility of the disclosing witness as to the ‘pay to play’ allegations against Judge Murphy,” her tort claim notice states.</p>
<p>The state Judicial Standards Commission typically investigates such complaints, which are confidential. Investigations of the complaints were closed last October, “revealing no wrongdoing on my part,” the notice states.</p>
<p>“The “external referral” of complaints by the AOC (presumably to the Judicial Standards Commission) was in “stark contrast to its ‘in house’ treatment of all prior (and numerous) complaints by others against Murphy and (chief judge) Driggers.”</p>
<p>♦ The Third District Court provided false information to damage Schultz’s reputation as a judge with the state Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission, which provides the public with information about judges up for retention in New Mexico. She is up for retention in 2014. Evidence exists, she claims, of the court’s pattern of falsifying court records to suppress her caseload statistics.</p>
<p>♦ Driggers, who as chief judge oversees administrative matters, increased Schultz’s caseload just as her involvement as a prosecution witness broadened. The “caseload harassment” continued with cases being arbitrarily assigned, transferred and later reduced. The notice also alleged Driggers “continues his pattern of hanging up on me when I call to speak with him.”</p>
<p>♦ Schultz obtained a signed statement from a court administrator that “implicated” another judge in the creation of what she believed were “detrimental and false court reports.”</p>
<p>♦ Schultz went to the FBI in September 2009 to report the “pay to play” allegations that first surfaced two years earlier.</p>
<p>Intern problems</p>
<p>Seven weeks after she contacted the FBI in 2009, Schultz contends in the notice, the Third Judicial District Court “hired and placed in my chambers an intern to ‘help’ me. Upon information and belief, this intern was placed in my chambers to ‘spy’ on me.”</p>
<p>The intern showed up just days after Schultz obtained the statement about another judge in the courthouse creating false court reports, she alleges.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the intern was a “meth and heroin addict,” who was mentioned in 11 police “incident reports” that Schultz obtained.</p>
<p>“Further, this young lady/intern wore excessive perfume,” the notice stated. “The Court was aware that I have a disability (severe allergies) for which I had made previous requests for accommodation.”</p>
<p>Schultz said she found “the intern deliberately spraying perfume around my desk. The intern was aware that I am severely allergic to perfume and other environmental toxins.” The woman died of a drug overdose in 2011.</p>
<p>The notice states that the resulting injuries Schultz has suffered include “loss of reputation and ability to receive promotion, physical injuries, as well as likelihood of being subjected to a continued, coordinated effort to remove me as a judge, or to prevent me from being retained.”</p>
<p>In another development, Marci Beyer, the wife of Murphy’s defense attorney, was elected to a Las Cruces district court judgeship last November and is now among the judges serving with Schultz.</p>
<p>Without commenting directly on the tort claim notice, Osborne said he believes the level of discourse among Las Cruces district judges has been professional.</p>
<p>“I would not go so far as to say that all judges agree with each other. Frankly I don’t know if they like each other. But people stay professional here. I have not been privy to any screaming matches or anything like that (involving the judges).” — This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal</p> | Judge threatens whistle-blower lawsuit | false | https://abqjournal.com/169058/judge-threatens-whistleblower-lawsuit.html | 2013-02-15 | 2 |
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<p>I guess throwing temper tantrums and cuddling with radicals and commies wasn’t enough for Colin Kaepernick. He’s now filing an official grievance against the owners of the NFL. He’s accusing them of collusion… why? Because no one is stupid enough to sign the asshat. Aside from the fact that he sucks as a player, the guy has major baggage. And he’s started a protest that is threatening to bring down the entire league. I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t want this unkempt jerk. For the first six weeks of the 2017 NFL season, he has gone unsigned. He came close once when the Ravens were looking him over. Unfortunately for Kaepernick, his Black Lives Matter squeeze just couldn’t shut it. She tweeted an extremely racist tweet comparing the owner of the team to a slave owner in Django Unchained. That tanked the deal. Imagine that.</p>
<p>And taking a line from Hillary Clinton, a fellow communist, Kaepernick is not taking any responsibility for all of this. He’s mostly blaming President Trump. His lawyer made that clear in a statement he released over the weekend. This bottom feeder is named Mark Geragos and he confirmed in a statement Sunday that they had filed a grievance over his social justice activism. Here comes the screeches of First Amendment violations… that Kaepernick’s free speech is being impinged. No, it’s not. The teams and the NFL do not have to let him do this crap. He has a right to kneel during the National Anthem, but they also have the right to not sign him.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>“We can confirm that this morning we filed a grievance under the CBA on behalf of Colin Kaepernick,” the statement read. “This was done only after pursuing every possible avenue with all NFL teams and their executives. If the NFL (as well as all professional sports leagues) is to remain a meritocracy,” the statement continued, “then principled and peaceful political protest — which the owners themselves made great theater imitating weeks ago — should not be punished and athletes should not be denied employment based on partisan political provocation by the Executive Branch of our goverment [sic].” The statement appears to be referring to the comments made by President Trump decrying Kaepernick as a “son of a b**ch” at a rally in September. The answer is very simple, play football, not politics. It would also help to have actual talent, which Kaepernick lacks.</p>
<p>Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio has a theory on what Kaepernick is looking to accomplish here. “Per a source with knowledge of the situation, Kaepernick wants to trigger termination of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement. Article 69, Section 2 of the CBA allows for the agreement to be terminated prematurely in the event of proof of collusion. Under Article 17, Section 16(c) of the CBA, termination can arise from only one incident of collusion involving only one player if there is clear and convincing evidence of a violation.” That would be fine and dandy, except there is no collusion here.</p>
<p>John Hawkins's book 101 Things All Young Adults Should Know is filled with lessons that newly minted adults need in order to get the most out of life. Gleaned from a lifetime of trial, error, and writing it down, Hawkins provides advice everyone can benefit from in short, digestible chapters.</p>
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<p>Here is a statement from lawyer Mark Garagos, who represents FA QB Colin Kaepernick, on his filing of grievance: <a href="https://t.co/WVtI0WuNvZ" type="external">pic.twitter.com/WVtI0WuNvZ</a></p>
<p>— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) <a href="https://twitter.com/RapSheet/status/919715549218852865?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" type="external">October 16, 2017</a></p>
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<p>NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell steadfastly claims that there has been no black-balling of Kaepernick. As big a liberal as Goodell is, I believe him. If there were real collusion here, everyone who is kneeling would be looking for other work. But logic is lost on Kaepernick’s lawyer. Geragos went on: “Such a precedent threatens all patriotic Americans and harkens back to our darkest dyas [sic] as a nation,” the statement continued. “Protecting all athletes from such collusive conduct is what compelled Mr. Kaepernick to file his grievance.” The commie NFL players’ union is fully supporting Kaepernick on this. Why am I not surprised.</p>
<p>In the end it comes down to the brutal truth. Kaepernick is a mediocre player at best and that’s stretching it. He started a militant, racist, cop-hating protest trend in the NFL that has tanked their fan base and their profits. Who the hell would hire someone like that? He cares far more about race than his team. And that’s followed by cop hatred, communism, hatred of America, her military and her first responders. The guy is a stone cold liability… he’s certainly not worth the collateral damage here.</p>
<p>Terresa Monroe-Hamilton is an editor and writer for Right Wing News. She owns and blogs at <a href="http://www.noisyroom.net/blog/" type="external">NoisyRoom.net</a>. She is a Constitutional Conservative and NoisyRoom focuses on political and national issues of interest to the American public. Terresa is the editor at Trevor Loudon's site, New Zeal - <a href="http://www.trevorloudon.com/" type="external">trevorloudon.com</a>. She also does research at <a href="http://www.keywiki.org" type="external">KeyWiki.org</a>. You can <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">email Terresa here</a>. NoisyRoom can be found on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/noisyroom.net" type="external">Facebook</a> and on <a href="https://twitter.com/terresamonroe" type="external">Twitter</a>.</p> | JUST IN: Whiner Colin Kaepernick Files Grievance Against NFL – Publicly Blames Trump | true | http://rightwingnews.com/sports-2/just-whiner-colin-kaepernick-files-grievance-nfl-publicly-blames-trump/ | 2018-10-20 | 0 |
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<p>The state of Florida has identified 10 more cases of Zika virus caused by local mosquitoes and has asked the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to send in experts to help with its investigation of the outbreak.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The state now has 14 cases of Zika caused by locally transmitted mosquitoes, according to a statement issued on Monday by Florida Governor Rick Scott.</p>
<p>Scott said the state has called on the CDC to activate a CDC Emergency Response Team (CERT) to assist the Florida Department of Health and other partners in their investigation, sample collection and mosquito control efforts.</p>
<p>The team will consist of public health experts who will augment Florida's response efforts, Scott said.</p>
<p>Reuters was first to report that as of last Friday, Florida had not activated a CERT team to help with its investigation, raising concerns from infectious disease experts that the state was not taking every step it could to contain the spread of Zika in the continental United States.</p>
<p>CERT teams are a key part of the CDC's national Zika plan and are intended to help local officials track and contain the virus. A similar team was sent to Utah earlier this month to investigate how a person may have become infected while caring for a Zika-infected patient, before local officials went public with the case.</p>
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<p>The state said it began investigating its first suspected case of locally transmitted Zika on July 7. According to CDC spokeswoman Kathy Harben, the CDC first became aware of the investigation on July 18, a day before the state announced its investigation into possible local transmission.</p>
<p>Florida on Friday said the first four cases of Zika in the state likely were caused by mosquitoes, the first sign that the virus is circulating locally, although it has yet to identify mosquitoes carrying the disease.</p>
<p>Scott said in a statement the 10 new cases of Zika also were likely caused by the bite of a local mosquito.</p>
<p>The Florida Department of Health said six of the 10 new cases are asymptomatic and were identified through the door-to-door community survey and testing that it is conducting.</p>
<p>The health department said it believes active transmission of Zika is restricted to 1 square-mile (2.6 square km) area in Miami-Dade County, just north of downtown Miami.</p>
<p>The state health department has been testing individuals in three locations in Miami-Dade and Broward counties for possible local transmissions through mosquito bites. Based on its investigations, two locations have been ruled out for possible local transmission of Zika.</p>
<p>The current Zika outbreak was first detected last year in Brazil, where it has been linked to more than 1,700 cases of the birth defect microcephaly, and has since spread rapidly through the Americas.</p>
<p>Scott said women who live within the impacted area and are either pregnant or thinking of becoming pregnant should contact their doctor for guidance and to receive a Zika prevention kit. (Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Bill Trott)</p> | Florida Has Identified 10 More Zika Cases; Calls in Feds for Help | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2016/08/01/florida-has-identified-10-more-zika-cases-calls-in-feds-for-help.html | 2016-08-01 | 0 |
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<p>Americans spent steadily in October while their incomes grew healthily, suggesting the economy is posting another quarter of strong growth.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Personal spending, reflecting consumer purchases of everything from cars to dental visits, increased 0.3% in October from a month earlier, the Commerce Department said Thursday. The gain was driven by higher spending on goods such as prescription drugs, as well as air fares for foreign travel. Spending rose 0.9% in September, the biggest gain since August 2009.</p>
<p>Personal incomes--reflecting Americans' wages, investment earnings and government aid--rose 0.4% in October after rising at the same pace in September.</p>
<p>Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected a 0.3% increase in income and a 0.2% rise in spending.</p>
<p>Consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of demand in the economy. The strong figures suggest the economy likely started the fourth quarter at or near a 3% growth pace. Gross domestic product grew at a 3.3% annual rate in the third quarter, the Commerce Department said earlier this week, after expanding at a 3.1% rate in the second quarter. Growth this decade has averaged roughly 2%.</p>
<p>Spending and income data in recent months have been skewed by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, which tore through Texas and Florida this summer. The Commerce Department said the storms affected the data for August and September, though it couldn't say how much.</p>
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<p>Thursday's report showed inflation pressures remain modest. The price index for personal consumption expenditures--the Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge--rose 0.1% in October, the smallest gain since July. So-called core prices, which strip out food and energy components, increased 0.2%, matching September's growth and a touch higher than gains earlier this summer.</p>
<p>In the 12 months through October, overall prices rose 1.6%, down from September's annual rate of 1.7%. Core prices gained 1.4% in October from a year earlier, matching September's pace.</p>
<p>The Fed targets annual inflation of 2%. Despite the soft inflation, the strong spending figures could nudge the Fed closer to raising short-term interest rates in December.</p>
<p>The Commerce Department report on personal income and spending can be accessed at http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/rels.htm.</p>
<p>Write to Josh Mitchell at [email protected] and Sharon Nunn at [email protected].</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>November 30, 2017 08:45 ET (13:45 GMT)</p> | Americans' spending, incomes rose briskly in October | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/11/30/americans-spending-incomes-rose-briskly-in-october-update.html | 2017-11-30 | 0 |
<p>Back in 1993, on the eve of a union contract negotiation, I had a discussion with a young management staffer at the Kimberly-Clark Corporation’s Fullerton, California, paper mill.&#160; We were talking about the mill’s safety record.&#160; I still recall his comment. “Safety is no different from payroll, raw materials, equipment, utilities, or taxes,” he said.&#160; “It’s all overhead.”</p>
<p>While this fellow doubtless thought he was passing on fairly dramatic information, his observation on industrial safety was something that employees working under a union contract already knew:&#160; A safe work environment comes with a price tag.&#160; And that price tag can be expensive.</p>
<p>Given that 25 miners died in the Massey Energy Company’s Upper Big Branch coal mine explosion, in Raleigh County, West Virginia, on April 5 (with four others still unaccounted for), this may not be the appropriate time to discuss labor ideology or bring up that whole slate of what-ifs, and what-might-have-beens.&#160; The tragedy is too fresh for such a discussion.</p>
<p>But appropriate or not, it’s important we acknowledge a critical fact and that we do it now—that we do it before the corporate spinmeisters engage in their legerdemain, and the media moves on to the Next Big Thing.&#160; We need to acknowledge that union facilities have better safety records than non-union facilities.&#160; This isn’t subject to debate or interpretation; it’s a stone cold fact.&#160; And Massey Energy is a defiantly non-union company.</p>
<p>By now everyone knows that Massey has a history of numerous safety violations.&#160; Its Aracoma mine continues to rack up the safety violations, having been hit with more than 300 citations in the last year.&#160; Its Upper Big Branch, where the 25 men died, was cited for 515 violations in 2009.&#160; Astonishingly, since 1995, the mine has had 3007 violations, and since 2005, there have been 1342 citations. Upper Big Branch had 53 violations in the month of March alone.</p>
<p>Gary Hardesty, an AWPPW safety expert, has noted that, statistically, the greater the number of “minor” safety infractions a company is cited for, the greater the odds that it will experience a severe accident.&#160; “It’s an actuarial reality,” Hardesty said.&#160; “The more violations, reportables and near misses, the greater the chances of a fatality.”&#160; The same dynamic applies to motorists:&#160; Drivers with a history of minor collisions are, statistically, more likely to be involved in a serious accident than drivers with no accidents.</p>
<p>According to federal records, one of the violations Massey was cited for was “allowing combustible coal dust to accumulate.”&#160; For a company dedicated to mining coal, removing accumulated dust requires one of two solutions: buying more equipment (e.g., water mists) and/or hiring more people to take on that specific task, or assigning existing miners to do it.</p>
<p>But if you’re trying to save money, you don’t want to invest in new equipment, and if you’re committed to keeping the headcount down, you’re not going to add clean-up personnel.&#160; And if you’re looking to run coal, you’re not going to slow down the operation by taking productive coal miners away their jobs.&#160; Massey Energy is a publicly traded company, whose loyalty is to its shareholders.&#160; As the man said, safety has a price tag.</p>
<p>Even though Massey has been fined a relatively small amount (and has paid barely one-sixth of those fines, having appealed the others), the problem with federal regulatory and watchdog agencies isn’t that they don’t have the “teeth” to get the job done.&#160; Clearly, that’s part of it, but not all of it.&#160; Rather, the bigger problem is that management simply doesn’t buy into it.&#160; They lack a “good faith” commitment to the safety process.&#160; In a word, they don’t believe in it.&#160; If they did, they wouldn’t be so eager to sidestep it.</p>
<p>Instead of regarding a safety citation as a symptom, a red flag, an opportunity to make the facility safer, American businesses tend to view that whole “workplace safety” arena the way Wall Street views banking and SEC investigations—as an elaborate cat-and-mouse game.</p>
<p>Here’s the scenario:&#160; Evil federal bureaucrats come barging into private business establishments looking for safety violations, and heroic managers, attempting to keep people employed and the economy on an even keel, try to keep these bureaucrats from “regulating” them right out of existence.&#160; Part of it is the profit motive rearing its head, and part of it is the manifestation of Reaganesque contempt for the federal government.</p>
<p>Safety citations should be analogous to a visit to a doctor for a check-up.&#160; When the doctor finds something wrong, you get it taken care of.&#160; But for many of America’s industries (and mining is clearly one of them) it’s not a question of finding out what’s wrong and fixing it, but rather of avoiding detection.</p>
<p>But why on earth would a manufacturing or mining company seek to avoid something as critical as workplace safety?&#160; Because it’s expensive.&#160; As the man said, safety is overhead.</p>
<p>DAVID MACARAY, a Los Angeles playwright, is the author of “ <a href="" type="internal">It’s Never Been Easy:&#160; Essays on Modern Labor</a>”. He served 9 terms as president of AWPPW Local 672. He can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p><a href="http://greentags.bigcartel.com/" type="external">WORDS THAT STICK</a></p>
<p /> | The Price Tag on Safety | true | https://counterpunch.org/2010/04/09/the-price-tag-on-safety/ | 2010-04-09 | 4 |
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<p>Johnny Lopez, son of the late Mexican singer Jenni Rivera, has revealed he is in a same-sex relationship.</p>
<p>Lopez, 16, addressed the rumors swirling about his relationship in a video with his older sister&#160;Chiquis Rivera.</p>
<p>“There has been a lot said about me in the past few weeks. Things didn’t come out the way I wanted this to,” Lopez says in the video.”I wanted to make this video first and for everyone to understand me but my boyfriend, as you all know, Joaquín, we both got a little too excited, and he posted a few pictures of us, and I retweeted them, and it went viral.”</p>
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<p>Lopez explained he began dating his boyfriend two years ago. After breaking up, the couple got back together five months ago.</p>
<p>“People began noticing that we were together. They didn’t come out exactly the way I wanted to but they’re out now. I am in a gay relationship right now and I am in love with this person. I’ve been dealing with this part of myself for a long time now,” Lopez continued.</p>
<p>Lopez admits he has experimented with girls but says he has found he doesn’t have a preference.</p>
<p>“For so long I wanted to be completely straight or completely gay because I honestly didn’t know where I am,” Lopez says “I’m bisexual, but honestly, I know that some people don’t necessarily believe in that. But all I know is that I love this person and I don’t necessarily have a preference, I love who I love.”</p>
<p>He also says he regrets not being able to share his identity with his mother.</p>
<p>“I’ve dealt with this for so long and I never got to tell my mom about this side of myself. And I know that’s the number one question in everyone’s mind, ‘What would your mom think?’” Lopez says.</p>
<p>Chiquis gave her support to her little brother saying,&#160;“I support you in this, and I don’t care, I don’t care about what anyone has to say.”</p>
<p>Lopez stars on the&#160;UNIVERSO reality series “The Riveras” with his family.</p>
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<p><a href="" type="internal">Jenni Rivera</a> <a href="" type="internal">Johnny Lopez</a> <a href="" type="internal">The Riveras</a></p> | Jenni Rivera’s son Johnny Lopez comes out as bisexual | false | http://washingtonblade.com/2017/12/01/jenni-riveras-son-johnny-lopez-comes-bisexual/ | 3 |
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<p>Let me start with some quotes on shyness, which give a bit of a historical and cross-cultural perspective. The first is from the great Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer:</p>
<p>“I don’t think people should get over being shy. It is a blessing in disguise. The shy person is the opposite of the aggressive person. Shy people are seldom the great sinners. They allow society to remain in peace.”</p>
<p>The second is by the British psychologist F. A. Hampton, writing in the 1920s:</p>
<p>“Shyness is so common, at least in this country [meaning the UK], that we tend to accept it as something inborn, as a characteristic part of the charm of youth, and as evidence, when it persists into later years, of a certain fineness of character; it seems even to be a trait, perhaps not wholly to be deplored, in the national temperament.”</p>
<p>The third needs no introduction:</p>
<p>“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”</p>
<p>Not the kingdom of heaven – that’s for the poor in spirit – but the big, solid earth itself, the here-and-now planet we share, meek and non-meek alike. To many of us today it seems counter-intuitive, at least in terms of the gospel of Dale Carnegie. But there it is.</p>
<p>With such a roster of distinguished advocates already solidly behind it, why does shyness need defending now? After all, shyness, also known as “interactive inhibition,” is felt at least in some situations by 93 percent of the population, according to researchers. Not 92 or 94, but 93 – the shyness experts are very precise. Who, I wonder, are the 7 percent who have&#160;neverfelt that tickle in the stomach, the prickly warmth creeping up the face?</p>
<p>I suspect I know: They are the ones who write the self-help books, attempting to “cure” the common experience of nine-tenths of the human race. They are the research psychologists and psychiatrists who have labored mightily over the decades to stigmatize and pathologize the basic attitude of introversion, thus rendering much or most of the population abnormal and needful of their care.</p>
<p>Thus has shyness evolved from a&#160;blessing&#160;2,000 years ago to an official, diagnostically numbered, medicable, Blue Cross-reimbursable&#160;disease&#160;today. As a semi-shy person myself, and one who has always felt some degree of embarrassment about the trait, I’m interested in the politics and sociology of shyness, the path by which natural reticence and tenderness of feeling and a tendency toward solitude became, in the words of shyness guru Philip Zimbardo, “a public health danger that appears to be heading toward epidemic proportions.” Why did&#160;Psychology Today&#160;dub shyness “the disorder of the decade,” up there with alcoholism and depression? And why does the National Institute of Mental Health refer to social discomfiture – rather than, say, avarice or racism or militarism or ignorance or moral indifference – as “one of the worst neglected disorders of our time”?</p>
<p>According to Christopher Lane, author of&#160;Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness, shyness as certified pathology began only about 30 years ago, when “social phobia” and “avoidant personality disorder” were inserted into the then-current&#160;Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, better known as DSM-III. As Lane puts it, “In this 500-page volume, the bible of psychiatrists the world over, the introverted individual morphed into the mildly psychotic person whose symptoms included being aloof, being dull and simply ‘being alone.’”</p>
<p>“Gone are the days,” says Lane, “when we could value exuberance and shyness, as well as a vast repertoire of similar moods. Today many psychiatrists and doctors assert that those who aren’t sufficiently outgoing may be mentally ill.”</p>
<p>This suggestion by the mental health experts has caught on. The nation that once left Thoreau and Dickinson to their own devices now supports a cottage industry of Shy-No-More self-help books, with titles like&#160;Triumph over Shyness: Conquering Shyness and Social Anxiety,&#160;The Hidden Face of Shyness: Understanding and Overcoming Social Anxiety,&#160;Goodbye to Shy: 85 Shybusters That Work!&#160;and&#160;The Shy Child: A Parent’s Guide to Preventing and Overcoming Shyness from Infancy to Adulthood. Just reading the titles induces that hysteria we know from certain TV commercials, the ones that suggest that choosing the wrong brand of diluted beer raises very deep and Darwinian questions about one’s manhood and genetic destiny.</p>
<p>Particularly irksome is the lack of balance. Here are some titles that do not appear on the shelves of Barnes &amp; Noble:&#160;Jerk No More: Overcoming the Need to Dominate Social Situations,&#160;Stop Thinking About Yourself So Much: Daily Affirmations That You’re Not the Center of the Universe,&#160;The Aggressive Extroverted Personality: Its Cause and Cure,&#160;Conquering Solitary Anxiety Syndrome, and&#160;Looking out for Number Two.</p>
<p>Things just get worse when one dips into these anti-shyness books. The preface to&#160;Triumph over Shyness, by Murray Stein and John Walker, begins gently, almost shyly: “There’s nothing wrong with being shy. The world needs some quiet, thoughtful, introspective people. People who don’t shoot (off their mouths) first and ask questions later (or never). People who are reluctant to intrude and careful not to offend.”</p>
<p>But then the authors begin to bare their teeth: “So if you’re shy and proud of it, read something else. Buy this book if you want to … and give it to someone who is bothered by social anxiety. Because there’s the rub. Many people aren’t&#160;happy&#160;about being shy. They find it prevents them from expressing themselves, from making friends, and from enjoying life to its fullest. For some people, shyness is a&#160;cocoon. It’s safe and warm and quiet. But it can also be confining, dark and lonely. If you choose to&#160;triumph&#160;over shyness, this book will help you break&#160;free.”</p>
<p>Is it just remotely possible that what makes people “unhappy about being shy” is the existence of books like this and the cultural presuppositions behind them, suggesting shyness is not a personality trait, not one mode of being among others in the spectrum of human possibility, but rather somewhere between a crippling disability and a moral failing? What is it about shyness – a condition that does not generate wars, mortgage bubbles, budgetary brinksmanship, globalism, nuclear proliferation, climate change or Fox TV commentary – that inspires reams of frenzied self-help prose?</p>
<p>The shyness discourse is, like most popular psychologies, a conformity and adjustment mechanism, a perspective that sees individuation and authenticity and critical distance as problems rather than goals. Jonathan Berent, author of&#160;Beyond Shyness: How to Conquer Social Anxieties, goes so far as to tell us that “there’s really no such thing as shyness … just social anxiety, a psychophysiological response you can learn to control.” B. F. Skinner couldn’t have put it better: There are no shy rats, just badly conditioned ones. There’s a totalitarian impulse behind such pronouncements, like the Turkish government explaining to the world that there’s no such thing as a Kurd, only “mountain Turks” who have “forgotten their language.” Therefore to oppress them is to help them recover their true selves, using a logic that Stalin and Pol Pot would understand.</p>
<p>To understand what it is we need to conform to and react against, let’s see what shyness is associated with – first in the gospels, then in Roget’s Thesaurus. In the New Testament, the “meek” are grouped with themerciful, the&#160;pure in heart, the&#160;peacemakers&#160;and the&#160;salt of the earth. In the thesaurus, shy is listed next to&#160;cowardly,&#160;unheroic,&#160;spunkless,&#160;afraid of one’s shadow,&#160;fainthearted,&#160;henhearted,&#160;lily-livered,&#160;unmanly,&#160;unwarlike,unsoldierlike, etc. – also&#160;shrinking,&#160;coy,&#160;shamefaced&#160;… in a word,effeminate.</p>
<p>There has been a shift over time in the idea of the acceptable personality, from the bible’s spiritually open and humble model, with its still, small voices and broken and contrite hearts, to the attention-seeking and opportunistic ideal of the modern age. Says Berent: “If you sit there waiting passively for the day when your ‘shyness’ will disappear, you will miss out on all the things that, deep down, you really want. And I am not just talking about having fun. In our ever-changing economic climate, your job security and career growth depend on your ability to interact productively, to initiate dialogue, stand up for your ideas and negotiate compromise. Your ability to evaluate the social chemistry of the workplace and to establish and maintain your position on the team may well determine your career success … . Most people must work with others, and cooperation demands social skills and confidence.”</p>
<p>Tremble, ye timid, tremble. If you’re not a good office politician, you might as well call it quits now. The message is that shyness creates misfits, threatening the ruination of America and the corporate-military-industrial complex upon which it and we stand.</p>
<p>Of course, social paralysis and acute agoraphobia are real problems, albeit rare ones. These are neuroses, toxic mixtures of innate anxiety and inflicted shame, pointing to inner wounds and conflicts that go deeper and require more insight and support than a self-help book can possibly provide. But to treat garden-variety shyness – which is simply sensitivity in action – as a pathology is to transform psychology from a healing profession into an engineering one, an attempt to flatten and squeeze the human personality into socially acceptable shapes, as though it were so much Silly Putty.</p>
<p>And the squeezing always goes in one direction, a ratchet-like movement toward a rigid me-ism and a forced and constant gregariousness.&#160;Triumph Over Shyness&#160;does ask, rather grudgingly, “Is there such a thing as not having enough shyness? This has not been studied, to the best of our knowledge. But we might speculate, for example, that someone who isn’t ‘shy enough’ might be oblivious to the feelings of others and come across as insensitive or callous. At its extreme, might some people with very low shyness become criminals because of their fearlessness of others? Nobody knows.”</p>
<p>So until NIMH funds a longitudinal, double-bind, placeboized experiment on the social inhibition levels of mafia hit men and bank robbers, we&#160;just won’t know&#160;whether aggressive people are more prone to crime and violence than are wallflowers.</p>
<p>But why&#160;hasn’t&#160;such a study been conducted? After all, even more absurd research projects have been blessed with grants over the years. The reason, of course, is that psychologists study deviations and exceptions and problems, not social norms and ideals, which are “natural” and hence invisible. An advertising-driven business culture needs aggressive extroverts to function, although it will call them “self-starters” rather than “pushy egotists” or “quasi-psychopaths.” Those prone to reflection, introspection, empathy and awareness of complexity are road bumps in a system based on self-aggrandizement and quarterly profits rather than compassion and communal harmony. Mainstream culture sees as perfectly normal the accumulation of 3,000 Facebook friends, collected like boxtops to be redeemed later for vague social prizes. It has less use for the creative and open-ended self-exploration that is the specialty of introverted people, or for the forging of real and tight and personal bonds, which can distract from the trivial pursuits of a treadmill consumer/entertainment economy.</p>
<p>It’s no surprise that the pop psychologists of industrial society see as the enemy any flavor of humanity that doesn’t embody the assembly-line virtues of speed, power and efficiency. Going a little deeper, and remembering what Roget said about the connection between “shy” and “effeminate,” we see the emotional roots of this hostility to shyness: it is a reflection of the culture’s aversion to the feminine. A society defined by universal competition requires a generic, unisex worker/consumer, and has only contempt for the intricate balance of yin and yang, the dance of complementary differences, that drive nature and art alike. Shyness is a marker of the feminine side of the self, the less direct and more emotional and inward-turned and mystical and embodied aspect, just as aggressiveness is the emblem of the warrior male – which we all must aspire to be, what with an “ever-changing economic climate” that always seems to “change” toward grimmer struggle and away from cooperation and altruism and nurturance.</p>
<p>Until relatively recently, shyness and the ability to blush were seen as no liability in girls, but rather as a sign of innocence and hidden emotional riches, of still waters running deep. No more – over the past century, we have gone from Garbo to Gaga, and exhibitionism is what moves product, especially the product that is ourselves. Writing 60 years ago, Marshall McLuhan focused on the crucial role of the fashion industry in this gradual transformation: “The visual and not particularly voluptuous character of commercially sponsored glamour is perhaps what gives it so heavy a narcissistic quality. The brittle, self-conscious pose of the mannequin suggests the activities of competitive display rather than spontaneous sensuality. And the smartly turned-out girl walks and behaves like a being who&#160;sees&#160;herself as a slick object rather than is aware of herself as a person.”</p>
<p>McLuhan is on to something here. When I see a title like “Triumph over Shyness,” it registers more like “Triumph of Cultural Narcissism.” The dynamic, ever-enthused, hyper-extroverted winner character endemic to commercial enterprise is a performative and presentational personality, a constructed and constricted set of expressions and attitudes designed for outward consumption and admiration. It is ambition dressed for success, a synthetic image suited to a system that objectifies and commodifies everything it touches, including the soul.</p>
<p>In such a context, shyness becomes an unconscious gesture of resistance, suggesting that the highly sensitive, introverted person isn’t playing quite the same game as the success-driven corporate climber – that this isn’t the only game in town. In a society based on acquisitive individualism, that makes heroes of the rich and powerful and losers of the rest, such a position, however shyly advanced, amounts to heresy, and must be challenged and condemned by the inquisitors of the mass media and therapeutic establishment.</p>
<p>I once had the misfortune to know a woman who was never shy, always on – and never, ever real. The type is not uncommon. The confidence-brimming, beaming backslapper or party girl is a persona, a mask, covering a calculating intention. The shy person may be awkward, but it is awkwardness without an agenda, born of a painfully intense consciousness of the other person, an awareness quite the opposite of the narcissist’s insatiable demand for approval and adulation. There is a connection between shyness and sincerity: shyness may be a persona, but more often it is a glimpse of the real self – if for no other reason than nobody wants to be perceived as shy in a culture that tends to view shyness as inferiority, as a failure of character and will.</p>
<p>It is not so everywhere. In China, the Mandarin word for “shy” or “quiet” can be translated as “good” or “well-behaved.” The word “sensitive” also signifies “having understanding” and is considered a praiseworthy trait in a densely populated land. In China, it’s the shy and sensitive kids who are picked first and are most popular, according to research. In equally crowded India, shyness or diffidence – known as&#160;leyja&#160;– also has cultural value; it is seen not as a weakness but as part of the social compact.</p>
<p>It is only in our society – or certain segments of it – that shyness is viewed in starkly negative terms, reflecting an unbalanced and blinkered approach to life. It is a perspective based upon the dictates of production and consumption, and on the embedded idea that happiness is a prey to pursue, rather than a freedom and grace that, properly cultivated, unfold naturally from within.</p>
<p>I suspect that underneath the hatred of shyness within self-help circles is something else – something closer to shyness envy. For in general it is easier for introverts to attune to the demands of the outer world than it is for extroverts to turn their attention away from it, and to fully experience and express their own multifaceted subjectivity. Carl Jung said of the introverted attitude – which, according to Christopher Lane, came within a hair’s-breadth of inclusion in DSM-III as “Introverted Personality Disorder” – that it is “living evidence that this rich and varied world with its overflowing and intoxicating life is not purely external, but also exists within … [introverts’] lives teach the other possibility, the interior life which is so painfully wanting in our civilization.”</p>
<p>One way to begin recovering that interior life, which gives our existence dimension and meaning, is to open ourselves to the full range of temperaments and to the universal need – so often suppressed – for at least a modicum of solitude and space. There is a shy and sensitive element within even the most extroverted character, but misplaced shame drives this aspect deeper into the shadows, producing a reaction formation of exaggerated aggressiveness and narcissism. This is our culture today.</p>
<p>The inner life is the zone of consciousness and conscience, and it is introverts who have the most direct access to this non-mechanical, impractical, genuinely individual and therefore disturbing realm. This is why they are genuinely needed, but not appreciated, even by themselves. The deeper and more human part of ourselves can inherit the earth only when we lose our shame, and that means moving from the debilitating bromides of self-help toward the higher truth of self-acceptance.</p>
<p>Hugh Iglarsh&#160;is a reasonably introverted writer and editor. This essay is based on a soapbox oration he gave at the annual Bughouse Square Debates, sponsored by Chicago’s Newberry Library. He can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | In Defense of Shyness | true | https://counterpunch.org/2011/08/12/in-defense-of-shyness/ | 2011-08-12 | 4 |
<p>Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/Craig Mayhew and Robert Simmon</p>
<p />
<p>Most Americans like the idea of <a href="" type="internal">conservation</a>. But few practice it in their daily lives. That’s according to the results of a <a href="http://www.climatechangecommunication.org/resources_reports.cfm" type="external">national survey</a> by researchers at Yale and George Mason Universities.</p>
<p>A majority of Americans say it’s “very important” or “somewhat important” to turn off unneeded lights (92 percent), to lower the thermostat in winter (83 percent), and to use <a href="" type="internal">public transportation</a> or carpool (73 percent), among other conservation behaviors. Yet:</p>
<p><a href="http://environment.yale.edu/leiserowitz/" type="external">Anthony Leiserowitz</a>, director of the <a href="http://environment.yale.edu/climate/" type="external">Yale Project on Climate Change</a>, tells George Mason University:</p>
<p>“There are many possible explanations for the gap between people’s attitudes and their actual behavior. For example, public transportation may not be locally available or convenient. Overcoming barriers such as these will make it much easier for people to act in ways consistent with their values.”</p>
<p>The survey also found that in the past year about 33 percent of Americans rewarded companies taking steps to reduce global warming by buying their products, while slightly fewer refused buying products of companies they perceived as recalcitrant on the issue. Finally, 11 percent of Americans have contacted government officials in the past year about global warming, with seven in 10 urging officials to take action to reduce it.</p>
<p>“When it comes to taking a stand against global warming, concerned Americans are much more likely to take action through consumer purchases rather than as citizens,” says Edward Maibach, director of the Center for Climate Change Communication at Mason. “This lack of citizen engagement may help to explain why Congress is being so timid in addressing climate change.”</p>
<p>A copy of the report is <a href="http://www.climatechangecommunication.org/resources_reports.cfm" type="external">available here</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p /> | Americans Like Conservation, Just Don’t Do It | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2010/02/americans-conservation-just-dont-do-it/ | 2010-02-26 | 4 |
<p>A petition to ban Donald Trump from traveling to the United Kingdom over his call for a temporary "shutdown" of Muslims entering the U.S. has <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/donald-trump/12041585/Donald-Trump-bar-muslims-from-US-latest-reaction.html" type="external">topped 200,000 signatures</a>, which means members of parliament will now have to consider the issue.</p>
<p>Despite the quickly growing list of signatures, however, not everybody in the UK is so outraged by what Trump is defending as his "common sense" proposal. In fact, a recent YouGov poll found that UK Independence Party supporters thought Trump's temporary halt was "appropriate" by a two to one ratio (61/32), and it manages to earn 30% support among Conservative Party supporters and 25% overall.</p>
<p>​</p>
<p>Strong British opposition to Trump's Muslim policy, but pockets of approval – <a href="https://t.co/pixeXN4Cro" type="external">https://t.co/pixeXN4Cro</a> <a href="https://t.co/i5WOJjnkMJ" type="external">pic.twitter.com/i5WOJjnkMJ</a></p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/donald-trump/12041585/Donald-Trump-bar-muslims-from-US-latest-reaction.html" type="external">Telegraph</a>, though London Mayor Boris Johnson has denounced Trump's proposal he's not on board with the Trump ban, but did joke about Londoners being exposed to "any unnecessary risk of meeting Donald Trump."</p>
<p>"It’s a free country and you can’t stop people unless he's guilty of some criminal offense," said Johnson, adding, "I don’t know quite how you would stop him coming to the country."</p> | Petition to Ban Trump from UK Hits 200K Signatures | true | https://dailywire.com/news/1719/petition-ban-trump-uk-hits-200k-signatures-james-barrett | 2015-12-09 | 0 |
<p>AP</p>
<p>BY: <a href="" type="internal">Elizabeth Harrington</a> September 26, 2013 11:28 am</p>
<p>The federal government is giving $2.5 million to medical centers and universities to educate "rural America" about Obamacare, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced last week.</p>
<p>Fifty-two hospitals and nonprofits will receive grants of $25,000 each from the HHS to "help people in their communities understand the benefits available to them" in the health insurance marketplace, which begins on Oct. 1.</p>
<p>Additionally, the University of Georgia will receive $1.25 million from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for Obamacare "outreach" targeted at rural Americans.</p>
<p>The latest funding is one of the many attempts by the government to promote the health care law, including a $12 million&#160; <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/320563-report-hhs-to-promote-obamacare-with-12m-ad-buy" type="external">ad campaign</a>&#160;targeted at red states, and a&#160; <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/356168/hhs-introduces-video-competition-promote-obamacare-sterling-beard" type="external">video competition</a>&#160;encouraging people to enroll in the marketplace.</p>
<p>"The awards complement other federal efforts underway that help consumers make the best health care choices for themselves and their families," HHS&#160; <a href="http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2013pres/09/20130920a.html" type="external">said</a>.</p>
<p>"Soon millions of Americans in rural communities will have new opportunities for quality, affordable health coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplace," HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said. "Through these awards, trusted community providers will help people understand their coverage options, including whether they can get a discount on costs."</p>
<p>The University of Georgia will work with the Department of Agriculture (USDA) establish a "network of educators" in 12 states to help Americans "make informed decisions about participating in the Health Insurance Marketplace."</p>
<p>"Nearly one in five uninsured adults in the United States live in a rural area, and there is a great need to educate rural consumers about their insurance options under the Affordable Care Act," Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said. "USDA and its partners in the Cooperative Extension Service are uniquely positioned to connect with local communities in rural America, providing valuable education and outreach to consumers about their healthcare options."</p>
<p>HHS&#160; <a href="http://www.hrsa.gov/about/news/2013tables/ruraloutreach/" type="external">grants</a>&#160;will go to a variety of states, including, Arkansas, Kentucky, Montana, Missouri, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.</p> | HHS Spending $2.5 Million Educating ‘Rural America’ on Obamacare | true | http://freebeacon.com/hhs-spending-2-5-million-educating-rural-america-on-obamacare/ | 2013-09-26 | 0 |
<p />
<p>Brent crude fell by as much as $3 a barrel on Monday, before paring losses, as a breakthrough nuclear deal between world powers and Iran over the weekend led to expectations for an increase in supply.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The deal halts Iran's most sensitive nuclear activity and suspends some sanctions by the United States and the European Union on several sectors of Iran's economy for an initial six-month period.</p>
<p>Brent was down $1.75 at $109.30 by 1415 GMT, after dropping to as low as $108.05 earlier in the session. U.S. oil fell $1.25 to $93.59.</p>
<p>Tough sanctions against Iran in the past two years have slashed exports from the OPEC member by more than half, keeping Brent above $100 a barrel despite weak global demand.</p>
<p>"The deal is a step in the right direction, but it's still very early days," said Amrita Sen, chief analyst at consultants Energy Aspects.</p>
<p>"That's why, after the knee-jerk reaction, the market is stabilising. It's realising, at least in the next few months, there's not going to be a substantial increase in oil exports."</p>
<p>An easing of the ban on European shipping insurance may help smooth Iran's crude exports to its big Asian customers.</p>
<p>The head of the International Energy Agency said, however, it would be difficult for Iran to revive its oil output to former levels quickly even if international restrictions on its exports were lifted.</p>
<p>In the meantime, Iran is deploying more vessels to help store oil at sea and to enable it to conclude discreet sales by transferring cargoes to customers' ships in mid-ocean without having to enter port, trade sources familiar with the matter said.</p>
<p>PRICE SUPPORT</p>
<p>Also underpinning oil prices, sanctions that prevent energy companies from investing in Iran remain in place, and oil shipments from Libya have been disrupted by protesters seizing shipping ports.</p>
<p>Analysts also predicted Saudi Arabia, Iran's main regional rival, could scale back production to prop up prices.</p>
<p>"If Iranian oil gluts the market, the Saudis will want to cut back in order to support prices, so I do not see oil prices collapsing," said SteppenWolf Capital chief investment officer Phoebus Theologites.</p>
<p>Reacting to the deal, Saudi Arabia said that the interim deal could be a step towards a comprehensive solution of Tehran's disputed atomic programme.</p>
<p>Following an industry report on Monday showing U.S. private sector activity rebounded in November after slowing the month prior, investors are now watching for a raft of housing reports from the United States to gauge its economic outlook.</p>
<p>Fed officials have indicated it is preparing to reduce the pace of bond-buying in coming months as long as the economy continues to improve.</p>
<p>Petromatrix's Jakob said: "2014 is going to be the year of the double-taper. You have to look forward to the tapering by the U.S. Fed but also for the tapering of the sanctions on Iran."</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | Oil Down After Breakthrough Iran Deal | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2013/11/25/oil-down-after-breakthrough-iran-deal.html | 2016-01-26 | 0 |
<p>By Jonathan Stempel</p>
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) – A suburban New York hedge fund manager who once worked at Morgan Stanley (N:) and was accused of losing or spending all but about $27,000 of the $21.8 million he told investors he had was criminally charged on Thursday with running a Ponzi scheme.</p>
<p>Prosecutors said Michael Scronic, 46, of Pound Ridge, New York, stole more than $19 million from 45 investors he had lured since April 2010 to his Scronic Macro Fund by lying about his track record.</p>
<p>Scronic, who has degrees from Stanford University and the University of Chicago, allegedly suffered losses in 28 of 29 calendar quarters, even as he reported largely positive returns on falsified account statements.</p>
<p>Prosecutors said he also spent $2.9 million on himself over 5-1/2 years, including $180,000 annually on credit cards, fees for beach and country club memberships, and mortgage payments for a vacation home near Stratton Mountain in Vermont.</p>
<p>Scronic was criminally charged with one count each of securities fraud and wire fraud.</p>
<p>He is being released on $500,000 bond, and as part of his bail cannot trade other people’s money or raise new funds for his business. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed related civil charges.</p>
<p>Robert Anello, a lawyer for Scronic, was not immediately available for comment.</p>
<p>The defendant had worked for Morgan Stanley from 1998 to 2005, including on an equities trading desk, court papers show. Morgan Stanley was not accused of wrongdoing.</p>
<p>Authorities said Scronic used some new money to repay earlier investors, but as cash became tight this summer refused to honor some investors’ redemption requests.</p>
<p>According to court papers, Scronic had emailed one of those investors in November 2015 that “what’s cool about my fund is that i’m only in publicly traded options and cash so any redemptions are met within 2 business days so if you do need to withdraw for your business needs it will be quick and painless.”</p>
<p>Authorities said it proved otherwise.</p>
<p>They said Scronic blamed a vacation, a relative’s medical condition, email issues, and a new quarterly redemption policy for refusing the investor’s Aug. 8 redemption request.</p>
<p>As of Monday, that investor was still waiting for his money, court papers showed.</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> | New York-area hedge fund manager charged with Ponzi fraud | false | https://newsline.com/new-york-area-hedge-fund-manager-charged-with-ponzi-fraud/ | 2017-10-05 | 1 |
<p>“Captain Gordon Pim stated in his speech that it was a philanthropic principle to kill natives; there was, he said, “mercy in a massacre.”</p>
<p>Sven Lindqvist, Exterminate the Brutes (1996)</p>
<p>At last Mr. Elie Wiesel has spoken of the ‘dispossessed’ in Palestine. It is ap-propriate that he should do so; that is what the world has long come to expect of him. A holocaust survivor and Peace Laureate, Mr. Wiesel has dedicated his life to preventing another holocaust, acting on the conviction that “…to remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all…”</p>
<p>And so Mr. Wiesel speaks of the grief of dispossession in words that convey his deep empathy for the victims. In a NYT column of August 21, 2005, he writes about the “heart-rending” images of dispossession. “Some of them are unbearable. Angry men, crying women. Children led away on foot .” The victims are “obliged to uproot themselves, to take their holy and precious belongings, their memories and their prayers, their dreams and their dead, to go off in search of a bed to sleep in, a table to eat on, a new home, a future among strangers.”</p>
<p>Some of you may be surprised at Mr. Wiesel’s grief for the victims in Pal-estine. It appears uncharacteristic. Now, no one would accuse Mr. Wiesel of reserving his humanitarian work only for Jews. Indeed, according to his own testimony, he is not only a “devoted supporter of Israel,” he has “also defended the cause of Soviet Jews, Nicaragua’s Miskito Indians, Argentina’s Desaparecidos, Cambodian refugees, the Kurds, victims of famine and genocide in Africa, of apartheid in South Africa, and victims of war in the former Yugoslavia.” In Mr. Wiesel’s world, however, the Palestinians do not qualify as victims.</p>
<p>Rightly, Mr. Wiesel accuses the world of indifference ­ and silence ­ as the Nazis worked to exterminate the Jews. Yet, he too has chosen ­ and as a matter of principle ­ to maintain a deafening silence about the suffering of Palestinians. This is how he enunciated this principle many years ago: “I support Israel ­ period. I identify with Israel ­ period. I never attack, I never criticize Israel when I am not in Israel.” Those words might suggest that the commitment to Israel is visceral; it is a strictly monogamous relationship.</p>
<p>It is not only that Mr. Wiesel will not criticize Israel when he is not in Israel. Israel can never do anything that could merit his criticism. “Israel didn’t do anything except it reacted…. Whatever Israel has done is the only thing that Israel could have done I don’t think Israel is violating the human rights charter. War has its own rules.” Israel is not only above criticism: it has always been the victim of Arab and Palestinian wars. Israel is utterly innocent.</p>
<p>Sadly, there is no surprise in Mr. Wiesel’s column; nothing to celebrate here. Mr. Wiesel has not renounced his high principle. The ‘dispossessed’ people in his column are not Palestinians: they are the illegal Jewish settlers in Gaza. Instead of commiserating with the Palestinians, Mr. Wiesel is engaging in a new game of blaming the victims ­ and calling attention to a new form of Jewish victimization. Implicitly, this is his message: ‘There never was any ethnic cleansing of Palestinians ­ in 1948, 1967 or later. All this is a lie, an anti-Semitic slur. But look at what is real. It’s happening right before your eyes: the ethnic cleansing of Jews in Palestine. You can see it everywhere, on Fox, CNN, CBS, the Washington Post and the NYT.’</p>
<p>This is merely the latest, most ingenious move in the splendid Zionist strategy to paint Israel and Israelis as victims. Israelis never dispossessed anyone. But Israelis are being ‘dispossessed’ today in their promised land, in their own country. How tragic: they are the only Jews to be ever dispossessed by their own army. If there were ever any misgivings about Israeli intentions towards Palestinians: the expulsion of Jews from Gaza should dispel them. Look, the Israeli government will even dispossess Israeli Jews to accommodate Palestinians.</p>
<p>In this new role as the ‘dispossessed,’ the Israelis have new opportunities too for blaming the real victims ­ the Palestinians. What is the Palestinian crime now? Faced with “the tears and suffering of the [Israeli] evacuees,” the Palestinians have chosen not to “silence their joy and pride ” Instead, they have organized “military parades with masked fighters, machine guns in hand, shooting in the air as though celebrating a great battlefield victory.” Mr. Wiesel is telling the Palestinians that they cannot enjoy even their hard-won little victories ­ for which they have paid over the last eighty years in blood and tears.</p>
<p>The logic by which the Zionists have blamed the Palestinians is quite extraordinary. They demand that the victim must empathize with his tormentor; he must understand his tormentor’s grief, the grief that drives him to torment his victims, and the terrible grief he feels even as he torments his victims. In other words, the victims of Israel must show saintliness that is even beyond saints. If the Palestinian hates his tormentors, he is anti-Semitic. If he resists his tormentor, he is a terrorist. If he celebrates his little victories, he is insensitive.</p>
<p>This is the language of racial superiority ­ the doctrine that believes in a hierarchy of races, where the higher races have rights and inferior races are destined for extinction or a marginal existence under the tutelage of higher races. Under the Zionist doctrine, the Jews are a higher race. According to some versions this superiority is divinely ordained: God made his covenant with Israelites not with the Ishmaelites. This superiority is also empirically established: the Zionists wanted to take Palestine from the Palestinians ­ and they made it a fact.</p>
<p>The Israelis are not only superior in their strength. They are superior in their magnanimity. The Palestinians still live: don’t they? Isn’t this proof of Israeli magnanimity. The Israelis merely pushed the Palestinians out of their lands; they did not incinerate them in ovens. They blow up their houses, but generally give them time to get out of the way. Aren’t the Israelis incomparably kinder than the Nazis?</p>
<p>Let the Palestinians celebrate their extraordinary luck: they were not expropriated by the Germans or Anglo-Saxons. The Herero in Southwest Africa, the natives in the United States, or the Tasmanians were not half as lucky. ‘Give up your futile terrorism,’ the Zionists tell the Palestinians. ‘Take the Bantustans we have created for you: and be grateful. We have both power and money: we can reward your gratitude. If you behave we might even give you passes for day jobs in Israel. You could make a good living scrubbing floors and washing toilets.’</p>
<p>The Zionists are incensed when the Palestinians reject this ‘generous offer.’ ‘This is not in our script,’ they scream. The outrage is understandable. They don’t expect such insolence from inferiors. The Zionists find it hard to understand how any people could reject their claim to Palestine. But that is what the Palestinians have chosen to do; any other people in their condition would have done the same. It is this humanity of the Palestinians, ordinary yet incontrovertible, that is so galling to those raised in the logic of Zionism.</p>
<p>As this project has unfolded through wars, through ethnic cleansings, through expropriations, through an occupation that has involved an entire society in the relentless destruction of another people, how many Zionists can assert in sincerity ­ despite the military successes of their project ­ that their humanity is still intact, that Israelis today are better exemplars of the highest values of Jewish traditions than the generations of Jews who preceded them?</p>
<p>Israel has fashioned itself into a society whose primary vocation is to invent new stratagems, new walls, and new traps for imprisoning another people who by their will to resist continue to challenge and frustrate their will to expropriate. The Palestinians have stretched thin the ability of Israelis to retain their humanity in their role as occupiers. Those who have made it their life-long vocation to defend Israeli atrocities suffer a similar loss in their humanity. I suppose Mr. Elie Wiesel knows this all too well. Or is he so far advanced in this malady that he has become blinded to his own affliction?</p>
<p>M. SHAHID ALAM, professor of economics at Northeastern University, is a regular contributor to CounterPunch.org. Some of his CounterPunch essays are now available in a book, <a href="" type="internal">Is There An Islamic Problem</a> (Kuala Lumpur: The Other Press, 2004). He may be reached at <a href="" type="internal">[email protected]</a>.</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | How to be a Good Victim | true | https://counterpunch.org/2005/08/27/how-to-be-a-good-victim/ | 2005-08-27 | 4 |
<p>Shares of United Continental Holdings (NYSE: UAL) stock dropped 10.1% in July.</p>
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<p>United Continental <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/07/19/what-comeback-united-continental-disappoints-again.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=09161f22-787a-11e7-a0c2-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">reported its Q2 2017 earnings Opens a New Window.</a> after close of trading on Tuesday, July 18. By the time trading resumed the next morning, United Continental stock had already dropped 3% -- and it hasn't stopped falling since.</p>
<p>If you haven't already heard, you may be surprised to learn that United Continental actually beat on earnings. Emphasizing its own special flavor of "adjusted earnings," the company reported a pro forma profit of $2.75 per share -- $0.12 ahead of analyst estimates.</p>
<p>The company's actual <a href="http://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/importance-of-accounting-principles-for-wiki.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=09161f22-787a-11e7-a0c2-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">GAAP Opens a New Window.</a> earnings were $2.66, which was nearly a 50% improvement over what United Continental had earned in the prior-year's second quarter -- and only on a 6% increase in revenues. So why did United Continental stock decline after earnings? Why is it still going down today?</p>
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<p>It's probably because of the guidance. In the course of reporting earnings, United Continental also gave new guidance for investors for its current third fiscal quarter -- and it was pretty disappointing. Among other items of note, United Continental said that its pre-tax profit margin will range between 12.5% and 14.5%, or roughly the same as it achieved in Q2, but in a summer-vacation quarter, that's supposed to be much stronger for United.</p>
<p>Passenger revenue per available seat mile (PRASM) isn't expected to improve much either -- plus or minus 1% compared to last year. Conclusion: Foolish airline specialist Adam Levine-Weinberg believes that "EPS will probably decline year over year this quarter."</p>
<p>And that's why United Continental stock crashed and burned in July.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than United Continental HoldingsWhen 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>
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<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of August 1, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFDitty/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=09161f22-787a-11e7-a0c2-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Rich Smith Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any 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;uuid=09161f22-787a-11e7-a0c2-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Why United Continental Stock Crashed and Burned in July | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/08/03/why-united-continental-stock-crashed-and-burned-in-july.html | 2017-08-03 | 0 |
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<p>What: Only two days after SunEdison Inc stock popped, <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/02/16/why-sunedison-inc-stock-jumped-today.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">because hedge funds announced stakes in the company Opens a New Window.</a>, the stock hit a new 52-week low, dropping as much as 18% in early trading Thursday.</p>
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<p>So what: SunEdison announced moves aimed at creating an "asset-light strategy." That included selling a silicon wafer facility in Malaysia, shutting down a polysilicon facility in Texas, and changing the focus of an Oregon facility to "cost effective R&amp;D and technology demonstration center." The moves will result in $437 million in impairment charges for Q4 2015.</p>
<p>Restructuring is probably coming too late for SunEdison and the bigger news of the day is Hawaiian Electric terminating contracts for 148 megawatts of solar because SunEdison <a href="http://dms.puc.hawaii.gov/dms/DocumentViewer?pid=A1001001A16B16B02224B85985" type="external">missed multiple project deadlines Opens a New Window.</a>. This is unprecedented in the solar industry, and since these assets were supposed to be sold to D.E. Shaw to reduce debt this could help drive the company to insolvency.</p>
<p>Now what: The odds of SunEdison avoiding bankruptcy get slimmer by the day and this is new evidence that the company isn't even executing on projects it has contracts for. If it can't do that, how can we believe management's plans to sell assets on a time frame and profit level that will avoid bankruptcy. I think SunEdison's days are numbered and even Hawaiian Electric publicly stated the company is in "financial distress." That's not the kind of stock investors should be buying today.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/02/18/why-sunedison-inc-shares-hit-a-new-52-week-low-tod.aspx" type="external">Why SunEdison Inc Shares Hit a New 52-Week Low Today Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFFlushDraw/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Travis Hoium Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
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<p>Cocaine is a central commodity of the neoliberal age; so, too, its re-processed form (“crack”) for the desperately poor in de-industrialized cities of the North and South Atlantic. First announced by Richard Nixon in 1971, the “War on Drugs” predates the rise of cocaine and crack by nearly a decade, but, in the 1980s and ’90s, the “War on Drugs” was redoubled in response to the explosion of the cocaine business. It now ranks as the U.S.A.’s longest running military-police campaign. Thus, if we look at cocaine as a social hieroglyph – not as a thing but as a complex relation between networks and organizations of people, as well as between states and bureaucracies – we may glimpse some of the distinguishing features of the contemporary world.</p>
<p>There is a strong argument to be made for the impact of the cocaine business on architecture, urban design and construction, fashion, media entertainment, sports, and aesthetics, not to mention banking and credit institutions. The war on cocaine producers, sellers, and users has radically changed the shape of states in relation to those who are, at least nominally, rights-bearing citizens, as states have become more militarized, policed, punitive and carceral, and citizens more powerless and less protected by the rule of law. As the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu observed in his late work, states do not disappear under neoliberalism: rather, their repressive right wings are strengthened while their progressive, redistributive rights-based wings are weakened or eliminated. This is most notable in cities, where urban space has been re-made in line with the requirements of policing and surveillance to protect capital investment and affluent consumers.</p>
<p>Though it does not advance these arguments, except tangentially, Tom Feiling’s well-researched <a href="" type="internal">The Candy Machine: How Cocaine took over the World</a> (Penguin, 2009) makes a similar claim for the importance of its subject.Yet, could not the same be said of any essential commodity: oil, for instance, or cars or clothes? What makes cocaine different? The answer, of course, would depend on whom one asks, but what makes cocaine extraordinarily profitable for its import-export merchants is the fact that it is illegal. The fact that one country – Colombia – supplies 90 per cent of the cocaine consumed in the U.S. also makes the commodity different. Ninety per cent of Colombian cocaine enters the U.S.A. through Mexico (and Guatemala); smuggling having been made considerably easier by NAFTA, which de-regulated trucking and shipping.</p>
<p>Plan Colombia and Plan Mérida (Mexico) – based on counternarcotics and counterterrorism – are the two most important U.S. foreign policy initiatives in the Western Hemisphere, with Plan Colombia and its successors costing U.S. taxpayers $8 billion between 2000 and 2008, and Plan Mérida, approved in 2008, costing $500 million in 2009. So, cocaine is not only big business, it is also high politics: Plan Colombia has been held up as a model of counternarcotics and counterinsurgency success for Mexico, Afghanistan and Pakistan. One senior U.S. official told CBS News, “The more Afghanistan can look like Colombia, the better.”</p>
<p>Public debate in the U.S. concerning the suppression of cocaine production and consumption – and the U.S. has determined international drug policy since the U.N. Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 – is moralistic, due to the weight of conservative strains of Protestantism, even among non-evangelicals, not to mention neoconservative Catholicism: decent, responsible people should not consume drugs, and should not be allowed to consume them, because, if they do, they will become unproductive degenerates.</p>
<p>If supply is reduced, the official argument goes, prices will rise for consumers in the U.S.A., and demand will drop correspondingly. Nevertheless, Plan Colombia and related anti-drug initiatives in the Andes and Mexico have not reduced the supply of cocaine to the U.S., where prices have tended toward secular decline since the early 1980s and domestic demand has fluctuated from generation to generation. The volume of illicit drugs that U.S. citizens consume has not changed significantly over time, but the type of drugs they consume has, with cocaine coming back into fashion, together with pharmaceuticals, among young, affluent people during the Bush II period.</p>
<p>In terms of costs and benefits, fighting cocaine production and consumption is a disaster even by the standards of the Pentagon: according to a 1994 RAND Corporation study, to reduce cocaine consumption by 1 per cent in the U.S., it would be twenty-three times cheaper ($34 million) to spend on treatment and education for consumers than on coca eradication for producers ($783 million).</p>
<p>But the failure to achieve stated objectives has yet to affect policy-making, which is driven mainly by ideology. Empirical data have little bearing on the policy-making process. The logic driving the War on Drugs has been chiefly ideological and political, not economic: domestic politics in the U.S. have determined policy abroad. One of the defining policies of Cold War liberalism, President Johnson’s War on Poverty – which had less than one-tenth of the lifespan of the War on Drugs – took for granted that federal and state governments should take responsibility for improving the plight of the poor in northern cities and represented a semi-coherent response to African-American riots and insurgencies. But what if poor black people in cities could be held responsible for their poverty? What if, as industrial jobs disappeared by the millions, they became addicted to selling or consuming illegal drugs, produced and/or distributed by U.S. government allies in Cold War counterinsurgent campaigns? Then African Americans could be locked up for nonviolent drug offenses and warehoused in prisons at an accelerated rate.</p>
<p>It is to Feiling’s credit to have discovered this larger truth, albeit in bits and pieces: “As long as the focus stayed on drug sales and drug abuse, inner-city residents could be blamed for the poverty they had been driven into … what the politicians had to do was convince the American public that the inner cities deserved to be abandoned.”</p>
<p>In the 1970s, President Richard Nixon and Governor Nelson Rockefeller in New York campaigned for office by whipping up hysteria about “crime” and “drugs,” and then criminalized African-American communities, militarized policing, and increased incarceration. After a brief respite under Carter, fighting crime and drugs in urban African-American neighborhoods became the rhetorical coin of the political realm under Ronald Reagan. The idea was to put African Americans back in their place without Jim Crow segregation, and to get elected or re-elected by doing it. Fear was to be one of the most enduring weapons in the U.S. politician’s arsenal. In his diary in 1969, Nixon’s top aide, H.R. Haldeman, provided a succinct summary of the overall strategy: “Nixon emphasized that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes that, while not appearing to do so.”</p>
<p>In a letter to Dwight Eisenhower, Nixon wrote, “Ike, it’s just amazing how much you can get done through fear. All I talk about in New Hampshire is crime and drugs, and everyone wants to vote for me – and they don’t even have any black people up here.”</p>
<p>Nixon’s War on Drugs,” Feiling notes, was “politically expedient, since it turned attention away from … Vietnam, while preserving the military culture that had inspired the war in the first place.”</p>
<p>Nearly all of those imprisoned in New York State for drug offenses have been African-American or Latino males, most of them from eight neighborhoods in New York City. Whereas the U.S. had 200,000 prisoners in the 1970s, it currently has 1.8 million in jail and 5 million on probation or parole, making it the largest carceral state-society in world history. The U.S. accounts for 5 per cent of the world’s population and 25 per cent of its prison population; 500,000 people are serving time for nonviolent drug offenses.</p>
<p>Needless to say, the profile of the U.S. prison population does not reflect consumption patterns: whites consume an estimated 80 per cent of cocaine in the U.S.A., while African Americans consume 13 per cent; whites consume cocaine in disproportionate numbers, while blacks do not. Yet 38 per cent of those arrested and 59 per cent of those convicted for drug offenses have been African Americans. And stereotypes notwithstanding, whites account for 46 per cent of all crack use, while African Americans consume 36 per cent and Latinos 11 per cent. That is to say that although African Americans use crack out of proportion to their numbers, probably because it is the least expensive of illicit drugs, they consume considerably less of it than whites do.</p>
<p>Just as Jim Crow succeeded slavery at the end of the 19th century after Reconstruction was reversed, militarized policing and prisons replaced Jim Crow after the civil rights movement was rolled back. Black freedom struggles determined the limits of U.S. democracy from the early 19th century through the 1960s, and the criminalization and incarceration of young African-American males through the War on Drugs at the end of the 20th century represented another dramatic constriction of democratic politics in the U.S., first under President Nixon and accelerating under Presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton. As Feiling and others have stressed, it was through sentencing laws on crack vs. powder cocaine which passed in 1986 under Ronald Reagan – in cooperation with Democratic house majority leader Tip O’Neill – and a revolution in police tactics and organization, that this was achieved.</p>
<p>Such is the domestic context, without which it is impossible to make sense of U.S. foreign policy in producer countries in the Andes (Colombia, Peru and Bolivia) and transport countries in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean (leaving aside Brazil, whose government does not respond to U.S. pressures). After Ronald Reagan was elected, aerial fumigation was undertaken against marijuana growers in Mexico, Jamaica and Colombia in the early 1980s, even as the Pacific Northwest became the leading supplier of the U.S. marijuana market thanks to its competitive advantage in transport costs; the region was soon to find itself subject to similar, if less toxic campaigns. In 1982, President Reagan became the first to appoint a high-level official, then Vice President George H.W. Bush, to run the South Florida Drug Task Force – composed of agents from the DEA, Customs, FBI, ATF, IRS, Army, and Navy – to deal with cocaine trafficking in Miami, by which time the city’s homicide rate had made headlines thanks to the violence that Colombians had unleashed in their bid to take over and maintain distribution networks.</p>
<p>Before launching the invasion of Panama and the Gulf War, in 1989 President George H.W. Bush created the Office of National Drug Control Policy, led by “drug czar” William Bennett, militarized anti-narcotics policing in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, and doubled the anti-drug budget to $12 billion. Mexico had already become the major transshipment point for Colombian cocaine, but its dominance only increased with the end of U.S. counterinsurgency wars in Central America, the passage of NAFTA, and the fall of the two so-called cartels in Colombia – Medellín and Cali – under President Clinton.</p>
<p>The Candy Machine’s greatest strength may be its presentation of perspectives from former gang members and drug users, drug traffickers and retired narcotics enforcement officials in the U.S. Thus Rusty, a former narcotics officer for the Department of Corrections in Arizona: “When I talk about legalizing drugs, people say, ‘you can’t mean heroin and crack, right?’ But after 30 years of the drug war, spending a trillion dollars … the bad guys still control the price, purity, and quantity of every drug. Knowing that they control the drug trade, which drug are you going to leave under their control? Regulation and legalization is not a vote for or against any drug. It’s not about solving our drug use problem. It’s solely about getting some control back.”</p>
<p>“They” refers to drug barons, many of them large landowners, as well as warlords, in Colombia, Mexico, Afghanistan and Pakistan, but the problem with Rusty’s analysis is that U.S. government allies in such countries – the intelligence services, the judicial systems, the military and police, business and political elites – are either complicit with or directly involved in supplying U.S. and European markets with cocaine and/or heroin, generally in order to finance counterinsurgency wars. As Cockburn and St. Clair’s Whiteout [to be reissued, updated, in 2010 by CounterPunch Books]describes, this pattern was set in the 1950s, with opium and heroin in places like Burma, Marseilles and Cuba, repeated in the 1960s and ’70s in Vietnam and Laos, and updated with Colombian cocaine in Central America and Central Asian heroin in the 1980s.</p>
<p>The career path of “Freeway Rick” Ross in the 1980s, is illustrative. Unlike everyone else selling cocaine or crack, Rick Ross was supplied with cocaine at cut-rate prices by Danilo Blandon, a Nicaraguan employee of the CIA in the U.S. government’s war against the revolutionary Sandinista government, as documented in Whiteout and the late Gary Webb’s Pulitzer-prize winning Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Explosion (2003). From prison, Ross explained to Feiling, “Me and Danilo Blandon were really tight. I knew from earlier that he was backing some war, and I knew that he was from Nicaragua, but I had no idea about the Contras. I was illiterate at that time, you know. I never read a newspaper or listened to the news. They say that Danilo was protected, and you can assume from the Feds that I was protected too, but I never knew that. I was just in it for the money, trying to get out of the ghetto.”</p>
<p>Blandon sold cocaine to Ross at a price, of a quality, and in quantities that none of Ross’s competitors could match. As former DEA agent Celerino Castillo III, who served in El Salvador, told Feiling, “They gave all the coke to Danilo Blandon, who was a CIA asset. He in turn fronted all that stuff to Ricky Ross. Ross became the Walmart of crack, distributing to the Bloods and Crips and everybody else all over the country… Hangars 4 and 5 at Ilopango airport in El Salvador were used as a trampoline for drugs coming in from Colombia and Costa Rica. Oliver North and a Cuban exile named Felix Rodríguez [a former CIA agent who supervised the execution of Che Guevara in Bolivia] were running one of them, and the other one was owned by the CIA.</p>
<p>All evidence pointed to Vice President George H.W. Bush’s office as overseeing the operation, but, of course, nothing came of it besides the Kerry Committee Report of 1989, which charged the State Department with making payments to Nicaraguan Contras involved in the cocaine business. In the neoliberal economy of the 1980s, anchored in financial services, insurance, real estate, and speculative asset bubbles, many African-American males and immigrant males of color saw the cocaine-crack business as the way to achieve material security. Cocaine gave a shot in the arm to street gangs, who handled lower levels of wholesale and retail distribution in the U.S. Rick Ross describes his trajectory: “I was a youngster. Uneducated, uninformed, unemployed. I was looking for opportunities. I wanted to be important in the world, somebody who was respected. Basically, I wanted the American dream, so I guess I was ripe for the picking. The opportunity came in the form of drugs and I latched onto it. I just kept saving my money and buying more drugs. My childhood friends would be walking, but I’d be driving a nice car, and they’d want to know how I got the car. ‘Oh, I’m selling cocaine now,’ I’d say. ‘Teach me how to sell cocaine,’ they’d say. So my friends started to get involved, and, before long, we’re making a lot of money, and I’m eating at McDonald’s whenever I want to. At our height, some days a million dollars would come through our hands in a single day. Next thing I know, the whole neighborhood is selling, people were already gang-banging, but now we were able to afford more expensive weapons, more expensive cars, and better houses and the police started noticing it more.”</p>
<p>The comment about eating at McDonald’s speaks volumes about the depths of poverty from which Rick Ross escaped, only to wind up living most of his life in a prison cell. Indeed, for most of those serving hard time for nonviolent drug offenses, the crack business offered much less distance from poverty than it had for Ross. Marc, from South Jamaica neighborhood in the borough of Queens, N.Y. – currently the epicenter of the foreclosure crisis in New York City’s black and brown neighborhoods – described his work as follows: “It was the hardest job I ever had. It’s pure capitalism, you know. Say, you’re selling drugs in the South Bronx, say at 138th and 3rd Avenue, and another crew of guys is selling the same drugs as you two blocks away. The block they’re on is making $2,000 per day, and the block you’re on is making about $2,000 per day. They decide, ‘You know what? You’re a punk. You’re a pussy.’ So they move you.” It’s dog eat dog, to quote the title of a remarkable 2008 film about the cocaine business in Cali, Colombia: a Hobbesian capitalist world of all against all and murder for hire.</p>
<p>This pattern – with gangs as cell forms of organized crime – was repeated among a host of new immigrant groups in the U.S., involved in cocaine distribution and/or smuggling and money-laundering: Colombians, Mexicans, Salvadorans and Guatemalans in L.A.; Colombians, Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in Chicago; Colombians, Jamaicans, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Albanians, and Russians in New York. These gangs, of course, are bi- and transnational, just like the cocaine commodity circuit, in which they are embedded: in L.A., there are roughly 2,000 gangs; in Medellín, Colombia, there were reportedly 6,300 gangs in 2003; Chicago is said to have 70,000 gang members.</p>
<p>Gangs involved in distribution aim to reproduce the corporate organization of capitalism, from which their members have been excluded. Hip-hop music testifies to this, particularly the Brooklyn variety pioneered by Biggie Smalls and Jay-Z. Lance, a cocaine wholesaler from South Jamaica, Queens, described his outfit as follows: “The structure of the business is like a Fortune 500. We’d have different titles, but it all basically remains the same as in corporate America. You have your CEO, your supervisor, your treasurer. You might be the captain; you have your lieutenants, your soldiers.” Most Fortune 500 companies have different titles for their executives, though; only the Sicilian mafia uses such terms for its employees. This would seem to be an indication of the extent to which poor African Americans – not to speak of Jamaicans, Dominicans, Mexicans, Colombians, Salvadorans, and so forth – have seized upon mafia organization and ideology to justify the pursuit of employment, upward mobility, material abundance, and, most importantly, “respect.” If so, it provides evidence of delusion, desperation, or some combination thereof, for, as anthropologist Phillipe Bourgeois’ <a href="" type="internal">In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio</a> (1995) shows, the cocaine-crack business is much like any other low-wage service industry offering no benefits. Feiling found that “street-level sellers earn roughly the federal minimum wage, which at the time of writing stood at $6.55 per hour.” Most top dealers have day jobs and take no more than 25 per cent of total revenues. Only one in six brings home more than $5,000 per month, as 60 per cent of revenues go to wholesalers and retailers on the lower rungs of the distribution chain. Yet, in spite of the new mafia ideology encapsulated in Jay-Z’s (typically self-glorifying) verse, “even righteous minds go through this” (when contemplating whether to participate in the crack game), the cocaine business offers only marginally more room for upward mobility than the service industries to which African-American and Latino youth are confined in the licit economy – with the added risk, or near-certainty, of prison or violent death at an early age.</p>
<p>For direct producers of tropical agricultural commodities like coffee, neoliberal policies in the countryside – nowhere else applied with greater blood and zealotry than in Colombia – have accelerated a long-term secular price decline: there are no options other than coca for people in isolated rural frontier areas, where there is no state presence or source of employment. A coca grower from the department of Sucre (Monterrey municipality) does the arithmetic: “Getting a sack of potatoes to market will cost a farmer between 3,000 and 5,000 pesos, and it will sell for between 10,000 and 12,000 pesos, depending on demand. Meanwhile, coca is a lot easier to sow and process, and doesn’t need transporting because the traffickers come to the village to buy it. They pay 1,500,000 pesos for a kilo of coca paste.” Making coca paste is and will remain the only option for survival for millions of impoverished peasant families on the Colombian agricultural frontier; the same is true for Peru and Bolivia.</p>
<p>As the experience of the Bolivians Yungas with northern Argentina demonstrates, a legal market for coca dramatically reduces the amount of coca leaf produced for the cocaine business. Bolivian President Evo Morales, whose political base remains the coca growers’ trade union federation in the Chapare that produced him, would like nothing better than to tour the world touting the medicinal benefits of the coca leaf and coca tea, and it is easy to imagine a successful “coca diplomacy” with leaders and consumers in the EU, the U.S., Australia and Japan. But, first, the U.N. Single Convention of 1961 would have to be revised so that companies and firms other than Coca Cola could use the leaf for industrial purposes. Until U.S. domestic politics changes, it will stand.</p>
<p>Decriminalizing Marijuana and Cocaine</p>
<p>Perhaps in recognition of this fact, a number of Latin American countries have de-criminalized personal consumption of cocaine and marijuana. Colombia was the pioneer: in 1994, as head of the Constitutional Court, created in the Constitution of 1991, Judge Carlos Gaviria legalized the personal consumption of up to 20 grams of marijuana, and/or a gram of cocaine, because, he argued, drinkers were much more likely to commit violent crimes, and no one had suggested prohibition of alcohol consumption since the 1920s. Gaviria, who has since moved on to a political career in Colombia’s turbulent electoral Left, said, “Legislators can proscribe certain forms of behavior toward others, but not how a person is behaving toward him or herself, as long as this doesn’t interfere with the rights of others.” Ecuador, Argentina and Mexico have since followed suit, which represents the extent to which Latin American countries have sought and attained greater autonomy from U.S. imperial control, as many of the anti-drug laws in Latin America were drafted under U.S. diplomatic pressure. Latin American countries have now joined the Netherlands in treating drug consumption as a public health problem rather than a police problem.</p>
<p>In the U.S., however, as Feiling points out, “legalization” is a “third-rail issue” for politicians, meaning that most will not mention it for fear of destroying their political careers. As President Obama’s drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, put it in July 2009, t“Legalization is not in my vocabulary nor is it in the president’s.” To understand why, it is helpful to ask who wins and who loses from legalization. The losers, not necessarily in order of importance, would include U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the DEA, U.S. Border Patrol, the FBI, the ATF, the IRS, state and local police forces, the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. armed forces, to name only some of the agencies whose budgets depend on the drug war for funding, as well as their counterparts in U.S. client states throughout the Americas; arms manufacturers like Sikorsky Helicopters; large pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer; suppliers of chemicals for fumigation like Monsanto; the banking sector as well as off-shore tax havens; the Republican Party; along with warlords, gangs and gangsters. The clearest winners would be consumers, direct producers, and societies that would be less militarized, less carceral, less moralizing, and would have stronger public health and education systems. But, as Jack Cole, who spent 26 years in policing narcotics in New Jersey and is now the executive director of Law Enforcement against Drug Prohibition, stressed to Feiling, “When you train your police to go to war, they’ve got to have an enemy.” Cole considers the War on Drugs a “terrible metaphor” for “policing in a democratic society.” Terrible, alas, but substitute “neoliberal” for “democratic,” and it is nothing if not apt. Predictably, Obama and Kerlikowske have dropped the nomenclature, but the policies remain intact.</p>
<p>FORREST HYLTON is the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1844675513/counterpunchmaga" type="external">Evil Hour in Colombia</a> (Verso, 2006), and with Sinclair Thomson, of <a href="" type="internal">Revolutionary Horizons: Past and Present in Bolivian Politics</a> (Verso, 2007). He can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p> | The Culture of Cocaine | true | https://counterpunch.org/2010/02/05/the-culture-of-cocaine/ | 2010-02-05 | 4 |
<p>"No man can serve two masters. … he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon (material wealth).”&#160;– Matthew 6:24 KJV Democrats have long accused Republicans of being the party of greed. I’m sorry to say that they’ve been proven right.&#160;What explanation other than greed explains the long-term dysfunctional behavior of the Republican Party? Let’s look at the issue through Barack Obama’s State of the Union address. The man who is “fundamentally transforming” America into a socialist hellhole, and purposely destroying the middle class (i.e.: the creative producers), told us with a straight face that he’s licked the problem, the world is safe now and happy days are here again. In essence, “We just need to make some tweaks to destroy – ahem, save – the middle class and my work will be finished.” Obama claims that the U.S. unemployment rate has dropped, but that’s because many of the 91 million unemployed have stopped looking for work. And despite his declaration that the economy is rebounding, according to ABC News, 74 percent say their personal finances have stayed the same or gotten worse in the past six years. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than half of American households now receive benefits from the government. Obama is purposely weakening people by addicting them to programs, hoping their only choice will be to “come to mamma” (the government) for their sustenance.&#160;And he’s purposely weakening America’s defenses, putting us at the mercy of ISIS and al-Qaida. So what did the Republicans do in the face of a State of the Union speech that would have made Karl Marx and Muhammad blush? They responded with a smiling Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who cited some nice down-home values, but who neglected to strongly rebuke any of Obama’s lies and nation-destroying policies. A Washington Post-ABC News poll revealed that the Republican Party has a 72 percent disapproval rating (compared to 62 percent for Democrats).&#160; Republicans assume they’re not popular because they’re perceived as not being “friendly” enough. Hence, I have no doubt that poor Sen. Ernst was coached to freeze that smile on her face. Republicans have it wrong – much of their unpopularity stems from their near-complete lack of principle. The only reason the American people put Republicans in charge of Congress is because they want Obama stopped. But if the GOP continues to put politics above principle, voters will turn on it, too. The people’s patience is understandably stretched to the limit. There’s a distinct difference in how liberals and conservatives behave when they’re fed up. Liberals get mad and complain, but they rarely abandon the Democratic Party. When conservatives are fed up with Republicans, they stay home on Election Day. This is catastrophic for our side. Like so many Americans, my disgust with the Republicans continues to grow. But I’ve begun to realize that the reason they won’t act to stop Obama is not so much fear as it is the love of power and money. Every key issue the GOP refuses to fight against points back to money. On amnesty, they’re terrified of losing the support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Major corporations want amnesty so their cheap labor pool doesn’t dry up. Washington insiders are making a fortune off of Obamacare. So as long as their political donors are reaping benefits, the GOP will never roll back Obamacare. Republicans – like Democrats – funnel millions to their political cronies through pork-barrel spending. The immediate gratification of money, power and privilege obliterates any concern for future generations who will be saddled with massive debt (currently over 100 percent of GDP!). The GOP promised to cut the debt, roll back Obamacare and secure our borders, but now that it’s in power, it’s playing it “safe.” Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell want to appear “reasonable” and not upset their corporate donors. They think – foolishly – that this strategy will help them elect a Republican president in 2016.</p>
<p>George W. Bush was elected on the promise of reigning in big government, but after two terms, Bush had the biggest federal budget expansion since Franklin D. Roosevelt. Republicans controlled the White House and Congress, but did little reform and even tried to shove amnesty down our throats.</p>
<p>Now they’re lying to us again. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice …</p>
<p>And God help any Republican who stands up for the people. Establishment Republicans treat conservatives such as Sen. Ted Cruz like pariahs.</p>
<p>An immediate intervention is needed to save our republic. But since the Republican Congress just shamefully re-elected Boehner as speaker and caved on pro-life legislation, it appears they will do nothing to stop the destruction of my country. I hope that among those we have recently elected, there are enough patriots who will come together to do the work that is now so necessary. If they do step forward, I believe the American people will support them wholeheartedly. That is my hope and prayer. It may be the only political solution left.</p>
<p>Media wishing to interview Jesse Lee Peterson, please contact&#160; <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.​</p> | PETERSON: Are Selfish Republicans About To Blow It Again? | true | http://truthrevolt.org/commentary/peterson-are-selfish-republicans-about-blow-it-again | 2018-10-03 | 0 |
<p>Six months after the failed Bush administration effort to “rescue” the US financial system, and after two months of failed efforts by his own new administration, at an expense to the American public of several trillion dollars and counting, the Obama administration is announcing plans to blow another $1 trillion in a massive taxpayer giveaway to investors who will be subsidized in an effort to get them to buy the so-called toxic assets on the books of the nation’s biggest banks.</p>
<p>The problem with this plan is that its goal–getting these zombie banks to start lending again–is not going to work.</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter how good the balance sheets of the banks are. Good companies, and even individuals and families with good credit, are simply not borrowing. As I wrote last month in an article&#160; titled “Follow the Money” in the magazine <a href="" type="internal">Treasury and Risk</a>, the problem isn’t that banks are too weak to lend (though the zombie banks certainly are), it’s that the strong banks don’t want to throw money at bad borrowers.</p>
<p>It is the nature of economic downturns like this current one that companies and ordinary families don’t borrow, but rather cut back on their spending and try to reduce their debt, the better to ride out the hard times. It is only the companies that are in trouble, like General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, that are looking for loans, and no bank is going to want to lend to them regardless of how much money the government pumps into it. (And if the public decides that it is in the national interest to prop up such companies, it is much more effective to have the government loan them the money directly, rather than try to get banks to lend it to them at much higher interest.)</p>
<p>What this means is that all the Obama administration, the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve are doing by buying the toxic assets off the books of banks like Citigroup, Bank America or Wells Fargo is giving a taxpayer handout to those banks’ investors and bondholders–the very people who enabled those companies to invest in the corrupt credit default swaps and other shady derivatives in the first place.</p>
<p>What should happen? Citibank, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and the other financial institutions that made bad bets on these structured financial instruments, should be allowed to fail, taking with them the investors who played this dirty game, and the managers who decided to gamble instead of run conservative banking operations.</p>
<p>The government would protect the assets of depositors in those failed banks, which would be sold to healthier, better run banks, making those banks much stronger and better capitalized in the process–and thus ready to start lending as needed. This is standard operating procedure for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.</p>
<p>Note that this process would mean no crisis in the economy, since the ability to access credit would not be crimped in the least by the failure of some of the country’s larger banks. It would, in fact, probably be enhanced.</p>
<p>The toxic assets would be eliminated through the bankruptcies, and the government–and taxpayers–would be $1 trillion less in the red.</p>
<p>Why isn’t the Obama administration doing this? Because Obama has put his trust in the advice of men–Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Chief Economic Advisor Larry Summers, and, informally, former Clinton Treasurer Robert Rubin, all linked to the investment bank Goldman Sachs, which was also the corporate home of Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The same Goldman Sachs which was given $10 billion in Troubled Assets Relief Program funds directly, and which then snagged another $13 billion in TARP funds in secret, which was laundered through the now-government-owned insurance company AIG.</p>
<p>Columnist and Nobel economist Paul Krugman writes in today’s New York Times that the latest White House bank rescue plan will fail. He goes on to say, “This is more than disappointing. In fact, it fills me with a sense of despair. … It’s as if the president were determined to confirm the growing perception that he and his economic team are out of touch, that their economic vision is clouded by excessively close ties to Wall Street.”</p>
<p>It should be clear at this point that the Goldman cabal burrowed deep inside the Washington apparatus is working not to rescue the US economy, but rather to ensure the survival and enrichment of the big banking establishment, and of course Goldman Sachs.</p>
<p>What we are witnessing in the policies of the Obama administration is not the creative experimentation of a modern-day Franklin Roosevelt, but rather the greatest heist in the history of mankind, as trillions of dollars in public funds are shifted from taxpayers’ pockets into the hands of the very banks and bankers and bank investors who brought us this financial debacle.</p>
<p>Instead of decrying the bonus payments to AIG executives, the American public should be demanding the indictment of Paulson, Summers, Geithner and Co. for IGL: Incomprehensibly Grand Larceny.</p>
<p>Instead of trying to rescue the nation’s giant banks, we should be demanding that they be shattered into little harmless pieces.</p>
<p>Come to think of it, maybe it’s time for a run on the banks–not because your money is not safe at Chase or Citibank or B of A, but because these institutions need to be killed off for the good of the nation.</p>
<p>If you have an account at any national bank, go there tomorrow and take it out. Transfer it to a local bank in your community. You’ll get better service, your money will still be just as safe, and you won’t be propping up institutions that have been stealing the country blind.</p>
<p>DAVE LINDORFF&#160; is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book is “ <a href="" type="internal">The Case for Impeachment</a>” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now available in paperback). He can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p> | Toxic Bailouts | true | https://counterpunch.org/2009/03/23/toxic-bailouts/ | 2009-03-23 | 4 |
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<p>file photo</p>
<p>LAREDO, Texas — A Mexican man must serve nearly seven years in prison for human smuggling and attacking a Border Patrol agent who was checking tunnels for immigrants.</p>
<p>Jose Luis Zavala-Rodriguez was sentenced Monday in Laredo. Zavala-Rodriguez last July was convicted of four counts relating to assaulting a federal agent and immigrant transporting.</p>
<p>A Border Patrol agent in 2013 was pursuing some immigrants believed to be in the U.S. illegally when the search led to drainage tunnels.</p>
<p>Prosecutors say the agent saw several people trying to hide behind some trees next to a building. Investigators say Zavala-Rodriguez was among the group, lunged at the agent, took the officer’s stun gun and told other immigrants to help beat the agent.</p>
<p>The officer fired his pistol, summoning help.</p>
<p>The agent was treated for neck injuries.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Human smuggler gets prison for attacking US agent | false | https://abqjournal.com/532341/human-smuggler-gets-prison-for-attacking-us-agent.html | 2 |
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<p />
<p>CEO Gary Kelly strives to&#160; <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/carminegallo/2014/01/21/southwest-airlines-motivates-its-employees-with-a-purpose-bigger-than-a-paycheck/#13f6ac6b48e1" type="external">up the culture-building game at Southwest Airlines. Opens a New Window.</a>&#160;What is so wonderful about Kelly's ambition is that he already heads a company that leads the industry in customer satisfaction. For years, the airline thrived on developing personable employees who demonstrated emotional intelligence and senses of humor. But Kelly felt it was&#160;time to add a touch of the profound. He asked his employees&#160;to support a vision of becoming the most loved, most flown, and most profitable airline in the world.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Kelly&#160;proposed that one of the ways the company would do this would be through telling stories of how they improved the lives of the customers they touch. An equally important aspect of the new vision is the airline's new <a href="https://www.recruiter.com/organizational-culture.html" type="external">culture Opens a New Window.</a>-driving statement of purpose, which says, "We exist to connect people to what's important in their lives through friendly, reliable, and low-cost air travel."</p>
<p>Part of this vision and purpose involves employees learning to connect with the stories of passengers and looking for ways to elevate their lives. The heart behind this commitment is profound. It can even be gut-wrenching.</p>
<p>In looking through the&#160;stories of Southwest's commitment to customer service, I found <a href="http://elliott.org/blog/southwest-airlines-pilot-holds-plane-for-murder-victims-family/" type="external">this one Opens a New Window.</a>&#160;from a woman named Nancy.</p>
<p>She had received the tragic news that her three-year-old grandson in Denver had been murdered by her&#160;daughter's live-in boyfriend. Nancy's husband, Mark, was on a business trip in Los Angeles at the time. When he heard the news, he wanted to get to his daughter as quickly as possible. He made arrangements to fly with Southwest, but when he got to the airport, the check-in and security lines were so backed up that it seemed he was going to miss the plane. The TSA agents couldn't have cared less, despite Mark's attempts to get their assistance. When Mark finally got through all the checkpoints, he ran to the gate, expecting everyone to be gone.</p>
<p>The pilot of his plane and the ticketing agent were waiting for him. They had learned about his situation.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>They said, "Are you Mark? We held the plane for you, and we're so sorry about the loss of your grandson."</p>
<p>This is what real engagement and a culture that matters looks like. The businesses that we love – all of them have heart. It takes a certain brand of courage to step up to this plate, but everyone involved&#160;has a&#160;far more memorable story when employers and employees decide to do it.</p>
<p>David Harder is the founder of&#160; <a href="https://www.inspiredworkservices.com/" type="external">Inspired Work Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Southwest Airlines: What a Meaningful Company Culture Looks Like | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2016/10/16/southwest-airlines-what-meaningful-company-culture-looks-like.html | 2016-10-21 | 0 |
<p>What the frilly heck is George Pataki doing running for President?!</p>
<p>This guy, for those who don’t know, was the last Republican governor of New York State. He hasn’t been in office since 2006.</p>
<p>And, need I remind you, a Republican in New York is what a Democrat is in Texas.</p>
<p>So, as it stands, the “declared” and “will be declaring soon” list of Republican Presidential hopefuls now includes: Ted Cruz Rand Paul Marco Rubio Carly Fiorina Scott Walker Jeb Bush John Kasich Ben Carson Chris Christie Rick Santorum George Pataki Lindsey Graham Mike Huckabee Bobby Jindal</p>
<p>Now, that’s fourteen off the top of my head. I’m sure I’ve missed a few dozen.</p>
<p>Look, let’s be honest here. The idea that “the more the better,” makes no sense.</p>
<p>The GOP field needs some population control imposed on its lumbering rat’s nest of candidates.</p>
<p>Looking at the above list, I can winnow things down in a New York Minute.</p>
<p>First: Jeb Bush, George Pataki, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum should find a hobby like needlepoint or extreme sports and stay out of this race.</p>
<p>Now, I like Rick Santorum. I supported him in 2012. His desire to reach out to the blue-collar Reagan Democrats is spot-on and one that needs to be embraced by the GOP if they wish to win in 2016. But, honestly, I do not believe that Rick is bringing to this campaign anything that isn’t already addressed by another candidate. I think Rick Santorum would be better off spending his time as King Maker — using his appeal among Evangelical Christians and working class voters to draw them to the best conservative candidate.</p>
<p>Bush, Pataki and Huckabee have not served in public office in years. None of them are particularly strong in terms of conservatism, Federalism or standing up for the Constitution. Bush and Huckabee love Common Core. Bush is so obsessed with Amnesty and “reaching across the aisle,” he’ll make Mitt Romney look like a winner. Pataki, again, is a NORTHEAST LIBERAL REPUBLICAN. We do not need to run another Northeast Liberal Republican former governor. Didn’t Romney teach us anything?</p>
<p>If Pataki really wants to make a difference, maybe he should be focusing on promoting and expanding the Republican party within New York State and countering the far-Left agenda of the Liberal Democrats who are destroying this beautiful state.</p>
<p>Now, with those four out, I would also jettison John Kasich.</p>
<p>We need to run someone who stands in stark contrast to the Big Centralized Government Leftists of the Democrat Party. Kasich is one of the Republican governors who embraced Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion. And, in a few years, Ohioans are going to take it in the shorts because of it. He’s spineless and will not stand up against the radical Marxism of the modern-day Democrat Party.</p>
<p>Chris Christie is a loudmouth bumbler who has led New Jersey like a Liberal Democrat. Obnoxious bluster against teachers’ unions aside, Christie has overseen credit downgrades, rising property taxes and refused to join the fight against Obamacare in 2011. Give him a job as the Dallas Cowboys’ color commentary if for no other reason than to prevent him from actually running for President.</p>
<p>Lindsey Graham is clearly vying for the Dennis Kucinich “out in left field” vote. He belongs in the White House like I belong in a fighter jet. This election is too crucial to make room for the “joke candidate.”</p>
<p>Okay, I’m sure I’ll piss some people off, but I don’t stand with Rand.</p>
<p>There are things I like about Rand Paul, but his kooky, all-over-the-place foreign policy makes him a no-sale in my book. The United States is facing far too many threats in the world to have someone in the Oval Office who can’t get his crap together.</p>
<p>I’ve managed to thin the herd by 57%. That leaves six:</p>
<p>Ted Cruz Scott Walker Marco Rubio Carly Fiorina Ben Carson Bobby Jindal</p>
<p>I’d keep Carly Fiorina because her dogging Hillary’s every step is all manner of entertaining.</p>
<p>I have mixed feelings about Rubio mostly because his Gang of Eight days left a really bad taste in my mouth. Though I believe he is sincere in his regret for his involvement in the Gang of Eight, it still makes me nervous about his willingness to defend US national sovereignty.</p>
<p>Jindal hasn’t declared and may very well not. At this point, the Dianny jury is still out on him.</p>
<p>Ben Carson I’m sort of meh on. I like to listen to him speak. But speeches don’t necessarily make for good leaders. Case in point, Obama. I’m not saying he’s in the “no” pile for me. And, though I do not believe that one has to have served in elected office to run for President, I’m just still not sure about Dr. Carson.</p>
<p>Of the six remaining, I confess, I am very impressed with Governor Scott Walker and do very much like Senator Ted Cruz.</p>
<p>Walker, in my opinion, has a lot going for him. A proven record of accomplishment in leading a state from failure to success. A proven record of standing up for conservative principles in the face of some seriously hateful opposition. Courage, stamina, commitment. There’s a lot to like about Scott Walker. Plus, he makes the Liberals crazy and that’s always fun.</p>
<p>Likewise, Ted Cruz is a courageous. unapologetic conservative. He has a record of fighting for the Constitution, for the rights of states, and standing up against big, centralized Liberal government.</p>
<p>Mark Levin is right. The sooner we conservatives can coalesce behind one candidate, the better. Having a grab-bag of people running will only splinter the conservative vote and, more than likely, we will have a repeat of 2012 where the Establishment candidate with the deepest pockets wins the nomination by default.</p>
<p>And we cannot let that happen.</p>
<p>This overpopulated field — especially one littered with absolute duds — will only benefit the Establishment — and by extension, the Democrat candidate — to the detriment of the nation.</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>Hit the tip jar DONATE button in the side bar. Even a few bucks can make a world of difference!</p> | The GOP Field Needs Some Population Control | true | http://patriotretort.com/the-gop-field-needs-some-population-control/ | 2015-05-28 | 0 |
<p>NEW YORK (AP) — Decades after she began investing, Diana Casey for the first time put money in mutual funds that favor companies with women in corner offices and otherwise aim to invest in a socially responsible way. Her inspiration? President Donald Trump.</p>
<p>A 49-year-old lawyer, she was turned off when then-candidate Trump insinuated the judge overseeing a lawsuit against Trump University may be biased because of his Mexican heritage. Judge Gonzalo Curiel is based in San Diego, Casey's hometown, and the legal community there is close. She also was saddened by comments Trump made about women, the disabled and other groups of people. After Trump captured the White House, Casey was feeling disgusted.</p>
<p>"It really flicked a switch that I need to be more involved and do more to get our country back on track," Casey said. "To me, that meant paying attention to where I put my money."</p>
<p>Using cash that was sitting in the bank, and shifting some funds in her Individual Retirement Account, Casey reconfigured her portfolio so that she now has about a third of her investments in socially responsible funds, up from zero before Trump was elected. Those investments include a fund that holds stocks in companies where women are well represented on the board and in executive offices.</p>
<p>Others have made a similar move, defying predictions that a Trump White House would have a chilling effect on the socially responsible investing industry. Last year, investors plugged $6.4 billion into socially responsible mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, according to Jon Hale, head of sustainable investing research at Morningstar. That's up 10 percent from 2016, and more than triple the rate of 2015.</p>
<p>The industry was already enjoying accelerating growth before Trump, and investment companies were rushing to open new funds that consider "environmental, social and governance" issues to tap into the demand. The term has become so widespread that many funds simply put "ESG" in their names for shorthand.</p>
<p>After Trump's election, though, the expectation was that a Republican-led Washington would enact policies at odds with ESG funds. It would favor the coal and oil industries, for example, which would undercut profits for the renewable energy companies at the heart of many environmentally focused funds.</p>
<p>Instead, dollars continued to flow into socially responsible investments, and the industry launched 39 mutual funds and ETFs last year, a record, said Hale. "More and more products are out there now, and everything is poised to see ongoing growth," he said.</p>
<p>Because much of the industry is so young, many funds have limited track records for measuring performance. One stereotype says that socially responsible investors need to sacrifice returns, but studies by Morningstar, Morgan Stanley and others in recent years have disputed that.</p>
<p>Researchers say that stocks of companies that score well on gender diversity have historically generated slightly better returns, for example. And companies with strong environmental, social and corporate-governance policies can have fewer incidents that can lead to sharp drops in stock price, such as an environmental disaster or business-practice scandal.</p>
<p>"I do think we're at a moment where the whole notion of the corporation is changing," said Joe Keefe, chief executive of Pax World Funds, which launched the country's first socially responsible mutual fund in 1971 and now manages about $4.7 billion. "I think companies understand that customers have the expectation that the company stand for something, has values."</p>
<p>Companies are increasingly taking their customers, employees and communities into consideration when making their decisions, not just their shareholders and the next quarter's results. And Wall Street is pushing them further along that path.</p>
<p>The CEO of BlackRock, the world's largest investment firm, sent a letter this month to his counterparts at the largest publicly traded companies telling them that "to prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance, but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society."</p>
<p>That's what Judie Lincer, a 55-year-old naturalist educator, wanted to see when she moved about 40 percent of her investments into socially responsible funds following the election. She said she wanted her investments to be true to her goals for the environment, particularly when the White House is rolling back environmental regulations.</p>
<p>Lincer would have preferred to move 100 percent, but her husband, an environmental scientist, wanted to keep some money with their longtime financial adviser, who had them in traditional investments and had delivered solid returns.</p>
<p>Now that she's a year into her foray in socially responsible investing, does she feel like it's had any effect?</p>
<p>"I would say yes," she said. "Of course, I'm still plagued by the really negative things that are happening, but this is one thing I feel like I have control over, and that buys some peace of mind. And I'm walking the walk: I'm doing what I can to help."</p>
<p>NEW YORK (AP) — Decades after she began investing, Diana Casey for the first time put money in mutual funds that favor companies with women in corner offices and otherwise aim to invest in a socially responsible way. Her inspiration? President Donald Trump.</p>
<p>A 49-year-old lawyer, she was turned off when then-candidate Trump insinuated the judge overseeing a lawsuit against Trump University may be biased because of his Mexican heritage. Judge Gonzalo Curiel is based in San Diego, Casey's hometown, and the legal community there is close. She also was saddened by comments Trump made about women, the disabled and other groups of people. After Trump captured the White House, Casey was feeling disgusted.</p>
<p>"It really flicked a switch that I need to be more involved and do more to get our country back on track," Casey said. "To me, that meant paying attention to where I put my money."</p>
<p>Using cash that was sitting in the bank, and shifting some funds in her Individual Retirement Account, Casey reconfigured her portfolio so that she now has about a third of her investments in socially responsible funds, up from zero before Trump was elected. Those investments include a fund that holds stocks in companies where women are well represented on the board and in executive offices.</p>
<p>Others have made a similar move, defying predictions that a Trump White House would have a chilling effect on the socially responsible investing industry. Last year, investors plugged $6.4 billion into socially responsible mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, according to Jon Hale, head of sustainable investing research at Morningstar. That's up 10 percent from 2016, and more than triple the rate of 2015.</p>
<p>The industry was already enjoying accelerating growth before Trump, and investment companies were rushing to open new funds that consider "environmental, social and governance" issues to tap into the demand. The term has become so widespread that many funds simply put "ESG" in their names for shorthand.</p>
<p>After Trump's election, though, the expectation was that a Republican-led Washington would enact policies at odds with ESG funds. It would favor the coal and oil industries, for example, which would undercut profits for the renewable energy companies at the heart of many environmentally focused funds.</p>
<p>Instead, dollars continued to flow into socially responsible investments, and the industry launched 39 mutual funds and ETFs last year, a record, said Hale. "More and more products are out there now, and everything is poised to see ongoing growth," he said.</p>
<p>Because much of the industry is so young, many funds have limited track records for measuring performance. One stereotype says that socially responsible investors need to sacrifice returns, but studies by Morningstar, Morgan Stanley and others in recent years have disputed that.</p>
<p>Researchers say that stocks of companies that score well on gender diversity have historically generated slightly better returns, for example. And companies with strong environmental, social and corporate-governance policies can have fewer incidents that can lead to sharp drops in stock price, such as an environmental disaster or business-practice scandal.</p>
<p>"I do think we're at a moment where the whole notion of the corporation is changing," said Joe Keefe, chief executive of Pax World Funds, which launched the country's first socially responsible mutual fund in 1971 and now manages about $4.7 billion. "I think companies understand that customers have the expectation that the company stand for something, has values."</p>
<p>Companies are increasingly taking their customers, employees and communities into consideration when making their decisions, not just their shareholders and the next quarter's results. And Wall Street is pushing them further along that path.</p>
<p>The CEO of BlackRock, the world's largest investment firm, sent a letter this month to his counterparts at the largest publicly traded companies telling them that "to prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance, but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society."</p>
<p>That's what Judie Lincer, a 55-year-old naturalist educator, wanted to see when she moved about 40 percent of her investments into socially responsible funds following the election. She said she wanted her investments to be true to her goals for the environment, particularly when the White House is rolling back environmental regulations.</p>
<p>Lincer would have preferred to move 100 percent, but her husband, an environmental scientist, wanted to keep some money with their longtime financial adviser, who had them in traditional investments and had delivered solid returns.</p>
<p>Now that she's a year into her foray in socially responsible investing, does she feel like it's had any effect?</p>
<p>"I would say yes," she said. "Of course, I'm still plagued by the really negative things that are happening, but this is one thing I feel like I have control over, and that buys some peace of mind. And I'm walking the walk: I'm doing what I can to help."</p> | Socially responsible investing gets a Trump bump | false | https://apnews.com/amp/9955cf8f721645909ecddd99354af257 | 2018-01-25 | 2 |
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<p>SEOUL, South Korea – A South Korean court declined early Thursday to allow the arrest of Samsung’s de facto chairman for his alleged role in an explosive corruption scandal that has riveted South Korea.</p>
<p>The decision is a shocking one for prosecutors, who have accused Lee Jae-yong of bribery, embezzlement and perjury, although the court decided only that Lee did not need to be detained, not that the case had no merit.</p>
<p>It will also come as a surprise to a general public clamoring for justice in the widening scandal, which has already forced the president out of office, at least temporarily. Protesters had been calling for Lee’s arrest.</p>
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<p>Samsung welcomed the decision. “We appreciate the fact that the merits of this case can now be determined without the need for detention,” said Rhee So-eui, a spokeswoman for the company.</p>
<p>Just before 5 a.m. local time Thursday, judges in the Seoul Central District Court said they found no reason to issue a warrant for the arrest of Lee, who has been running South Korea’s largest conglomerate for almost three years while his ailing father, who officially remains chairman, lies unconscious in hospital.</p>
<p>Lee, who has vehemently denied being involved in any bribery scheme, had been waiting at a detention center south of Seoul for some 18 hours while the court decided, apparently expecting to be arrested following a four-hour court hearing Wednesday morning.</p>
<p>At that hearing, his attorneys argued against his arrest and detention while the investigation continued. “We fully explained [our position] to the court,” Song Woo-chul, an attorney for Lee, told reporters after the hearing. “We are sure that the court will make a wise decision.”</p>
<p>The widening corruption and influence-peddling scandal that has riveted South Korea and brought it to a political halt revolves around allegations of bribery and influence at the highest levels.</p>
<p>The National Assembly voted to impeach President Park Geun-hye last month over her alleged role in the case, leading to her suspension from office while the Constitutional Court decides whether to approve her impeachment. That decision could come as soon as next month.</p>
<p>Now, as Samsung’s flagship electronics unit struggles to emerge from its recall of the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone last year, its leader has become embroiled in the scandal.</p>
<p>Special prosecutors appointed to investigate the case accused Lee of authorizing at least $36 million in payments to Choi Soon-sil, a confidante of the president who held no official position.</p>
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<p>Choi allegedly put pressure on authorities to approve the $8 billion merger of two Samsung units, part of a plan to strengthen the family’s hold on the group, which it controls through a complex web of cross-shareholdings despite owning only a tiny stake of it.</p>
<p>The National Pension Service, a major Samsung shareholder, is suspected of supporting the merger on Choi’s instruction. The head of the service, a former health minister, was indicted Monday in relation to the scandal.</p>
<p>Choi, on trial for alleged bribery, coercion and abuse of power, has denied trading on her relationship with the president. “I have never received any special benefits or treatment from the government,” she said during a court hearing Tuesday, according to local reports. “The president is also not such a person.”</p>
<p>At a parliamentary hearing last month, Lee denied being involved in any bribery scheme but acknowledged that Samsung had given a $900,000 horse to Choi’s daughter, an Olympic equestrian hopeful.</p>
<p>Bribery and corruption have long been a hallmark of business dealings in South Korea, and the alleged involvement of the conglomerates, known here as “chaebol,” has angered the public at a time of growing social and economic inequality.</p>
<p>The special prosecutor had indicated that SK, Lotte and CJ, all second-tier conglomerates, were next in its sights.</p>
<p>Conglomerates are accused of giving a total of $70 million to two foundations run by Choi, ostensibly sports and cultural charities. Prosecutors allege that they were in fact cover for bribes paid to Choi to help secure favorable treatment for their businesses.</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>Yoonjung Seo contributed to this report.</p> | South Korean court says no reason to arrest Samsung heir in corruption scandal | false | https://abqjournal.com/930549/south-korean-court-says-no-reason-to-arrest-samsung-heir-in-corruption-scandal.html | 2017-01-18 | 2 |
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<p>It’s only been a few weeks since its iconic co-founder <a href="" type="internal">Steve Jobs</a> died, yet Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is already facing its next big challenge: battery problems on its new <a href="" type="internal">iPhone</a> 4S.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Users have been experiencing battery-related issues believed to be tied to location support on their iPhone 4S devices, which launched earlier this month. Several users have noticed rapidly decreasing battery levels even with minimal use, according to several reports.</p>
<p>This is the second time the company has faced this type of problem, having had to deflect complaints from customers last year shortly after its iPhone 4 launched.</p>
<p>In that case, customers complained about decreasing cell bars on their phone display if the handset was held on a certain angle.</p>
<p>U.K. newspaper The Guardian reported on Friday that the company was investigating the matter, however Apple has been tightlipped about the issue.</p>
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<p>Despite the apparent problems, though, the iPhone 4S has been one of Apple’s most successful launches since the smartphone’s birth, particularly due to its inclusion on Sprint (NYSE:S).</p> | iPhone Battery Issues Pose Challenge for Apple | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2011/10/31/apples-next-big-challenge-battery-problems-on-iphone-4s.html | 2016-03-04 | 0 |
<p>A lot of important information was revealed this week regarding the investigation into connections between the Trump campaign and Russia, including the <a href="/2017/08/03/breaking-president-trump-now-under-grand-jury-investigation-details/" type="external">news</a> that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has brought on a second grand jury to assist him. Because so much was released this week regarding the investigation, it’s not surprising that news anchors wanted to discuss it with members of Trump’s staff on Sunday.</p>
<p>It’s also not surprising that Trump’s surrogates, including White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, were not eager to participate in these discussions.</p>
<p>ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos brought up the investigation during Sunday’s episode of&#160; <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-17-kellyanne-conway-thom-tillis-chris/story?id=49052450" type="external">This Week</a>, and Conway immediately started complaining about it.</p>
<p>Stephanopoulos responded by reminding Conway of the “conflicting stories” coming from the White House about the investigation. He used as one example the fact&#160;that Trump’s lawyer, Jay Sekulow, first said that Trump was not involved in drafting his son’s response to the news about his meeting with a Russian lawyer. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders contradicted this statement shortly after it was made when she said that Trump did weigh in on the matter.</p>
<p>After playing clips of the statements from both Sanders and Sekulow, Stephanopoulos said:</p>
<p>‘Two very different answers in the space of two weeks there, Kellyanne.’</p>
<p>Conway argued that “there’s no consequence to any of these meetings.”</p>
<p>Stephanopoulos then pointed out that, whether they’re consequential or not, the White House and Sekulow still “didn’t tell the truth.”</p>
<p>Clearly starting to get flustered, Conway tried to redirect the conversation by talking about health care and the 2012 Benghazi attack.</p>
<p>‘You know, let’s talk about — let’s — no, OK. Well, let’s talk about telling the truth. Let’s talk about a president looking Americans in the eye, who are still suffering eight years later, who were lied to. If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. Benghazi happened because of a video. Go tell the families of those four innocent Americans who were slaughtered in Benghazi that that lie mattered.’</p>
<p>When Conway tried to bring up Benghazi, Stephanopoulos had to cut her off. He said:</p>
<p>‘Kellyanne, you’re simply changing the subject.’</p>
<p>Stephanopoulos then asked her directly:</p>
<p>‘Can the president and his team get control of that and be open and truthful about the Russia investigation?’</p>
<p>Conway simply echoed the president’s argument that the “entire investigation is fabricated.”</p>
<p>‘George, the president has said the entire investigation is fabricated. That this is a conclusion in search of evidence. They’ve come up with nothing. We’ve been doing this for almost — about a year now, and what is there to show for it? What has actually metastasized in a way that we can say, wow, there’s a smoking gun? There’s a silver bullet?’</p>
<p>When Stephanopoulos interjected and tried to point out that new information has been unearthed in the investigation, like the news about Trump Jr.’s meeting, Conway lost her cool completely:</p>
<p>‘Right. But what came of that meeting? Nothing.</p>
<p>‘There’s nothing. There’s nonsense. It was a ridiculous meeting. It was nothing. People want to — people want to offer their services and have meetings all of the time, believe me. I know you know this. But let’s look at the consequence — no follow-up. No results.’</p>
<p>Watch the exchange in the video below, available via <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4dQhMf1v7U" type="external">YouTube</a>.</p>
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<p>Featured image is a screenshot from the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4dQhMf1v7U" type="external">video</a>.</p> | Kellyanne Makes A Complete Fool Of Herself & Gets Called Out On LIVE TV (VIDEO) | true | http://bipartisanreport.com/2017/08/06/kellyanne-makes-a-complete-fool-of-herself-gets-called-out-on-live-tv-video/ | 2017-08-06 | 4 |
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<p>Oculus founder Palmer Luckey secretly bankrolled an Internet meme group circulating anti-Hillary Clinton propaganda, <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/09/22/palmer-luckey-the-facebook-billionaire-secretly-funding-trump-s-meme-machine.html" type="external">according to The Daily Beast Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Luckey (pictured, right) financially backed pro-Donald Trump organization <a href="https://www.nimbleamerica.com" type="external">Nimble America Opens a New Window.</a>, which <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pg/NimbleAmerica/about/?tab=page_info" type="external">describes itself Opens a New Window.</a> as a crowdfunded nonprofit focused on "promoting the ideals of America First" and dedicated to proving that "s**tposting is powerful and meme magic is real."</p>
<p>The group has already taken credit for a billboard posted near Pittsburgh that features a cartoonish image of Clinton's face next to the phrase "Too Big to Jail."</p>
<p>"We conquered Reddit and drive narrative on social media, conquered the [mainstream media], now it's time to get our most delicious memes in front of Americans whether they like it or not," a representative wrote in <a href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:6-3q-m6OyY4J:https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/5353i4/announcing_nimble_america/+&amp;cd=1&amp;hl=en&amp;ct=clnk&amp;gl=us" type="external">a Reddit post Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Luckey, who went by the alias NimbleRichMan on Reddit (an account that <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/NimbleRichMan" type="external">appears to have been deleted Opens a New Window.</a>), told The Daily Beast that he is just the money man.</p>
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<p>"I've got plenty of money. Money is not my issue," he said. "I thought it sounded like a real jolly good time."</p>
<p>In March 2014, Luckey <a href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2455445,00.asp" type="external">sold Opens a New Window.</a> his Oculus VR virtual reality firm to Facebook for $2 billion. Now, the Hawaiian-shirt-wearing 24-year-old is worth <a href="http://www.forbes.com/profile/palmer-luckey" type="external">approximately $700 million Opens a New Window.</a>, and landed at No. 26 on Forbes's list of America's Richest Entrepreneurs Under 40.</p>
<p>But what's a man to do with all that money? In an election year, the answer seems obvious.</p>
<p>"I came into touch with them over Facebook," Luckey told The Daily Beast about the trolls behind Nimble America. "It went along the lines of 'hey, I have a bunch of money. I would love to see more of this stuff.' They wanted to build buzz and do fundraising."</p>
<p>Over the weekend, Nimble America held a pledge drive, promising that all donations to its website or boost.com page would be matched by "a billionaire" (Luckey) within 48 hours.</p>
<p>Palmer Luckey stands out among the Silicon Valley elite, many of whom <a href="http://www.pcmag.com/news/346112/silicon-valley-execs-trump-would-be-a-disaster-for-innovat" type="external">recently signed Opens a New Window.</a> a letter blasting Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. Almost 150 tech executives and industry luminaries—including Steve Wozniak, Vint Cerf, Vinod Khosla, Pierre Omidyar, Mark Pincus, and Chris Sacca—alleged that "Trump would be a disaster for innovation."</p>
<p>Dustin Moskovitz, the billionaire Internet entrepreneur who co-founded Facebook, also recently <a href="http://www.pcmag.com/news/347756/facebook-co-founder-commits-20m-to-help-beat-trump" type="external">committed $20 million Opens a New Window.</a> to help Clinton win in 2016.</p>
<p>In Silicon Valley, Trump's other main booster is investor Peter Thiel.</p>
<p>This article <a href="http://www.pcmag.com/news/348113/report-oculus-founder-bankrolling-anti-clinton-memes" type="external">originally appeared Opens a New Window.</a> on <a href="http://www.pcmag.com" type="external">PCMag.com Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Report: Oculus Founder Bankrolling Anti-Clinton Memes | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2016/09/23/report-oculus-founder-bankrolling-anti-clinton-memes.html | 2016-09-23 | 0 |
<p>The Naica mine in Chihuahua, Mexico is full of crystals thicker than tree trunks. It’s also radically absent of sunlight, insufferably acidic, and well over a hundred degrees on its coldest day. To say it is considered inhabitable is an understatement.</p>
<p>It’s also false.</p>
<p>NASA scientists have just discovered <a href="http://all-that-is-interesting.com/microbes-crystal-caves" type="external">microbial life forms</a> asleep in this cave for 50,000 years. They have evolved to withstand the harshest environments. Unable to photosynthesize in their pitch black environment, they have adapted to ingest iron and sulfur from their crystal habitats. Further, despite their deep hibernation, they have remained vigilant enough to actively regrow their population generation after generation.</p>
<p>What does this mean for science? &#160;The discovery of these little creatures opens the door to all sorts of possibilities. These animals reshape the norm of hospitable living, suggesting endless branches of new organisms able to withstand all sorts of environments once considered inhabitable. This of course includes the Naica mine, but doesn’t stop before it reaches somewhere… extraterrestrial.</p>
<p>Below is a video encapsulating everything you need to know about the Naica mine, listed in Atlas Obscura’s “100 Wonders” series.</p>
<p>The world’s a pretty incredible place.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Featured image available via <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WLA_hmns_selenite.jpg" type="external">Wikimedia Commons</a> under the CC 2.5 generic <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/deed.en" type="external">license</a>.&#160;</p> | NASA Discovers A Big Secret Growing In Mexican Crystal Caves (VIDEO) | true | http://offthemainpage.com/2017/02/21/nasa-discovers-a-big-secret-growing-in-mexican-crystal-caves/ | 2017-02-21 | 4 |
<p>Every now and again, we enjoy <a href="" type="internal">sharing outlandish videos</a> with you. In keeping with that tradition, here’s one you don’t see every day. A video of a <a href="http://fox40.com/2017/10/06/womans-video-of-tense-bizarre-encounter-between-suspect-and-deputy-goes-viral/" type="external">lunatic perp going&#160;Grand Theft Auto&#160;on a cop in the middle of the street</a>.</p>
<p />
<p>Shocking and strange video of a man chasing after a San Joaquin County Sheriff’s deputy, captured by a security guard, has started to get national attention.</p>
<p>“Everyone was saying, ‘That’s like something in a movie,'” Jewel Armstrong said. “It was. It felt like it.”</p>
<p>The video starts with the deputy ordering 22-year-old Yaroub Assad to the ground. Assad complies for a moment, then springs back up and running towards a car.</p>
<p>“It was something I had to file an incident report to for my job, so I was really using it for that,” she said.</p>
<p>Armstrong also posted the video to her Facebook profile Wednesday with the simple caption, “This is what happened at work today.”</p>
<p>I know what you’re thinking to yourself. “Why did the copper tuck tail and run, instead of filling that douchelord full of piping-hot lead?” I wondered the same thing, myself. Then, I remembered <a href="" type="internal">half of the country thinks the police are a racist serial killer’s club</a>. If the cop weren’t scared of being flayed alive by the media,&#160;methinks it would have been a different story.</p>
<p>&lt;img class="size-full wp-image-48673 aligncenter" src="http://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/cop-shoot.gif" alt="" width="320" height="180" /&gt; Had the officer popped off on the perp, the media would’ve said&#160;“all&#160;the guy did was resist arrest, assault a police officer, attempt to flee, and rear-end a cop car. It’s not like he did anything serious.” Then, the cop would’ve been branded a racist and forced to live as a hermit for the rest of his days.</p>
<p>This&#160;is what a <a href="" type="internal">lack of support for the fuzz</a> leads to. A lawman who’d rather run away than be publicly crucified by the media for doing his job. Over the past few years, the media and justice-hating leftists crippled the police by painting them as perpetual bad guys. Which brings us to now, when the crooks have the upper hand and the po-po has to run in the other direction.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot, lying media snotsuckers:</p>
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<p /> | Video: Crazed Perp Resists Arrest. Attacks and Chases Cop… | true | https://louderwithcrowder.com/perp-attacks-cop/ | 2017-10-09 | 0 |
<p>In his first comments after his reelection, President Obama discussed his plan for the economy this afternoon in Washington, D.C. President Obama’s comments on the economy highlighted the urgency and necessity for bipartisan solutions to the looming fiscal cliff and economic recovery as a whole.</p>
<p>The president noted that his first and most important priorities are jobs and growth, and claimed he has a detailed plan that will reduce the deficit $4 trillion over the next ten years. However, he offered a caveat that the details of his plan were not fixed, giving him a buffer of flexibility and malleable accountability.</p>
<p>Additionally, the president emphasized that deficit reduction would need to be coupled with revenue, and this would require higher taxes. The president said,</p>
<p>“Last year I worked with Democrats and Republicans to cut a $1 trillion of spending we just couldn’t afford… We can’t cut our way to prosperity. If we’re serious with reducing the deficit we have to combine spending cuts with revenue.”</p>
<p>President Obama used the popular Clinton-era surplus as a buttress for his plan to let Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy expire, which would then foce the wealthiest Americans to contribute to federal revenue.</p>
<p>Using his election as a mandate of his approach, he said that the majority of Americans agree – Democrats, Republicans, and Independents – on his “balanced approach.”&#160; The job now, he continued, would be to get a majority in Congress that reflects the will of the American people.</p>
<p>The president warned that if Congress cannot reach an agreement, taxes for all Americans will automatically go up on January 1st, a scenario he emphasized “makes no sense” and would be bad for the economy.</p>
<p>President Obama is set to meet with party leaders next week.</p> | President Obama Comments on the Economy | false | https://ivn.us/2012/11/09/president-obama-comments-on-the-economy/ | 2012-11-09 | 2 |
<p>By Tim Radford, Climate News NetworkThis piece first appeared at <a href="http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net" type="external">Climate News Network</a>.</p>
<p>LONDON — Last month was the third warmest May since NASA satellites began taking the temperature of the planet 35 years ago, and was also the warmest May that did not fall within an El Niño Pacific warming event — which could mean a record-breaking appearance this year by the fearsome “Child”.</p>
<p>Scientists in the US says the global average was 0.33°C warmer than the seasonal norms for the month. The warmest May ever was in 1998 during the “El Niño of the century”, when global average temperatures rose by 0.56°C, and the second warmest at 0.45°C was in 2010, another El Niño year.</p>
<p>So if indications are correct that an El Niño event is taking shape in the Pacific right now off the equatorial coast of South America, then it could become a record-setter — even if it isn’t a very spectacular event — just because it will get a warmer start, according to John Christy, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, US.</p>
<p />
<p>Temperature patterns</p>
<p>An El Niño (Spanish for The Child, because it was first observed by Peruvian fishermen around Christmas) is a shift in the temperature patterns of the Pacific, as a blister of equatorial ocean heat moves eastwards. It is a natural cyclic event that tends to reverse the prevailing Pacific weather patterns, often damagingly, and is not connected with climate change — although its effects could be made worse by climate change.</p>
<p>“The long-term baseline temperature is about three tenths of a degree warmer than it was when the big El Niño of 1997-1998 began, and that event set the one month record,” Christy said. “With the baseline so much warmer, this upcoming El Niño won’t have very far to go to break that 0.66°C record. That isn’t to say it will, but even an average-sized warming event will have a chance to get close to that level.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile, according to new research in Nature Climate Change, people in the northern hemisphere can also expect warmer temperatures in autumn and winter – in spite of last winter’s spectacular ice storms in the US north-east that shut down cities from the Atlantic to the Midwest, and where — to the joy of headline writers — the town of Hell in Michigan froze over.</p>
<p>Extremes of cold</p>
<p>The report’s author, James Screen, Natural Environment Research Council research fellow at the University of Exeter, UK, says that even though there will be extremes of cold, these will be less frequent and less severe. The Arctic is warming, and a study of autumn and winter temperature variations shows that variability in the temperate zone overall has in fact decreased.</p>
<p>“Autumn and winter days are becoming warmer on average, and less variable from day to day,” Dr Screen said. “Both factors reduce the chance of extremely cold days.</p>
<p>“Cold days tend to occur when the wind is blowing from the north, bringing Arctic air south into the mid-latitudes. Because the Arctic air is warming so rapidly, these cold days are now less cold than they were in the past.”</p>
<p /> | May Days' Heat Sets Up Record El Niño | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/may-days-heat-sets-up-record-el-nino/ | 2014-06-20 | 4 |
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A Holloman Air Force Base airman was found dead Tuesday morning at his home in Alamogordo, the base’s public affairs office announced Thursday. Foul play is not suspected, according to a news release from the base’s host unit, the 49th Wing.</p>
<p>Sr. Airman Zachary Hudson, assigned to the 49th Wing, was found dead at approximately 10:30 a.m., the release states.</p>
<p>Hudson’s death is under investigation.</p>
<p>Hudson’s primary duty was processing key messages on behalf of wing commander Col. Robert Kiebler.</p>
<p>“Holloman is deeply saddened by this loss,” Kiebler said in the release. “Please keep the members of Team Holloman in your thoughts and prayers as we mourn this tragedy.”</p>
<p>Hudson is survived by his parents.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Holloman airman found dead in home | false | https://abqjournal.com/641829/holloman-airman-found-dead-in-home.html | 2015-09-10 | 2 |
<p>By Noe Torres and Julia Love</p>
<p>MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Uber Technologies Inc, which has been facing a wave of regulations in Latin America, is fighting proposed rules in Cancun that the ride-hailing service says could drive it out of the top Mexican beach resort.</p>
<p>Legislators in Quintana Roo, the southeastern state that includes Cancun, are considering a proposal that would bar drivers from accepting cash and set minimum value and age criteria for the cars used for trips.</p>
<p>Accepting cash from users is often seen as making drivers robbery targets.</p>
<p>Federico Ranero, general manager for Uber in Mexico, said the law would have grave implications for the company’s operations in the tourist destination, where 40 percent of trips are paid for in cash.</p>
<p>“This regulation, if it is passed as it is, would so limit the service and so drastically affect the experience of our users and driver-partners that Uber would feel obligated to suspend its operations in the state of Quintana Roo,” Ranero said in an interview.</p>
<p>Fernando Zelaya, president of the state legislature’s transportation commission and one of the lawmakers who presented the initiative, could not be reached for comment. But his staff said legislators could discuss it as soon as this week.</p>
<p>Last month, lawmakers in the central Mexican state of Puebla approved new rules aimed at stricter vetting and monitoring of ride-share drivers working for companies like Uber and Cabify after the recent murders of two female college students.</p>
<p>Senators in Brazil scrapped parts of a bill last month that would have treated ride-hailing companies like traditional taxi services after a lobbying effort by Uber that included a trip there by new Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi.</p>
<p>By specifying the value and age of drivers’ cars, the regulation in Quintana Roo is among the more onerous in Mexico, said Carlos Martinez, who heads the Center for Citizens and Consumers, a group that has studied the proposals.</p>
<p>“You have here a clear barrier to entry in the market,” he said.</p>
<p>Ranero warned that tourism in Cancun, a relatively small but growing market for Uber, could take a hit if the company leaves.</p>
<p>“The tourists trust Uber,” he said.</p>
<p>Cash payments have proved to be a thorny issue for Uber as it pursues growth in emerging markets where many consumers do not have credit cards. After a wave of attacks on drivers in Brazil, Uber began using social security numbers to verify the identity of riders who pay with cash.</p>
<p>After testing various methods in Mexico, Uber has been authenticating such riders through their Facebook (NASDAQ:) profiles, Ranero said.</p>
<p />
<p>Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.</p> | Uber fights proposed rule in Mexico's Cancun barring cash fares | false | https://newsline.com/uber-fights-proposed-rule-in-mexico039s-cancun-barring-cash-fares/ | 2017-11-20 | 1 |
<p>Since California’s adoption of Assembly Bill 32 in 2006, business interests have emphasized the law’s long-term effects on economic competitiveness. The measure requires the state to shift to cleaner-but-costlier forms of energy, reaching 33 percent of electricity supplies by 2020.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.hks.harvard.edu/hepg/Papers/peer_review_comments_arb_responses.pdf" type="external">peer review</a> of the California Air Resources Board’s <a href="http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/scopingplan/document/economic_analysis_supplement.pdf" type="external">2007 report</a> on the economic impact of the law included criticism from a UCLA professor and other academics who faulted the air board for failing to acknowledge the law’s likely eventual impact on manufacturing, in particular. The air board has been more candid about the AB32 economic fallout since then. In 2009, officials <a href="http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/capandtrade/meetings/041309/presentation.pdf" type="external">warned</a>of what is known as “leakage”:</p>
<p>Producers that face compliance costs may not be able to pass costs through to consumers because their competitors that do not face similar costs do not have to increase prices. … Industries in this category may include non-ferrous metals smelting, iron and steel-making, cement, and other energy and/or emissions intensive activities.</p>
<p>But the typical California coverage of AB32 rarely discusses this prospect. Instead, it often uncritically accepts the idea that green jobs created directly and indirectly by AB32 will be its primary economic effect.</p>
<p>‘Manufacturers are the canaries’</p>
<p>But the national media generally look at the law differently. Bloomberg news service offered the latest example with a <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-06/california-manufacturers-to-pay-more-under-toughest-carbon-curbs" type="external">Feb. 5 story</a>:</p>
<p>California manufacturers from food processors to apparel makers are warning costs will skyrocket if state regulators proceed with a plan to reduce their allocations of free greenhouse gas emission credits.</p>
<p>Starting in 2018, some companies California considers to be at risk of losing business to competitors outside the state’s landmark emissions cap and trade market will receive up to 50 percent fewer free pollution credits. That means they will either have to buy more allowances at auction or invest in ways to cut carbon pollution even more.</p>
<p>California has the toughest greenhouse gas curbs in the U.S., seeking to cut discharges to 1990 levels by 2020. The pushback from industry comes as Governor Jerry Brown and other state Democratic leaders are looking to advance those climate change policies further even as business leaders warn that lack of a national and global carbon-emission market puts companies in the state at a competitive disadvantage.</p>
<p>“Manufacturers are the canaries,” said Dorothy Rothrock, president of the California Manufacturers &amp; Technology Association. “All of the costs in this system are radiating up and concentrate in manufacturing. It’s cumulative and it’s not happening anywhere else like this. California is doing it to its manufacturers in a way that no other state is contemplating.”</p>
<p>NYT: ‘Risks for CA are enormous’</p>
<p>In 2012, The New York Times offered a similar take about California’s <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/science/earth/in-california-a-grand-experiment-to-rein-in-climate-change.html?_r=0" type="external">“grand experiment”</a>:</p>
<p>&#160;The outsize goals of California’s new law, known as <a href="http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/ab32/ab32.htm" type="external">A.B. 32</a>, are to lower California’s emissions to what they were in 1990 by 2020 — a reduction of roughly 30 percent — and, more broadly, to show that the [cap and trade system of selling emission rights] works and can be replicated.</p>
<p>The risks for California are enormous … the program could hurt the state’s fragile economy by driving out refineries, cement makers, glass factories and other businesses. Some are concerned that companies will find a way to outmaneuver the system, causing the state to fall short of its emission reduction targets.</p>
<p>“The worst possible thing to happen is if it fails,” said Robert N. Stavins, a Harvard economist.</p>
<p>The contrast with California media is pronounced. A Los Angeles Times <a href="http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-adv-carbon-tax-20140712-story.html" type="external">editorial</a>about AB 32 from last summer, for example, doesn’t even mention the law’s economic risks. Nor does this <a href="http://www.latimes.com/science/la-me-carbon-forest-20141216-story.html#page=1" type="external">story from November</a> about how an Indian tribe is taking advantage of one of the law’s provisions.</p>
<p>But the Times <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-capitol-business-beat-20140630-story.html" type="external">did acknowledge</a> concerns that AB 32 would force the cost of gasoline higher for motorists. The effects of higher energy costs on business were not mentioned, however.</p> | Warnings about AB32 sink in with national media | false | https://calwatchdog.com/2015/02/09/warnings-about-ab-32-sink-in-with-national-meda/ | 2018-02-20 | 3 |
<p>CAIRO (AP) — The Latest on Coptic church attack in Cairo (all times local):</p>
<p>12:10 p.m.</p>
<p>President Donald Trump is condemning an attack on Coptic Christians in Egypt Friday.</p>
<p>The White House says Trump spoke with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi after the attack by a gunman in Helwan killed at least eight members of Egypt’s long-suffering minority community as well as a police officer.</p>
<p>Trump “condemned the attack and reiterated that the United States will continue to stand with Egypt in the face of terrorism,” the White House says in a statement. “President Trump emphasized his commitment to strengthening efforts to defeat terrorism and extremism in all their forms.”</p>
<p>The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack.</p>
<p>Trump has promised to make protecting beleaguered Christian communities overseas a priority for his administration.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>11:20 p.m.</p>
<p>The local affiliate of the Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for an attack at a Cairo church that left at least nine people dead.</p>
<p>The claim, which was carried by the group’s Aamaq news agency, said Friday’s attack was carried out by a “security detail” and that one of its men was “martyred” in it.</p>
<p>A gunman on a motorcycle opened fire outside the church and at a nearby store, sparking a shootout that killed at least nine people, including eight Coptic Christians, in the latest attack targeting the country’s embattled Christian minority.</p>
<p>The gunman was also killed, along with at least one police officer, officials said.</p>
<p>The attack came amid tightened security around churches and Christian facilities ahead of the Coptic Orthodox Christian celebrations of Christmas on Jan. 7. Police have been stationed outside churches and in nearby streets across Cairo. President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has personally chaired meetings with his top security chiefs in recent days to discuss security during New Year’s Eve and the Orthodox Christmas.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>1:30</p>
<p>Egypt’s Health Ministry spokesman says at least nine people, including eight Coptic Christians, have been killed in a shootout outside a south Cairo church.</p>
<p>Khaled Megahed says Friday’s attack took place when gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire outside Mar Mina church. One gunman was shot dead as was a security officer, he said.</p>
<p>Egypt’s state-run MENA news agency, citing an unnamed Interior Ministry official, said the other assailant fled the scene and was being pursued.</p>
<p>Earlier, security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said two police were killed.</p>
<p>The spokesman for the Coptic Orthodox Church said in a statement that at least six people were killed in the attack including five Copts and a policeman. It also said there was a separate attack on a store in the same neighborhood of Helwan that killed two Copts.</p>
<p>Egypt’s Christian minority has been targeted by Islamic militants in a series of attacks since December 2016 that left more than 100 dead and scores wounded</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>12:30 p.m.</p>
<p>Egyptian security officials say two policemen have been shot dead in an attack outside a church in a south Cairo suburb.</p>
<p>The officials said a gunman opened fire outside a Coptic church before he was shot dead himself. They say the exchange of fire also injured three other people. The officials requested anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.</p>
<p>Egypt’s state-run MENA news agency, citing an unnamed official at the Interior Ministry, said Friday’s attack in the Helwan neighborhood was carried out by two assailants; one of them fled the scene and was being chased down.</p>
<p>A video circulated on social media after the attack apparently shows the dead gunman on the ground. Authorities have closed off the area around the church.</p>
<p>CAIRO (AP) — The Latest on Coptic church attack in Cairo (all times local):</p>
<p>12:10 p.m.</p>
<p>President Donald Trump is condemning an attack on Coptic Christians in Egypt Friday.</p>
<p>The White House says Trump spoke with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi after the attack by a gunman in Helwan killed at least eight members of Egypt’s long-suffering minority community as well as a police officer.</p>
<p>Trump “condemned the attack and reiterated that the United States will continue to stand with Egypt in the face of terrorism,” the White House says in a statement. “President Trump emphasized his commitment to strengthening efforts to defeat terrorism and extremism in all their forms.”</p>
<p>The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack.</p>
<p>Trump has promised to make protecting beleaguered Christian communities overseas a priority for his administration.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>11:20 p.m.</p>
<p>The local affiliate of the Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for an attack at a Cairo church that left at least nine people dead.</p>
<p>The claim, which was carried by the group’s Aamaq news agency, said Friday’s attack was carried out by a “security detail” and that one of its men was “martyred” in it.</p>
<p>A gunman on a motorcycle opened fire outside the church and at a nearby store, sparking a shootout that killed at least nine people, including eight Coptic Christians, in the latest attack targeting the country’s embattled Christian minority.</p>
<p>The gunman was also killed, along with at least one police officer, officials said.</p>
<p>The attack came amid tightened security around churches and Christian facilities ahead of the Coptic Orthodox Christian celebrations of Christmas on Jan. 7. Police have been stationed outside churches and in nearby streets across Cairo. President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has personally chaired meetings with his top security chiefs in recent days to discuss security during New Year’s Eve and the Orthodox Christmas.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>1:30</p>
<p>Egypt’s Health Ministry spokesman says at least nine people, including eight Coptic Christians, have been killed in a shootout outside a south Cairo church.</p>
<p>Khaled Megahed says Friday’s attack took place when gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire outside Mar Mina church. One gunman was shot dead as was a security officer, he said.</p>
<p>Egypt’s state-run MENA news agency, citing an unnamed Interior Ministry official, said the other assailant fled the scene and was being pursued.</p>
<p>Earlier, security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said two police were killed.</p>
<p>The spokesman for the Coptic Orthodox Church said in a statement that at least six people were killed in the attack including five Copts and a policeman. It also said there was a separate attack on a store in the same neighborhood of Helwan that killed two Copts.</p>
<p>Egypt’s Christian minority has been targeted by Islamic militants in a series of attacks since December 2016 that left more than 100 dead and scores wounded</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>12:30 p.m.</p>
<p>Egyptian security officials say two policemen have been shot dead in an attack outside a church in a south Cairo suburb.</p>
<p>The officials said a gunman opened fire outside a Coptic church before he was shot dead himself. They say the exchange of fire also injured three other people. The officials requested anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.</p>
<p>Egypt’s state-run MENA news agency, citing an unnamed official at the Interior Ministry, said Friday’s attack in the Helwan neighborhood was carried out by two assailants; one of them fled the scene and was being chased down.</p>
<p>A video circulated on social media after the attack apparently shows the dead gunman on the ground. Authorities have closed off the area around the church.</p> | The Latest: Trump condemns attack on Coptic Christians | false | https://apnews.com/ef9073a50d3c4aeca8585fcafc8c67b0 | 2017-12-30 | 2 |
<p>He was born into a Cossack family, which was just one of many indications that life wasn't exactly going to be conflict-free for Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who died Sunday. The Russian writer survived eight years in Stalin's notorious gulags and became one of his country's most controversial critical thinkers, a process that continued during the two decades he was forced to live in exile.</p>
<p>BBC:</p>
<p>On his return to European Russia, he was allowed, following Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin, to publish his largely autobiographical One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, in 1962.</p>
<p>This made him an instant celebrity. But with the subsequent fall from power of the reformist Khrushchev, the KGB stepped up its harassment of Solzhenitsyn, forcing him to publish his work abroad.</p>
<p />
<p>His novels The First Circle and Cancer Ward were further damning allegories of the Soviet system.</p>
<p>In 1970, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. But he refused to attend the award ceremony in Stockholm for fear of not being allowed back home.</p>
<p>In 1973, the first of the three volumes of The Gulag Archipelago was published in the West. He had been hiding the work from the authorities, fearful that people mentioned in it would suffer reprisals.</p>
<p><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2276650.stm" type="external">Read more</a></p> | A Moral Force Moves Into History | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/a-moral-force-moves-into-history/ | 2008-08-04 | 4 |
<p>It has been a pretty good season for democracy, the summer of 1974. Not quite the triumph some writers have suggested, but encouraging enough both in Europe and America.</p>
<p>EUROPE. The collapse of the Portuguese and Greek juntas, good news intrinsically, raises fascinating problems. In neither case does there seem to have been an internal resistance movement powerful enough to have overthrown the dictatorship. What apparently happened, both in Portugal and Greece, was the worsening of an internal crisis among the men in power and, still more, a recognition within the bourgeoisie, the larger ranks of officers, and segments of the middle class that the military cliques in power had reached a point of utter incapacity. In both countries, this had to do with foreign policy: the Portuguese empire and the Cyprus disaster. One would like to know whether the military cliques ruling Portugal and Greece came to a realization by themselves that they were incapable of governing a European country, or whether they were pressured/driven out of power by social forces that had previously supported them. Probably the answer is: both. It's the relationship between the two possibilities that seems intriguing.</p>
<p /> | A Season for Democracy | true | https://dissentmagazine.org/article/a-season-for-democracy | 2018-10-06 | 4 |
<p>MEXICO CITY — As President Barack Obama trumpets that the United States economy is back on track, industry groups are shouting over who’s growing faster.</p>
<p>The accounting sector boasted 2014 growth of 11 percent; computer systems of 14 percent; and real estate of a whopping 23 percent, says financial information group&#160; <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/sageworks/2014/04/28/the-fastest-growing-industries-over-the-last-year/" type="external">Sageworks</a>.</p>
<p>However, one industry may have beaten those hands down: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/thomson-reuters/150209/district-columbia-holds-hearing-marijuana-sales" type="external">legal marijuana</a>.</p>
<p>According to a <a href="http://www.arcviewmarketresearch.com/" type="external">new report</a> by The ArcView Group, a cannabis industry investment and research firm based in California, legal marijuana sales rocketed 74 percent in 2014 to a new high of $2.7 billion. And with more states legalizing weed — Alaska, Oregon and Washington, DC, voted to join the legal stoners in November — it predicts this growth pace could continue for several more years straight.</p>
<p>However, winners in some places often mean losers in others. And the losers appear to be south of the Rio Grande: Mexican marijuana growers, who’ve&#160;provided the lion’s share of cannabis for American smokers for decades.</p>
<p>In 2014, the US Border Patrol saw a plunge in seizures of pot heading northward. Its agents nabbed 1.9 million pounds of ganja, a 24 percent reduction compared with the 2.5 million seized in 2011 — before Colorado and Washington State first voted to legalize recreational marijuana.</p>
<p>Capturing less drugs doesn’t necessarily mean less drugs are coming over.&#160;Agents could be working less or focusing more on other problems. Yet one sign they are as vigilant as ever is that they made increased seizures of some other drugs, especially crystal meth, which was busted in record quantities.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost:&#160; <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/mexico/150113/mexican-meth-production-drugs" type="external">Here’s a meth cook who’s helping boost Mexico’s drug traffic to the US</a></p>
<p>Mexican security forces have also noted a dive in marijuana production. In the most recent figures released in September, the Mexican government said that it had seized 971 metric tons (1,070 US tons) of cannabis inside Mexico in 2013, the <a href="http://www.24-horas.mx/se-desinflan-resultados-de-lucha-contra-el-narco/" type="external">lowest amount since 2000</a>.</p>
<p>“In the long run, it looks like the US market for illegal Mexican marijuana will keep shrinking,” says Alejandro Hope, a drug expert in Mexico. “The logic of the legal marijuana market is that it will force prices down. This would take out the big profits from the illegal market. A good way to make some money could be to short the prices of marijuana.”</p>
<p>As well as price problems, Mexican producers also have to compete with quality.</p>
<p>The legal US suppliers focus on high-grade weed, selling brands with glamorous names like “Skunk Red Hair,” “Sky Dog” and “Super Haze” in the S section of the shelves, to “Hypno,” “Hindu Kush” and “Himalayan Gold” if you look under H.&#160;</p>
<p>They are often labeled with their exact amount of THC, the ingredient that gets you intoxicated. They are also graded for their mix of indica, the strain that makes users stoned in a more knockout way, and sativa, which hits people in a more psychedelic way.</p>
<p>On the other hand, Mexican marijuana, known here as “mota,” is a mass-produced lower-grade crop, grown mostly outdoors in the mountains. It doesn’t have a fancy brand name, or tell you how spaced out or sleepy you will feel; it will just get you wasted.</p>
<p>Hitting the cartels</p>
<p>When advocates campaigned to legalize weed in Colorado and Washington states in 2012, they argued it was better to take the cash away from Mexican cartels and put it into taxes.</p>
<p>Former President Vicente Fox also made this case after leaving office when he visited a university in Boulder, Colo., in 2011.</p>
<p>“The drug consumer in the US yields billions of dollars, money that goes back to Mexico to bribe police and money that buys guns,” Fox <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIljRAALkgs#t=27" type="external">said</a>. “So when you question yourselves [sic] about what is going on in Mexico, it depends very much on what happens in this nation.”</p>
<p>If Mexican marijuana is now sinking, it could indeed be reducing cartels’ budgets to commit mass murder. Mexico’s total homicides have gone down during the time that some US states legalized grass. Killings reached a peak in 2011 of 22,852, and then dropped to 15,649 last year, according to the Mexican government’s numbers.</p>
<p>However, other aspects could have played a role, too. Among them are the capture or killing of some of the most brutal drug lords, including Heriberto “The Executioner” Lazcano, the head of the Zetas cartel whom Mexican marines gunned down in 2012.</p>
<p>Mexican gangs also have a range of other businesses. Not only do they traffic crystal meth, heroin and cocaine, they have also diversified into crimes from sex trafficking to illegal iron mining.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost:&#160; <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/mexico/140919/mexican-cartel-iron-mining" type="external">How Mexico’s cartel crackdown smashed its iron industry</a></p>
<p>Mexican meth and heroin appear to have gone up as marijuana has dropped — at least, if narcotics seizures are the gauge. Last year, the US seized a record 34,840 pounds of methamphetamine at the Mexican border.</p>
<p>Still, longtime experts in illegal markets say there may not be any correlation between the hikes in some drugs and dives in others.</p>
<p>“There are lots of variables at play here, complicated factors of both demand and supply that create the markets in these drugs,” says Sanho Tree, director of the Drug Policy Project at Washington’s Institute of Policy Studies.</p>
<p>“One reason for the rise in heroin use is that many doctors have over-prescribed opiate drugs to patients,” he adds, referring to legal pain treatments. “The patients have got hooked and have later turned to the illegal heroin.”</p>
<p>But there’s another factor that could seriously affect marijuana market trends: Mexico could itself legalize it. In 2009, the country decriminalized the possession of small amounts of drugs, including marijuana. And citizens here as elsewhere were amazed when Uruguay became the first entire country to legalize weed in 2013.</p>
<p>Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has spoken against legalization but says he’s open to debate.</p>
<p>Former President Fox is an advocate and even said he would like to <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/30/us-usa-marijuana-idUSBRE94T0ZE20130530" type="external">team up with an American entrepreneur to import</a> it to the United States.</p>
<p>If Mexico did legalize the plant, its cheaper labor costs could give it an edge over US producers. And while some consumers could want the higher-grade California strains, others could still choose the cheapest price.</p>
<p>“Cannabis is not unlike wine,” Tree says. “I can buy a $200 bottle of wine, if that is what I am after. But many people will prefer the cheaper, mass-market product. And if all the prohibition factors are taken out, then marijuana is really just an herb that can be produced very cheaply.”</p> | As US marijuana legalization spreads, Mexican 'mota' takes a dive | false | https://pri.org/stories/2015-02-09/us-marijuana-legalization-spreads-mexican-mota-takes-dive | 2015-02-09 | 3 |
<p />
<p>This picture's not about the food; it's about the uniform. Image source: Cintas.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>It's hard to suggest that Cintas Corporation is anything but a great company. Over 30 years of annual dividend increases and revenue growth of nearly 20% over the past five years are hard to argue with. But that's the past, and while you shouldn't expect Cintas' performance to sucker-punch you, don't forget about the impact the economy plays in all of this. In other words, don't get too excited right now.</p>
<p>Boring, but neededSo Cintas' business is pretty boring. Its largest operations is selling, renting, and maintaining uniforms. This business is about 85% of the top line. The other top-line category is providing first aid and safety equipment, 15% or so. That said, the company's product offering list is pretty long, including such things as welcome-mat maintenance and bathroom cleaning services. But there's one thing about everything Cintas does that you need to keep in mind: Its customers are businesses.</p>
<p>When Cintas' customers are dealing with an economic pullback, there's a tap-on effect. It's true that Cintas has a wide customer base, with around a million businesses using its services, so no single customer is all that important. But that diversification just makes Cintas more dependent on the broader hiring and firing cycles that go along with economic booms and busts. So in the end, Cintas, despite a solid core operation that's well diversified, is still something of a cyclical business.</p>
<p>Look no further than the deep 2007-to-2009 recession for proof. The following graph spells it out pretty clearly: As the percentage of the workforce that's unemployed goes up, Cintas' revenues go down -- the shaded area in the graph is the recession. This dynamic makes complete sense when you step back and think about it. If businesses are laying people off, they don't need as many uniforms cleaned.</p>
<p><a href="http://ycharts.com/companies/CTAS/revenues" type="external">CTAS Revenue (Quarterly)</a> data by <a href="http://ycharts.com" type="external">YCharts Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>But here's the thing. The company's stock price tends go along for that economic roller-coaster ride, too. At the depths of the 2007-to-2009 recession, Cintas' share price was off as much as 50% from the highs before the recession. So an economic downturn can take a big toll on the company's share-price performance.</p>
<p>Don't look now!That's what makes today so interesting. Although the U.S. economic expansion coming out of the 2007-to-2009 recession has been anemic at best, the economy has been heading higher for some time. Sure, that's done wonders for Cintas' business, as the following chart shows. But maybe things are too good.</p>
<p><a href="http://ycharts.com/companies/CTAS" type="external">CTAS</a> data by <a href="http://ycharts.com" type="external">YCharts</a></p>
<p>For example, Cintas' price-to-earnings, price-to-book, price-to-cash flow, and price-to-sales ratios are all above their five-year averages. Add in the long economic recovery without a notable pullback, like a recession, and maybe, just maybe, investors are a little too optimistic right now. The stock is trading near all-time highs.</p>
<p>Buying opportunitySo if there's an economic downturn that includes a notable drop in employment, you could see Cintas' share price fall dramatically. That doesn't suddenly make Cintas a bad company. But it does mean that current shareholders might want to step back from buying more right now, and those looking into initiating a position might want to wait. The next recession -- and we will have one eventually -- could lead to a bargain price. At the very least, such a downturn would take the edge off the high multiples being afforded the company today.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/05/10/the-worst-mistake-cintas-corporation-investors-can.aspx" type="external">The Worst Mistake Cintas Corporation Investors Can Make Right Now Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/ReubenGBrewer/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Reuben Brewer Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Cintas. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/help/index.htm?display=about02" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | The Worst Mistake Cintas Corporation Investors Can Make Right Now | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/05/10/worst-mistake-cintas-corporation-investors-can-make-right-now.html | 2016-05-10 | 0 |
<p>WASHINGTON — There is no set piece more emblematic of the tragic farce that is the American involvement in Iraq than the grotesque episode of Blackwater USA and the killing of civilians in Baghdad — at least nine and as many as 28 — on Sunday.</p>
<p>Everyone has reacted on cue with the usual expressions of outrage or, at minimum, grave diplomatic concern over the fusillade of gunfire that was unleashed against Iraqis who apparently were bystanders to the passing of an American convoy that was being escorted by heavily armed Blackwater security guards.</p>
<p>The Iraqi government said it was pulling the private security firm’s license to operate in the country, and has asked that its contract be severed. But it seems there may not be a license, or if there was, it would have been granted by that wonderment of bureaucratic dysfunction and sectarian passion, the Iraqi Interior Ministry. The U.S. State Department, meanwhile, says it hasn’t been informed that Iraq has “lifted, suspended or terminated” any permit.</p>
<p>No matter. American diplomats now are sequestered in their Green Zone fortress, unable to motor around Iraq without their mercenary guards who have, in the interest of cooling tempers, been temporarily sidelined as investigations proceed. Yet it’s almost without question that, soon enough, some private security contractors will be back in action. They are as crucial to sustaining the American military occupation of Iraq as is the president’s unrepentant refusal to end it.</p>
<p />
<p>All the essential elements of governance in the Bush era come together in the Blackwater episode.</p>
<p>The heavy use of private armies — “corporate warriors” is the term used by Brookings Institution expert Peter Singer — helps to hide the initial and catastrophic decision to limit the number of American troops deployed far below what many military experts said was necessary to pacify post-invasion Iraq. Secrecy, another administration hallmark, prevented even the Congressional Research Service from getting a definitive count of the number of private contractors taxpayers support. “The executive branch either has not kept sufficient records to produce or has been unwilling to present basic, accurate information on the companies employed under U.S. government contracts and subcontracts in Iraq,” the researchers reported in July.</p>
<p>Add the odor of political cronyism: Blackwater’s founder, Erik Prince, has deep ties to the Republican Party and conservative religious organizations. He was a Republican congressional aide and briefly an intern in the White House of President George H.W. Bush, according to The News &amp; Observer in Raleigh, N.C. When four Blackwater employees were murdered in Fallujah in 2004, the company turned for public relations and lobbying advice to the Alexander Strategy Group, a now-defunct Republican lobbying firm that was closely linked to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the zone of lawlessness the Bush administration created for detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for its global network of secret prisons and in its domestic surveillance program extended, as well, to private contractors. Under an order issued by the Coalition Provisional Authority, the American occupation bureaucracy that governed Iraq in the initial months after the invasion, private security contractors are immune from any legal action, including prosecution, that arises from their work. Nor are they subject to U.S. military law as are regular American forces. A law enacted in 2000 that conceivably could cover them hasn’t been tested. Nor, Singer says, has a 2006 effort to bring the private forces under the military justice system been implemented.</p>
<p>And no one — not the White House nor the Pentagon nor, apparently, the State Department — heeded repeated reports of abuse and flagrant violence against Iraqis that have dogged the private security guards for years. “Everybody has known about these problems,” Singer told me in an interview. “They’ve been widely reported.”</p>
<p>The Army’s investigation of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal identified private contractors as responsible for more than a third of abuses and identified six employees as culpable, Singer says. Yet, unlike soldiers who were court-martialed for their crimes at Abu Ghraib, no private contractor has been prosecuted. There even was a “trophy video” — of contractors for one security company shooting at Iraqi civilians — that the guards themselves posted on the Internet.</p>
<p>We have reached the inevitable moment of anger and recrimination. In keeping with the administration’s overarching philosophy that private business is always better — at everything — than government, we have privatized the most elemental government function of waging war. Now we will pay dearly for this folly.</p>
<p>Marie Cocco’s e-mail address is mariecocco(at)washpost.com.</p>
<p>© 2007, Washington Post Writers Group</p> | Privatizing Murder | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/privatizing-murder/ | 2007-09-20 | 4 |
<p>Members of President Donald Trump’s Evangelical Advisory Board are reportedly taking credit for a six-month delay until a program protecting 800,000 young illegal immigrants is ended.</p>
<p>“We are responsible for this extension . . . That’s our work,” Tony Suarez, executive vice president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/09/05/trumps-evangelical-advisers-claim-credit-for-six-month-delay-on-rescinding-daca/" type="external">told the Washington Post</a>.</p>
<p>According to the Post, Suarez said he and conference president Samuel Rodriguez have worked on behalf of “Dreamers” since the board was formed last summer —&#160;and stepped up pressure last week.</p>
<p>On Friday, a small number of evangelical pastors met with Trump, with Jentezen Franklin, a pastor from a multiethnic church near Atlanta, pleaded with Trump on behalf of those protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, the Post reported.</p>
<p>“I shake their hands at the end of my sermons,” Franklin said he told the president, the Post reported. “I stand and shake hands for hours: I pastor the dreamer kids.”</p>
<p>A White House official didn’t directly corroborate the advisory board’s assertion, the Post reported, saying only a large number of people were “part of the process.”</p>
<p>Though other presidential advisory boards <a href="https://www.newsmax.com/Politics/business-panel-donald-trump-disband/2017/08/17/id/808128/" type="external">have been disbanded</a> in the wake of Trump’s statements following a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Suarez said he’ll continue to serve.</p>
<p>“If the administration gives us a deaf ear, that is a different conversation,” he told the Post. “In today’s decision, we see the result of having access to the president. We were able to be a voice for the voiceless.”</p> | Evangelical Board: We're Responsible for 6-month Delay on DACA | false | https://newsline.com/evangelical-board-were-responsible-for-6-month-delay-on-daca/ | 2017-09-05 | 1 |
<p>House Speaker Paul Ryan started out his CNN town hall Monday by praising President Donald Trump’s decision to beef up the number of troops in Afghanistan, <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/tv/paul-ryan-praises-afghanistan-speech-i-heard-a-new-trump-doctrine-tonight/" type="external">Mediaite reported.</a></p>
<p>“I’m actually pleased with the way he went about making this decision,” Paul said. “It was described to me recently by one of our military planners that the last 16 years our comprehensive Afghanistan strategy was 16&#160;one-year strategies. So, we have had a convoluted strategy with respect to Afghanistan, and I think it’s high time we had a more comprehensive strategy.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/trump-like-approve-troop/2017/08/21/id/808873/" type="external">The president’s plan</a> calls for a modest troop increase, an approach opposite of the one he touted in campaign rhetoric because he had determined pulling solders out could create a vacuum&#160;terrorists could “instantly fill.”</p>
<p>“I concluded that the security threats we face in Afghanistan and the broader region are immense,” Trump said.</p>
<p>Ryan said he heard “a new Trump strategy, or a doctrine, so to speak. Principled realism is how I think he described it.”</p>
<p>Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/strategy-military-troops-twitter/2017/08/21/id/808934/" type="external">also applauded Trump</a>, saying the strategy was “put together the right way.”</p> | Paul Ryan: I Heard New Trump 'Doctrine' in Afghan Speech | false | https://newsline.com/paul-ryan-i-heard-new-trump-doctrine-in-afghan-speech/ | 2017-08-21 | 1 |
<p>Carlos Slim is one of the richest men in the world, and certainly the richest Mexican in the world. His fortune amassed in tobacco, real estate and the monopoly control of the Mexican phone companies Telmex and America Movil, Latin America's largest telephone company. Which also has one of the highest rates in the world for toll charges makes him currently the 7th richest man in the world. He has held the position as the richest man in the world several times ahead of Warren Buffet and Bill Gates. His wealth has been built on the backs of the Mexican people. He also happens to control the most influential newspaper in the world, The New York Times.</p>
<p />
<p>It is no secret, and quite obvious that the New York Times does not support Donald Trump. At this time, it is practically a comedy to read any political article in it. The obvious spin against Donald Trump is painfully clear when the New York Times begs Latin American voters to vote for Hillary Clinton. His reasons are also clear. His loyalties are to Mexico. If Donald Trump is elected and does build his wall. Mexico will no longer have the ability to send their wretched refuse to the United States. Don Carlos is known for playing the long game. Eventually Hispanics will become the majority in the United States, BUT they aren't the majority yet, and the American people still have the ability to control the destiny of this great country.</p>
<p />
<p>Another notable US newspaper owned by an extremely rich man Jeff Bezos also seems to have it out for Donald Trump. The Washington Post. Purchased in 2013 by this notorious micro manager.</p>
<p>On December 8, 2015 Donald Trump had words for Jeff Bezos. He was concerned about the tax burden that Amazon seems to skirt by manipulating the losses that the Washington Post incurs.</p>
<p />
<p>Jeff Bezos responded by offering to send Donald Trump to space. Ever since, the Washington Post never seems to cover Trump in a fair light.</p>
<p />
<p>News spreads by word of mouth, by copy paste, by aggregation and rss distribution. It spreads by Google, who Jeff Bezos helped finance in 1998. Did you ever wonder why a visit to <a href="http://news.google.com" type="external">news.google.com</a> almost always shows you a Washington Post story? It may be automated, but it is obvious that the algorithm that is grabbing the news is weighted for the Washington Post, New York Times and the CNN network.</p>
<p />
<p>This leaves you Bing for non-filtered news. However, Microsoft doesn't seem to have the algorithm correct for western English speaking news either. They are grabbing the unfiltered English news, the majority of which is written daily in the largest English speaking country in the world, India.</p>
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<p>Where can you get the real news these days? It is a troubling task for a lot of people. The busy people, don't notice the spin in the news. Only the people on the chans seem to notice. They comment on the blatant shilling in the newspapers. They meme their opinions anonymously, often times having their opinions become mainstream and their influence felt by those they call "normies". The chans have become the battleground, deciding for the undecided that are not believing the traditional media.</p> | EXPOSED: Why Carlos Slim is afraid of Trump's wall, and Bezos bends the media | true | http://thegoldwater.com/news/134-EXPOSED-Why-Carlos-Slim-is-afraid-of-Trump-s-wall-and-Bezos-bends-the-media | 2016-10-03 | 0 |
<p>U.S. stock indexes closed mostly lower Thursday after a midday gain evaporated in the late afternoon.</p>
<p>Consumer-focused companies like retailers and restaurant chains accounted for much of the market's pullback. The losses outweighed solid gains by financial stocks, which got a boost as climbing bond yields set the stage for higher interest rates on mortgages and other loans.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>On Thursday:</p>
<p>The Standard &amp; Poor's 500 index fell 1.83 points, or 0.1 percent, to 2,821.98.</p>
<p>The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 37.32 points, or 0.1 percent, to 26,186.71.</p>
<p>The Nasdaq composite lost 25.62 points, or 0.3 percent, to 7,385.86.</p>
<p>The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks picked up 4.88 points, or 0.3 percent, to 1,579.87.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>For the week:</p>
<p>The S&amp;P 500 is down 50.89 points, or 1.8 percent.</p>
<p>The Dow is down 430 points, or 1.6 percent.</p>
<p>The Nasdaq is down 119.91 points, or 1.6 percent.</p>
<p>The Russell 2000 is down 28.19 points, or 1.8 percent.</p>
<p>For the year:</p>
<p>The S&amp;P 500 is up 148.37 points, or 5.5 percent.</p>
<p>The Dow is up 1,467.49 points, 5.9 percent.</p>
<p>The Nasdaq is up 482.47 points, or 7 percent.</p>
<p>The Russell 2000 is up 44.36 points, or 2.9 percent.</p> | How major US stock indexes fared on Thursday | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/11/02/how-major-us-stock-indexes-fared-on-thursday.html | 2018-02-01 | 0 |
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>A group of about 30 young people – known as the “Dream 30” – were in federal custody in Laredo, Texas on Monday evening after approaching a designated port of entry and asking President Barack Obama for permission to enter the United States.</p>
<p>Many of the young people had left the United States for Mexico shortly before the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy had been approved by executive order in 2012. The policy permits undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States by their parents to apply for a two-year residency. Legal residency is a later possibility under the policy.</p>
<p>Immigration activists, including the RGV Community Dreamers and the National Immigration Youth Alliance, maintain that the Obama administration can use its discretion to permit these individuals – known as “DREAMers” – to be reunited with their families in the United States and live in the country where they grew up.</p>
<p>By Tuesday, some of them had been released on asylum requests, The Associated Press reported.</p>
<p>Activists explained that the young people had left the United States because, at the time, economic and higher education opportunities were limited and there were goals of pursuing more education in Mexico.</p>
<p>“Living in a city, we must unite with other border cities and fight to bring back our community members,” Samantha Magdaleno, RGV Community Dreamers director, said in a statement.</p>
<p>In a short phone interview on Monday, she confirmed that the 30 young people were being questioned at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection office near the Laredo crossing and that three adults were with them.</p>
<p>On Sept. 27, their attorney, David Bennion, and supporters asked federal authorities that they be allowed into the country under humanitarian grounds.</p>
<p>“These Dreamers are no different than the clients I represent on this side of the border,” Bennion said in a statement. “It’s time we do the right thing and bring them home.”</p>
<p>Those who were detained, activists said, have lives in Arizona, California, Georgia, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, Kansas and Pennsylvania.</p>
<p>“We are here to remind them not to give up hope. We can fight the broken immigration system ourselves,” supporters said in a statement.</p>
<p>“We are putting back together the families that the president and unjust laws have broken apart.”</p>
<p>In August, another group of young people, <a href="" type="internal">known as the “Dream 9,”</a> made international news by approaching the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona and asking to be allowed into the country. They were dressed in academic graduation gowns and accompanied by journalists and supporters.</p>
<p>They were detained at the border and the case drew global media attention. Later, they were released into the United States while their asylum requests were being processed.</p>
<p>Their tactics sparked a variety of reactions from those who support comprehensive immigration reform, as the <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2013/aug/10/nation/la-na-ff-dreamer-protest-20130811" type="external">Los Angeles Times reported</a>.</p>
<p>Note: This story has been updated and corrected to reflect the accurate spelling of&#160;Samantha Magdaleno’s surname.&#160;</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Contact author</a></p>
<p>&#160;&#160; <a href="" type="internal">DACA</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Dream 9</a>, <a href="" type="internal">DREAM act</a>, <a href="" type="internal">DREAMers news</a>, <a href="" type="internal">immigration news</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Texas</a></p> | In Texas, 'Dream 30' Detained at U.S.-Mexico Border | true | http://equalvoiceforfamilies.org/in-texas-dream-30-detained-at-u-s-mexico-border/ | 4 |
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<p>Image: AP/WideWorld</p>
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<p>Within days of the Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, Congress passed a $40 billion emergency spending package — half for reconstruction, half for combating terrorism. But the biggest beneficiaries of this generosity will not be the families of the victims or the communities that bore the brunt of the attacks: they will be giant weapons contractors like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin.</p>
<p>The Pentagon has asked to use the lion’s share of the $20 billion earmarked for the first stages of President Bush’s proposed war on terrorism. But that’s just the beginning.</p>
<p>Congress is also about to sign off on an $18.4 billion budget increase the Pentagon requested earlier this year, and to approve an additional appropriation of up to $25 billion. Christopher Hellman of the <a href="http://www.cdi.org" type="external">Center for Defense Information</a> has suggested that military spending for fiscal 2002 could hit $375 billion, a $66-billion increase over 2001. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz has stated that this year’s appropriations will be “just a down payment” toward the major, long-term increases the Pentagon will seek to fight its new kind of war.</p>
<p>It would be one thing if these massive sums were being carefully funneled into projects that can help reduce terrorism or punish those responsible for the recent attacks. But as one defense official told the industry journal Defense News, the new funds “will have nothing to do with rescue and emergency efforts [or] retaliation in response to the Sept. 11 attacks.” Instead, he noted, the money will go to the Pentagon’s “wish lists for things that we’ll have several years from now.”</p>
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<p />
<p>READERS SPEAK OUT “If the Pentagon was serious about stopping terrorism, they’d work with the CIA to get operatives into the Middle East; bombs and massive military assaults just strengthen a terrorist’s cause. By spending exorbitant amounts of money on projects that have nothing to do with terrorism prevention, the Pentagon has demonstrated that it would rather further its long-term pipe dreams than get to the task at hand.” –If I Had $20 Billion discussion</p>
<p><a href="/cgi-bin/WebX?14@@.ee99c61/7" type="external">Add your voice!</a></p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace summed up the current politics of military spending in Washington when he wrote, in the Boston Globe, that “some are using the tragedy to justify their existing programs, slapping an ‘anti-terrorism’ label on missile defense and across-the-board budget increases.”</p>
<p>It’s certainly a good time to push for such programs. As Clinton administration budget official Gordon Adams, now at George Washington University, told the New York Times, “Capitol Hill is prepared to do whatever the Pentagon wants.”</p>
<p>In the short term, the Bush administration’s misguided missile defense scheme stands to gain the most from the new pro-military mood on Capitol Hill. Although the Sept. 11 attack underscored one of the central arguments made by missile defense’s critics — that the United States faces a more immediate threat from comparatively low-tech terrorist attacks than it does from long-range ballistic missiles — an initial $1.3 billion allocation sailed through Congress last week. The program’s cost could reach $240 billion over the next two decades.</p>
<p>Other likely beneficiaries of the new pro-military mood include programs like the scandal-plagued V-22 Osprey aircraft, which has been involved in crashes that have killed at least 30 US military personnel. The program is now likely to get a new lease on life with a little help from influential allies like Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.). Weldon, whose district is home to a Boeing facility that builds V-22s, is likely to argue that its unique ability to fly like a plane or a helicopter will be ideal for getting into tight spots to search out terrorists’ hiding places.</p>
<p>Similarly, Lockheed Martin’s F-22, which at more than $200 million each is the most expensive fighter plane ever built, will be in a much stronger position to stave off future budget cuts if Congress continues to ramp up Pentagon spending. Reagan administration Pentagon official Lawrence J. Korb has pointed out that the plane is now obsolete, since it was designed to do battle with next-generation Soviet fighter aircraft that were never built. But that won’t stop the program’s allies in the Georgia and Texas delegations from pressing to keep the $70 billion, 295-aircraft project up and running.</p>
<p>The Crusader artillery system, built by United Defense in the district of House Republican Conference Chairman J.C. Watts (R-Okla.), is also likely to be shored up in the Pentagon’s new, cash-rich environment. The Crusader had been singled out for possible elimination by one of the panels involved in Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s defense review on the grounds that it was too bulky to be easily transported to the most likely battlefields of the future. But with so much money now on the table for weapons, who needs to make choices?</p>
<p>Beyond the existing pet projects of key lawmakers, the Pentagon has its own shopping list of items for use in its nascent war on terrorism. In a Sept. 24 speech at the conservative Heritage Foundation, Pentagon Comptroller Dov Zakheim signaled his department’s intention to boost funding for a string of reconnaissance aircraft, missile-equipped submarines, and high-tech munitions.</p>
<p>Last but not least, look for Congressional advocates of Northrop Grumman’s B-2 Stealth bomber, like Norm Dicks (D-Wa.) and Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.), to try and revive the program by seeking funding for up to 40 more of the aircraft, which can fly long-range missions from bases far from the theater of conflict. Costs for the B-2 have clocked in at more than $2 billion per plane.</p>
<p>In another move that will benefit major weapons manufacturers, the Bush administration is poised to accelerate weapons sales to the Middle East and South Asia, including pending deals to transfer Lockheed Martin F-16s to Oman and the United Arab Emirates; a sale of the Lockheed Martin Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) to Egypt; and possible exports to Pakistan of spare parts for its F-16s, C-130 transport planes, and P-3 surveillance aircraft (all Lockheed Martin products). Just as his father did in the run-up to the 1991 Persian Gulf War, President Bush plans to swap arms sales for political and military support for his war on terrorism.</p>
<p>This avalanche of new weapons spending begs the broader question of whether large-scale military responses to terrorist violence are either appropriate or effective. As former Pentagon official Joseph Nye of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University has observed, “Suppressing terrorism is very different from a military campaign. It requires continuous, patient, undramatic civilian work and close cooperation with other countries.”</p>
<p>If runaway Pentagon spending isn’t headed off soon, the funds, energy, and attention needed for a more intelligent approach to preventing terrorism will be siphoned off into a narrowly focused military effort that is likely to do far more harm than good.</p>
<p /> | The War Dividend | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2001/09/war-dividend/ | 2001-09-28 | 4 |
<p>On <a href="" type="internal">Friday's show</a>, guest host David Menzies and Sheila Gunn Reid discuss the faux outrage over Gerry Ritz's <a href="" type="internal">"Climate Barbie" tweet about Environment Minister Catherine McKenna</a>.</p>
<p />
<p>The media attention and reaction from Liberal MPs far outweighs that over the <a href="" type="internal">sexual harassment allegations being directed towards Calgary Liberal MP Darshan Kang</a>.</p>
<p>Gerry Ritz has been a strong representative of Western Canada, he freed farmers from the grip of the Canadian Wheat Board. Now <a href="" type="internal">the Liberals are trying to smear his reputation</a> as he prepares to retire.</p> | “Climate Barbie” hysteria covers up Liberal sexual harassment claims | true | https://therebel.media/_climate_barbie_hysteria_is_about_concealing_liberal_sexual_harrasment_allegations | 2017-09-24 | 0 |
<p>Officially, Steve Cohen is undecided about starting a hedge fund. Unofficially, he’s got marketers poised to sign up clients and take in money early next year.</p>
<p>ShoreBridge Capital Partners, the company hired last year to gauge interest in a such a fund, has told prospective clients to expect a trove of marketing materials in the next several weeks, according to people familiar with the plans. It will include due diligence documents, track records and other information investors need to decide whether they will pony up cash for the new firm, Stamford Harbor Capital.</p>
<p>It’s the clearest evidence yet that Cohen is planning a comeback after being barred from managing outside capital until Jan. 1, 2018. And it comes at an opportune time. The billionaire’s returns are just beginning to rebound after 18 months of barely making money at his family office, Point72 Asset Management. He’s now up about 5 percent year to date, according to people familiar with the performance.</p>
<p>Although most hedge fund investors expect billions to flow to the new firm, it’s less clear whether Cohen can regain his superstar status of about 30 percent annualized returns achieved when he ran SAC Capital Advisors. Since returning client money in the beginning of 2014, markets have become increasingly dominated by passive investing, a trend that many a stock-picker has blamed for lackluster performance.&#160;Cohen, 61, has also lost some seasoned portfolio managers when he became a family office.</p>
<p>“Markets have changed and there are still a lot of questions around how the new firm will be structured,” said Brad Alford, a former SAC investor who runs Alpha Capital Management, a consultant search service in Atlanta. “It remains to be seen whether he can rebuild to his former glory.”</p>
<p>Jonathan Gasthalter, a spokesman for Stamford Harbor, declined to comment. ShoreBridge didn’t return a call seeking comment.</p>
<p>Click <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/hedge-fund-swagger-sinks-along-with-profits-and-fees-quicktake" type="external">here</a> to read more about the changing hedge fund industry — a QuickTake Explainer</p>
<p>ShoreBridge,&#160;started by longtime SAC marketer Doug Blagdon, is telling investors that Cohen may raise from $2 billion to $10 billion — “if” he decides to launch the fund, the people familiar with the plans said. And, the billionaire won’t take meetings to discuss his plans until after Jan. 1, one of the people said.</p>
<p>SAC pleaded guilty to securities fraud in 2013, and agreed to pay a record $1.8 billion fine and convert to a family office. Cohen wasn’t charged with wrongdoing. A Cohen spokesman said last year that Stamford Harbor wouldn’t seek external money before the terms of the settlement lapse.</p>
<p>While Cohen is clearly the star attraction of the new venture, ShoreBridge has been trumpeting the role of his lieutenant, Perry Boyle, who last year was named chief investment officer at Stamford Harbor, the people said. Boyle joined SAC in 2004, and was most recently head of discretionary investing at Point72 before he was shifted to Stamford Harbor, which has a mailing address adjacent to Point72’s Stamford headquarters.</p>
<p>Cohen’s plan for a comeback comes as the industry faces increased challenges. More hedge funds closed in 2016 than in any year since the financial crisis and lackluster performance and high fees have driven clients away. Fewer than a quarter of the 140 hedge funds surveyed by Preqin in June thought that investors had turned more positive on hedge funds over the past year.</p> | Steve Cohen's Comeback Is Said to Begin as Marketers Pitch Fund | false | https://newsline.com/steve-cohens-comeback-is-said-to-begin-as-marketers-pitch-fund/ | 2017-09-05 | 1 |
<p>Prosecutors have filed reduced charges against the pregnant South Carolina woman who drove a minivan with her three kids into the Atlantic Ocean, but they reduced the charges against her.</p>
<p>Ebony Wilkerson, 32, was arrested by Volusia County Sheriff's deputies on three counts of attempted first-degree murder and three child abuse charges after the March 4 incident off of Daytona Beach, Fla.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, prosecutors filed three counts each of attempted second-degree murder and child abuse charges against her.</p>
<p>Klare Ly, a public information officer with Florida State Attorney R.J. Larizza, would not say why the charges were reduced.</p>
<p>"We filed our formal charges that we believe are appropriate," she said.</p>
<p>Public Defender James Purdy said in a statement that his office would enter not guilty pleas for Wilkerson.</p>
<p>“While I was disappointed with the severity of the charges filed by the State Attorney, I am glad the State recognizes that there was no premeditation involved in this incident," Purdy said. "As the 'discovery process' unfolds, I am confident the evidence will show that Ebony Wilkerson never intended to harm her children or herself.”</p>
<p>Wilkerson is accused of steering her car into the water before bystanders rescued her three kids, ages 3, 9, and 10, from the car. Police say her kids told investigators, "Mom tried to kill us."</p>
<p>Wilkerson is seven months pregnant. Days before her arrest, she called South Carolina police alleging her husband had raped her — a claim he denies and <a href="" type="internal">blames on a psychotic breakdown.</a></p>
<p>She has been staying in a <a href="" type="internal">hospital psychiatric unit</a> since her arrest and is being held on $1.2 million bond.</p>
<p /> | Reduced Charges Filed for Mom Who Drove Minivan Into Ocean | false | http://nbcnews.com/storyline/minivan-mom-case/reduced-charges-filed-mom-who-drove-minivan-ocean-n75941 | 2014-04-09 | 3 |
<p>We’ve all heard campaigning politicians — especially those who want to be president of the United States — say that if elected, they’ll fix what’s wrong in Washington. But what if the tangle of issues faced by our government is just too complex for one person to manage?</p>
<p>Physicist Yaneer Bar-Yam&#160;has concluded that’s the case, using a mathematical framework borrowed from quantum field theory. Bar-Yam, who directs the New England Complex Systems Institute, would know: He once crunched big data to predict the <a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/12/17/143897126/the-arab-spring-a-year-of-revolution" type="external">Arab Spring</a>, a wave of pro-democracy uprisings across the Middle East.</p>
<p>The framework he uses to analyze complex systems like governments is a concept that also <a href="https://medium.com/complex-systems-channel/1-2-revolution-in-physics-theory-experiment-contradiction-and-multiscale-insight-fbad5e3238d0" type="external">helps scientists study how boiling water turns into vapor</a>. “If you think about [the transition] as a smooth system, you just don’t describe what’s happening,” he explains. “You have to think about it by zooming in and seeing progressively more fluctuations that are happening.”</p>
<p>His findings, in short: Hierarchical systems with just one or a few people at the top <a href="http://www.necsi.edu/projects/yaneer/Civilization.html" type="external">are no match for the complexities of our society</a>. That’s a recent shift, he explains: Historically, hierarchies like kingdoms, companies&#160;and even our own representative democracy have been very successful.</p>
<p>“[But] it kind of started falling apart in the 1980s,” he says. “And by now, it should be quite apparent that, you know, these systems that are hierarchical are just not able to deal with the complexity of the world that we’re in.”</p>
<p>For Bar-Yam, the key driver of this complexity is global interdependence. “Whether it’s economic events — the financial crisis propagation — whether it’s governance and disruption of social order, or whether it’s diseases, everything is affecting what’s happening everywhere else,” he says.</p>
<p>Hierarchical structures make the assumption that one person can understand and respond to the most important issues, he explains. “And in this case — where you have so many very important things that are happening — one person just can’t do that.”</p>
<p>Instead, Bar-Yam proposes a shift towards more horizontal, distributed governance, where <a href="https://medium.com/complex-systems-channel/teams-a-manifesto-7490eab144fa" type="external">teams of people make specialized decisions</a>, rather than just a few individuals. He points to the corporate trend of distributed organizations as one example. Horizontal systems even manage the sprawl of our own bodies.</p>
<p>“If you think about your brain … there isn’t one neuron that’s telling the other neurons what to do,” he says. “It’s a collective behavior that really is responsible for how you think about how you decide&#160;and what you do.”</p>
<p>And in your brain, he adds, different neurons are responsible for different kinds of things. “The way the brain is structured, it’s not just about individuals, but how they’re connected to each other.” Similarly, Bar-Yam thinks teams of people in our society could make different policy decisions based on their knowledge or skills.</p>
<p>“Basically, what we have to do is engage, as a society, in the challenge of identifying not just individuals, but really groups of people that are able to together make good decisions,” he says. “Some decisions are not relevant to everybody, they should be done more locally. And some decisions should be done more globally.”</p>
<p>Bar-Yam acknowledges that shifting our representative democracy to a more lateral decision-making structure is “a process that we don’t have a formula for.” But in some ways, he says, it’s a topic we’ve already begun engaging.</p>
<p>“This is something that is being done intentionally in companies that are adopting more distributed organizational structures, and really have been adopting them since the 1980s,” he explains. “But the societal engagement in this is happening in the form of people ... caring about, and thinking about, and talking about decisions that are being made in policy.”</p>
<p>“What we have to do, however, is to create mechanisms by which that participation translates into actual decision-making, rather than shifting it once again to one person or a few people who have that authority.”</p>
<p>This article is based on an&#160; <a href="https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/why-theoretical-physics-says-the-us-is-ungovernable/" type="external">interview&#160;</a>that aired on PRI's&#160; <a href="http://www.sciencefriday.com/" type="external">Science Friday</a>.&#160;</p> | What theoretical physics says about the future of our government | false | https://pri.org/stories/2017-07-02/what-theoretical-physics-says-about-future-our-government | 2017-07-02 | 3 |
<p />
<p>The National Insurance Crime Bureau's annual “Hot Spots” report finds that car thefts are rising again after an eight-year decline.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Modesto, Calif., racked up the nation's worst theft rate and recorded more than 4,200 thefts last year. Youngstown, Ohio, with a similar population, had just 910. Among the 25 largest U.S. cities, the differences are striking. Your car is eight times more likely to be stolen in San Francisco than in Pittsburgh.</p>
<p>In Los Angeles alone, a staggering 52,000 cars were snatched in 2012.per</p>
<p>We're including each city's rank among all 380 metro areas and the local theft trend since 2010.</p>
<p>Unless you've bought comprehensive insurance, you are not insured against theft.</p>
<p>The most popular theft targets tend to be mid-1990s Japanese cars, which are old enough that most owners are unlikely to keep them insured for anything other than mandatory liability coverage. (See “ <a href="http://www.carinsurance.com/Articles/when-to-drop-comprehensive-and-collision.aspx?WT.qs_osrc=fxb-172629910" type="external">Is it time to drop comp and collision? Opens a New Window.</a>”)</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Source: National Insurance Crime Bureau; U.S. Census *Theft rate per 100,000 population</p>
<p>The original article can be found at CarInsurance.com: <a href="http://www.carinsurance.com/Articles/theft-hot-spots-2012.aspx?WT.qs_osrc=fxb-172629910" type="external">Auto theft rates in the 380 biggest cities Opens a New Window.</a></p> | Car Theft Rates in the 380 Biggest Cities | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2013/07/10/car-theft-rates-in-380-biggest-cities.html | 2016-03-05 | 0 |
<p>In a hilarious moment that's making its way across the internet, a <a href="http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/clip/12370965/what-the-grand-master-bruce-silva-breaks-bricks-and-then" type="external">Hawaii News Now</a> reporter ruins what was supposed to be an impressive demonstration of strength and skill by a local "Grand Master" of Shaolin Kung Fu.</p>
<p>In the segment (below), anchor <a href="http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/11380702/steve-uyehara" type="external">Steve Uyehara</a> introduces Bruce Silva, a Kung Fu teacher who is promoting his upcoming event, the Black Dragon World Record Exhibition. Silva has set up three separate concrete block structures to break and wow the audience. What he wasn't expecting was for Uyehara to be so full of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Z0_n7tGnK0" type="external">"Chi" power</a> that his mere presence was enough to destabilize the solid slabs at the atomic level. It's truly the only explanation.</p>
<p>A YouTube version below:</p>
<p>In the clip Silva says that the first brick is 21.2 lbs, and he breaks it with a glass that he's gently holding to prove his ability to focus his "power."</p>
<p>"That's incredible," the anchor exclaims as he walks to the second stack of blocks. And then in a perfect local news moment, right in the middle of the reporter saying "these are real bricks," he barely touches them - and they crumble completely.</p>
<p>The Grand Master quickly asks, "How'd you do that?" as the reporter doubles over, unable to contain his laughter.</p>
<p>It's live TV so the show must go on. The guru then breaks what he says is 110 lbs of bricks with his head, but not before telling the reporter not to touch them.</p>
<p>Exit tip from karate expert Master Ken who explains why "Kung Fu Fighting Drills Don't Work":</p>
<p>Silva later chopped the cake the news station gave him commemorating his first appearance on their show. Sharing is caring:</p>
<p><a href="https://giphy.com/gifs/cake-karate-chop-26ufhQnOMg38vTcIM" type="external">via GIPHY</a></p> | LOL: Reporter Accidentally Exposes Karate Master As Fraud On Live TV | true | https://dailywire.com/news/10032/lol-reporter-accidentally-exposes-karate-master-chase-stephens | 2016-10-19 | 0 |
<p>GIBRALTAR — “Death before dishonor!” shouted Elisa Galan from her tour bus, brandishing the wooden sword she uses to fend off monkeys.</p>
<p>It wasn't this tiny U.K. overseas territory's native macaques that had her so animated on a recent morning. Instead, it was the prospect of losing her homeland to neighboring Spain, which views Britain’s <a href="" type="internal">recent vote to leave the European Union</a> as an opportunity to regain it after more than 300 years.</p>
<p>“We’ve been through a lot with Spain, Spain has never been friendly to us. All they are interested in is the territory, they’re not interested in the people,” said Galan, 51. “I’m ready to sacrifice in order to keep Gibraltar British, and I’d rather die standing than live 20 years kneeling.”</p>
<p>Along with such defiance, a sense of dismay has settled on the enclave as its 30,000 residents — and the thousands of Spaniards who commute in for work — wait to see how Madrid will act when Britain divorces the EU.</p>
<p>Gibraltar is conspicuously British, despite its location at the southern tip of Spain, less than nine miles from North Africa. It is dotted with red telephone boxes, mail boxes bearing the royal insignia and pubs with names such as the “The Angry Friar” and “The Nelson.”</p>
<p>British police wearing tall black hats patrol streets lined with U.K. stores against a backdrop of a giant limestone promontory that gives the enclave its alternative name, "the Rock.”</p>
<p>More than 95 percent of Gibraltarians voted to remain in the bloc in the June 23 vote — the highest proportion of any British region — and the enclave has arguably the most to fear from losing the right to EU-wide trade and travel.</p>
<p>Gibraltarians already complain of excessive checks and delays on the Spanish side of the border — a vital lifeline for trade and tourism — and many suspect the situation will only get worse as Madrid ramps up the political pressure.</p>
<p>Spanish officials say the border checks are for smuggled cigarettes, which are cheaper in Gibraltar. The animosity is fueled by Spanish suspicions that enclave's thriving financial services industry is enabling tax fraud, a charge that Gibraltar denies.</p>
<p>“We’re scared that Spain is going have little bit more control over us now … A lot of people are scared about having to get visas when the time comes,” said bartender Miriam Adambery, who recently moved from a nearby Spanish town back to Gibraltar to avoid future travel restrictions.</p>
<p>Gibraltar's name derives from the Arabic title Jebel Tariq — or “Mountain of Tariq” — given when the territory was under Moorish rule between 711 and 1462.</p>
<p>About one-tenth of the size of Manhattan Island, it was captured by an Anglo-Dutch force in 1704 during the War of the Spanish Succession and officially ceded to Britain under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713.</p>
<p>Related: <a href="" type="internal">Concrete Blocks Reignite Dispute Between Former Superpowers</a></p>
<p>Spain has since disputed the terms of that agreement, argues that the British presence violates a United Nations principle safeguarding territorial integrity.</p>
<p>“It’s a complete change of outlook that opens up new possibilities on Gibraltar not seen for a very long time,” Spanish Acting Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said in the hours after the British referendum.</p>
<p>He added: “I hope the formula of co-sovereignty — to be clear, the Spanish flag on the Rock — is much closer than before.”</p>
<p>Margallo’s comments drew howls of protest from Gibraltarians, many of whom remember when Spanish dictator Francisco Franco shut the border in his quest to strangle the enclave into submission.</p>
<p>The frontier was fully reopened after 16 years in 1985 after Spanish accession to the EU, which guarantees the free movement of people, goods, services and capital between member states.</p>
<p>Britain has already said it would be “less able” to protect Gibraltar’s interests if outside the EU.</p>
<p>“What we’re not going to accept, what Europe and the world should not accept … is that Spain’s default position is to behave like a bully boy just because the dictator got away with it,” Chief Minister Fabian Picardo, Gibraltar’s most senior politician, told NBC News.</p>
<p>“I’m sick of saying it. Trading sovereignty is not going to happen. It’s not an option. Spain had better wake up and smell the coffee … Spanish sovereignty over Gibraltar is just not going to happen. Not 0.1 percent, not 50 percent, not 100 percent,” he added.</p>
<p>At the border, some Spaniards were not impressed with their government either. They suspect it is using the issue of Gibraltar to distract from political turmoil in Madrid after <a href="" type="internal">June’s inconclusive election, the second in six months</a>.</p>
<p>Related: <a href="" type="internal">'Happy' Putin, Confident China See Brexit Silver Linings</a></p>
<p>“It’s what they say all the time. Whatever little problem happens, boom! Gibraltar must return to us,” said Maria Lopes, whose mother is Gibraltarian but considers herself a Spaniard through marriage.</p>
<p>She added: “Not even if Franco comes back from the dead will Spain be able to get its hands on Gibraltar!”</p> | Brexit Fallout: Gibraltar Worries About Spain’s Next Move | false | http://nbcnews.com/storyline/brexit-referendum/brexit-fallout-gibraltar-worries-about-spain-s-next-move-n608481 | 2016-07-16 | 3 |
<p>On Thursday, Republican candidates addressed the Republican Jewish Coalition's Presidential Forum.</p>
<p>Sen. Lindsey Graham (SC) was second to speak. He delivered what appeared to be a somewhat improvised speech, responding to and disagreeing with Sen. Ted Cruz (TX), who had spoken before him. He also “took issue” with some of his other Republican competitors - namely Donald Trump.</p>
<p>Graham opened with an affectionate description of the RJC as “family,” joking that if elected President, he might form the first “all-Jewish cabinet in America.”</p>
<p>Thanking AIPAC, the RJC, and the broader “pro-Israel community” for support across his political career, Graham spoke to the “shared values” of Israel and America.</p>
<p>Speaking of his vision for a Republican path to the White House, Graham sought to explain “why we lose.” He asked, “How many of you believe that we lose elections because we’re not hard-assed enough on immigration?” Answering his question, he said, “I believe we’re losing the Hispanic vote because they think we don’t like them.” Disagreeing with Cruz, he said that Republican victory was contingent on winning over Hispanics rather than generating a greater turnout from Evangelical Christians.</p>
<p>Attributing Hispanic voting patterns for Democrats to Trump's rhetoric, Graham said, “I believe that it’s not about turning out Evangelical Christians. It’s about repairing the damage done by incredibly hateful rhetoric driving a wall between us and the fastest growing demographic in America, who should be Republicans. I believe Donald Trump is destroying the Republican Party’s chance to win an election that we can’t afford to lose.” Heather Mac Donald of The Manhattan Institute <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/332916/why-hispanics-dont-vote-republicans-heather-mac-donald" type="external">offered</a> a different explanation of Hispanic political views one day after Obama's 2012 defeat of Romney.</p>
<p>Graham cautioned that strong opposition to illegal immigration, including talk of deportation, would further alienate Hispanics. He asked, “You think you’re gonna win an election with that kinda garbage?” He warned that such a path would set the party up for “oblivion.”</p>
<p>He also recommended temperance regarding the GOP’s approach to abortion. Graham stated that Hispanics are largely pro-life, and that African-Americans “are more supportive of traditional marriage than any demographic in the country.” Hispanic women, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/09/abortions-racial-gap/380251/" type="external">however</a>, have <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html" type="external">higher rates</a> of abortions than the <a href="http://www.abort73.com/abortion/abortion_and_race/" type="external">national average</a>. African-Americans may oppose same-sex marriage more than other demographics, yet have significantly higher rates of single-parent rearing of children due to higher <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/360990/latest-statistics-out-wedlock-births-roger-clegg" type="external">rates of divorce</a> and <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/jul/29/don-lemon/cnns-don-lemon-says-more-72-percent-african-americ/" type="external">births out of wedlock</a>.</p>
<p>“Her definition of ‘flat broke’ and mine are a bit different,” Graham joked, referring to <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/06/09/hillary_clinton_we_came_out_of_the_white_house_dead_broke.html" type="external">Clinton’s statement</a> that she and her husband were “dead broke” when vacating 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in 2000.</p>
<p>Taking issue with opposition to abortion on all grounds - including conceptions via rape - would harm Republicans. “If the nominee of the Republican Party will not allow for an exception for rape and incest, they will not win. Ted Cruz doesn’t have an exception for rape or incest,” Graham said. He warned, “We will lose young women in droves.”</p>
<p>Graham deployed the narrative of the Democrats, implicitly attributing the “government shutdown” in 2013 to Cruz and other conservative Republicans.</p>
<p>"I believe Donald Trump is destroying the Republican Party’s chance to win an election that we can’t afford to lose.”</p>
<p>Lindsay Graham</p>
<p>He closed with reiterating his opposition to the “Iran Deal”, describing it as a “death sentence” for Israel which would amount to a “second Holocaust.” He also restated his desire to oust Assad. “Ted Cruz says he’ll keep Assad in power, I sure as hell will not,” he said.</p>
<p>Left-winger Greg Sargent of The Washington Post agreed with Graham's analysis on Twitter.</p>
<p>What Lindsey Graham really did is show how GOP establishment should confront Trumpism, but won't: <a href="https://t.co/GznF0flYeX" type="external">https://t.co/GznF0flYeX</a></p>
<p>Lindsey Graham's speech calling out GOP immigration extremism is a seminal, amazing moment: <a href="https://t.co/GznF0flYeX" type="external">https://t.co/GznF0flYeX</a></p> | Lindsey Graham Warns Republicans: Stop Being So Conservative On Illegal Immigration And Abortion | true | https://dailywire.com/news/1603/lindsay-graham-warns-republicans-stop-being-so-robert-kraychik | 2015-12-04 | 0 |
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<p />
<p>When he was bored, Abeita said he’d run down his family’s horses to ride them.</p>
<p>“In summer, I would be chasing horses all day because I had nothing else to do,” he said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Running for sport hadn’t crossed his mind until the cross country coach at Thoreau High School heard Abeita beat the school’s fastest runner in a footrace and the coach asked Abeita to try out for the team as a senior.</p>
<p>Turns out chasing horses is good training. He won a handful of races as a senior last year and was signed with Diné College to run cross country.</p>
<p>On Friday, Abeita, 19, won the United States Collegiate Athletic Association cross country championship. The USCAA is a college conference for small schools.</p>
<p>The race couldn’t have been more different than running after a horse on a hot, dusty summer day in Thoreau.</p>
<p>Abeita cleared the five-mile, freezing, hilly and snow-dotted course in Lake Placid, N.Y., at a pace of 5 minutes and 34 seconds per mile.</p>
<p>The next closest runner was 10 seconds behind him, and Abeita said he slowed down for the last mile because he knew he had won.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“For someone with no experience, he ran so confidently. It was epic,” Gavin Sosa, Diné’s cross country coach, said of Abeita’s race. “He won it going away. He made a move at three miles and he dictated the race.”</p>
<p>“I felt great. Happy,” Abeita said of the race. “On the way home, I kept thinking about the finish.”</p>
<p>Despite not spending much of high school learning how to train and prepare for distance racing, Abeita quickly caught up to the competition. In addition to winning several small races, he finished in 11th place at the state cross country meet last year.</p>
<p>Sosa said he recruited Abeita based on talent. And he learned the ropes of racing quickly.</p>
<p>The team competed in five meets this season. — This article appeared on page C2 of the Albuquerque Journal</p> | Running Down Animals Was Great Training | false | https://abqjournal.com/146116/running-down-animals-was-great-training.html | 2012-11-14 | 2 |
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>The proverbial Achilles Heel of not only the power of Western nations, corporate influence and profits, but also of the entire Modern, technologically-advanced world is the security of the power grid. Most in so-called “First World” nations seem to take the power grid for granted. A strong wind blows, hard rains pour and the lights go out. This power grid is incredibly vulnerable and the folks running the show know it. While they know the power grid could both be taken down easily, and could take down entire “First World” nations easily, they don’t – as of yet – have any serious solutions to this vulnerability.</p>
<p>That is, until now… The North American nations are now planning on coming together in an attempt to devise a contingency plan. &#160;A&#160;special $4.5 billion program – GridEx2 – has until recently been keep under wraps.</p>
<p>Government leaders from the United States, Canada, and Mexico have come together to stage an emergency drill called GridEx2 which purports to see how governments and utility companies might react to a massive national power grid failure – caused by anything from solar flares to EMP attacks – and collapse.</p>
<p>The National Academy of Sciences has warned for decades that that terrorists could destroy the U.S. power grid using EMP attacks. The fact that this has neither happened, nor do we have any public knowledge of such an attack being thwarted is more a testimony to the lack of will amongst enemies of the State, than it is lack of ability.</p>
<p>But former CIA Director R. James Woolsey explained that there are such attempts, but they are not being reported on when they are foiled: “The grid is under attack already, and regularly fending off hacking attempts.”</p>
<p>The New York Times called the electric grid “the glass jaw of American industry.”&#160;Matthew Wald writes that according to industry leaders, there is a private acknowledgment that “If an adversary lands a knockout blow, they fear, it could black out vast areas of the continent for weeks; interrupt supplies of water, gasoline, diesel fuel and fresh food; shut down communications; and create disruptions of a scale that was only hinted at by Hurricane Sandy and the attacks of Sept. 11.”</p>
<p>Scientific America says, point blank, that “U.S. Electrical Grid on the Edge of Failure,” explaining that “Network analysis suggests geography makes the grid inherently unstable”.</p>
<p>Facebook can lose a few users and remain a perfectly stable network, but where the national grid is concerned simple geography dictates that it is always just a few transmission lines from collapse.</p>
<p>That is why, according to Wald, this November 13th and 14th GridEx2 drill will bring together “thousands of utility workers, business executives, National Guard officers, F.B.I. antiterrorism experts and officials from government agencies in the United States, Canada and Mexico” in order to prepare are for an emergency drill “that will simulate physical attacks and cyberattacks that could take down large sections of the power grid.”</p>
<p>The official in charge of the drill, Brian M. Harrell of the <a href="http://www.nerc.com/Pages/default.aspx" type="external">&#160;North American Electric Reliability Corporation</a>, known as NERC&#160;explained the GridEx2 drill is working from a different assumption than all that came before it. Previous exercises &#160;were based on the erroneous belief that the grid “would be up and running relatively quick” following a major attack. That simply isn’t reality according to experts.</p>
<p>The drill is being planned while studies and works of fiction alike continue to discuss seemingly apocalyptic scenarios. More troubling than any fictionalized vision of such a grid failure like&#160;in the 2009 novel&#160; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/12/us/politics/gingrichs-electromagnetic-pulse-warning-has-skeptics.html" type="external">One Second After</a>, this year’s novel,&#160; <a href="http://us.macmillan.com/gridlock/ByronDorgan" type="external">Gridlock,</a>&#160;co-written by Byron L. Dorgan, the former senator from North Dakota, where “a rogue Russian agent working for Venezuela and Iran helps hackers threaten the grid”, or even the popular J.J. Abrams show Revolution,&#160;is the fact that the government and the media are keeping so quiet about the GridEx2 drill.</p>
<p>(By Ari Simeon; Image from JJ Abram’s “Revolution”)</p> | BLACKOUT: Why Haven’t You Heard of the GridEx2 Power Grid Failure Drill? | true | http://politicalblindspot.com/blackout-why-havent-you-heard-of-the-gridex2-power-grid-failure-drill/ | 2013-09-29 | 4 |
<p>Published time: 26 Nov, 2017 15:48Edited time: 26 Nov, 2017 15:50</p>
<p>Nearly 1,000 demonstrators from far-right and anti-fascist groups took to the streets of the provincial capital of Canada’s Quebec on Saturday. Police arrested 44 protesters and fired tear gas while trying to keep the rival demonstrators apart.</p>
<p>Police in riot gear maintained a heavy presence Saturday in order to prevent clashes between supporters of two far-right groups, La Meute and Storm Alliance, and counter-protesters amid a Liberal Party convention in Quebec City. Up to 400 far-right demonstrators turned out at the march, which had been outnumbered by an opposing event, according to <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-city-police-arrest-44-at-far-right-protest-and-counter-demonstration-1.4419752" type="external">CBC</a>.&#160;Roughly 1,000 people showed up in total on both sides, police said. &#160;</p>
<p>“We think that we can’t allow another four years of Liberal government,” CBC cited one of La Meute’s leaders, Sylvain Brouilette, as saying. “This government has scorn for the people.” Some of the activists were seen carrying placards and banners, with one of them reading “Quebec for Quebecois.”</p>
<p>Statements made by members of the right wing groups, deemed racist and violent, prompted a counter-demonstration. “There are more inclusive and un-racist people here in Quebec than racist people,” one of the participants, Emmanuel Lemonde, told CBC.</p>
<p>However, tensions simmered as counter-protesters clashed with police as they tried to block the right-wing rally. Officers deployed tear gas against protesters who responded by throwing snowballs at them. A total of 44 people were arrested, according to the police spokesman Andre Turcotte. The police department seized “telescopic batons, slingshots, bottles containing an unknown liquid,” according to its Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/SPVQ_police/status/934492536768475136" type="external">feed</a>. No injuries of material damage has been reported.</p>
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<p>Le SPVQ confirme : 21 personnes arrêtées. Elles font partie d’un seul et même groupe homogène.</p>
<p>Bâton téléscopique, lance-pierre avec billes de métal ainsi que bouteilles de plastique contenant du liquide inconnu sont les armes saisies sur les 21 individus arrêtés. <a href="https://t.co/PbA55gl7cD" type="external">pic.twitter.com/PbA55gl7cD</a></p>
<p>— Pascale CV (@PascaleCV) <a href="https://twitter.com/PascaleCV/status/934494126199906304?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" type="external">November 25, 2017</a></p>
<p /> | Tear gas v. snowballs: Quebec’s far-right rally & counter-demo clash with police (VIDEO, PHOTOS) | false | https://newsline.com/tear-gas-v-snowballs-quebecs-far-right-rally-counter-demo-clash-with-police-video-photos/ | 2017-11-26 | 1 |
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<p>The 14 cases all involve men who visited areas with Zika outbreaks, and who may have infected their female sex partners, who had not traveled to those areas.</p>
<p>Zika virus is mainly spread by mosquito bites, and sexual transmission has been considered rare. There have been two reported cases, including a recent one in Texas, and at least two other reports of the Zika virus found in semen.</p>
<p>Mosquito-borne Zika outbreaks have erupted across most of Latin America and the Caribbean in the last year. So far, all the 82 Zika infections diagnosed in the U.S. have involved people who traveled to outbreak regions.</p>
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<p>On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the 14 possible cases of sexual transmission in the U.S. include two women whose infections have been confirmed. Tests have not been completed for their male partners.</p>
<p>In four other cases, preliminary tests indicate women were infected but confirmatory tests are pending. Eight other cases are still being investigated, according to a CDC statement.</p>
<p>Several of the 14 are pregnant, but the CDC refused to be more specific.</p>
<p>The agency said there's no evidence that women can spread the virus to their sex partners, but more research is needed.</p>
<p>In most people, Zika causes mild or no symptoms - fever, joint pain, rash and red eyes - that last about a week. But in Brazil, health officials are investigating a possible connection between the virus and babies born with brain defects and abnormally small heads.</p>
<p>The link hasn't been confirmed but the possibility has prompted health officials to take cautionary steps to protect fetuses from the virus.</p>
<p>Research is also underway into a possible link between Zika infection and a paralyzing condition in adults called Guillain-Barre syndrome.</p>
<p>The CDC is advising men who have recently been to a Zika outbreak area to use a condom when they have sex with a pregnant women, or to abstain from sex during the pregnancy. It also has recommended that pregnant women postpone trips to more than 30 destinations with outbreaks. The CDC on Tuesday expanded its Zika&#160;travel&#160;advisory to two more places - the Marshall Islands, and Trinidad and Tobago.</p>
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<p>There is no vaccine for Zika. Researchers are scrambling to develop one, as well as better diagnostic tests.</p>
<p>The Zika virus is mostly spread by the same kind of mosquito that transmits other tropical diseases, including dengue and chikungunya. That same mosquito is found in the Southern U.S. and officials expect they will eventually spread the virus, too. But they don't expect to see major outbreaks.</p>
<p>The CDC recommends that all travelers use insect repellent while in Zika outbreak areas, and continue to use it for three weeks after travel in case they might be infected but not sick. That's to prevent mosquitoes from biting them and possibly spreading Zika to others in the U.S.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Online:</p>
<p>CDC Zika page: <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/zika/index.html" type="external">http://www.cdc.gov/zika/index.html</a></p> | CDC: 14 more U.S. reports of possible Zika spread through sex | false | https://abqjournal.com/728872/cdc-14-more-us-reports-of-possible-zika-spread-through-sex.html | 2016-02-23 | 2 |
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<p>St. Louis Circuit Judge Timothy Wilson determined Friday that prosecutors failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Jason Stockley’s use of deadly force was not justifiable self-defense. Anthony Lamar Smith was killed in the 2011 encounter.</p>
<p>“Ultimately when people argue about this case, they are going to be arguing whether the judge drew the right conclusion from the evidence and probably less about the law,” said Ben Trachtenberg, an associate professor of law at the University of Missouri.</p>
<p>Here’s a look at how the judge parsed those arguments in his ruling :</p>
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<p>___</p>
<p>DID THE OFFICER PLANT THE GUN?</p>
<p>The officers were investigating what appeared to be a drug transaction in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant. The car sped away and a high-speed chase ensued. Police slammed their SUV into Smith’s car. Stockley then got out and fired five shots into Smith’s car, killing him. A handgun was found in the car after the shooting.</p>
<p>Prosecutors argued the presence of Stockley’s DNA — and absence of Smith’s DNA — on the gun proved the gun must have been planted by the officer. They also noted curious details after the shooting, including Stockley digging into a bag in the back seat of the police SUV before returning to Smith’s car.</p>
<p>But the defense countered that Stockley heard his partner yell “gun” and saw the driver’s hand on a gun as the car sped by him. Stockley testified he did not draw his service weapon and fire until he saw Smith reaching around inside the vehicle after it was stopped. He said Smith changed his demeanor, suggesting he found the gun.</p>
<p>Stockley testified that after the shooting he found the gun tucked down between the seat and the center console, and he rendered the gun safe by unloading cartridges from the cylinder and then left the gun and cartridges on the passenger seat.</p>
<p>In his ruling, Wilson wrote that “a fact issue that is central” to the case is whether Smith had the gun when he was shot. He found the state’s contention that the officer planted the gun is not supported by evidence.</p>
<p>As for Stockley digging around in a bag in the police SUV, Stockley testified that he retrieved a “quick clot” pack, a medical item designed to stop serious bleeding, and put it in his shirt pocket. In the police video showing Stockley looking in the bag, a viewer can’t see what he’s doing or what he might have taken out of the bag.</p>
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<p>The judge found the idea that Stockley took a gun from the police SUV to Smith’s car not credible. A full-sized revolver was too large for the officer to hide in his pants pockets and he was not wearing a jacket, the judge said. If the gun had been tucked into his belt, it would have been visible on a bystander’s video that showed Stockley walking between the police car and Smith’s car, he found.</p>
<p>Wilson also noted none of the officers standing next to the vehicle were called to testify that Stockley planted a gun. And he recounted witness testimony that the absence of a person’s DNA on a gun does not mean that person did not touch the gun.</p>
<p>“Finally, the Court observes, based on its nearly thirty years on the bench, that an urban heroin dealer not in possession of a firearm would be an anomaly,” the judge wrote.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>DID THE OFFICER’S OUTBURST INDICATE PREMEDITATION?</p>
<p>Smith drove at speeds of up to 87 miles per hour on wet roads, endangering other drivers and pedestrians. About 45 seconds before the chase ended, police dashcam video captured Stockley saying, “going to kill this (expletive), don’t you know it.”</p>
<p>Prosecutors argued that statement proved the officer deliberated about killing Smith even before the pursuit ended.</p>
<p>When questioned about his statement at trial, Stockley said he could not remember saying those words. The ruling noted Stockley testified he had not made a decision to kill Smith and could not recall the context in which the statement was made.</p>
<p>The judge said in his decision that it was apparent from the dashcam audio and video that the pursuit was stressful, both because of its high speed and the confusion caused by multiple radios and communications with the dispatcher.</p>
<p>“People say all kinds of things in the heat of the moment or while in stressful situations, and whether Stockley’s statement … constituted a real threat of action or was a means of releasing tension has to be judged by his subsequent conduct,” the judge wrote.</p>
<p>The court does not believe the officer’s conduct following the end of the pursuit is consistent with the conduct of a person intentionally killing another person unlawfully, Wilson wrote. He noted testimony by the state’s witnesses that Stockley ordered Smith to open the door and show his hands.</p>
<p>It was not until 15 seconds after Stockley arrived the driver’s side door that he took his service weapon out of its holster and fired several shots.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Ben Trachtenberg’s last name, which had been misspelled Trachtenbert.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Sign up for the AP’s weekly newsletter showcasing our best reporting from the Midwest and Texas: <a href="http://apne.ws/2u1RMfv" type="external">http://apne.ws/2u1RMfv</a></p> | Questions of gun planting, outburst key in officer’s verdict | false | https://abqjournal.com/1064737/questions-of-gun-planting-outburst-key-in-officers-verdict.html | 2017-09-16 | 2 |
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<p>Blood and personal items remain in the front year of a house on the 2600 block of Mesa Drive SE after four people were shot and critically wounded early Saturday morning. (Marla Brose/Journal)</p>
<p>When officers arrived at the house in the 2600 block of Mesa SE, they found one man who had been shot in the neck and several people, including three men who live at the house, still inside. One of the residents, Triston Whitmire, 19, was arrested Saturday and charged with four counts of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. He was booked into the county jail on a $60,000 bond.</p>
<p>Triston Whitmire, 19. (MDC)</p>
<p>According to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court, Whitmire said he and his two roommates were having a party at their home when a couple of people he knew from the neighborhood showed up uninvited and began allowing others into the house. He told police he saw that one was armed so he tried to shut down the party.</p>
<p>But, Whitmire said, he also put his own gun in his pocket.</p>
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<p>Whitmire said he locked several people outside, but the would-be partygoers started kicking the door to get back inside and broke a window.</p>
<p>He stayed in the house but began firing at them, according to the complaint.</p>
<p>"As soon as the glass was shattered, Triston removed his firearm and fired through the recently broken glass," the officer wrote in the complaint. "Triston fired at least four rounds outside."</p>
<p>Whitmire didn't know anyone had been hit until officers told him, according to the complaint.</p>
<p>Officers were dispatched to the house, which police say has a history of loud parties and gunfire, around 2:20 a.m. to find a man who had been shot lying in the front yard. The 23-year-old had been shot in the neck and was taken to the hospital in critical condition, the complaint says.</p>
<p>A short time later, three more men showed up at the University of New Mexico Hospital. An 18-year-old had several gunshot wounds to his abdomen, leg and pelvic area, a 21-year-old had been shot in the left leg, and a 22-year-old had been shot in the right leg, according to the complaint.</p>
<p>The scene outside the home midmorning Saturday showed signs of the abandoned party and bloodshed.</p>
<p>The front door of the home was open and what appeared to be a shirt and a shoulder bag were left covered in blood in the yard. Five pickup trucks were parked in the front yard, and several other cars lined the streets.</p>
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<p>Three trails of blood could be seen leading away from the house in various directions, and the yard and nearby streets were littered with empty beer bottles, cans and liquor bottles.</p>
<p>Lisa Gray, who lives nearby, said she awoke between 1 and 2 a.m. to hear her neighbors throwing a party.</p>
<p>Gray said she heard the gunshots and looked outside to see two or three men walking down the street toward the party house. She said she could see the muzzle flashes as one of them began firing off several rounds. She called 911.</p>
<p>"This guy was walking down the middle of the street; he pulls out a gun and shot into the crowd of people," Gray said. "I just closed the door and got down."</p>
<p>Officer Simon Drobik, a spokesman for the Albuquerque Police Department, said he didn't know if police are looking for other suspects or if they believe Whitmire is the only one who injured people.</p>
<p>Digital Editor Robert Browman contributed to this report.</p>
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<p /> | Four wounded in house party shooting | false | https://abqjournal.com/754483/four-wounded-in-house-party-shooting.html | 2016-04-09 | 2 |
<p>Ecuador's government acknowledged Tuesday that it had partly restricted internet access for Julian Assange, the founder of anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, who has lived in the South American country's embassy in London since mid-2012.</p>
<p>WikiLeaks said Assange lost connectivity Sunday, sparking speculation that Ecuador might have been pressured by the United States because of the group's publication of hacked material linked to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.</p>
<p>Related: <a href="" type="internal">WikiLeaks: Assange's Internet 'Severed' by State Actor</a></p>
<p>The State Department denied the claims Tuesday.</p>
<p>Ecuador's leftist government said later that WikiLeaks' decision to publish documents affecting the U.S. election was entirely its own responsibility and that the country didn't want to meddle in election processes or favor any candidate.</p>
<p>"In that respect, Ecuador, exercising its sovereign right, has temporarily restricted access to part of its communications systems in its UK Embassy," it added in a statement. "Ecuador does not cede to pressures from other countries."</p>
<p>WikiLeaks said that unspecified "contingency plans" were in place and the site and that its Twitter feed appeared to be working as usual. On Tuesday it released a tranche of emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, suggesting that the group's ability to publish has yet to be compromised.</p>
<p>The disclosure was the 11th installation in a series of leaks that has captured the workings of Clinton's inner circle and included excerpts of her well-compensated speeches to the investment bank Goldman Sachs.</p>
<p>Those leaks themselves are part of a wider cascade that has embarrassed and destabilized the Democratic Party and that the U.S. intelligence community has recently described as an attempt by the Russian government to interfere in the U.S. election.</p>
<p>Assange has been holed up at the modest embassy suite at No. 3 Hans Crescent in London for more than four years after he skipped bail to avoid extradition to Sweden over sex crimes allegations, a position that — until now — hasn't prevented him from continuing to play a pivotal role in exposing state secrets and backroom trade deals.</p>
<p>Assange remains wanted in Sweden, and British authorities have made it clear that they would arrest him if he tried to leave. London's Metropolitan Police used to maintain a visible presence outside the building, although officers were nowhere in sight when an AP journalist visited Tuesday.</p> | Ecuador Acknowledges Limiting Julian Assange’s Web Access | false | http://nbcnews.com/news/world/ecuador-acknowledges-limiting-julian-assanges-web-access-n668361 | 2016-10-19 | 3 |
<p>Ali Velshi shows what journalism is all about as he challenged lying Congressman Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma, who attempted to malign Obamacare.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>MSNBC Host Ali Velshi reminded Congressman Tom Cole (R-OK) that Republicans had seven years to come up with a plan to replace Obamacare.</p>
<p>"At some point, if there is a plan," Velshi asked. "Is someone's going to tell someone about it or is it a secret?"</p>
<p>"I don't think it is a secret," Cole said. "Part of the problem is that we are inheriting a failing system. It's already collapsing, and that was going to happen no matter who the next president of the United States was. Rates are going up. Insurance companies are fleeing the marketplace."</p>
<p>"You are aware congressman&#160;that rates were always going up, right?" Velshi interjected to correct Cole's misrepresentation. "In fact, the rate of increase has slowed."</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>"Not like 116% in Arizona or an average of 25% across the board," Cole continued. "No, they are not always going up and not at this rate."</p>
<p>Velshi then came in for the kill. In other words, he had the facts, graph and all.</p>
<p />
<p>"I just want to put up a graphic that is from the Kaiser Family Foundation," said Velshi. "It divides health care cost increases between 2006 and 2011, a five-year period. And then the latest five-year period which is 2011 to 2016. The first five-year period saw 31% health care premium increases. The new one is 20. So in fact, you can dice this and slice this a lot of ways. But premiums across the board are not actually increasing faster than they were before. I think that is something Republicans are going to have to face."</p>
<p>Cole changed his tune somewhat as he tried to attribute some of the price improvements to Republican passage of Medicare Part D, a big government program that itself had some problems initially.</p>
<p>"But your point is a fair one," Cole conceded. "It is a very complex picture. I think Obamacare Exchange rates have gone up exceptionally high, others not quite so much. And again, that's partly because of the nature of the population you have in those exchanges."</p>
<p>Obamacare is complicated because, in fact, it is market-based. If it were a <a href="https://singlepayerhealthcarenow.com/best-answer-what-single-payer/" type="external">single-payer system</a>, if that system could negotiate pricing to prevent drug company and hospital gouging, Americans would see a system that works efficiently like&#160;those in Canada, Germany, and other industrialized countries.</p> | MSNBC Ali Velshi’s real journalism slams Congressman’s Obamacare lie in real time (VIDEO) | true | https://egbertowillies.com/2017/01/04/msnbc-ali-velshi-real-journalism-obamacare/ | 2017-01-04 | 4 |
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>American diplomat <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_Morrow" type="external">Dwight Morrow</a>&#160;wrote, “Any party which takes credit for the rain must not be surprised if its opponents blame it for the drought.”</p>
<p>Likewise any policymakers that take credit for restoring rivers for fish and not building dams should not be surprised when they&#160;get blamed for water shortages and groundwater overdrafting.</p>
<p>On June 1 the Sacramento Bee ran an article by Matt Weiser and Jeremy B. White&#160;headlined,&#160; <a href="http://www.sacbee.com/2014/06/01/6448005/should-california-use-taxpayer.html#storylink=cpy" type="external">“Should California use taxpayer dollars to build more dams?”</a>&#160;Effectively answering in the negative, they cited several experts saying&#160;new dams would yield little water for too high a cost.</p>
<p>Then on June 2 the Bee editorial page itself advocated,&#160; <a href="http://www.sacbee.com/2014/06/02/6448051/editorial-its-high-time-california.html#storylink=cpy" type="external">“It’s high time California Manages [sic]</a>&#160; <a href="http://www.sacbee.com/2014/06/02/6448051/editorial-its-high-time-california.html#storylink=cpy" type="external">its underground water sources.”</a>&#160; The Bee saw groundwater&#160;regulation, not new water storage, as an urgently needed solution to the overdraft problem.</p>
<p>Groundwater overdrafting is not exactly a new phenomenon to California. Check out the following chart.</p>
<p />
<p>The chart shows that, even in the more severe drought of 1977, groundwater levels bounced back. And notice how, in Central California, it is only the southerly <a href="" type="internal">Tulare Water Basin</a> that is in long-term decline.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, an April 2014 study by the <a href="http://www.californiawaterfoundation.org/uploads/1397858208-SUBSIDENCEFULLREPORT_FINAL.pdf" type="external">California Water Foundation</a> found the Tulare Basin is where most of the land subsidence from the drought is occurring (see map page 21).</p>
<p>But the major groundwater loss prior to the drought was in the <a href="http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2009-194" type="external">Central Valley and San Joaquin River Basins</a>.&#160;The Bee ran a&#160; <a href="http://www.sacbee.com/2014/06/02/6448051_a6448050/editorial-its-high-time-california.html" type="external">photo</a>&#160;&#160;showing subsidence. But that is not necessarily just cause for adopting sweeping groundwater regulations in the entire Central Valley.&#160;</p>
<p>On June 3,&#160;California Farmwater Coalition Spokeman&#160;Mike Wade <a href="http://farmwaternews.blogspot.com/2014/06/news-articles-and-links-from-june-3-2014.html" type="external">responded</a>to the Bee groundwater regulation editorial:</p>
<p>“In fact, the Valley Ag Water Coalition was actually the FIRST organization to propose language that would allow local government to impose fees on groundwater pumping to fund local improvements with dollars coming from groundwater pumping activities.”</p>
<p>So if local governments can handle the situation, is statewide groundwater regulation really urgently needed?</p>
<p>Moreover, State Sen. Fran Pavley’s proposed <a href="http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/13-14/bill/sen/sb_1151-1200/sb_1168_cfa_20140525_124322_sen_floor.html" type="external">Senate Bill 1168</a> requiring local groundwater management plans sounds duplicative to <a href="http://www.water.ca.gov/groundwater/gwmanagement/ab_3030.cfm" type="external">Assembly Bill 3030</a> passed in 1992.</p>
<p>Experts cited by the Bee said&#160;new dams would yield little new water at unjustifiable costs for minor benefits to fish, farms or cities. However, the sole focus on the total cost of newly developed water storage sources distorts what the overall blended system cost would be.</p>
<p>Older reservoirs provide cheap water because they were built so long ago that their capital costs have mostly been paid off or minimized by monetary inflation. The incremental cost of old and new water facilities is what water ratepayers feel in their water bills.</p>
<p>The reported <a href="http://www.sacbee.com/2014/06/01/6448005/should-california-use-taxpayer.html#storylink=cpy" type="external">$8.8 billion</a> total cost of five proposed new dam projects can also be expressed as costing $3 per month for each California household.&#160; As the <a href="http://baydeltaconservationplan.com/news/blog/14-01-10/Correcting_Stubborn_Myths_Part_II.aspx" type="external">Bay Delta Conservation Plan</a> website explained&#160;about the cost of big water projects:</p>
<p>“When purchases are financed by debt, like mortgages or car payments, some are tempted to calculate the total cost of the purchase by simply adding up the stream of debt payments over the life of the loan. This is a mistaken way to think about capital costs. … If the interest rate used to discount the value of money available in the future is close to the interest rate on debt, then these two effects cancel out.”&#160;</p>
<p>Overblown reports of groundwater depletion and land subsidence such as requiring groundwater regulation have not been put in historical context. New backup water storage is needed as no new dams have been built since 1973.</p>
<p>And nearly $20 billion spent on <a href="" type="internal">five water-conservation bonds</a> since 2000 have yielded no new water storage. Bonds ultimately must be paid back with tax dollars. If that money had been spent the past 14 years on dams, there likely would be no state drought crisis.</p>
<p>The old solution that has worked in the past — building more dams — remains as a policy option.</p> | More dams or regulations to alleviate drought? | false | https://calwatchdog.com/2014/06/06/more-dams-or-regulations-to-alleviate-drought/ | 2018-06-20 | 3 |
<p />
<p>From US News By&#160; <a href="http://www.usnews.com/topics/author/steven_nelson" type="external">STEVEN NELSON</a></p>
<p>October 7, 2013&#160; <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/10/07/truckers-for-the-constitution-plan-to-slow-dc-beltway-arrest-congressmen_print.html" type="external" /></p>
<p />
<p>Trucker-specific grievances behind the protest include Environmental Protection Agency fuel efficiency standards and the high cost of diesel fuel. State and local anti-idling laws as well as insurance companies purportedly requiring technological updates are among the irritations, as is the perceived deterioration of Fourth Amendment rights protecting truckers’ cabs.</p>
<p>Whether or not the truckers pack a punch to D.C. area traffic depends on the number and intensity level of participants. A similar three-day protest in 2007, against illegal immigration and competition from Mexican truckers, did not spoil commutes as feared, the Washington Examiner&#160; <a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/truckers-protest-doesnt-strain-beltway-as-feared/article/84557" type="external">reported</a>. A Facebook&#160; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ridefortheconstitution" type="external">pag</a>e&#160;advertising the upcoming ride has close to 50,000 likes.</p> | Go, truckers!!!!…. | true | https://powderedwigsociety.com/go-truckers/ | 2013-10-08 | 0 |
<p>PBS Need to Know‘s Jon Meacham recently <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/environment/big-oils-chernobyl/1298/" type="external">interviewed</a> Carl Safina, president and co-founder of the <a href="http://www.blueocean.org/home" type="external">Blue Ocean Institute</a>, on the dirty dispersants BP is using on the spill, the long-term forecast for the Gulf, and why the spill is shaping up to be the oil industry’s Chernobyl. The segment (below) is really worth watching in its entirety, but here are a few highlights:</p>
<p>Jon Meacham: You testified last week that the dispersant was an out-of-sight, out-of-mind strategy.</p>
<p>Carl Safina: A good way of thinking about it is you have a greasy pan, you put the detergent on it and it starts dissolving the oil. So it’s no longer sticking in a concentrated way, it’s creating a bowl of dirty dishwater. That’s what a dispersant does. It doesn’t neutralize the oil. It doesn’t make the oil go away. In fact, the dispersant makes the oil more toxic to living things…The toxic parts don’t evaporate, because they’re not at the surface. They can get into the gills, into the mouths of fish, and they bathe all the larval eggs, all the baby fish, and all the little baby crustaceans…And the dispersant itself is also toxic.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>JM: What are your views on the long-term effects on ocean life?</p>
<p>CS: No one knows exactly what the long-term effects will be, but we have quite a bit to draw on. We know the oil is toxic, we know the dispersant is toxic, and it makes the oil more toxic, and we know there is more of it in this semi-enclosed body of water than has ever happened in history. So there is almost certainly a very large die-off of fish eggs, fish larvae, and plankton communities. We also know that turtles eat oil. They just tend to ingest these blobs, because they eat jellyfish usually. And it kills them. We also know it kills dolphins and whales. When the Exxon Valdez ran aground it killed about 40 percent of the killer whales there. That population has not recovered in 20 years. The herring population has also not recovered in 20 years. So we knows it kills wildlife at the moment of the event, and that the long-term effects can linger for decades.</p>
<p>JM: Characterize this. Is this a Katrina-like event? What are the analogies in history that you’re thinking of?</p>
<p>CS: In talking to people in the Gulf, they are saying this is going to make Katrina look like a bad day…I think that rather than this being something like Katrina, this is Big Oil’s Chernobyl. I think it’s a catastrophe that shows the enormous risk this industry poses to public health, and to the health of communities.</p>
<p>JM: Who do you blame for the spill? Is it BP? Is it lax regulation? And what can we do to make sure this doesn’t happen again?</p>
<p>CS: I think we have a culture of irresponsibility and a culture that makes us think about ourselves first, instead of our safety first, or our community first, or our country first. BP has been irresponsible. They had indications of trouble, they went ahead. They didn’t want to spend more money on a better backup system. They didn’t have backup plans. On the other hand, we have a government whose job is supposed to be to insulate our interest—the public interest and the interest of the future and the country—from the narrow interest of a few people, and that failed, too. …</p>
<p>JM: Is there any good that can come from this?</p>
<p>CS: I’m not sure any good can come out of this, but there is a very important lesson t be learned. People have said that the Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of rocks. We’re trying to wring the last drops out of oil that we’re depleting. Ever since I was in high school we have known that what we need is a diverse array of fuel sources that focuses mainly on clean, renewable sources of energey…We need to move that way by building a grid that can carry that energy around the country from wherever it’s abundant to wherever it’s needed.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>JM: What can ordinary Americans who are concerned about this actually do to help reverse course?</p>
<p>CS: One of the things that we hear is that we are all responsible because we all use petroleum. That’s not really why we’re all responsible. We’re all responsible because we haven’t insisted on an energy policy that gets us beyond fossil fuels. Ever since we’ve lived in caves, every time we want energy we light something on fire. We’re still doing that. I think it’s time for us to get out of our caves and use the clean, eternal, renewable energy. &#160;</p>
<p />
<p>This PBS <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/" type="external">Need to Know</a> interview with Carl Safina comes courtesy of the <a href="http://theclimatedesk.org/" type="external">Climate Desk</a> collaboration.</p> | Big Oil’s Chernobyl? | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2010/06/safina-big-oil-chernobyl/ | 2010-06-07 | 4 |
<p>&lt;a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&amp;search_source=search_form&amp;search_tracking_id=-rQ30d4qkJ3YKYckrqKICA&amp;version=llv1&amp;anyorall=all&amp;safesearch=1&amp;searchterm=rotten+apple&amp;search_group=&amp;orient=&amp;search_cat=&amp;searchtermx=&amp;photographer_name=&amp;people_gender=&amp;people_age=&amp;people_ethnicity=&amp;people_number=&amp;commercial_ok=&amp;color=&amp;show_color_wheel=1#id=127477541&amp;src=ww_V_JzcGxne8U7jUSCadg-1-21"&gt;wavebreakmedia&lt;/a&gt;/Shutterstock</p>
<p />
<p>The revelation that Apple used a <a href="" type="internal">web of baroque tax strategies</a> to legally pay little to no taxes on <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/with-complex-web-of-offshore-entities-apple-avoids-taxes-senate/2013/05/20/a59daea6-c16c-11e2-bfdb-3886a561c1ff_story.html?hpid=z3" type="external">tens of billions of dollars</a> it earned overseas has re-ignited the debate over reforming the US tax code. But the non-partisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) warned this week against proposals pushed by Apple and other large multinational corporations that would reduce taxes on offshore profits in order to encourage companies to bring that money back home.</p>
<p>Offshore profits are currently taxed at the same rate as onshore profits: <a href="http://ivn.us/2013/05/23/apple-ceo-tim-cook-proposes-drastic-tax-overhaul/" type="external">35 percent</a>. Big US corporations have <a href="http://www.offthechartsblog.org/questions-about-apples-tax-strategy-highlight-risks-of-a-territorial-tax-system/" type="external">lobbied</a> aggressively for the United States to shift to what is called a territorial tax system, in which foreign profits would be subject to low or no US taxes.&#160;The idea was a cornerstone of former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s economic platform last year. Now, Apple CEO Tim Cook is calling for a <a href="http://ivn.us/2013/05/23/apple-ceo-tim-cook-proposes-drastic-tax-overhaul/" type="external">single-digit tax rate</a> on overseas profits, as well as a reduction of the overall US corporate tax rate to the <a href="http://ivn.us/2013/05/23/apple-ceo-tim-cook-proposes-drastic-tax-overhaul/" type="external">mid-20s</a>.</p>
<p>Chuck Marr, the director of federal tax policy at the CBPP, <a href="http://www.offthechartsblog.org/questions-about-apples-tax-strategy-highlight-risks-of-a-territorial-tax-system/" type="external">explains</a> that such a system would only make overseas profit-making more attractive—and that would weaken the US economy:</p>
<p>Multinational companies like Apple currently have a strong incentive to defer US corporate taxes by shifting and keeping profits overseas… [A] territorial system would create greater incentives for those companies to invest and book profits overseas rather than at home—and that, in turn, risks reducing wages at home by encouraging investment to flow overseas, increasing budget deficits by draining revenues from the corporate income tax, or raising taxes on smaller companies and domestic businesses to offset the revenue loss.</p>
<p>Democrats and trade unions agree, <a href="http://www.offthechartsblog.org/questions-about-apples-tax-strategy-highlight-risks-of-a-territorial-tax-system/" type="external">arguing</a> that the United States should move in the other direction and tax foreign profits in the years they are made.&#160;They contend this would stem the corporate practice of deferring tax payments until the cash is brought back to the United States.</p>
<p>“We are dismantling vital government services because we don’t have revenue to support them,” Damon Silvers, the policy director of the AFL-CIO <a href="http://www.offthechartsblog.org/questions-about-apples-tax-strategy-highlight-risks-of-a-territorial-tax-system/" type="external">told the Financial Times</a> earlier this week. “And we have one of the most profitable corporations in the world [Apple] stashing $100 billion in [low-tax] jurisdictions.”</p>
<p>Other high-tech companies are increasingly shifting profit-making overseas. The revelations about Apple’s shenanigans—which apparently are legal—have drawn attention to <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/with-complex-web-of-offshore-entities-apple-avoids-taxes-senate/2013/05/20/a59daea6-c16c-11e2-bfdb-3886a561c1ff_story.html?hpid=z3" type="external">similar behavior</a> by many high-tech firms, including Google, HP, and Microsoft. “These [tax] incentives are creating unfair advantages for multinationals and draining much-needed tax revenue,” says Marr. “The president and Congress should resist the lobbying campaign and instead focus on reducing the incentive to shift profits and operations overseas.”</p>
<p /> | Expert: Congress Shouldn’t Listen to Apple’s Tax Plan | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2013/05/apple-offshore-tax-territorial-cbpp/ | 2013-05-24 | 4 |
<p />
<p>Shares of tech titan Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) tumbled more than 7.5% at one point Wednesday morning, but the move was apparently the result of a botched trade.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Apple’s selloff was alarming because it did not appear to be triggered by any new developments and it appeared to briefly wipe out $24 billion from the company’s tech-leading $322 billion market cap.</p>
<p>Apple’s stock sank to an intraday low of $321.87 and Reuters data show there was just one trade of 100 shares at that price made on the BATS-Y Exchange.</p>
<p>"The trade was busted under BATS clearly erroneous trade policy," a BATS spokesperson told FOX Business.</p>
<p>It’s not clear what caused the trading error.</p>
<p>Shares of Apple recovered from the loss and were recently up 0.21% to $348.74. The stock has rallied almost 8% this year and 34% from a year ago.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>There have been a number of times major market exchanges have been forced to cancel botched trades since last year’s so-called Flash Crash, which wiped out nearly 1,000 points and $1 trillion of market capitalization from the <a href="" type="internal">Dow Jones</a> Industrial Average in a mysterious selloff.</p>
<p>Apple was the subject of a similar unusual drop in its stock price on February 10.</p> | Botched Trade Causes Apple Stock to Briefly Dive | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2011/05/04/botched-trade-causes-apple-stock-briefly-dive.html | 2016-03-04 | 0 |
<p>By Bob Allen</p>
<p>Gus Reyes, director of affinity ministries and <a href="http://www.baptiststandard.com/news/texas/11264-texas-baptists-hispanic-education-initiative-making-tangible-progress?highlight=YTozOntpOjA7czozOiJndXMiO2k6MTtzOjU6InJleWVzIjtpOjI7czo5OiJndXMgcmV5ZXMiO30=" type="external">Hispanic Education Initiative</a> for the Baptist General Convention of Texas, has been named director of the state convention’s Christian Life Commission.</p>
<p>Reyes, who has a Ph.D. from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, has been on staff at the BGCT since 2002. He succeeds Suzii Paynter, who stepped down last year to become executive coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in Decatur, Ga.</p>
<p>“Dr. Reyes’ work with education and immigration reform on a state and federal government level has proven his passion and ability to give a voice to those who have no voice,” said David Hardage, executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. “After receiving applications and conducting interviews from a national search, we discovered the person God has placed before us for this position was already with us.”</p> | Gus Reyes to direct Texas Baptist CLC | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/gus-reyes-to-direct-texas-baptist-clc/ | 3 |
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<p>By Rebecca Solnit, TomDispatchThis piece first appeared at TomDispatch. Read Tom Engelhardt’s introduction <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175598/tomgram%3A_rebecca_solnit%2C_we_could_be_heroes/#more" type="external">here</a>.</p>
<p>Dear Allies,</p>
<p>Forgive me if I briefly take my eyes off the prize to brush away some flies, but the buzzing has gone on for some time. I have a grand goal, and that is to counter the Republican right with its deep desire to annihilate everything I love and to move toward far more radical goals than the Democrats ever truly support. In the course of pursuing that, however, I’ve come up against the habits of my presumed allies again and again.</p>
<p>O rancid sector of the far left, please stop your grousing! Compared to you, Eeyore sounds like a Teletubby. If I gave you a pony, you would not only be furious that not everyone has a pony, but you would pick on the pony for not being radical enough until it wept big, sad, hot pony tears. Because what we’re talking about here is not an analysis, a strategy, or a cosmology, but an attitude, and one that is poisoning us. Not just me, but you, us, and our possibilities.</p>
<p />
<p>Leftists Explain Things to Me</p>
<p>The poison often emerges around electoral politics. Look, Obama does bad things and I deplore them, though not with a lot of fuss, since they’re hardly a surprise. He sometimes also does not-bad things, and I sometimes mention them in passing, and mentioning them does not negate the reality of the bad things.</p>
<p>The same has been true of other politicians: the recent governor of my state, <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175183/tomgram:__rebecca_solnit,_earth,_too_big_to_fail/" type="external">Arnold Schwarzenegger</a>, was in some respects quite good on climate change. Yet it was impossible for me to say so to a radical without receiving an earful about all the other ways in which Schwarzenegger was terrible, as if the speaker had a news scoop, as if he or she thought I had been living under a rock, as if the presence of bad things made the existence of good ones irrelevant. As a result, it was impossible to discuss what Schwarzenegger was doing on climate change (and unnecessary for my interlocutors to know about it, no less figure out how to use it).</p>
<p>So here I want to lay out an insanely obvious principle that apparently needs clarification. There are bad things and they are bad. There are good things and they are good, even though the bad things are bad. The mentioning of something good does not require the automatic assertion of a bad thing. The good thing might be an interesting avenue to pursue in itself if you want to get anywhere. In that context, the bad thing has all the safety of a dead end. And yes, much in the realm of electoral politics is hideous, but since it also shapes quite a bit of the world, if you want to be political or even informed you have to pay attention to it and maybe even work with it.&#160;</p>
<p>Instead, I constantly encounter a response that presumes the job at hand is to figure out what’s wrong, even when dealing with an actual victory, or a constructive development. Recently, I mentioned that California’s current attorney general, Kamala Harris, is anti-death penalty and also acting in good ways to defend people against foreclosure. A snarky Berkeley professor’s immediate response began, “Excuse me, she’s anti-death penalty, but let the record show that her office condoned the illegal purchase of lethal injection drugs.”</p>
<p>Apparently, we are not allowed to celebrate the fact that the attorney general for 12% of all Americans is pretty cool in a few key ways or figure out where that could take us. My respondent was attempting to crush my ebullience and wither the discussion, and what purpose exactly does that serve?</p>
<p>This kind of response often has an air of punishing or condemning those who are less radical, and it is exactly the opposite of movement- or alliance-building. Those who don’t simply exit the premises will be that much more cautious about opening their mouths. Except to bitch, the acceptable currency of the realm. &#160;</p>
<p>My friend Jaime Cortez, a magnificent person and writer, sent this my way: “At a dinner party recently, I expressed my pleasure that some parts of Obamacare passed, and starting 2014, the picture would be improved. I was regaled with reminders of the horrors of the drone program that Obama supports, and reminded how inadequate Obamacare was. I responded that it is not perfect, but it was an incremental improvement, and I was glad for it. But really, I felt dumb and flat-footed for being grateful.”</p>
<p>The Emperor Is Naked and Uninteresting &#160;</p>
<p>Maybe it’s part of our country’s Puritan heritage, of demonstrating one’s own purity and superiority rather than focusing on fixing problems or being compassionate. Maybe it comes from people who grew up in the mainstream and felt like the kid who pointed out that the emperor had no clothes, that there were naked lies, hypocrisies, and corruptions in the system.</p>
<p>Believe me, a lot of us already know most of the dimples on the imperial derriere by now, and there are other things worth discussing. Often, it’s not the emperor that’s the important news anyway, but the peasants in their revolts and even their triumphs, while this mindset I’m trying to describe remains locked on the emperor, in fury and maybe in self-affirmation.</p>
<p>When you’re a hammer everything looks like a nail, but that’s not a good reason to continue to pound down anything in the vicinity. Consider what needs to be raised up as well.&#160; Consider our powers, our victories, our possibilities; ask yourself just what you’re contributing, what kind of story you’re telling, and what kind you want to be telling.</p>
<p>Sitting around with the first occupiers of Zuccotti Park on the first anniversary of Occupy, I listened to one lovely young man talking about the rage his peers, particularly his gender, often have.&#160; But, he added, fury is not a tactic or a strategy, though it might sometimes provide the necessary energy for getting things done.</p>
<p>There are so many ways to imagine this mindset — or maybe its many mindsets with many origins — in which so many are mired. Perhaps one version devolves from academic debate, which at its best is a constructive, collaborative building of an argument through testing and challenge, but at its worst represents the habitual tearing down of everything, and encourages a subculture of sourness that couldn’t be less productive.</p>
<p>Picture Gandhi’s salt marchers bitching all the way to the sea, or the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174881/rebecca_solnit_encounters_with_the_zapatistas" type="external">Zapatistas</a>, if Subcomandante Marcos was merely the master kvetcher of the Lacandon jungle, or an Aung San Suu Kyi who conducted herself like a caustic American pundit. Why did the Egyptian revolutionary who told me about being tortured repeatedly seem so much less bitter than many of those I run into here who have never suffered such harm?</p>
<p>There is idealism somewhere under this pile of bile, the pernicious idealism that wants the world to be perfect and is disgruntled that it isn’t — and that it never will be. That’s why the perfect is the enemy of the good. Because, really, people, part of how we are going to thrive in this imperfect moment is through élan, esprit du corps, fierce hope, and generous hearts.</p>
<p>We talk about prefigurative politics, the idea that you can embody your goal. This is often discussed as doing your political organizing through direct-democratic means, but not as being heroic in your spirit or generous in your gestures.</p>
<p>Left-Wing Vote Suppression</p>
<p>One manifestation of this indiscriminate biliousness is the statement that gets aired every four years: that in presidential elections we are asked to choose the lesser of two evils. Now, this is not an analysis or an insight; it is a cliché, and a very tired one, and it often comes in the same package as the insistence that there is no difference between the candidates. You can reframe it, however, by saying: we get a choice, and not choosing at all can be tantamount in its consequences to choosing the greater of two evils.</p>
<p>But having marriage rights or discrimination protection or access to health care is not the lesser of two evils. If I vote for a Democrat, I do so in the hopes that fewer people will suffer, not in the belief that that option will eliminate suffering or bring us to anywhere near my goals or represent my values perfectly. Yet people are willing to use this “evils” slogan to wrap up all the infinite complexity of the fate of the Earth and everything living on it and throw it away.</p>
<p>I don’t love electoral politics, particularly the national variety. I generally find such elections depressing and look for real hope to the people-powered movements around the globe and subtler social and imaginative shifts toward more compassion and more creativity. Still, every four years we are asked if we want to have our foot trod upon or sawed off at the ankle without anesthetic. The usual reply on the left is that there’s no difference between the two experiences and they prefer that Che Guevara give them a spa pedicure. Now, the Che pedicure is not actually one of the available options, though surely in heaven we will all have our toenails painted camo green by El Jefe.</p>
<p>Before that transpires, there’s something to be said for actually examining the differences.&#160; In some cases not choosing the trod foot may bring us all closer to that unbearable amputation. Or maybe it’s that the people in question won’t be the ones to suffer, because their finances, health care, educational access, and so forth are not at stake.</p>
<p>An undocumented immigrant <a href="http://www.syracusenewtimes.com/newyork/article-5931-undocumented-immigra.html" type="external">writes</a> me, “The Democratic Party is not our friend: it is the only party we can negotiate with.” Or as a Nevada activist friend put it, “Oh my God, go be sanctimonious in California and don’t vote or whatever, but those bitching radicals are basically suppressing the vote in states where it matters.”</p>
<p>Presidential electoral politics is as riddled with corporate money and lobbyists as a long-dead dog with maggots, and deeply mired in the manure of the status quo — and everyone knows it. (So stop those news bulletins, please.) People who told me back in 2000 that there was no difference between Bush and Gore never got back to me afterward.</p>
<p>I didn’t like Gore, the ex-NAFTA-advocate and pro-WTO shill, but I knew that the differences did matter, especially to the most vulnerable among us, whether to people in Africa dying from the early impacts of <a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2012/0620/1224318256659.html" type="external">climate change</a> or to the shift since 2000 that has turned our nation from a place where more than two-thirds of women had abortion rights in their states to one where <a href="http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/gpr/15/1/gpr150114.html%20" type="external">less than half</a> of them have those rights. Liberals often concentrate on domestic policy, where education, health care, and economic justice matter more and where Democrats are sometimes decent, even lifesaving, while radicals are often obsessed with foreign policy to the exclusion of all else.</p>
<p>I’m with those who are horrified by Obama’s presidential <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0086EF89K/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=tomdispatch-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B0086EF89K" type="external">drone wars</a>, his dismal inaction on global climate treaties, and his administration’s soaring numbers of deportations of undocumented immigrants. That some of you find his actions so repugnant you may not vote for him, or that you find the whole electoral political system poisonous, I also understand.</p>
<p>At a demonstration in support of Bradley Manning this month, I was handed a postcard of a dead child with the caption “Tell this child the Democrats are the lesser of two evils.” It behooves us not to use the dead for our own devices, but that child did die thanks to an Obama Administration policy.&#160; Others live because of the way that same administration has provided <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/05/us/politics/05health.html" type="external">health insurance</a> for millions of poor children or, for example, reinstated <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/09/18/866681/permitting-poison-in-the-air-means-more-money-for-the-romney-ryan-campaign/" type="external">environmental regulations</a> that save thousands of lives.</p>
<p>You could argue that to vote for Obama is to vote for the killing of children, or that to vote for him is to vote for the protection for other children or even killing fewer children. Virtually all U.S. presidents have called down death upon their fellow human beings. It is an immoral system.</p>
<p>You don’t have to participate in this system, but you do have to describe it and its complexities and contradictions accurately, and you do have to understand that when you choose not to participate, it better be for reasons more interesting than the cultivation of your own moral superiority, which is so often also the cultivation of recreational bitterness.</p>
<p>Bitterness poisons you and it poisons the people you feed it to, and with it you drive away a lot of people who don’t like poison. You don’t have to punish those who do choose to participate. Actually, you don’t have to punish anyone, period.</p>
<p>We Could Be Heroes</p>
<p>We are facing a radical right that has abandoned all interest in truth and fact. We face not only their specific policies, but a kind of cultural decay that comes from not valuing truth, not trying to understand the complexities and nuances of our situation, and not making empathy a force with which to act. To oppose them requires us to be different from them, and that begins with both empathy and intelligence, which are not as separate as we have often been told.</p>
<p>Being different means celebrating what you have in common with potential allies, not punishing them for often-minor differences. It means developing a more complex understanding of the matters under consideration than the cartoonish black and white that both left and the right tend to fall back on.</p>
<p>Dismissiveness is a way of disengaging from both the facts on the ground and the obligations those facts bring to bear on your life. As Michael Eric Dyson recently <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/7/effective_evil_or_progressives_best_hope" type="external">put it</a>, “What is not good are ideals and rhetorics that don’t have the possibility of changing the condition that you analyze. Otherwise, you’re engaging in a form of rhetorical narcissism and ideological self-preoccupation that has no consequence on the material conditions of actually existing poor people.”</p>
<p>Nine years ago I began writing about <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/677/" type="external">hope</a>, and I eventually began to refer to my project as “snatching the teddy bear of despair from the loving arms of the left.” All that complaining is a form of defeatism, a premature surrender, or an excuse for not really doing much. Despair is also a form of dismissiveness, a way of saying that you already know what will happen and nothing can be done, or that the differences don’t matter, or that nothing but the impossibly perfect is acceptable. If you’re privileged you can then go home and watch bad TV or reinforce your grumpiness with equally grumpy friends.</p>
<p>The desperate are often much more hopeful than that — the <a href="http://www.ciw-online.org/" type="external">Coalition of Immokalee Workers</a>, that amazingly effective immigrant farmworkers’ rights group, is hopeful because quitting for them would mean surrendering to modern-day slavery, dire poverty, hunger, or death, not cable-TV reruns. They’re hopeful and they’re powerful, and they went up against Taco Bell, McDonald’s, Safeway, Whole Foods, and Trader Joe’s, and they won.</p>
<p>The great human-rights activist Harvey Milk was hopeful, even though when he was assassinated gays and lesbians had almost no rights (but had just won two major victories in which he played a role). He famously said, “You have to give people hope.” &#160;&#160;</p>
<p>In terms of the rights since won by gays and lesbians, where we are now would undoubtedly amaze Milk, and we got there step by step, one pragmatic and imperfect victory at a time — with so many more yet to be won. To be hopeful means to be uncertain about the future, to be tender toward possibilities, to be dedicated to change all the way down to the bottom of your heart.</p>
<p>There are really only two questions for activists: What do you want to achieve?&#160; And who do you want to be?&#160; And those two questions are deeply entwined. Every minute of every hour of every day you are making the world, just as you are making yourself, and you might as do it with generosity and kindness and style.</p>
<p>That is the small ongoing victory on which great victories can be built, and you do want victories, don’t you? Make sure you’re clear on the answer to that, and think about what they would look like.</p>
<p>Love,</p>
<p>Rebecca</p>
<p>As in 2004 and 2008, Rebecca Solnit and her blue-state henchwomen and men will probably invade northern Nevada on election week to swing with one of the most swinging states in the union. She is, however, much more excited about 350.org’s <a href="http://act.350.org/sign/subsidies/" type="external">anti-oil-company campaign</a> and the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175593/tomgram%3A_rebecca_solnit%2C_success_is_for_the_stubborn/" type="external">ten thousand faces of Occupy</a> now changing the world. Also, she wrote some <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0143118072/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">books</a>.</p>
<p>Copyright 2012 Rebecca Solnit</p> | Leftists Explain Things to Me | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/leftists-explain-things-to-me/ | 2012-09-28 | 4 |
<p>Could it be possible?&#160; A world without the trawling, pervasive influence of Wikipedia?&#160; Or the vast quarries of information that can be gathered from a search on Google?&#160; The scene has been set by the latest Wikipedia advertisement.&#160; The language is pitched on a biblical level: ‘For over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history.’&#160; But enter the bogeyman, those participants in what Will Rogers called the greatest studio of the world – Congress.&#160; ‘Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet.&#160; For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia.’</p>
<p>Wikipedia is being a touch disingenuous about the idea of ‘free knowledge’.&#160; The concept is as spurious as a free market and free love. For 24 dark hours, students around the world have not been able to lift entire concepts and sentences gleaned from sources available at the click of a mouse.&#160; But one can be rather flippant about the pieties of internet freedom, giving the impression that Wikipedia is much like Borges’s Library of Babel, till one realizes the grave impact the bills being posed by the US Congress might well have.</p>
<p>On the site, Wikipedia explained that it was being ‘blacked-out’ because of its protest ‘against SOPA and PIPA’.&#160; This only applied to the English part of Wikipedia – happy is the polyglot who can profit from various other tongues. SOPA is short for the Stop Online Piracy Act (HR 3261), while the childishly named PIPA (S.968) is the abbreviation for Senate equivalent – the Protect IP Act. As ever, the target here is the ever sacred idea of copyright infringement, in this case, the sort committed by foreign web sites.&#160; The argument made by Wikipedia is that the measures as they stand infringe free expression and harm the internet at the same time.</p>
<p>The studio of Congress can be distinctly quiet when it wants to be.&#160; Minimal scrutiny has been given to the bills.&#160; House Judiciary Chair and Texas Republican Lamar Smith, along with 12 co-sponsors, brought SOPA forth on October 26 last year.&#160; One hearing took place on November 16, with a ‘mark-up’ period on December 15 (Gizmodo, Jan 17).</p>
<p>The tech buffs are not impressed.&#160; For the tech blog Gizmodo (Jan 17), ‘The beating heart of SOPA is the ability of intellectual property owners (read: movie studios and record labels) to effectively pull the plug on foreign sites against whom they have a copyright claim.’&#160; An example is offered.&#160; A site in Italy is torrenting a copy of The Dark Knight.&#160; The studio can then demand that Google remove the site from its search engine.&#160; Payment sites can be denied means of receiving remuneration.&#160; The sites’ ISP could ‘prevent people from even going there’.</p>
<p>The first line of targets will be websites directly involved in copyright infringements.&#160; SOPA, however, permits the government to focus on sites that provide information that frustrate the bill’s censorship regime, thereby making it a restraint that may well be an infringement of constitutionally protected free speech. The order of the day then, is self-regulation.&#160; Social media sites will have to monitor, or rather police the content that is created on their own sites to prevent action being taken against them.&#160; Immunities will be granted to content providers who take independent action against those they believe to be infringers.&#160; The power to remove listings on searches is ominously clear.</p>
<p>Mounted intellectual property actions will not need much scrutiny in terms of credibility.&#160; If there is a ‘good faith belief’ that a site has infringed the content being provided, IP owners are well within their rights to take action without a court appearance or judicial approval.</p>
<p>The Obama administration has made a statement that it ‘will not support’ any bill ‘that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.’&#160; Despite the position taken by the Obama administration, it is worth nothing that the Senate can still bring PIPA to the floor, even if modified.&#160; Elements of SOPA may well also be revived.</p>
<p>The invidious scope of the bills is considerable, demonstrating yet again that politicians, even those who object to a highly regulated environment, will happily curb the freedoms of the broader public provided it can be justified in the context of some legal protection.</p>
<p>One does not have to be a card carrying Wikipedia follower, a devotee of rampant, unencumbered cyber surfing to realize that the scope of such bills is dangerous.&#160; In its most extreme form, it could see the liquidation of the digital life – a life of content in the form of messages, photos and information that might be legally erased, should the need arise.&#160; The regulators will be thrilled, but there are the very sort of regulators we can do without.</p>
<p>Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.&#160; He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.&#160; Email: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | The Wikipedia Blackout | true | https://counterpunch.org/2012/01/19/the-wikipedia-blackout/ | 2012-01-19 | 4 |
<p>WASHINGTON — Attorney General <a href="http://variety.com/t/jeff-sessions/" type="external">Jeff Sessions</a> told a House committee on Tuesday that he has “no reason to doubt” the women who have accused <a href="http://variety.com/t/roy-moore/" type="external">Roy Moore</a>, running for Sessions’ old Senate seat, of pursuing sexual relations with them when they were teenagers.</p>
<p>“I have no reason to doubt these young women,” Sessions said, but declined to comment on whether Moore should drop out of the race. He said ethics officials at the Department of Justice had advised him not to get involved in the Senate campaign.</p>
<p>Earlier, House Speaker Paul Ryan said Moore should step aside, adding that he found the accusations “credible.” Ryan joined other lawmakers, <a href="http://variety.com/2017/politics/news/roy-moore-mitch-mcconnell-sexual-misconduct-1202613523/" type="external">including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell</a>, in urging Moore to exit.</p>
<p>Moore has so far refused to drop out, and has called the accusations politically motivated.</p>
<p>On Monday, another accuser, Beverly Young Nelson, appeared at a press conference with attorney Gloria Allred, where Nelson recounted that <a href="http://variety.com/2017/politics/news/roy-moore-new-accuser-gloria-allred-1202613754/" type="external">Moore sexually assaulted her</a>&#160;in late 1977 or early 1978.</p>
<p>On Thursday, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/woman-says-roy-moore-initiated-sexual-encounter-when-she-was-14-he-was-32/2017/11/09/1f495878-c293-11e7-afe9-4f60b5a6c4a0_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_moore-desktop-1pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&amp;utm_term=.9c8da3256476" type="external">The Washington Post</a> published the accounts of four women who said Moore pursued relations with them when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s. One woman, Leigh Corfman, said she was 14 when Moore initiated sexual relations with her.</p>
<p>Sessions said the <a href="http://variety.com/t/justice-department/" type="external">Justice Department</a> would “evaluate every case,” but did not specify whether there would be any investigation of the accusations against Moore.</p>
<p>“This kind of case would normally be a state case,” he said.</p>
<p>Sessions was testifying before the House Judiciary Committee at an oversight hearing of the <a href="http://variety.com/2017/biz/news/justice-department-att-directv-dodgers-channel-1202015293/" type="external">Justice Department</a>.</p>
<p>The special election to fill Sessions’ former seat is on Dec. 12, where Moore will face Democrat Doug Jones.</p> | Jeff Sessions Says There Is ‘No Reason to Doubt’ Roy Moore’s Accusers | false | https://newsline.com/jeff-sessions-says-there-is-no-reason-to-doubt-roy-moores-accusers/ | 2017-11-14 | 1 |
<p>In the forty-eight years since the severance of official diplomatic ties and the institution of the U.S. trade embargo, Washington has seen to it that Cuban-American relations have remained virtually frozen, only altered by a few incremental shifts. The advent of the Obama administration has, at first glance, changed this situation. The administration’s new approach to Cuba has thus far been well-received by nearly all groups, even though it increasingly is being seen as excessively cautious. Bernard Aronson, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs from 1989-1993, has referred to the President’s actions as both “welcome and overdue.” Even Mel Martinez, the hard-line Cuban-American Republican senator from Florida, commended the administration’s approach. Though recent international events have greatly overshadowed this important aspect of American foreign policy, a deeper look at this administration’s approach to Cuban-American relations finds them more as a return to the hyper-cautious policies of the Clinton years rather than the progressive and innovative Latin American agenda for which Obama has shown so much promise.</p>
<p>Brief Overview: Cuba and the Prospect of Change</p>
<p>In the course of his presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised that he would introduce innovations to Washington’s current Cuba policy. Since his inauguration nearly five months ago, this pledge was soon translated into the administration’s reversal of some of the restrictions and tactics implemented during the Bush era. Among the most prominent of these reversals thus far has been the April 13 decision to relax restrictions on Cuban-American travel and remittances to the Caribbean country. Whereas the strict restrictions under the Bush administration capped remittances to a $1,200 annual amount and permitted Cuban-Americans with family ties on the island to have one two-week visit every three years and, the new Obama regulations remove all such limitations. According to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, the primary reason for this policy change was to promote a “freer flow of information among the Cuban people and between those in Cuba and the rest of the world…” Additionally, it was hoped that the relaxation of controls and the subsequent rise in remittances would reduce the Cuban population’s economic dependence on the central government, as a 2004 report issued by the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba (a rightist U.S. government group) estimated that between $400-800 million flowed annually to the island from such sources.</p>
<p>Obama also announced on April 13 the easing of U.S.-Cuba telecommunications restrictions. The White House provided the rationale for the decision by maintaining that “This will increase the means through which Cubans on the island can communicate with each other and with persons outside of Cuba.” The White House statement went on to find that “Cuban-American connections to family in Cuba are not only a basic right in humanitarian terms, but also our best tool for helping to foster the beginnings of grassroots democracy on the island.” Under this new policy, American telecommunications firms will be able to sign service agreements with Cuban telecommunications providers and also link the United States with Cuba via fiber optic cables and satellite.</p>
<p>The current administration also announced on May 31 the resumption of migration talks with Havana. The talks, which date back to 1994 and were abruptly suspended by the Bush administration in 2003, were recently renewed on July 13 in New York and primarily will be aimed at reducing the flood of Cuban migrants attempting to enter the United States, usually in precariously built boats. Furthermore, it was also announced that discussions pertaining to cooperation on counterterrorism, drug interdiction, hurricane relief efforts and the establishment of enhanced direct postal services between the two countries would also be on the agenda . Regarding these talks, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton commented, “Greater connections can lead to a better, freer future for the Cuban people. These talks are in the interest of the United States, and they are also in the interest of the Cuban people.”</p>
<p>These new measures are obviously indicative of the current administration’s stated desire for a more diplomatic and constructive approach toward Cuba. Its strategy thus far has proven to be a welcome departure from the confrontational and destructive strategy of the Bush era, which at its nadir featured Cuba’s inclusion in the “Axis of Evil” compilation in a meretricious May 2002 speech by then-Undersecretary of State John Bolton (primarily due to his totally unfounded accusation of Cuba’s alleged pursuit of biological weapons which turned out to be a pure invention on his part) and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s inclusion of the Caribbean island in her list of the “Outposts of Tyranny” in 2005.</p>
<p>Status Quo Ante Bush: A Clinton Restoration?</p>
<p>While attending the inauguration of Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes on June 1, Secretary of State Clinton boasted that in terms of Cuba, “We’ve made more progress in four months than has been made in a number of years.” However, in retrospect, the reversals have merely brought Cuban-American relations back to their former status during the waning days of the Clinton administration, after the signing of the Helms-Burton Act. In his six months in office, President Obama has failed to take bold steps beyond the realm of modest reversals and incremental steps which could have furthered the White House’s ultimate professed goal of normalizing relations with Cuba. The reversals ordered by Obama have come with little political risk and have lacked audacity or flair, as they occurred at a time when it is politically fashionable and expedient to decry the merits of Bush-era diplomacy. Obama seemed satisfied to have simply undone some of the damages wrought upon the relationship between Cuba and the United States by the previous administration, thereby representing an approach that as of now adds up to lackluster progress for a man committed to ambitious change.</p>
<p>The recent revelation by the Miami Herald that the United States and Cuba held joint military exercises a number of days ago, if accurate, offers a compelling microcosm of Obama’s somewhat confusing approach to Cuba until now. The simulated disaster response exercise – which featured a Cuban helicopter extinguishing a simulated wildfire at Guantánamo Bay Naval Base and American soldiers crossing into Cuban territory to set up a triage center – apparently had been continually held since the 1990’s, but this information was suppressed by a Bush administration fearing a backlash by the Miami-based Cuban-American community in Miami. The Obama administration, in a calculated yet cautious move, leaked the existence of the exercise to the Miami Herald (which reported it on July 19), perhaps to gauge the receptiveness of the American public – particularly the Cuban-American community – to an improvement of ties with the isolated island. As a result of this timid and middling diplomacy, the commonly acknowledged jump-start to a revival of U.S. – Latin American relations has yet to occur, with Clinton’s State Department featuring little better than the odd negative barb at Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela, Evo Morales’ Bolivia, and an overly cautious response to the removal of Manuel Zelaya in Honduras.</p>
<p>Missteps: Policy Inconsistencies</p>
<p>Though it is true that the easing of telecommunications marked a slight departure from the Clinton years, it has served to highlight some of the inconsistencies in the current administration’s timid and minimalist approach toward Cuba. In a largely under-reported event by major media outlets, Microsoft blocked access to its Messenger instant messaging service in Cuba during the last week of May. The company justified its decision by releasing the following statement: “Microsoft has discontinued providing Instant Messenger services in certain countries subject to United States sanctions. Details of these sanctions are available from the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).” Messenger, which had been used as a means of communication on the island for the past decade, had operated in Cuba despite the existence of the embargo.</p>
<p>The service’s abrupt termination after ten years of operation – even in the midst of the embargo and Microsoft’s vague and nonsensical style of explanation for its cancellation – suggests that Microsoft was pressured to pursue such an action by the OFAC, which serves at the behest of the Treasury Department. The fact that Google and AOL joined Microsoft in blocking their own versions of instant messaging services later in the week and that the Obama administration has made no effort to clarify the matter takes this country back to square one. At this point, U.S.-Cuba policy is a wash and further serves as a direct contradiction to Obama’s rationale for his earlier relaxations of the anti-Cuba policy he inherited. In light of the recent effectiveness of enlisting electronic sources such as Facebook and Twitter in disseminating information – both domestically and internationally in Iran – the need to reverse this inconsistency by the Obama administration has been substantially magnified and must be directly addressed if the new administration deserves to be reviewed as credible.</p>
<p>Secretary of State Clinton had previously described the Cuba policy which she inherited “as having failed,” and that perhaps “more productive ways forward” were required. However, despite this statement, the hubris characteristic of the Bush administration strategy aimed at Cuba remained an integral part of the current American delegation’s repertoire during the 39th Regular Session of the OAS General Assembly on June 2-3. With Cuban readmission into the OAS as the prevailing topic of discussion, the new administration, led by Secretary of State Clinton, adamantly crusaded in its own way to block the lifting of Cuba’s suspension from the organization in 1962 without conditions. Later, when revocation had become a certitude, the administration, in a face-saving move, supported readmission but in an intransigent tone, chose to dictate the conditions for such a return, never assuming that Havana might itself demand that certain steps be taken before it would accept the new proposition. The dictation of terms was, on Washington’s part, reminiscent of the inelastic positions of previous U.S. administrations and ran contrary to the engaging and proactive manner that the Obama administration, during the electoral campaign, had suggested it would embrace towards Cuba.</p>
<p>The Perfect Storm</p>
<p>The promised reversals by the Obama administration, if faithfully pursued, could prove to be the right foundational step in furthering the improvement of Cuban-American ties. However, the feeble end-product emitted by the President has, to date, squandered a perfect storm of extraordinary and auspicious possibilities which have granted Obama an unparalleled opportunity – one of which leaders normally dare to only dream – to build upon his initial successes and bring about historic change. In dealing with Havana, the perfect storm is as follows:</p>
<p>• 71 percent of Americans support restoration of diplomatic ties with Cuba (CNN/Opinion Research Corp., April 3-5)</p>
<p>• Obama has a 70 percent approval rating in Latin America (CIMA, April 16)</p>
<p>• The political power of the historically hard-line Cuban-American community has crumbled in recent years due to the emergence of a younger and more conciliatory generation who lack the poisoned memory of both the Revolution and the Bay of Pigs fiasco</p>
<p>• In a national telephone poll, 67% of Cuban-American respondents gave Obama a favorable rating (Bendixen &amp; Associates, April 15-16)</p>
<p>• There is a prevalent sentiment in Cuba that Obama is the first American leader willing and capable of bringing change to the troubled relations between the two ancient foes.</p>
<p>One would think that these unique circumstances have provided Obama with an unassailable political position which he must seize in order to satisfy the high expectations on both sides of the Florida Straits as well as to take meaningful steps toward the transformational change in Cuban-American relations.</p>
<p>Missed Opportunities</p>
<p>Given the island’s sagging economic performance, due in part to last year’s devastating tropical storms, and the implementation of an unpopular austerity program introduced by the Castro regime, the absence of the full legalization of travel by all U.S. nationals, and not just Cuban-Americans to Cuba, and the resumption of direct flights between the two nations, represented sadly missed opportunities by Washington to normalize ties to Cuba that would likely have been accepted by Havana. The Cuban tourism industry, which, according to the Cuban National Office of Statistics was the country’s largest source of revenue in 2008 and which accounted for $2.7 billion last year, would experience an undeniable spurt of growth in the near future due to such measures.</p>
<p>From Cairo to Havana</p>
<p>Due in large part to the neglect of the previous administration, Washington continues to be relatively isolated from Latin America politically and diplomatically. Taking this into account, an amelioration of ties with Havana has been the linchpin to what could be a new start in U.S.-Latin American relations, as Latin American leaders continue to perceive United States’ policy toward Cuba as remaining unenlightened and one of the last vestiges of Washington’s traditional imperial tendencies toward the region.</p>
<p>Obama has up to now failed to rectify this situation by capitalizing on his greatest ability: a special predisposition for eloquence and clarity in the most opportune of settings. Much like the President’s most recent trip to Cairo, which was strategically intended to have a positive effect both in Egypt and the wider Muslim world, a comparable official state visit to Havana might have yielded extraordinary ramifications for both the leftist island as well as Latin America.</p>
<p>Although entirely unlikely in the present mindset, not only would an Obama visit mark the first time that a sitting American president has visited Cuba since the revolution in 1959, it would also have diminished the shroud of hypocrisy that has surrounded Cuban-American relations for decades, particularly when compared to the robustness of Sino-American relations, in spite of huge human rights impediments in the latter country. The United States historically has refused meetings at the highest level with Cuba due to the latter’s human rights record, but routinely has granted such meetings with China, a much larger human rights transgressor.</p>
<p>Additionally, such a visit by the President himself would have conveyed a strong message of commitment to the normalization of Cuban-American relations. Moreover and most importantly, such a move would reflect the U.S. President aggressively taking the initiative and forcing the hand of the Castro regime in the direction of liberalization and openness – all this taking place at a time when, according to a U.S. State Department official, Havana is already facing a “significant desire, and even pressure, on them [Cuban officials] for social and economic reform [from their own people]. The Cuban government has to respond in some fashion.” With an official state visit not likely in the near term, the administration has preferred utilizing a new and fully diapason form of diplomacy, pressing the New York Philharmonic to accept an invitation by the Cuban government to perform in Havana in October and November.</p>
<p>Washington’s relationship with Latin America has sadly in the past been two-dimensional: either one rife with arrogant and paternalistic overtones, or one of outright hostility. A presidential visit to the capital of what for decades has been the United States’ greatest hemispheric adversary would undoubtedly have sealed a dreary chapter in regional relations and possibly herald a new and much more inventive era. Such a step would substantiate Obama’s pledge at the Summit of the Americas in mid-April of a regional relationship based on an “equal partnership” with “no senior partner or junior partner” and “mutual respect.”</p>
<p>Surprisingly absent from Obama’s Cuban diplomatic toolbox has been the embrasure of multilateral initiatives involving Latin American nations. Diplomatic coordination with these countries could facilitate a Cuban-American rapprochement, as some of them hold influential sway in Havana as well as Washington, and such hemispheric powerhouses like Brazil would like to see nothing better. For instance, Mexican President Felipe Calderón restored his country’s traditionally close ties with Cuba and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula de Silva, along with many Brazilian businessmen, signed important trade and investment deals worth upwards of $1 billion with the leftist island in January. The Economist informs us, but with no supporting evidence, that the diplomats of nations such as Brazil and Mexico are reluctant to voice criticisms of Havana, but they quietly support Washington’s ultimate goal of political liberalization in Cuba. It is needless to say that close cooperation would also foster a constructive regional dialogue and cement an “equal partnership” arrangement.</p>
<p>Conclusion</p>
<p>Up until now, changes in Cuban-American relations brought about by the Obama administration have been insubstantial and superficial, simply reverting back to the days of the Clinton administration. The current approach also has been lacking consistency, particularly in the egregious case of Microsoft. The support and opportunities for true change exist, but the will to do so is lacking – at least as of now.</p>
<p>Amid the turmoil in Iran, the provocative actions by North Korea, the present crisis in Honduras, and the domestic debates on healthcare and financial reform, the matter of Cuban-American rapprochement has been lost to relative obscurity, returning to its position of geopolitical irrelevance it experienced during the Bush administration. Even though no real movement has occurred up to now, the question now is whether Barack Obama still has some of the audacity which he displayed in his challenge of the status quo during his presidential campaign – when he repeatedly vowed to refocus U.S. diplomacy and steer away from routine and formulaic policies. If he does this by taking the necessary transformational strides while both the desire and conditions for change are in the air, hope remains. But with the window of opportunity potentially closing while he casts his eyes elsewhere, Obama would do well by abandoning his slow and familiar rumba and preparing for the up-tempo salsa if he means to get the job done.</p>
<p>FELIPE MATSUNAGA is a research associate at the <a href="http://www.coha.org/" type="external">Council on Hemispheric Affairs.</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | Obama’s Slow (and Familiar) Dance With Cuba | true | https://counterpunch.org/2009/07/24/obama-s-slow-and-familiar-dance-with-cuba/ | 2009-07-24 | 4 |
<p>We asked Lauren Unger-Geoffroy, an Arabic-speaking American who lives in Cairo, to share her perspective of life in Egypt after the revolution. In this entry, she writes about two cases involving alleged official brutality and the deaths of prisoners.</p>
<p>CAIRO - On Friday at the corner mosque, the imam was hoarse with emotion as he gave his sermon. Through a loudspeaker system, he shouted the story of Ibrahim [the Old Testament's Abraham] and about sacrificing for freedom and faith. He went on for an hour, until his voice broke and his last recitations from the Quran were punctuated by breaks and what sounded like sobs.</p>
<p>The imam's passion was inspired by the fate of Essam Atta, who died Thursday at Qasr El-Eini hospital in Cairo after prison guards allegedly tortured him by sodomization. According to several media reports, an officer from Tora Prison took Atta to the hospital when it became evident he was dying. Some press accounts put his age at 23 and others said he was 24.</p>
<p>Malik Adly, a lawyer for the family, reported that after Atta was tortured, the prisoner phoned relatives to say that police had injected water into him through his mouth and anus. Atta's brother told the media that he had seen the corpse at the hospital and it was leaking foamy water and bloody fluid from the mouth and nose and had contusions on the face.</p>
<p />
<p>"We accuse the officers of the Tora prison of being behind the victim's death," Adly said. Cairo's Nadim Center for Victims of Torture also accused guards of killing Atta. The family is asking Egypt's state prosecutor for a full investigation into the death.</p>
<p>Some inmates claim to have witnessed the attack, saying guards stuck two hoses into the victim. According to cellmates, prison personnel assaulted Atta after catching him with a <a href="http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-sim-card.htm" type="external">SIM card</a> (a cellphone card) that his mother had smuggled in for him.</p>
<p>Activists carrying Atta's body in an open coffin wrapped in the Egyptian flag <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKk_EmpyroY%20" type="external">marched to Tahrir Square</a> on Friday, chanting slogans against the Ministry of Interior.</p>
<p>An Egyptian security official denied the allegations of official brutality, saying prison medics found that Atta had taken drugs and was suffering from exhaustion. When his condition worsened, he was taken to the hospital, the official said. Another presenter on national television said that sources reported he died from ingesting drugs.</p>
<p>The alleged torture occurred only one day after two policemen were given seven-year prison terms for a similar crime - the murder last year of Khaled Said, 28, in Alexandria - an incident that turned out to be a major catalyst for the national revolution that started in January.</p>
<p>Said was beaten to death in June 2010. Pictures of his bloodied face, broken jaw and bruised body were widely circulated, and activists later used a Facebook page called "We are all Khaled Said" to help organize the uprising against now-deposed President Hosni Mubarak. The page remains an influential rallying point for protests and revolutionary activity in Egypt.</p>
<p>At the sentencing of the policemen last Wednesday, enraged families of the two officers smashed wooden benches in the courtroom and tried to attack the dead man's lawyers and relatives, one of the lawyers said.</p>
<p>The newest reported victim of police atrocity, Atta, was taken into custody Feb. 24 as he watched a street fight. He was arrested under an accusation of thuggery and eventually was tried by a military court on a charge of illegal occupation of an apartment. Atta was sentenced to two years in the maximum-security ward at Cairo's Tora Prison, where a number of former figures in the Mubarak regime are being held.</p>
<p>After Thursday's death, one police official reported that Atta had also been arrested earlier, in 2004 for drug dealing and in 2010 for illegal weapon possession. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because, he said, he was not authorized to address the media.</p>
<p>One cannot avoid seeing the similarities between the cases of Atta and Said. Authorities had portrayed Said, too, as a drug dealer and declared that he had choked to death on a packet of drugs he swallowed in trying to hide it from police. However, protesters who succeeded in having an independent forensic group explore Said's remains said the examiners found that the packet had been forced into the mouth after death.</p>
<p>For many Egyptians, the prosecution of the two low-ranking policemen in Said's death and their sentencing were a success and a rare satisfaction of justice. Despite the fact that many felt the punishment was not sufficient, there was a sense of victory against the endemic brutality of this police force. Even so, activists continue to call for a complete revision of the Interior Ministry, Egypt's police and prison system. In addition, an end to military trials for civilians remains a central demand.</p>
<p>On a Facebook page protesting military trials Atta posted a message Oct. 7:</p>
<p>"I'm imprisoned because my family is poor. But I'm sure God will stand by me, as God is greater than all people," he said 20 days before his death. Members of Atta's family say that when he died they were preparing to appeal the verdict.Authorities' use of torture was one of the major grievances behind the mass mobilization of the Egyptian revolution. Under the former regime, police torture was routine, and almost nine months after Mubarak's departure it is still routine. Now, however, Egyptians will not accept it. A key question is: Will the people hold the army and the police accountable for the torture and death of civilians when those civilians are petty criminals?</p>
<p>Nothing that Atta might have done could justify the sickening barbarity of the police. Whatever his past, he well may become the new Khaled Said, another symbol for the revolution. Grist for its mill, new blood and fuel and motivation.</p>
<p>Egyptians had hoped there would be natural change in the police, supposedly restructured since Mubarak's ouster, but it is clear that the Supreme Council for the Armed Forces (SCAF) has failed to remove top-ranking officers who served the former regime and thereby has failed to achieve reform.</p>
<p>Atta's death has suppressed any public sense of reform within the practices of the police and security forces. Brutal traditions held over from the Mubarak regime must be dismantled and cleansed with fire before we can have a civilized police establishment that is truly here to keep the peace, to protect and serve.</p>
<p>The horrifying killing of more than 20 Coptic Christian demonstrators in Cairo's Maspero district earlier this month was so successfully cleaned up that three days after the violence not a physical trace of the conflict remained in the area where it occurred. No blood, no shells, no tracks. So clean. The only evidence left was the many photos and videos preserved on the global Internet, where they will accuse and condemn for decades to come. A Friday demonstration in Maspero against the killings of the Christians was small and drowned out by news of the Atta death.</p>
<p>Although Atta's demise inspired a wave of anger and condemnation on the social networks, worries of violent confrontation proved unfounded. Crowds at demonstrations were good sized but not as big or as vociferous as we are used to. People are just too stunned and sickened to be motivated right now. Even the chanting at the protests was relatively weak, and the usual Egyptian rhythmic cohesiveness was off. This month's news of Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi's capture and death has reduced public outcry. The people are nearly speechless - for the moment.</p>
<p>The developments of recent days come only weeks before the parliamentary elections in which candidates - one hopes they are voices of reason among revolutionary activists, liberals and the Muslim Brotherhood - will compete to participate in the new democratic Egyptian government. The voting will be the first step toward a true democratic Egyptian presidential election, now set for 2013. So we will see what the people really want - who will emerge as a people's choice, and what may happen between now and the presidential election. In Egypt, and perhaps across the shifting Middle East.</p>
<p>A time for decisions is nearing. But right now the people are sleeping to forget ever more images of tortured bodies and other signs of their vulnerability.</p>
<p>Egyptians sympathize with and are supportive of all people seeking freedom from corruption and injustice. They are heartbroken for Syria's torment, they worry about Yemen and Morocco, hope things will be OK in Libya.</p>
<p>Also, their hearts are with the Occupy protests in the United States. But they are puzzled about the media's focus on the police cordons and not on the suffering behind the protests. And they don't quite understand an idea of police brutality that doesn't include some people dead.</p>
<p /> | Dispatches From Cairo: Torture in Post-Mubarak Egypt | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/dispatches-from-cairo-torture-in-post-mubarak-egypt/ | 2011-10-30 | 4 |
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