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<p>It’s easy to be hopeful about online learning; a world where anyone — regardless of income, race, or gender — is able to access the same high-quality instruction.&#160; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/education/moocs-large-courses-open-to-all-topple-campus-walls.html" type="external">Some have imagined</a>&#160;that it could&#160;truly&#160;democratize education. Perhaps even reduce inequality, break down barriers, and give kids from poorer neighborhoods&#160; <a href="http://blogs.wgbh.org/innovation-hub/2013/11/29/sal-khan-reinvents-education/" type="external">a shot at on-demand lessons</a>.&#160;</p>
<p>That’s all a wonderful dream, but according to Mimi Ito, a cultural anthropologist at the University of California Irvine, it’s just that: a dream.</p>
<p>“Often, when we think of the open Internet&#160;and resources being freely available, we assume it has a democratizing function. That anybody can access this stuff, it’s free and open, so therefore it must be more equitable. The sad fact is that we know historically, that when you provide fancier technology, it actually increases inequity.”</p>
<p>Through her research, Ito has found that new technology has the tendency to give students who are&#160;already&#160;highly educated and come from wealthier backgrounds "superpowers." It separates people into two groups: Those who can easily access new technology and new ways of learning, and those who can’t.</p>
<p>As much as it might seem that every single person on Earth has a smartphone, and is staring at it instead of talking to you like a normal human being, that’s actually not the case. “The cost of having an all-you-can-eat data plan on a smartphone is actually quite prohibitive, and because smartphones tend to be individually based&#160;rather than household based, that becomes even more exclusionary for teens who are much less likely to have their own device and data plan than a parent.”&#160;</p>
<p>So for disadvantaged kids who have spotty access to the Internet, they aren’t able to fully engage with learning and cultural opportunities that their peers can easily access.</p>
<p>But even if every student was given a smartphone, a laptop, an iPad, and a lightning-fast Internet connection, that might not be enough to realize the promise of online education. Ito believes it’s about context. One solution might lie in having kids talk with experts —&#160;who can show them what to do with the technology — at libraries or community centers. Or there could be more apps and programs that don’t presume every student is from a middle- or upper-class background.</p>
<p>She says this lack of both access and context causes disadvantaged kids to seriously miss out, especially with regards to the self-directed online learning that the Internet offers up. Right now, there are vibrant communities of kids making fan art, learning to program&#160; <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/19/minecraft-learntomod-children-coding-programming" type="external">with Minecraft</a>, and using social media to&#160; <a href="http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2012/06/27/survey-finds-youth-use-new-media-peer-based-participatory-politics" type="external">participate in the political process</a>. These are opportunities that less wealthy kids might not have access to.</p>
<p>Still, even with all this inequality, Ito says there is a ray of hope about the future of online learning. “The sector around around educational technology is very progressive and quite aware of these issues, and is grappling with them in a serious way.” Though, she does acknowledge, there’s a long way to go</p>
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Online learning holds great promise — but mostly for the well-off
| false |
https://pri.org/stories/2015-03-28/online-learning-holds-great-promise-mostly-well
|
2015-03-28
| 3 |
<p>Detroit, MI — A Detroit police officer has come under fire after a video was posted online that shows him beating an innocent man with a baton after accusing him of shoplifting—but the city’s police chief says the force was justified and the officer “acted appropriately.”</p>
<p>The 65-year-old officer, who has not yet been named, was off-duty at the time of the incident&#160;and was still in uniform&#160;while working security for a local Meijer supermarket. He claimed he was responding to reports of shoplifting.</p>
<p>The officer apprehended a 23-year-old man who was near the entryway of the store&#160;and began questioning him about the items in his backpack. As The Detroit Free Press <a href="http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2017/10/09/video-shows-detroit-cop-hitting-mans-face-his-club-chief-says-proper/748411001/" type="external">noted</a>, even after “a female acquaintance of the suspect&#160;meanwhile, showed up and claimed she had a receipt for the merchandise. She was taken elsewhere by security personnel.”</p>
<p>Failing to acknowledge whether the piece of paper in the woman’s hand was, in fact, a receipt for the items in the man’s backpack, the officer continued to question him, while the two were left alone in the store’s entryway. Police reports claim that the man then “became agitated and made profane, hostile remarks to the officer.”</p>
<p>The officer also made profane remarks&#160;and could be heard by witnesses yelling “Don’t be f—king with me!” at the suspect.</p>
<p>After the officer warned the man that he could be arrested for disorderly conduct, he attempted to place the man in handcuffs, and when the man resisted, the officer “struck him three times on the thigh with his baton.”</p>
<p>Police claim that the man then grabbed the baton from the officer and a struggle ensued as the officer tried to regain control of the weapon, which led the two out to the parking lot. However, bystander video shows the officer trying to grab ahold of the man with one hand, while using his other hand to strike the man repeatedly with the baton.</p>
<p>The officer also hit the man’s face and head with his baton, which sent the man to the Emergency Room, where he was treated for a broken tooth and a contusion at the side of his face.</p>
<p>As with many “Detroit police incidents,” Craig was quick to defend the officer’s actions, claiming that “it appears the force was proper,” even when the officer used his baton to strike the man’s face.</p>
<p>“I can understand that, if you’re stopped and you’ve done nothing wrong, you’re going to be agitated,” Craig said. “But this officer had the right to investigate, based on the information that was coming to him. So please, I would ask everyone, cooperate with us.”</p>
<p>There were several bystanders who witnessed the incident, and they can be heard on video making comments such as, “that officer can go to jail, hitting that boy like that,” which Chief Craig claims were enough to make the officer “fear for his safety”—a common excuse used by police when they are caught using excessive force.</p>
<p>“I believe the officer acted appropriately to de-escalate the situation,”&#160;Craig said, noting that the man was eventually arrested, and is in jail on charges of resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.</p>
<p>It should be noted, as Craig admitted, that an investigation found no evidence of the man shoplifting anything from the store. This means that if the officer would have taken the time to listen to the woman who tried to intercept the situation with a receipt that proved the man’s innocence, the entire incident could have actually been “de-escalated” and ultimately avoided.</p>
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Cop Accuses Innocent Man of Stealing, In Fear For His Life Smashes In His Face With a Baton
| false |
https://studionewsnetwork.com/news/cop-accuses-innocent-man-stealing-fear-life-smashes-face-baton/
|
2017-10-11
| 3 |
<p>A Facebook video of an elderly Florida man has gone viral.</p>
<p>In it you can see an obviously upset man storming over to two AT&amp;T trucks, revolver in hand, and start unloading on the tires of one truck.</p>
<p>He proceeds to the second truck and shoots at the engine multiple time.</p>
<p>The video was recorded by an AT&amp;T worker on the scene in Hialeah, FL, which is south Miami.</p>
<p>Hialeah is known for its gang violence, but this is a whole other level.</p>
<p>Jorge Jove was arrested on Wednesday after he opened fire on two AT&amp;T trucks parked outside his Hialeah, Fla., home. Cellphone video shot during the rampage shows the 64-year-old shooting out the vehicle’s tires and engine.</p>
<p>Hialeah Police Detective Carl Zogby told the <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/hialeah/article162574858.html" type="external">Miami Herald</a>&#160;that Jove “was upset the trucks were parked in front of his driveway.”</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p />
<p>The man who recorded the video is&#160;AT&amp;T technician Derrick Taylor and can be heard talking with police as Jove shoots the&#160;trucks with his Ruger .357 revolver.</p>
<p>“He’s shooting the truck right now,” Taylor said in the clip. “There’s a guy shooting the tires and shooting the engines and everything.”</p>
<p>According to an affidavit, obtained by the Miami Herald, Jove doesn’t have a concealed weapons permit. Police responding to the call seized his gun.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Clearly this man was completely wrong to do this and was rightly arrested.</p>
<p>He gives all gun owners a bad name.</p>
<p>Should he have his rights to own a gun revoked?</p>
<p>Give us your thoughts below.</p>
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Watch: Elderly Man Shoots Tires of AT&T Truck — Is This Wrong?
| true |
http://girlsjustwannahaveguns.com/watch-elderly-man-shoots-tires-att-truck-wrong/
| 0 |
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<p>In Liberia, doctors have been in short supply for decades. When the country's most recent civil war ended in 2003, the country relied on about 50 doctors to care for the entire nation of more than 3 million people. &#160;</p>
<p>Since then, the ranks of Liberian doctors haven't increased much. And the lack of trained personnel has made combating the current outbreak of Ebola all the harder. &#160;</p>
<p>Dr. Roseda Marshall chairs the school of pediatrics at the country's only medical school, the University of Liberia's <a href="http://libraryguides.umassmed.edu/amdogliotticollegeofmedicine" type="external">&#160;A.M. Dogliotti College of Medicine</a>. Marshall is in Baltimore, Maryland, now, but she's on her way back to Liberia in September. First, she's trying to gather some items in short supply back home, including basics rubber gloves and infrared thermometers.&#160;</p>
<p>"You don't want to touch the patient because we know the bodily fluids are what carry the virus," Marshall says. "So we need infrared thermometers that you can stand away from the patient and still take his temperature and don't have to touch him."</p>
<p>Marshall says Ebola has taken an increasingly heavy toll on Liberian doctors and nurses. She describes an email she recently received from one Liberian doctor who had cared for a colleague who died of Ebola.</p>
<p>"Now he's also infected with the virus and is fighting for his life," Marshall says. "We thought he was out of danger because he had been in the quarantine practically for his 21 days, but then he tested positive and is now very sick."&#160;</p>
<p>Marshall worries about Ebola's longterm impact on Liberia's healthcare system and the willingness of young Liberians to study medicine in the future.</p>
<p>"We have to realize that these [health care workers] are at great risk, and so they must be compensated for what they are doing," she says.&#160;</p>
<p>She argues that the problems presented by the recent Ebola outbreak are not unique to the developing world, but plague all countries facing an epidemic.&#160;</p>
<p>"First of all there's panic, and then disbelief, and so during that period you're just wasting time," Marshall says. "The problem is not only with my country it's also with the international organizations. I think people should have come in much earlier."</p>
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Liberia doesn't have many doctors, and it's battling Ebola with minimal supplies
| false |
https://pri.org/stories/2014-08-12/liberia-doesnt-have-many-doctors-and-its-battling-ebola-minimal-supplies
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2014-08-12
| 3 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>When a tree brushed against a power line in the Jemez Mountains two months ago and sparked a wildfire, officials at the Valles Caldera National Preserve were immediately worried that the blaze could destroy the historic lodges, biodiversity and compelling landscape that draws tourists and scientists year round.</p>
<p>After all, officials worried, the fire was ignited roughly in the same unhealthy forest, due to the same cause and under the same parched conditions as the Las Conchas Fire, which, in 2011, left more than 150,000 acres charred to a crisp, creating a blackened “moonscape” that will take centuries to recover.</p>
<p>But the Thompson Ridge Fire surprised firefighters and others when it slowly crept along the forest floor, only occasionally torching trees or burning at the high intensity that New Mexico forests have seen over the last several years – fires attributed in part to drought conditions and higher average temperatures.</p>
<p>Just 640 acres of the 24,000-acre Thompson Ridge Fire burned at high intensity this summer. That means the fire will be good for the forest, since it cleared out undergrowth and left the soil intact enough for new growth. (Dean Hanson/Journal)</p>
<p>“If you’re going to have a wildfire, this is not a bad fire,” said Valles Caldera executive director Dennis Trujillo. “When you look at the low to moderate (burning), there’s still enough organics in that soil to hold moisture, to allow plants to grow.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Just 640 acres of the almost 24,000 acres that burned in the Thompson Ridge Fire burned at high intensity, which means that the flames leapt from treetop to treetop and destroyed everything in their path from the needles on trees to the organic matter in soils.</p>
<p>Those acres were part of a section of the Valles Caldera slated to be thinned in 2015.</p>
<p>More than 18,000 acres at the fire burned at low intensity, and the rest of the fire burned at moderate, meaning the flames aren’t just crawling along the ground but they aren’t leaping from treetop to treetop, either.</p>
<p>The low intensity came as a huge relief to Robert Parmenter, the preserve’s chief scientist, especially because fire officials decided early on to step back and allow the fire to burn wherever it wanted inside the 24,000-acre perimeter.</p>
<p>In the last decade or so, fire managers have begun treating wildfires differently, focusing on the big picture and forest health over the immediate suppression of fires that don’t threaten structures. The historic lodges at the preserve got special protection, but the fire had free rein everywhere else.</p>
<p>“The surprising part is that because the firefighters did not try and put anything out in the middle, we thought it would turn out worse than it did,” Parmenter said.</p>
<p>Doing some good</p>
<p>A low-intensity fire can be beneficial for a forest because it allows a cleansing of some of the unhealthy vegetation built up over the last century while still retaining older, healthier trees that provide cover for the new wave of plants.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>High-intensity fires char and blacken everything in their path. Such fires not only devastate the forest, but they leave soils prone to erosion by floods from rains that typically hit New Mexico after peak fire season.</p>
<p>The low-intensity Thompson Ridge fire leaves the Valles Caldera well equipped to recharge its forests and promote biodiversity, Parmenter said.</p>
<p>Just a month after the blaze was fully contained, patches of aspen trees are already 6 to 8 inches, he said. They’ll be a foot tall by September.</p>
<p>When the aspens grow, they’ll provide shade for an undergrowth, which will thrive and ultimately surpass the aspens, creating a healthy mixed-conifer forest.</p>
<p>“This was a very beneficial fire in the long term,” Parmenter said. <a href="https://d3el53au0d7w62.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/metro01_jd_04aug_ThompsonBurnMap-copy.jpg" type="external" /></p>
<p>Still, the Thompson Ridge burn scar will be prone to flash flooding in the next few years. After the blaze stopped smoldering July 1, the Thompson Ridge Burned Area Emergency Response team swooped in to prepare the area for flash floods and help it recover.</p>
<p>But the older Las Conchas burn scar on the preserve still poses the biggest flooding risk, Trujillo said. Trujillo went out into the forest recently to look at flood damage and to monitor erosion.</p>
<p>“We went out and looked at it, and the flooding was from the Las Conchas Fire,” he said. We’re still seeing a lot of runoff and ash flow from the Las Conchas Fire.”</p>
<p>Temps and topography</p>
<p>The Thompson Ridge Fire burned at such low intensity thanks in part to luck and also to the environment.</p>
<p>Parmenter said the two fires were in similarly unhealthy forests, meaning both areas were not logged and thinned recently enough to avoid the buildup of fuels that allows fires to burn quickly, destructively and at high intensity.</p>
<p>Wind speeds and relative humidity were “very comparable” during the early days of both fires, Parmenter said. The major differences between the two fires had to do with initial temperatures and topography.</p>
<p>The area where Thompson Ridge ignited was about 15 degrees cooler on the day it started than in the early days of the Las Conchas Fire. In fact, that part of the Jemez Mountains got below freezing the night of the blaze.</p>
<p>The Thompson Ridge Fire burned in a month what the Las Conchas Fire burned in half a day.</p>
<p>Also, topographic features like ridges kept the Thompson Ridge Fire from gaining too much momentum. Once it crested the Redondo Border northwest of Redondo Peak, it slowed down immediately.</p>
<p>From that point on, firefighters, who also worked quickly to establish fire lines, largely had to worry only about spot fires. They didn’t have to worry about the massive head fires that propelled the Las Conchas Fire into the record books at what was then the largest fire in recorded state history.</p>
<p>“Las Conchas was an inferno compared to Thompson Ridge,” Parmenter said.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p />
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Jemez blaze ‘not a bad fire’
| false |
https://abqjournal.com/241924/jeme-zblaze.html
|
2013-08-04
| 2 |
<p>A father celebrates his family’s safe passage to Lesbos, Greece after a stormy crossing over the Aegean Sea from Turkey. (Tom Stoddart)</p>
<p>The global refugee crisis and proposed plans for a new, improved and costly wall along the U.S. Mexico border have been hotly debated topics this presidential campaign cycle. Along with Donald Trump, Pope Francis and Bono, artists are weighing in on these contentious issues with their creative interpretations and viewpoints.</p>
<p>The plight of migrants and their journey to resettlement is being explored in exhibitions entitled “Refugee,” and “New Americans” at the <a href="https://annenbergphotospace.org/" type="external">Annenberg Space for Photography</a> in Los Angeles. One hundred photos commissioned from five acclaimed photographers document the ongoing crisis in countries such as Greece, Germany, Serbia, Mexico, Croatia, Cameroon and Bangladesh.</p>
<p />
<p>One of the featured photographers, the twice-kidnapped American photojournalist Lynsey Addario, traveled to Myanmar to document the persecution of the Rohingya people, an ethnic Muslim group in the predominately Buddhist country. In 2015, Addario’s visit to Lebanon exposed the daily life of Hanaa, a 12-year-old Syrian girl, who fled the civil war with her family in 2011. They currently reside in a tented settlement, working 10-hour days on Lebanese-owned land for $5 a day.</p>
<p>The theme of barriers and borders continues at <a href="http://apexart.org/" type="external">apexart</a> in New York City, with the bilingual group exhibition, “Fencing in Democracy.” Fourteen artists, activists, architects and anthropologists have created works centered on the U.S.-Mexico border wall. Several artists have ties with the region around the wall, bringing a personal aspect to the art.</p>
<p>Arizona artist Alfredo J. Quiroz draws attention to the existential aspects of border crossing with a sculpture of a plastic water jug and a skull and crossbones, signifying death via dehydration. Sadly, this is what happens when temperatures in the desert reach as high as 111 degrees.</p>
<p>Alternative designs by architects Ronald Rael and James Brown offer a repurposing of the wall, built with solar panels to produce green energy, and a friendlier version of Friendship Park, with bike and hiking trails. The current park, along the San Diego-Tijuana border, is heartbreaking; imagine a much larger version of a glass partition in a prison visiting room—except it’s 18 feet tall and made of layers of metal.</p>
<p>“What is the role of art and architecture in providing a bulwark against the erosion of democracy that border walls represent?” is the question posed by curators Miguel Diaz-Barriga and Margaret Dorsey, professors of anthropology at the University of Texas, Rio Grande. The couple has been studying the border wall and its effects on the landscape, ecosystem and residents of south Texas since 2008.</p>
<p>“It was an amazing opportunity to study that moment of political mobilization,” said Dorsey, referring to how 95 percent of the region’s population came together to fight the construction. “At same time, it was kind of a tragic tale, because it showed how democracy didn’t seem to work.”</p>
<p>Dorsey is referring to Congress granting former Secretary of Homeland Security <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/04/01/border.fence/index.html?iref=n" type="external">Michael Chertoff</a> the ability to waive any and all laws necessary for the construction of the border wall in 2008. “In total, he waived 37 laws to build the walls,” she said.</p>
<p>“In this area of Texas, the border wall is not actually on the international boundary,” said Diaz-Barriga. “It’s two miles north of the Rio Grande River, so it was cutting through thriving communities, private property, a nature preserve, a university campus and a butterfly park.”</p>
<p>To give an idea of what a portion of the real wall is like, hanging from ceiling in the gallery space at apexart will be two 16-foot panels. That’s two feet shorter than the actual border wall. On the panels are photos taken by Scott Nichol of actual hand- and footprints made by people climbing the wall.</p>
<p>Then there’s Maurice Sherif’s black-and-white photographs of various sections of the billion-dollar wall that meanders 2,000 miles from the Pacific Ocean in California to the Gulf of Mexico in Texas. Some photos allow you to see side-by-side comparisons of the old wall and the new wall. Sherif, a fine-art photographer from France, has been photographing the wall since 2006. He believes the barrier is a misguided project driven by fear, and the millions of dollars already spent on the wall could be put to better use.</p>
<p>These exhibits represent just two examples of how artists around the world have been addressing the refugee crisis in their work. Last December, guerilla street artist Banksy addressed negative attitudes toward the thousands of people living in a refugee camp in Calais, France, with his mural of Steve Jobs, the son of a Syrian immigrant, carrying a computer and a knapsack with his belongings slung over his shoulder.</p>
<p>In February, Chinese artist and human rights activist Ai Weiwei wrapped 14,000 salvaged, orange, refugee life jackets around the columns of Konzerthaus Berlin, the German city’s concert hall.</p>
<p>As for the impact of photography, the now-iconic photos of a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/02/shocking-image-of-drowned-syrian-boy-shows-tragic-plight-of-refugees" type="external">3-year-old Syrian boy</a> washed up on the shore of a Turkish beach and a <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/refugee-crisis-father-photographed-crying-with-children-in-kos-has-reached-germany-10490745.html" type="external">crying migrant father</a> clutching his children after nearly drowning while crossing the sea to the Greek Island of Kos helped many people far removed from the situation to understand its gravity.</p>
<p>Support for refugees began to wane as masses of uncontrolled migrants seeking asylum flooded into Europe, overwhelming shelters and government resources. According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR, the number of displaced people globally has reached 60 million across five continents.</p>
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Powerful Exhibits on Both Coasts Explore Borders and the Plight of Refugees
| true |
https://truthdig.com/articles/powerful-exhibits-on-both-coasts-explore-borders-and-the-plight-of-refugees/
|
2016-06-02
| 4 |
<p>The Central American peace plan negotiated in August 1987 by the presidents of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua is certain to remain an object of debate in the new year. Yet the discussion over the past several months seems to have lacked the necessary specificity. What, concretely, would have to happen, were there to be peace with freedom in Central America?</p>
<p>The focus of that query must be Nicaragua. No doubt there are grave social, economic, and political problems in the other Central American republics. But as former Virginia governor Charles Robb put it this past fall, “the Nicaraguan government has singled itself out” for attention “by its refusal to grant democratic rights to its citizens.” In the first month after the Central American presidents’ plan was announced, some things did change in Nicaragua: the opposition paper La Prensa re-opened, and Radio Católica was allowed to broadcast again. Were these cosmetic gestures alone? The fact that censorship laws remain in force as this is written (in October) suggests reason for serious concern.</p>
<p>In any event, peace in Central America seems to depend on peace within Nicaragua—the kind of peace that is the fruit of a democratic society and polity that respects basic human rights. An impressive first cut at describing what the transition to democracy in Nicaragua would entail was published in September by the Puebla Institute, a lay Catholic human rights organization with offices in New York and Washington. At this season when “peace on earth” is more readily on the mind of our culture, the Puebla Institute booklet, “Necessary Steps,” offers an opportunity to think about peace in the concrete, historical sense of the term. These “necessary steps” to peace and freedom have salience, of course, in other societies traveling the hard road from left-wing or right-wing tyranny to that freedom which is an irreducible component of peace.</p>
<p>So what should happen? What are these “necessary steps?” Here is the Puebla Institute list, adapted:</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Political Prisoners</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Release everyone imprisoned without due process, including all those tried under vague political charges or tried in extraordinary tribunals or police courts.</p>
<p>Abolish the “Popular Anti-Somocista Tribunals,” which operate outside the constitutional framework of Nicaragua.</p>
<p>Rescind the extraordinary powers given police forces to conduct trials, decide appeals, and sentence individuals.</p>
<p>Restore those constitutional rights to due process that were suspended by the Sandinistas’ state-of-emergency decree. These would include rights to habeas corpus, to be informed of charges on arrest, to appeal to a higher court, to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, to not testify against oneself, and to consult an attorney when arrested.</p>
<p>Permit the International Committee of the Red Cross, independent human rights observers, families, and lawyers to visit all detainees and prisoners and to inspect places of imprisonment.</p>
<p>Stop holding detainees and prisoners incommunicado—the situation in which torture is most likely to occur.</p>
<p>Abolish conditions of confinement that, in themselves, are forms of torture.</p>
<p>End all other forms of torture and punish the officials responsible for torture.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Religious Liberty</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Allow the Catholic Church to reopen its social welfare and human rights offices. Restore freedom of the press to all Church-related communications media.</p>
<p>Restore the television broadcast of Cardinal Obando y Bravo’s Sunday Mass.</p>
<p>Permit all 20 priests expelled from Nicaragua to return.</p>
<p>Repeal Article 124 of the 1987 Nicaraguan constitution, the effect of which is to bar religion courses from the curriculum of even private religious schools.</p>
<p>Allow conscientious objection (with alternative service) for those opposed to conscription because of religious conviction.</p>
<p>Cease harassing Protestant evangelicals, who are often forbidden from holding or attending prayer meetings and from evangelizing and preaching.</p>
<p>End detention, intimidation, and other forms of coercion against religious believers.</p>
<p>Stop pressuring religious groups to incorporate Sandinista teachings into religious instruction and stop pressuring believers to join Sandinista-affiliated groups.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Labor Unions</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Ensure the right to strike, to bargain collectively, to demonstrate, to meet publicly, and to take other non-violent collective action on behalf of the claims of workers.</p>
<p>Release all trade unionists currently imprisoned in connection with nonviolent union activities.</p>
<p>End harassment of and pressure against independent unions (such pressures have included the withholding of food rations, cooking oil, bank loans, and fertilizers, as well as job dismissals and attacks from Sandinista mobs).</p>
<p>Give legal recognition to all democratic trade unions and reopen union publications.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Political Parties</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Permit opposition political parties to hold marches and public, outdoor meetings, now restricted by the state-of-emergency.</p>
<p>Stop jailing opposition party activists and conscripting them or their children as a penalty for non-violent political activity.</p>
<p>End government infiltration of political party meetings; end efforts to get opposition party members to spy on party activities or incriminate party leaders.</p>
<p>Allow the democratic opposition free access to the media and permit the opposition to publish their own materials.</p>
<p>Permit opposition parties to publicize party meetings and to travel within the country to attend those meetings.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>The Media</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Permit all publications, including labor bulletins, Church newspapers and magazines, political party bulletins, and private newsletters to publish freely. End prepublication censorship.</p>
<p>End restrictions on newsprint.</p>
<p>End economic harassment of independent publishers (e.g., when La Prensa was closed, it faced bankruptcy due to a combination of state-imposed employee salary increases and state-imposed restrictions on the price of the newspaper).</p>
<p>Allow private television broadcasting.</p>
<p>Allow news broadcasts on private radio stations. Limit censorship to what is strictly necessary for “the protection of national security, or of public order or of public health and morals,” as provided under international human rights law.</p>
<p>End all arbitrary arrests and mob attacks against independent journalists, writers, and publishers.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Human Rights Activists</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Stop all jailings, deprivation of food rations, threats of physical violence, and other pressures against independent human rights activists.</p>
<p>Allow independent human rights activists to hold public meetings and to travel freely throughout the country to monitor human rights conditions.</p>
<p>Give the Nicaraguan Permanent Commission for Human Rights, attorneys, and foreign human rights defenders access to all tribunals to observe proceedings and to all places of detention to inspect conditions and meet with prisoners.</p>
<p>Allow human rights defenders to report their findings freely in both their own publications and through the national and international media.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Indians and Creoles of the Atlantic Coast</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Permit free access to and movement within the Atlantic Coast region for all indigenous peoples and for members of the press, independent human rights activists, church and labor leaders, and other humanitarian groups. Stop requiring Indians and other Atlantic Coast residents to carry special identification cards and permits to travel, fish, hunt, farm, and carry out commercial activities.</p>
<p>Permit freedom of assembly, speech, publishing, and broadcasting to Indians and other indigenous peoples. Negotiate with Indians and other indigenous peoples (including the armed opposition drawn from these sources) to redress past grievances and guarantee autonomy. Permit the return of indigenous civilian rule in all towns and villages of the Atlantic Coast region. End arbitrary arrest, detention, and threats against the residents of the Atlantic Coast.</p>
<p>Permit all Indian and Creole refugees and exiles to return to their homes. Provide compensation for reconstruction of homes and communities destroyed by the government. Grant amnesty to all returnees.</p>
<p>End forcible relocation of indigenous populations. Stop counterinsurgency aerial bombing and strafing against civilians and their villages, homes, and other property. Stop burning and destruction of Indian farms, livestock, and crops.</p>
<p>Permit Indians and Creoles to engage freely in farming, fishing, hunting, and commercial activities necessary for their subsistence. End restrictive licensing and marketing controls that deny basic necessities to the people.</p>
<p>Permit all independent Indian and Creole political, cultural, economic, and social organizations to operate freely in the Atlantic Coast region.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Campesinos (Peasant Fanners)</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Abolish preventive detention of campesinos in areas of military conflict.</p>
<p>Release all campesinos imprisoned without due process.</p>
<p>Stop counterinsurgency aerial bombing and strafing attacks against campesino civilians, their villages, homes, and property.</p>
<p>Stop the counterinsurgency practice of burning and destroying campesino crops, livestock, and other food supplies.</p>
<p>End forced resettlement of campesino families to Sandinista-controlled camps; release and facilitate the return of campesinos to their homes.</p>
<p>End pressures against campesinos to join Sandinista farming cooperatives or to join and attend meetings of Sandinista political organizations such as the Sandinista Defense Committees.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Other Civil Liberties</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Ensure all citizens the rights to freedom of expression, association, assembly, and movement.</p>
<p>Restore the constitutional rights to security of person, the inviolability of the home, and freedom from warrantless arrest.</p>
<p>End coercive pressures to join Sandinista party groups, including the Defense Committees.</p>
<p>Cease applying conscription in a punitive or discriminatory fashion.</p>
<p>Ensure the right to academic freedom.</p>
<p>Allow all citizens, including refugees and exiles, the right to return to the country. Amnesty should extend to all political prisoners and to all resistance forces willing to lay down their arms.</p>
<p>Peace on earth, as we continually insist in these pages, has to do with institutions of freedom. That is not only true for Central America; it is true for South Africa, Korea, Chile, Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, Angola, Mozambique, Haiti, and Sri Lanka. The Puebia Institute’s “Necessary Steps” illustrate the incarnation, if you will, of what one hopes will someday be “peace on (at least a part of) earth.”</p>
<p>George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. and holds EPPC’s William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies.</p>
|
Peace on (Part of) Earth
| false |
https://eppc.org/publications/peace-on-part-of-earth/
| 1 |
|
<p>FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Linebacker Dont’a Hightower tested the free-agent waters this spring before the Pro Bowler returned to the <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/New_England_Patriots/" type="external">New England Patriots</a> on a four-year, $43 million contract. Until this week, though, Hightower had not been on the practice field with his teammates, missing training camp and the first two preseason games while on PUP.</p>
<p>After being removed from PUP and returning to the practice field Aug. 22, the team captain talked about his return to the New England team he first joined as a first-round pick out of Alabama in 2012.</p>
<p>“It’s good. Glad I didn’t have to relocate,” Hightower said. “Stressful, but glad it’s over with. Glad I’m here, that I’m back and I’m glad I’m back on the field.”</p>
<p>After a college career under head coach <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Bill_Belichick/" type="external">Bill Belichick</a> pal <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Nick_Saban/" type="external">Nick Saban</a>, Hightower’s versatility and style have always fit well in New England’s defense.</p>
<p>“It’s meant a lot (to be a Patriot),” Hightower said. “I’ve been here my whole career. It wasn’t a hard a change from what I had in college. I was definitely used to it, so it wasn’t a big change. I feel like I’ve had a lot of success in programs like this. Alabama and New England are not too far different. So just the culture around here, the teammates, the coaches around here is just second to none anywhere. So, when it came down to making my decision, it wasn’t too hard a choice.”</p>
<p>And despite the late start, Hightower is focused on getting back to work for a Patriots team that begins its title defense in a mere two weeks.</p>
<p>“Now it’s more about me getting acclimated back to <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/John_Walker/" type="external">football</a>,” Hightower said of being ready to play. “I’ve got all the little rehab stuff out of the way. Now it’s time to focus on football.”</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>Tight end <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Rob_Gronkowski/" type="external">Rob Gronkowski</a> saw somewhat unexpected preseason action last Saturday night in Houston. Prior to his snaps against the Texans, the All-Pro tight end hadn’t played in the preseason since 2012.</p>
<p>At times, like last summer when Gronkowski dealt with a hamstring issue, the absence was due to injury. Other times, it seemed more like a precaution for the oft-injured big man.</p>
<p>This summer, though, with Gronkowski coming off last December’s back surgery that was the third of his football career, he’s embracing his preseason work.</p>
<p>“I’m glad I was out there,” Gronkowski said of a little more than a dozen reps in Houston. “It felt good just to get the game speed. You can never get enough reps. You can never get enough practice reps. So, it felt great to go out there and get my feet wet and see what it’s all about again.</p>
<p>“I just felt the benefit when I was out there; the speed of the game, live game speed. It’s been a while for me. I felt the benefit of getting in sync blocking-wise, the cadence and everything like that. I’m taking all positives out of it.”</p>
<p>Another change this offseason has seen Gronkowski take part in some of quarterback <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Tom_Brady/" type="external">Tom Brady</a>‘s now-famous diet and workout program – aka the TB12 Method. That’s included, apparently, the frat-boy tight end giving up both coffee and alcohol.</p>
<p>“I don’t do that stuff right now. It’s football time. I never really have done that stuff during football time,” Gronkowski said as he prepared for New England’s trip to Detroit for the third preseason game of the summer.</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>Brady should see his most extended action Aug. 25 in Detroit against the Lions in the Patriots’ third preseason game. Historically, Brady and the bulk of the offense have played at least half the third preseason game, often even going into the third quarter.</p>
<p>Brady acknowledged there is a balance going on between normal preparations for preseason action and beginning to think about the Sept. 7 regular-season opener against the Chiefs that’s just around the corner. Still, his work against the Lions is a key part of the overall process.</p>
<p>“For me, it’s just feeling the rhythm of the game, and it’s different than practice,” Brady said. “The rhythm of practice is very different, and the only way to simulate the game is to play. I can draw on a lot of experience, but it’s nice to get out there and actually do it. I mean, it was fun being out there last week. It will be, obviously, fun being out there this week, but you’re just trying to build up for one game, the start of the season in September. Everything is building toward that. Those snaps that you’re taking with new players are really important. It was nice to get (running back) Rex (Burkhead) a touchdown pass (last week against Houston), and just for him to feel what it’s like for all us to look at another guy’s eyes in the huddle during the course of a game and saying, ‘Look, this is where we’re at. This is football. This is exactly what we’re going to be doing when the season kicks off on Thursday night.'”</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>While guys like Brady, Gronkowski and the rest of the Patriots’ stars will be getting their final significant preseason reps Friday night in Detroit, the bottom of the New England roster will also be battling it out for roster spots and roles. There is only one cutdown date in the NFL this year, coming on Sept. 2.</p>
<p>That’s less than two weeks for guys to prove their worth to Belichick.</p>
<p>“This is the National Football League and there is pressure every week,” Belichick declared in his usual matter-of-fact manner. “There is pressure this week. There is going to be pressure in October. There is going to be pressure in November. We’re going to be under stress all year every week. We’re going to be under stress out on the field every week against every opponent. Playing in the National Football League, that’s what you sign up for. If you’re looking for vacation weeks and weeks off where we play some Division 4 team and all of that, that doesn’t happen in this league. There is stress every week. So, is there stress in training camp? Yeah, there is plenty of it.</p>
<p>“There is pressure every week in this league. If there’s too much pressure in August, it’s probably going to be too much pressure in November. This is the world we live in. You tell me a week in this National Football League when there is not pressure, I don’t know when that is. Every week is a tough week. Every week is a good team, good players, good coaches, work hard that have a lot of things that you’ve got to deal with, and if you don’t deal with them then you’re not going to win that week. That’s the NFL.”</p>
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LB Dont'a Hightower back with New England Patriots in more ways than one
| false |
https://newsline.com/lb-dont039a-hightower-back-with-new-england-patriots-in-more-ways-than-one/
|
2017-08-23
| 1 |
<p />
<p>TSA has made final a new rule criticized for being anti-trans. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)</p>
<p />
<p>The <a href="https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2016-03-03/pdf/2016-04374.pdf" type="external">new rule</a>, made final on Wednesday, codifies existing policy for TSA body-scanners, which requires an agent to select a pink or blue button based on the perceived gender of a person traveling through U.S. airports. According to LGBT groups, transgender people as a result of the policy are stopped by TSA agents and forced to undergo pat downs and inspections of genital areas and chests.</p>
<p>The National Center for Transgender Equality, Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBT &amp; HIV Project denounced the new TSA rule in a joint statement. Among those quoted in the statement is Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality.</p>
<p>“It is completely unacceptable to require Americans to discuss their genitals with uniformed government officials in order to travel by air,” Keisling said. “But that’s exactly what the body scanner program means for many transgender people. TSA has ignored the public’s very real concerns about the efficacy and the real harms of this technology. TSA is spending billions on security theater that seems to do little but erode all travelers’ privacy and dignity.”</p>
<p>According to LGBT groups, TSA has under the policy asked hundreds of U.S. transgender travelers to lift or remove clothing to reveal undergarments or prosthetics. Additionally, transgender travelers are required to undergo multiple pat-downs, asked questions about their bodies and have been blocked from boarding flights because of a “groin alarm.”</p>
<p>TSA issued the rule to comply with a 2013 ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which ordered the agency to engage in comment period on the use of body-scanners. Despite a time period of three years, more than 1,000 comments and multiple challenges by advocacy groups, TSA decided codify its existing policy. The new rule is set to take effect May 2, 2016.</p>
<p>Victoria Rodriguez-Roldan, trans/gender non-conforming justice project director for the National LGBTQ Task Force, said under the policy transgender people are “dehumanized and placed in harm’s way.”</p>
<p>“Transgender people are regularly harassed and humiliated by current screening procedures, which treats transgender people’s bodies as ‘alarms’ and thus subjecting them to physical and emotional mistreatment,” Rodriguez-Roldan said. “Current policies create a situation where transgender people are dehumanized and placed in harm’s way by constantly outing them and forcing them to disclose their personal lives with TSA agents in front of everyone in order to travel by airplane.”</p>
<p>Rodriguez-Roldan said TSA “needs to institute screening algorithms in their scanners that are universal” instead of relying stereotypes about appearance to determine a person’s gender.</p>
<p>TSA makes the new rule final despite <a href="" type="internal">an October 2015 letter</a> signed by 32 members of Congress, including Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.), calling on TSA to reform the way it screens transgender passengers.</p>
<p>The discriminatory impact of the body-scanners on transgender people is but one criticism against the machines. According to a report in <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/03/02/tsa-defends-full-body-scanners-airport-checkpoints/81203030/" type="external">USA Today</a>, they’ve also have been condemned for other health and privacy reasons. Another issue for the machines is their hefty cost, which is estimated to have reached $2.1 billion from 2008 through 2017.</p>
<p>Despite these issues, TSA insists the machines are the best way to protect U.S. travelers from terror attacks, according to the USA Today article.</p>
<p>Mike England, a TSA spokesperson, insisted in a statement to the Washington Blade the policy in place treats transgender people fairly.</p>
<p>“TSA officers are trained to properly screen members of the transgender community,” England said. “TSA recognizes the concerns that some members of the transgender community may have with certain security screening procedures at the nation’s security checkpoints. TSA is committed to ensuring all travelers are treated with respect and courtesy and is continuing to enhance training efforts in response to concerns raised by the transgender community.”</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">National LGBTQ Task Force</a> <a href="" type="internal">U.S. Transportation Security Administration</a> <a href="" type="internal">Victoria Rodriguez-Roldan</a></p>
|
New TSA body-scanner rule criticized as anti-trans
| false |
http://washingtonblade.com/2016/03/05/new-tsa-body-scanner-rule-criticized-as-anti-trans/
| 3 |
|
<p>Members of the South Side’s Woodlawn and Englewood neighborhoods joined together on Sept. 13 to create a Peace Mural, a vibrant art wall at 63rd Street and Wallace Avenue that encourages positive relationships and nonviolent solutions to problems.</p>
<p>The effort was launched by EarthHeart Foundation and Green Star Movement. EarthHeart Foundation is a national organization that encourages mothers to be the catalysts for peace in their communities. Green Star Movement is a nonprofit group that helps residents transform neighborhoods with public art.</p>
<p>According to the Chicago Tribune’s listings on violent-crime reports in the city, Englewood ties two other areas for 1st and Woodlawn ranks 15th among the city’s 77 community areas.&#160;</p>
<p>Work on the mural will continue on Saturdays at noon through September.&#160;</p>
<p>See what they accomplished the first day:</p>
<p />
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Mural’s message of peace connects 2 communities
| false |
http://chicagoreporter.com/murals-message-of-peace-connects-2-communities/
|
2014-09-17
| 3 |
<p>** <a href="" type="internal">A complete version of this article with footnotes is available as a pdf download here</a>.**&#160;</p>
<p>As my Ethics and Public Policy Center colleagues, Peter Wehner and Yuval Levin, documented in an insightful Commentary essay last year, the United States has made substantial, if unheralded and under-reported, progress on a number of social indicators in recent years.</p>
<p>For starters, violent crime is down — way down. The number of reported violent crimes was 1,656,100 in 1991, but only 1,190,600 in 2005 — a reduction of 28 percent. Similarly, the use of illicit drugs by teenagers and children has fallen 24 percent just since 2001. And, perhaps most stunning of all, the number of American families and children enrolled in the primary cash welfare program — now known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF — has plummeted. In 1996, there were more than 4.6 million Americans receiving cash benefits through Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) — the predecessor program to TANF. By 2002, state caseloads had been cut by more than half, to just 2.1 million people.</p>
<p>Progress on these indicators didn't just happen. The much improved trend lines are the result of conscious changes in government policy, and particularly in federal policy.</p>
<p>Regarding crime, a bipartisan consensus emerged in the 1980s that the country was allowing too many violent criminals — a strong predictor of future criminal behavior — out of prison much too quickly. Tougher minimum sentencing requirements has swelled the population in prisons across the country, but it has also unquestionably contributed to the dramatic drop in violent crime — a decline much welcomed in many low-income, urban settings.</p>
<p>Similarly, progress on illicit drug use stems largely from a series of government initiatives aimed at reducing demand and disrupting supply. In the aftermath of the 1960s, many elites took a benign view of drug use, erroneously assuming its consequences were passing and insignificant. But attitudes changed with the Reagan era “Just Say No” campaign. Government-sponsored public service announcements have run in prominent media outlets with regularity ever since, hammering the point home that illicit drug use is not only dangerous and lethal, but also a dead end, leading to estrangement and loneliness. The message has largely gotten through to younger Americans, although this battle is far from over. Demand has ebbed somewhat, but the temptations remain strong as the flow of drugs into the country remains substantial.</p>
<p>The policy shift in the 1990s on welfare was particularly pronounced and consequential. AFDC was supposed to help poor single mothers and their children who had been abandoned by their fathers without a steady source of earned income. But the tragedy of AFDC was that, in trying to ease the consequences of counterproductive behavior, it only encouraged more of the same. Providing financial support to fatherless families without a bread-winner in the home effectively underwrote the formation of many additional such families. Out-of-wedlock births, already on the rise, soared, especially in minority communities, and work and self-reliance declined.</p>
<p>By the 1990s, a broad consensus emerged that reform was needed. The 1996 welfare reform program took the controversial step of terminating the previous federal entitlement to cash benefits, providing states instead with a limited block grant of funds, time limits on how long recipients could get cash assistance, and new requirements to encourage recipients to work their way off welfare dependency. These measures were coupled with a series of separately enacted expansions in the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) program, which provides a refundable tax credit to support low-wage households willing to forego government assistance for work.</p>
<p>Many predicted that this combination of policies would be calamitous for low income communities, with millions of children going without food or shelter once the entitlement to cash welfare assistance was time-limited. What happened?</p>
<p>Far from causing calamity, welfare reform and the emphasis on work has ushered in a new era of hope. Millions of American left welfare for paying jobs. Caseloads have plunged. And states have been able to use much more of their limited resources to provide child care and job training instead of subsistence.</p>
<p>A recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) documented the stunning reversal of previous trends. As shown in Chart 1, between 1991 and 2005, the incomes of those households representing the bottom fifth of the distribution went up 35 percent in real terms. This was the second largest percentage gain in income among the five quintiles, behind only the highest income group (which enjoyed a real income increase of 53 percent between 1991 and 2005).</p>
<p>What's even more encouraging is the change in the sources of income over that period. CBO estimates that work-related earnings for these households increased more than 80 percent in real terms from 1991 to 2005, while cash welfare dependency plunged. In 1991, AFDC represented 30 percent of total income for the lowest income quintile of families with children. By 2005, TANF was contributing just 4 percent to total income for these families. Similarly, the participation rate in cash welfare dropped precipitously, from more than half of all families in the lowest quintile in 1991 to under 20 percent in 2005.</p>
<p>There are a couple of lessons that might be taken from these recent governmental successes. One is that a change in public policy can, under the right circumstances, make a difference. A key condition is clarity of purpose. If the goal is clear and widely supported, the federal government can marshal significant resources to achieve it. Another important lesson is that financial incentives matter enormously. It is close to an iron law in public policy analysis that whatever the government chooses to subsidize will, in time, become more prevalent. Thus, changing the tax law to supplement earned income expanded dramatically the number of hours worked by those potentially eligible for the subsidy. Similarly, paying households, even when they don't work or take steps to join the workforce, induces more dependency.</p>
<p>And so, the question becomes, what societal challenge now requires concerted governmental attention? The answer is the broader, middle class American family. Despite progress in other areas, the American family has been showing signs of stress in two important ways for many years now: Families are much smaller than they used to be, and a growing number of American children are being raised outside intact, two-parent households.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Click here to download the pdf to continue reading this article</a>.</p>
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Investing in Middle Class Families
| false |
https://eppc.org/publications/investing-in-middle-class-families/
| 1 |
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<p>This is why judicial appointments actually matter. In a 2-1 decision today, the DC Court of Appeals struck down the FCC's 2010 ruling on net neutrality, giving a big win to the right wing and corporations.</p>
<p><a href="http://gigaom.com/2014/01/14/breaking-court-strikes-down-fccs-net-neutrality-rules/" type="external">GigaOm</a>:</p>
<p>An appeals court in Washington on Tuesday ruled that the FCC’s <a href="http://gigaom.com/2013/09/09/the-beast-is-back-the-fccs-net-neutrality-case-gets-its-day-in-court/" type="external">“net neutrality” rules</a>, which prevent companies like Verizon from favoring some types of internet traffic over others, are invalid. The 81-page ruling, which was decided by a 2-1 vote with one judge dissenting in part, has big implications for content providers, consumers and the future of the internet. (Here is <a href="http://gigaom.com/2010/12/21/a-net-neutrality-timeline-how-we-got-here/" type="external">year-by-year timeline</a> of the legal battles).</p>
<p>In a key passage at the start of the ruling, embedded below, the court wrote:</p>
<p>That said, even though the Commission has general authority to regulate in this arena, it may not impose requirements that contravene express statutory mandates. Given that the Commission has chosen to classify broadband providers in a manner that exempts them from treatment as common carriers, the Communications Act expressly prohibits the Commission from nonetheless regulating them as such. Because the Commission has failed to establish that the anti-discrimination and anti-blocking rules do not impose per se common carrier obligations, we vacate those portions of the Open Internet Order.</p>
<p>The court’s ruling is a game-changer because it upsets the FCC’s current practice of requiring broadband internet providers to act akin to “common carriers.” In plain English, this means that they have had to behave in a similar way to phone companies and not give special preference to one type of call (or traffic) over another.</p>
<p>The DC court was ground zero for Harry Reid's decision to change the filibuster rules, and it's not difficult to understand why. This was decided by a panel of 3 judges on a court skewed by the Bush administration while the Senate stonewalled any and all Obama appointments.</p>
<p>This decision means that companies like Verizon, AT&amp;T, Time-Warner Cable and Comcast will decide which Internet ventures live and die. If they decide they don't like the content on this site, they can meter load times so that we're slow and kludgy while promoting Breitbart on a fast track.</p>
<p>Now that the new FCC head is a former lobbyist for the cable industry, I don't see any pathway to a correction, either. All around, it's a bad day for Internet users, and a great one for large corporate interests.</p>
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Net Neutrality Is Dead After Appellate Court Ruling
| true |
http://crooksandliars.com/2014/01/net-neutrality-dead-after-appellate-court
|
2014-01-14
| 4 |
<p>In remarks from the Democratic National Convention stage applauded by big media, Sarah Silverman&#160; <a href="http://www.bustle.com/articles/174793-the-transcript-of-sarah-silvermans-dnc-speech-includes-a-very-important-message" type="external">lauded</a>&#160;the Democratic Party primary process as “exemplary”.</p>
<p>I guess that’s why she’s a comedian.</p>
<p>Perhaps she doesn’t know who Debbie Wasserman Schultz is. Perhaps she doesn’t know that&#160;Schultz just resigned as head of the Democratic National Committee after the release by WikiLeaks of DNC internal emails showing evidence of them conspiring against Sanders. Of course, Schultz was then immediately named “honorary chair” of the Clinton own campaign. Schultz as “honorary” anything — now that’s funny.</p>
<p>Hey Sarah, check this out: “ <a href="" type="internal">DNC Staffers Mocked the Bernie Sanders Campaign, Leaked Emails Show</a>“.&#160;Julian Assange accused the Democratic National Committee of “ <a href="http://www.accuracy.org/release/dnc-naked-conspiracies-tim-kaines-wall-st-ties/" type="external">naked conspiracies</a>” against Bernie Sanders.</p>
<p>Still, Silverman insisted: “This Democratic primary was exemplary. No name calling … that stuff is for third graders.”</p>
<p>Yes, name calling is for third graders. Which I guess is why she then blurted out “Can I just say, to the Bernie or Bust people, you’re being ridiculous.”</p>
<p>Wow, there’s a well-reasoned argument. “You’re being ridiculous.”</p>
<p>I have mixed feelings about people shouting in a hall, but what was really ridiculous was that as I flipped from network to network, none seems to want to tell me what it was the delegates were chanting. After poking around my&#160; <a href="" type="internal">twitter feed</a>, here’s some of what they were apparently saying — more substantial than the speeches from the podium:</p>
<p>“Tax Wall Street!” and “Release the transcripts!” and “99 percent!” and, as it was claimed that Clinton would be tough on Wall Street: “Goldman Sachs! Goldman Sachs!” and “We trusted you! We trusted you!” (to Elizebeth Warren) and apparently, at one point, they referred to the DNC scandal — “Wikileaks! Wikileaks! Wikileaks!” When Bernie Sanders talked about Hillary Clinton on crime, some shouted “super predators!”</p>
<p>But who wants to hear what delegates think when we have Sarah Silverman making STD jokes about “feel the burn”?</p>
<p>Not that activists shouldn’t be questioned. I’ve had my own criticisms of #BernieOrBust for some time. Some of them have made a cult out of an&#160; <a href="https://husseini.posthaven.com/small-servings-lousy-food-sanders-foreign-policy-backing-saudi-intervention" type="external">obviously flawed man</a>, who it’s been apparent for weeks if not months would not get the nomination.&#160;Backing Sanders should be a&#160; <a href="" type="internal">tactic, not the goal</a>. His supporters now should use the&#160; <a href="http://votepact.org/" type="external">VotePact.org</a>&#160;voting strategy — see in my piece “ <a href="" type="internal">#BernieAndBoom</a>.” This would mean disenchanted Democrats and disenchanted Republicans who know and trust each other pairing up and vote for the independent candidates of their choice, like the Green or Libertarian candidates. Methodical action is the order of the day in the coming weeks, months and years.</p>
<p>And I don’t mean to be too hard on Silverman. After all, I don’t think her performance with Al Franken was quite the unintentionally funniest bit on Monday night.</p>
<p>I thought it was hilarious when Elizabeth Warren tried to paint Clinton as someone who would stand up to Wall Street. And I thought it was unintentionally uproariously funny when the much touted “first Muslim” member of Congress,&#160; <a href="http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/layers-islamophobia-rep-ellison-says-hes-unaware-clinton-having-returned-muslim" type="external">Keith Ellison</a>, introduced Sanders without a mention of perpetual U.S. wars — which have killed hundreds of thousands of Muslims over the last several decades. Seeing the king of rhetoric, Bill Clinton applauding speakers like some kind of phony wise man was sickeningly priceless. And there was comedic irony in Cory Booker’s endless empty platitudes about “courage” and such as grassroots activists showed some degree of actual courage — struggling to find a way to be heard in a rigged system.</p>
<p>Silverman also said: “My shrink says we don’t get what we want, we get what we think we deserve.” So, maybe that’s what she thinks she deserves: a corporate, militaristic candidate serving the interests of the elite — of which Silverman is a member at this point.</p>
<p>The sign many were waving last night — “love trumps hate” — was way off. Clinton — “ <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgcd1ghag5Y" type="external">we came, we saw, he died</a>” (about Qaddafi) — is the candidate of love? Really? The Clinton message is actually “fear trumps Trump”. Even as speaker after speaker at the DNC attacked Trump for instilling fear (true enough), their own go-to message was: Back Hillary because the Donald should arouse such fear in you that all other thought processes should immediately shut down.</p>
<p>So it took extra chutzpah, and comedic gold, for Silverman to saying that “I will vote for Hillary with gusto” — showing for all to see her extraordinary delusion.</p>
<p>This is a world view in which substance, debate and democracy must be avoided. The&#160;New York Times&#160;headlined a piece “ <a href="https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/757845427735531522" type="external">Sarah Silverman tames the Bernie beast</a>” — echoing the now fashionable founding money man of the one percent&#160; <a href="http://www.accuracy.org/release/hamilton-captain-of-the-one-percent/" type="external">Alexander Hamilton’s</a>&#160;derision of the general public: “Your people, sir — your people is a great beast!”</p>
<p>Appropriately, just as&#160;Sanders ended his own sad speech, which induced tears of grief among his perhaps naive delegates, the choreographers of the evening’s festivities chimed in a riff from “ <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rxWPEdYCnI" type="external">Taking it to the Street</a>” — perhaps they didn’t think to look at the rest of the lyrics of the song:</p>
<p>You, telling me the things you’re gonna do for me</p>
<p>I ain’t blind and I don’t like what I think I see</p>
<p>Quite appropriate for an evening of promises on behalf of the corporate candidate of perpetual wars who has just again reiterated her actual big money allegiance with her&#160; <a href="http://www.accuracy.org/release/kaine-wall-street-vp/" type="external">vice presidential pick</a>&#160;— to the delight of a stage managed, big media driven system appalled by the threat of accountability and democracy actually breaking out.</p>
|
Why Sarah Silverman is a Comedienne
| true |
https://counterpunch.org/2016/07/27/why-sarah-silverman-is-a-comedienne/
|
2016-07-27
| 4 |
<p>“What’s this Bush Administration really about?” A frustrated student asked me.</p>
<p>Good question! I suggested that he look into the clever manipulators–led by Karl Rove — who have woven together a novel coalition of voracious looters and naked imperialists. By employing styles and methods of bullying, secrecy and downright prevarication, they have developed a unique political mating process in which the national security mavens bond with religious zealots, fanatic gun lovers cuddle with anti-abortion and death penalty advocates and the rest of us get truly f……</p>
<p>Defense Policy Board Chairman Richard Perle and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz provide the “full spectral dominance” phrases for the mean and nasty Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. They embody both naked empire and corporate looting in their worldview. Rumsfeld has tried to squash dissent from the Pentagon on his Iraqi crusade and Cheney has signaled Congress that grass will grow on the Members’ palms before he delivers any information to them in his secret national energy plan negotiations with Enron executives.</p>
<p>On the domestic side Attorney General John Ashcroft, once the extreme advocate of personal freedom and states rights in the right wing of the Republican Party, now leads the charge against American’s civil liberties and into their private affairs. The FBI, whose unique email system challenged direct communication from other agencies, now slips silently into other peoples’ electronic and snail mail, tap their phones with skimpy cause and surveil members of their family.</p>
<p>The security state claims preeminence over all other needs. By routinely predicting terrorist acts, it keeps the citizens frightened and justifies its intrusion into business life as well. Once a vociferous states righter, Ashcroft now wants seemingly unlimited power for his federal agencies. In religion, however, he apparently favors a church-state marriage, but would deny homosexuals any marital rights or benefits. Ashcroft, the unofficial Commissar of Religious Activities, told a conservative Denver audience on January 13 that the government has “discriminated” against far right religious groups by not giving them taxpayers’ money.</p>
<p>These officials, known as budget cutting conservatives did actually slash some spending–that is funds directed toward the poor, social spending. However, these same allegedly compassionate conservatives presented wildly extravagant figures to fund the military. Supposedly to pursue terrorists and the axis of evil, Rummy and Dick encouraged the military brass and CIA to demand a $400 billion budget, far higher than any figure submitted during the Cold War.</p>
<p>If you plan to conquer the world, what’s a stinking $400 billion? The question is: how to carry out this epic evil without suffering many casualties so that the US public won’t catch on!</p>
<p>After Vietnam, the US political and military classes understood that we shouldn’t fight anyone who could fight back. After some serious Muslim enemies in Lebanon bombed a US Marine barracks and killed almost 200 men Reagan, following the counsel of his wife Nancy’s astrologer, refused to send troops to Central America to defeat the leftist government of Nicaragua. US casualties would certainly have ensued. Instead, he unleashed the CIA against the Sandinistas. When he did pick military intervention spots, like Grenada, he insisted on an overkill number of US troops to defeat a nonexistent enemy.</p>
<p>It took time for the military and the White House to understand how to stage aggression and spin it as heroism. Panama George Bush (41) captured Panama Strong Man Tough Tony Noriega in 1989, after the spinners built up Noriega’s forces as a serious opposition. They weren’t of course, but by demonizing Noriega, and exaggerating his strength, the White House fabulists could present Bush 41 as a hard-hitting hero who had done irreparable damage to the drug trade. (The drug trade barely felt the Panama invasion, but 52 felons, convicted on drug charges, testified against Noriega at his Miami trial and received sentence reductions.)</p>
<p>Then, the White House simulated boxing promoter Don King who would convert Saddam Hussein, a 50th rated lightweight once in their corner, into a heavyweight contender that represented pure evil. In fact, Saddam had no defense against US power. The Gulf War should have been called a technological massacre rather than a war.</p>
<p>After Clinton’s sporadic bombing of targets in former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Sudan and Afghanistan and his ambivalence toward conquering all by ourselves, the reign of Boy George the Emperor began.</p>
<p>Scale back, he said, expressing an approach to foreign policy that coincided with his ignorance on the subject. Then came 9/11. The world changed and the naked imperialists emerged from their closets–or Cabinets. Some, like the influential Perle who sits on the Defense Policy Board, have shrouded their shadowy organizations in secrecy. Wow, they must be really important!</p>
<p>Within months we had a war against terrorism and an axis of evil. Subsequently, Administration officials declared that they would engage in “pre-emptive” strikes and deploy nuclear weapons if necessary against their foes.</p>
<p>North Korea took this rhetoric at face value. Having been put into the axis of evil and having a loathed leader, the Koreans logically deduced that having nuclear weapons would be their only defense When North Korea revealed that it might have a few nukes and that it would withdraw from the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, thus imitating Bush’s example of withdrawing from treaties, they won respect. Although W personally “loathes” North Korean leader Kim Jong Ill — W said he didn’t like leaders who starve their people — he has agreed to “talk” with him, but not “negotiate.” For Bush, talking means offering the hated Kim oil and money in return for Korea’s stopping nuclear weapons development. I’m trying to figure out what negotiation could mean.</p>
<p>Iraq has no nukes and therefore merits no respect. We can invade with probable impunity–maybe some chemical; and biological weapons, but after the inspectors do their job and get rid of them, Iraq is a piece of cake.</p>
<p>I conclude this after sifting through countless articles and reports. But it’s not easy to discern reality from the news sources. On January 15, I perused the MSN headlines looking for help in defining the difference between talking and negotiating with North Korea,.</p>
<p>I learned that Nicole Kidman coped with her divorce by working out her emotional problems through making millions filming “The Hours.” Equally important, Cameron Diaz had to miss the premieres of “Gangs of New York” in several European hot spots because of an outbreak of acne and Kate Winslet suffered the humiliation of getting her curves (read a trace of real human fat?) air-brushed out to make her look more beautiful (emaciated) in some GQ photos.</p>
<p>Further into the news, I discover that the White House spinsters are trying to air-brush the fat that would go to the rich under Bush’s tax plan. Under the guise of helping the little guy with a tax rebate, the looters have already begun filling their pockets while the naked imperialists under the umbrella of fighting terrorism have begun to conquer the world.</p>
<p>And practically no one in Congress objected to piratical agenda. The protestations from the Democratic leadership amounted to a wimpy plea to carry out aggression against Iraq with our allies, not alone, and a whine to spend a little money on social stuff. Tom Daschle did fly into a rage, but only when he felt that Bush had impugned his and his colleagues’ patriotism; he didn’t care about innocent Iraqis dying.</p>
<p>The rest of the public, the Rove gang hoped, would remain consumed with the ever more intense pressures of surviving daily work and home life and the idiosyncrasies and travails of actors and athletes.</p>
<p>So, I told my student, the Bush Administration defies traditional policy analysis. It is more like a bipolar disorder in which policy is directed by the compulsion to pillage at home and the obsession to conquer abroad. To undertake such behavior, the controllers of policy in the White House have created the permanent insecurity state, which they disguise under the label “security.” Security, a far cry from Peanuts’ thumb and blanket, means taking off your shoes and undoing your belt at airports, undergoing “wanding” and a variety of other meaningless procedures that supposedly will thwart the terrorists. If you’re a Muslim or Arab American, life has become anxiety ridden. You can expect a police raid at any time. The security state thrives on insecurity. Under the banners of urgency, federal police look into your personal business. It also means that at many airports certain shops have become inaccessible to non-passengers and that “security” checks at borders have grown longer. This hurts business, a symptom of this bipolar criminal madness. Let’s see if the “security” state can coexist with the shopping culture. If not, goodbye Bush.</p>
<p>SAUL LANDAU teaches at Cal Poly Pomona University and is a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. His new film, IRAQ: VOICES FROM THE STREETS, is available through The Cinema Guild. 1-800-723-5522. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
|
A Guide to Bush’s Political Bipolar Disorder
| true |
https://counterpunch.org/2003/01/25/a-guide-to-bush-s-political-bipolar-disorder/
|
2003-01-25
| 4 |
<p>Sept. 22 (UPI) — <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Ric_Flair/" type="external">Ric Flair</a> is on the road to recovery and has sworn off alcohol for the rest of his life following his recent near-death experience.</p>
<p>“Ten days on life support, it’ll wake you up, man,” the legendary performer said Thursday on <a href="http://www.espn.com/wwe/story/_/id/20776051/wwe-ric-flair-new-lease-life" type="external">ESPN’s</a> The Dan Le Batard Show to promote his upcoming book about himself and his daughter, current WWE Superstar Charlotte Flair that is titled Second Nature: The Legacy of Ric Flair and the Rise of Charlotte.</p>
<p>Flair also detailed his battle with alcoholism and how his drinking habits from throughout his career landed him in the hospital. “Between 3,700 and 4,000 calories worth of booze — soda or a splash of cranberry — every day. Like 20 drinks a day,” he said of his average alcohol intake.</p>
<p>“I got sick,” Flair continued of the moments leading up to his <a href="https://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/2017/08/14/Wrestling-icon-Ric-Flair-in-hospital-rep-asks-for-prayers/3861502725038/ph2/" type="external">hospitalization</a>. “I had eaten some raw oysters and I told Wendy [fiancee] I didn’t feel right. She took me to the hospital on the 11th of August and by the 14th I was on life support.”</p>
<p>“They told my kids that everything had shut down — kidney failure, congestive heart failure, everything shut down,” the professional wrestling icon said. “The joke was, with the doctors, that the only thing that was alive and kicking, sitting at the bar waiting for me, was my liver.”</p>
<p>“My daughters told me that [the doctor] said to go in and say goodbye to your daddy, he’s not going to make it.”</p>
<p>Flair, now recovering, has had a pacemaker installed and will need a colostomy bag for six months.</p>
<p>In August, Charlotte discussed with WWE what the experience was like living through her father’s health scare <a href="https://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/2017/08/30/Charlotte-Flair-gives-update-to-WWE-on-dad-Ric-Flairs-condition/1241504091185/" type="external">noting</a>, “It’s probably the hardest two weeks I’ve had, but man my dad’s a fighter.”</p>
<p>Flair will be featured once again on ESPN in November for an upcoming 30 for 30 <a href="https://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/TV/2017/07/27/Ric-Flairs-ESPN-30-for-30-documentary-to-air-in-November-trailer-released/5611501170080/" type="external">documentary</a> that explores The Nature Boy’s Hall of Fame career.</p>
|
Ric Flair details battle with alcoholism following health scare
| false |
https://newsline.com/ric-flair-details-battle-with-alcoholism-following-health-scare/
|
2017-09-22
| 1 |
<p><a href="//videos/37/60261" type="external" /></p>
<p>RUSH: We go to Traverse City, Michigan. This is Brenda. Thank you for calling and for waiting and being patient. Hi.</p>
<p>CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thank you for taking my call.</p>
<p>RUSH: You bet.</p>
<p>CALLER: I wanted to discuss <a href="" type="internal">the Elliot Rodger situation</a>, and I simply want to point out that something I think the liberal media will happily avoid, and that is that this is what happens when children are not parented. I think his parents should be held responsible. Obviously he’s responsible for what he did, but his parents are also responsible because I think he was neglected, to say the least. I think he was probably also abused. And, you know, I think that they just happily continued on with their lives.</p>
<p>RUSH: What do you mean, abused? What are you thinking happened to him?</p>
<p>CALLER: I scanned over his manifest last evening, and one incident really stood out. When he entered his father’s home to get a drink of water, his stepmother ordered him to exit and to ring the doorbell. He went ahead and started to drink his water, evidently, and she smashed the glass out of his hand and it shattered on the floor. The father appeared when he heard the glass shattering, and he ordered him out of the house. Evidently he was supposed to ring the doorbell and enter properly. I mean, that’s ridiculous.</p>
<p>RUSH: Well that sounds like the father afraid of the mother.</p>
<p>CALLER: Exactly, and that’s the power play that goes on in this country. We have kids getting shipped off to day care. We have kids getting —</p>
<p>RUSH: Well, you know, there have been incidents like this that have come up, Brenda, and every time — not every time, but oftentimes somebody will suggest, “The parents played a role here. We really need to consider how the child was raised and maybe the parents…” A lot of times when that happens, people say, “Wait a minute. You can’t start getting off on that tangent of the parents are responsible or share some of the blame ’cause the kid did what he did.”</p>
<p>BREAK TRANSCRIPT</p>
<p>RUSH: I made a slight error, ladies and gentlemen. It was not Elliot Rodger’s father but one of the victim’s fathers who said, “When are the politicians gonna do something about this?” That means, “When are the politicians gonna get rid of the guns?” Elliot Rodger’s father, I don’t know that he’s spoken publicly about the incident, but he has blamed the NRA and lack of gun control laws before.</p>
<p>However there aren’t any existing or proposed gun control laws that would have stopped Elliot Rodger. If I’m not mistaken… I hope I’m not committing a minor error again, but I think this kid passed three background checks, one for each gun that he bought. He didn’t need any large-capacity magazines, which are already illegal in California. The family had called the cops on their son but it was too late.</p>
<p>They went to his apartment and questioned him, but it went nowhere. But still, this reflex to turn to politicians in Washington? Now, I understand the utter emptiness, sadness, rage, anger that parents in a situation like this have. I guess, you know, I understand human nature and wanting to turn to the source of all authority. But it isn’t me. “When is the government gonna…?”</p>
<p>It’s just the opposite. I don’t view it that way.</p>
<p>There’s nothing in my life I want to turn over to the government, that I think they can do better than I can do myself, other than the US military. Of course, I don’t want to build my own roads and stuff like that. Obviously. But I’m talking about just the personal aspects of life and having some central authority that you think is going to end sadness, that can deal with it? Let’s face it, folks: It is a creeping problem. We’ve got dingbats calling 911 when McDonald’s doesn’t have any McNuggets, and some of them think they’re calling Washington. It’s an amazing thing.</p>
<p>Here’s Dave in Indianapolis. Hi, Dave. Glad you called, sir. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hi.</p>
<p>CALLER: (garbled) Rush, it’s a real pleasure to talk to you. Thank you for taking my call. I think I’ve got a thread that will run through the entirety of what you’ve been talking about since the start of the show, multiple issues.</p>
<p>RUSH: Okay.</p>
<p>CALLER: I believe a primary responsibility of parenting, a foundational responsibility, is for the parents of a child to be the restraint, to be the molders of that child’s mind in what’s right and what’s wrong and to be there in the way of them harming others and harming themselves, and to train them, raise them up in how they are supposed to behave to understand right and wrong and to be in the way until that child grows to the point of being a responsible adult.</p>
<p>RUSH: Don’t you understand that, in the modern era, what you just described equals retarding your child’s growth? (angrily) “You are limiting your child’s experiences and exposure to opportunity and life as it really exists in this country! You can’t stop them from experiencing the excrement as much as they want. It’s out there, and it’s better that they find it. You can’t do all that!”</p>
<p>CALLER: Yes, it’s my responsibility to do so, and I think one of the key problems that we have in society is the undermining and destruction and the emasculation of males, the destruction of the family, and in particular targeting the father in the proper role a father’s supposed to have. I’m not suggesting that a child can’t not turn out correctly. If there are problems with the family, I understand completely it does happen.</p>
<p>RUSH: Don’t forget, now —</p>
<p>CALLER: But the proper —</p>
<p>RUSH: In this case, don’t forget that this kid’s parents, they knew there was something wrong. I don’t know. They said… (interruption) Yeah, he was seeing a therapist since age eight. But, you know, there are people who think that is its own problem, all these therapy babies. What are they told in therapy? They’re told they’re invincible. They’re told their self-esteem is paramount, that they have a right to love themselves and to put themselves first and to be concerned about themselves and so forth.</p>
<p>CALLER: And I believe a study was done some years ago, and they were evaluating where one could find some of the highest tested levels of self-esteem. Do you remember that study?</p>
<p>RUSH: Yeah. I do remember that. Absolutely I do remember that.</p>
<p>CALLER: Do you know where they found the highest levels of self-esteem? Prison. They found it in prison. I think it is the entitlement mentality. I think it is the lack of personal initiative and responsibility, the lack of personal accountability that is not taught to children today that is the reason for the man babies that we’ve got in our society.</p>
<p>RUSH: Okay.</p>
<p>CALLER: I mean, not everybody’s going to go into a school and do what, God forbid, happened in Sandy Hook. I grieve for those patients. But that family was a train wreck. I think when you combine someone who has some problematic wiring with a dysfunctional family, you end up with what happened in California.</p>
<p>RUSH: Let me ask you a question about something you said about the emasculation of males, because there are a lot of people who would think you’re on to something there. One of the e tenets of modern-era feminism — which, you know, you trace back to the early seventies — is that men are predators, that men are beasts. Look at the hashtags on Twitter today. Not all men are like this guy, they say, but women face this threat from men every day of their lives. It is a Twitter hashtag. It already has a million whatevers, and it’s growing.</p>
<p>CALLER: I would say that that is a huge problem, and it is a symptom. I think the root cause goes back to men, the emasculation of them, and the lack of teaching boundaries and proper treatment of women and proper respect for women, from the father and mother.</p>
<p>RUSH: Well, perhaps. Look, a lot of people agree with you. For example I have a little story that I found, of all places, on one of my tech blogs yesterday. Listen to this. “Study Finds Lonely Women Use Facebook All the Time — Those who over-share on Facebook may be dissatisfied with real life. According to a new study from Charles Sturt University in New South Wales, Australia, women who consider themselves to be lonely or depressed are more willing to disclose information through the social network.</p>
<p>“The study, titled ‘Self-disclosure on Facebook among female users and its relationship to feelings of loneliness,’ found that 79% of users who admit to being ‘lonely’ disclosed personal information, like their favorite books and movies on Facebook. The figure is higher compared to 65% of other users. According to Market Watch, 98% of lonely Facebook users shared their relationship status publicly, as opposed to restricting the information to friends.”</p>
<p>Ninety-eight percent!</p>
<p>Practically all of the women on Facebook who considered themselves unhappy are just volunteering every piece of data about themselves.</p>
<p>Modern-era feminism has been a poison in many ways. You look at The Vagina Monologues, renowned Broadway play, and it’s all rooted in the predatory, brutish potential of men. And remember the fake survey that the media trumpeted and everybody believed for a short period of time, that Super Bowl Sunday saw the most violence against women of any day of the year. And that’s when men are doing what? Sitting there getting drunk, eating snacks, drinking beer, watching the now brutal game of football and, when things didn’t go right, taking it out on their long-suffering, poor victim wives. And it turned out to be a totally bogus survey, just totally made up, by a group of people with connections to some feminist fundraising outfit.</p>
<p>And so the chickification of the culture, there’s no question it’s happening. In fact, I read — I don’t know how much of this is true, there’s so much out there — I read that one of the reasons that Pinch Sulzberger got rid of Jill Abramson was that she was hiring women in every key editor, managerial position she could. She was slowly but surely getting rid of all the men in the department. I can’t remember where I read that. (interruption) Right, right, it was the New York Times, that’s exactly right, that’s where it was. Anyway, I appreciate the call, Dave.</p>
|
Washington Doesn’t Have the Answers to Our Cultural Problems
| true |
http://rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2014/05/28/washington_doesn_t_have_the_answers_to_our_cultural_problems
|
2014-05-28
| 0 |
<p />
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Shares ofSears Holding Corp(NASDAQ: SHLD) were screaming higher Friday after the struggling retailer unveiled a restructuring plan to cheers from investors. As of 11 a.m. EST, the stock was up 28.6%.</p>
<p>Sears shares had sold off sharply in recent weeks on warnings from ratings agencies and others that the stock was facing an imminent threat of bankruptcy. On Friday, however, the company said it would take a number of initiatives to stem the bleeding, including cutting costs by at least $1 billion, simplifying the company's organizational structure, optimizing product assortment, and actively managing and capitalizing on its real estate portfolio. Sears also added $140 million to its credit facility, increasing liquidity.</p>
<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>In the company's first comments on its holiday season performance, it said it delivered "meaningful improvement in operating performance" in the key quarter, though same-store sales declined 10.3%. It also said it would report an adjusted net loss between $135 million and $285 million for the period.</p>
<p>Investors are desperate for any piece of good news out of Sears, which explains Friday's surge. Reading between the lines of the press release, however, shows that the changes aren't as promising as the headlines. The cost-cutting includes previously announced plans to close 150 stores, meaning its more of a reduction in operations than costs, and it's hard to claim store operating performance improved when same-store sales plunged by double digits.</p>
<p>Sears still has valuable assets, including the Kenmore and DieHard brands, and plenty of real estate, but the company has been spinning off such assets for years and that strategy has failed to revamp the underlying business. Even its healthy department store peers likeMacy's and Nordstrom are seeing profits shrink, indicating that the overarching trend is greater than Sears' own self-inflicted wounds.</p>
<p>Despite Friday's announcement, Sears is only delaying its inevitable demise.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Sears 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 February 6, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFHobo/info.aspx" type="external">Jeremy Bowman Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Nordstrom. 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>
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Why Sears Holding Corp Stock Jumped Today
| true |
http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/02/10/why-sears-holding-corp-stock-jumped-today.html
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2017-02-10
| 0 |
<p>A Baltimore high school on Thursday evacuated due to a strange odor that was ultimately revealed as a pumpkin spice air freshener, according to our affiliate <a href="http://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/pumpkin-spice-air-freshener-prompts-hazmat-call-at-cristo-rey-high-school" type="external">WBFF</a>.</p>
<p>WBFF on Thursday reported that fire and hazmat crews were called around 2:30 p.m. local time to Cristo Rey Jesuit High School.</p>
<p>WBALTV 11 on Thursday reported that the school was then evacuated and Eastern Avenue was closed near Chester Street as officials probed the source of the irritant.</p>
<p>Officials said two students and three adults were taken to hospitals with unknown injuries, with one adult suffering an issue unrelated to the incident.</p>
<p>Authorities noted that dozens of students were triaged at the scene, and fire officials eventually discovered a pumpkin spice air freshener was causing the commotion.</p>
<p>“The primary readings we took within the school, we came up with negative readings,” Baltimore Fire Chief Roman Clark said. “We took a secondary reading, which was also negative throughout the school.”</p>
<p>Crews then began opening windows and placing heavy fans inside the building, only for a firefighter to notice the air freshener.</p>
<p>“This plug-in air freshener that basically puts out the odor every so many seconds, and it’s a pumpkin spice, and that’s exactly what, if you go in there, you can smell, so it has been identified,” Clark said. “It is not hazardous at all.”</p>
<p>Some Twitter users on Friday mocked the incident, which required the evacuation of 350 students and another 50 staff and teachers.</p>
<p>School President Bill Heiser said that students noticed the smell and then some began coughing or struggling with breathing.</p>
<p>“At first, they thought, perhaps, it was a burned-out light bulb, and that was the cause of the smell,” he said.</p>
<p>“What they did also, as a precaution, they used fans to kind of circulate the air, and when they circulated the air, they did smell an air freshener,” Heiser added. “We don’t know that that’s the cause.”</p>
<p>“It certainly wouldn’t be uncommon to blow an air freshener and then get that smell. I think the best thing to do, if there’s any concern and you have a school of 350 students and you have 50 teachers and staff, is to be safe.”</p>
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A high school was evacuated over a 'strange odor' that turned out to be pumpkin spice
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2017-10-06
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<p>On a morning when nearly everyone else was struggling with the flat stick, Madigan drained a handful of birdie bombs to flat-out stick it to the rest of the field in the second round of the 66th annual Albuquerque Men's City Amateur Golf Championship.</p>
<p>The two-time defending champion made eight birdies on his way to a 6-under-par 66 on Saturday at Arroyo del Oso. He has a three-shot lead over Matt Williams heading into today's final round of the 54-hole event at Los Altos.</p>
<p>"I had a practice session (Friday) night, and I putted a lot better today," Madigan said Saturday. "I made a couple of changes, and things came out a lot better.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>"The greens were a little spongy because of the rain (Friday) night, but they were in good shape."</p>
<p>Madigan had five birdies and two bogeys on the front nine and made three more birdies during a bogey-free back side. He's at 10-under 134 after two rounds, while Williams – the co-leader with Chandler Smith-Stetson after Friday's opening round at Ladera – is at 137. Williams had a 2-under 70 on Saturday after shooting 67 at Ladera. Smith-Stetson had a 1-over 73 on Saturday and shares third place with Robert Taylor (70-70) at 140.</p>
<p>"It's really going to be tough to catch Tim now," said Smith-Stetson, a 2008 Albuquerque Academy graduate. "I'd have to shoot in the real low 60s to have a chance because he won't shoot any worse than 68 or 69 at Los Altos. It's too easy of a course."</p>
<p>Madigan had a four-shot lead late in last year's final round at Los Altos. He lost all of it, but rallied to beat Alex Estrada by one shot. Two years ago Madigan was threatening the course record of 10-under 61 after making birdies on eight of his first 11 holes. He ended with a final-round 64 and coasted to a four-shot victory.</p>
<p>Los Altos is now a par 72.</p>
<p>"I want to play another round like that one two years ago," said Madigan, a rising senior at New Mexico State. "It's a short course, and I'm driving the ball great, so I will be hitting a lot of wedges.</p>
<p>"It won't be one of those rounds where you just try to hit fairways and greens and 2-putt. I'm going out to make a lot of birdies."</p>
<p>Williams, the 31-year-old executive director of the Sun Country Amateur Golf Association, made plenty of birdies on Saturday (five) and tossed in an eagle on the par 5 15th. But five bogeys dirtied his scorecard.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>"It was a wild round; not much fun," Williams said. "I just hit three huge flares off the tee on the back nine that really got me in trouble. But I'm surprised I'm still this close. I thought the scores would be lower today."</p>
<p>Only four players broke par Saturday after 14 did so Friday at Ladera.</p>
<p>Elliott Feng, a 2009 Academy graduate, had a 67 to move into a three-way tie for fifth with Max Dawkins and Sam Saunders at 141.</p>
<p>Estrada had rounds of 69-73 and is eight shots back in eighth.</p>
<p>Taylor, a 2004 graduate of Del Norte, joined Madigan and Williams as the only players to shoot par or better during both rounds.</p>
<p>"I love tournament golf," said the 24-year-old Taylor, who had two rounds of 70. "I really like the pressure of it, and it's fun to see how I measure up against the best players in the city."</p>
<p>NOTES: There are no records kept for the swiftest 18 holes in tournament history, but Saturday's round could well have set the standard. Most of the championship flight finished in less than four hours, 15 minutes. For a tournament that has been plagued by six- and even seven-hour rounds, it was a welcome relief.</p>
<p>… Former Academy golfer James Lee made the cut right on the number (146), but was disqualified Saturday night for signing an incorrect scorecard the day before.</p>
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Madigan Finds His Touch
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<p>To the strains of Kid Rock’s “Born Free,” Mitt Romney took to the stage at a minor league baseball park in Nashua, N.H., on Sept. 7 flanked by his wife, Ann, and delivered a standard — albeit slightly longer — version of his stump speech.</p>
<p>But unless you were at Holman Stadium that day, saw it on the local TV news or read about it the next day in the Union Leader, you probably didn’t hear anything about it. That’s true of most stump speeches.</p>
<p>While the Nashua stump speech was very much a local event, presidential candidates tend to deliver very similar versions of the same speech over and over as they make their long-form pitch to audiences around the country. Just as with our <a href="" type="internal">previous analysis of Obama’s stump speech</a>, we found numerous instances of candidate spin in what Romney had to say. For example:</p>
<p>There are other misleading claims — including bluster on the Keystone XL pipeline and a claim that Obama has lived up to a “promise” about “skyrocketing” energy costs. And, of course, no Romney speech is complete without a reference to Obama’s comment, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that,” a quote that has been lifted out of context.</p>
<p>Full quotes and our analysis of the accuracy of claims in Romney’s stump speech are contained in the Analysis section that follows.</p>
<p>Note to readers: This is the second part of a two-part series examining the factual claims made by both major candidates. We posted our findings about <a href="" type="internal">President Barack Obama’s stump-speech claims</a> in a previous Featured Article.</p>
<p>For the purposes of this story, we focused primarily on Romney’s speech in Nashua, N.H., on Sept. 7. (You can watch an amateur video of Romney’s Nashua speech <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stIHGup2UTs" type="external">here</a>.) But Romney doesn’t always deliver the exact same stump speech. He sprinkles particular claims in some speeches but not others. And so we have included a few claims from two other recent Romney speeches — one made the same day in <a href="http://electad.com/video/mitt-romney-campaign-rally-in-orange-city-iowa-september-7-2012/" type="external">Orange City, Iowa</a>, and another from a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2B8oFC8dTs&amp;feature=player_embedded" type="external">campaign event</a> in Mansfield, Ohio, on Sept. 10.</p>
<p>Here’s what we found:</p>
<p>The Unemployment Promise?</p>
<p>Romney: [Obama] said by now [unemployment] would be down to 5.4 percent.</p>
<p>This is a slight variation on an old, frequently cited (and misleading) claim that Obama promised to keep unemployment below 8 percent. Its roots are in a report issued by Christina Romer, then chair of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, and Jared Bernstein, who held the title of “chief economist” to Vice President Joe Biden. The Jan. 9, 2009, <a href="http://otrans.3cdn.net/ee40602f9a7d8172b8_ozm6bt5oi.pdf" type="external">report</a> sought to forecast the unemployment rate with and without the then-proposed economic stimulus. Romney is correct that the report projected the unemployment rate with the economic stimulus would be 5.4 percent in the third quarter of 2012. The report projected it would be about 6 percent without the stimulus.</p>
<p>Romney, however, has framed these forecasts as Obama promises, and that’s a stretch. For one, the report emphasized in several places that due to the volatility of the economy at the time, there was “substantial uncertainty around all of our estimates.”</p>
<p>As <a href="" type="internal">we wrote back in June 2009</a>, the White House explanation was that the economic situation Obama inherited simply turned out to be much worse than most economists realized at the time. Indeed, the original chart was based on economic projections that were in line with what private economists were forecasting in early January 2009, but those forecasts were being revised for the worse even before any stimulus money was spent. Here’s the original chart:</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>It shows, for example, that the Obama team originally estimated that unless a stimulus plan was enacted, the unemployment rate would reach nearly 9 percent sometime in the first three months of 2010. But as things turned out, even with the big spending package in place, the jobless rate shot up to 9.4 percent in May 2009, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In short, it was a highly speculative report containing projections — not promises — that relied on prevailing economic models that quickly proved to have underestimated the depths of the recession at that time.</p>
<p>Median Income</p>
<p>Romney: And so the median income in America, instead of going up like the president said it would, has instead come down by $5,000 a family.</p>
<p>This is an exaggeration. Typically, Romney claims family income has fallen by $4,000 (not $5,000) under Obama. But whether $5,000 or $4,000, as we noted in <a href="" type="internal">our coverage of the convention speech</a>, the number is inflated. New figures from the Census Bureau for 2011 — released after Romney spoke — show the true loss of real (that is, inflation-adjusted), median family income was $3,290 during Obama’s first three years.</p>
<p>Romney took his $4,000 figure from <a href="http://www.sentierresearch.com/reports/Sentier_Household_Income_Trends_Report_June2012_07_24_12.pdf" type="external">a study by Sentier Research</a> back in July. But he misrepresents it. Part of that $4,000 loss took place prior to Obama taking office in January 2009. It doesn’t say exactly how much of that $4,000 drop came before Obama took office.</p>
<p>The study measured the drop in household (not “family”) income starting in December 2007, when the recession officially started — which was 13 months before Obama took office — and ending in June 2012.</p>
<p>More recently, Romney has said simply that median household income “is down every year for the last four years,” which is true. But that also exaggerates, since it includes Bush’s last year plus Obama’s three years.</p>
<p>Finally, there’s some reason to think the income decline bottomed out a year ago. Sentier Research, which Romney cites as his source, says <a href="http://www.sentierresearch.com/reports/Sentier_Household_Income_Trends_Report_July2012_09_10_12.pdf" type="external">in its latest report — issued Sept. 10</a>, just before the official Census figures for 2011 — that household income is higher now that it was in September of 2011, when Sentier’s Seasonally Adjusted Household Income Index hit its lowest point. (See Figure 1, Page 10.)</p>
<p>Health Insurance Premiums</p>
<p>Romney: Health insurance premiums have gone up by $2500 [under Obama].</p>
<p>Romney appears to have mixed up two statistics here: Obama’s promise to reduce health insurance premiums by $2,500 (an optimistic claim <a href="" type="internal">we have questioned</a> <a href="" type="internal">several</a> <a href="" type="internal">times</a>, ever since the soon-to-be president first made the promise on the campaign trail) and the actual rise in insurance premiums. As we reported in March, the average cost of a family policy rose by $1,300 between 2010 and 2011, according to the <a href="http://ehbs.kff.org/pdf/2011/8225.pdf" type="external">Kaiser Family Foundation’s annual survey</a> (Exhibit 1.110). (Even if you include the year before — so 2009 to 2011 — the increase was $1,700, not $2,500.)</p>
<p>Moreover, the $1,300 rise in premiums between 2010 and 2011 is the total cost for both employers and employees — not $1,300 out of pocket for the average family. In fact, the Kaiser Family Foundation report said that the increase in what workers contribute wasn’t “a statistically significant increase over the 2010 values.”</p>
<p>Romney often implies that Obama’s health care law is to blame for the rise in premiums, but when we looked into that issue last October, experts <a href="" type="internal">told us</a> it was only responsible for a small portion of the increase. Specifically, they said, more generous coverage requirements in the law caused premiums to go up by 1 percent to 3 percent, while all told, premiums went up 9 percent. The bulk of the increase was tied to rising health care costs.</p>
<p>Gasoline Cost Doubled?</p>
<p>Romney: The cost of gasoline doubled [under Obama].</p>
<p>This staple of Romney’s stump speeches is technically correct, but awfully misleading. Gasoline prices when Obama took office were unusually low due to the recession and financial crisis.</p>
<p />
<p>The average price for regular gasoline was $3.88 in mid-September, <a href="http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&amp;s=EMM_EPMR_PTE_NUS_DPG&amp;f=W" type="external">according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration</a>, a bit more than double the $1.84 average on the week Obama was sworn in. But the average exceeded $4 a gallon for seven weeks during the summer of 2008, and it has never reached $4 under Obama.</p>
<p>Skyrocketing Energy Prices</p>
<p>In <a href="http://electad.com/video/mitt-romney-campaign-rally-in-orange-city-iowa-september-7-2012/" type="external">another stump speech</a> made the same day, this one in Orange City, Iowa, Romney added this frequently cited distortion to his attack on energy prices:</p>
<p>Romney: One promise [Obama] kept, though, he said if his energy policies got put in place, the cost of energy would skyrocket. And that’s happened.</p>
<p>As we have <a href="" type="internal">noted previously</a>, Obama’s “skyrocket” quote was part of a discussion about cap-and-trade as a means to reduce greenhouse gases.</p>
<p>Obama, <a href="http://blog.sfgate.com/opinionshop/2008/01/17/an-interview-with-sen-barack-obama/" type="external">speaking to the editorial board</a>of the San Francisco Chronicle on Jan. 17, 2008, said electricity costs would “necessarily skyrocket” as a result of capping emissions levels, and that his job as president would be to convince the public and Congress that benefits outweigh costs.</p>
<p>But the cap-and-trade plan Obama endorsed — the American Clean Energy and Security Act ( <a href="http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h2454/show" type="external">H.R. 2454</a>) — <a href="http://www.eenews.net/public/25/11006/features/documents/2009/05/19/document_gw_02.pdf" type="external">included</a>allowances to electric companies to protect consumers from increases in electricity bills. More important, contrary to what Romney said, it didn’t “happen.” The bill died in the Senate.</p>
<p>The Pipeline</p>
<p>Romney: I’m going to get that pipeline from Canada so we can get more oil.</p>
<p>Support for the Keystone XL pipeline has been a reliable applause line in Romney stump speeches for months. But there’s less here than meets the eye.</p>
<p>The president merely delayed a decision on the controversial northern leg of the project, which would bring oil from Hardisty, Alberta, to Steele City, Neb. The original route through Nebraska’s environmentally sensitive Sandhills area met with <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2011/nov/15/nation/la-na-keystone-pipeline-20111115" type="external">bipartisan opposition</a> from the state’s political leaders. The company that wants to build the pipeline– TransCanada Corporation — <a href="http://www.yellowbrix.com/index.nsp?sid=bp&amp;pid=6&amp;demo=1&amp;story_id=176702452&amp;&amp;ID=infobrix&amp;scategory=Environment" type="external">filed a new proposed route</a>with the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality in early September. The company expects to get approval in the first quarter of 2013, and place the pipeline in service in 2015. The southern portion of the pipeline is already under construction.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, there’s nothing to prevent more Canadian oil from coming into the U.S. right now, should Canada be able and willing to send it. Existing cross-border pipelines already have much more capacity than they are using, according to a <a href="http://keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov/documents/organization/182421.pdf" type="external">study</a> produced for the U.S. Department of Energy by EnSys Energy &amp; Systems Inc. of Lexington, Mass., in December 2010. And the study predicts that surplus capacity will persist at least until the year 2020, even if the Keystone is never built (see table 3-4).</p>
<p>Unreliable Survey</p>
<p>Romney: Three-quarters of the small businesses in this country that were surveyed by the Chamber of Commerce said they were less likely to hire people because of Obamacare.</p>
<p>When Romney cited this same survey in June, <a href="" type="internal">we cautioned</a> not to put too much weight on it because it was an opt-in, online survey.</p>
<p>The survey was conducted online by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — which <a href="http://www.uschamber.com/press/releases/2012/march/us-chamber-statement-two-year-anniversary-health-care-law" type="external">opposes</a> the health care law and has run <a href="" type="internal">numerous TV ads</a> attacking it — in late March and early April. It queried 1,339 executives at companies with fewer than 500 employees and revenues of less than $25 million. The chamber reported that 73 percent said the health care law is “an obstacle to growing their business and hiring more employees.”</p>
<p>So Romney has accurately cited the survey. The problem is that because it was based on an online, opt-in survey of small-business executives, the chamber can’t be sure it’s a representative sample of small-business executives. A <a href="http://www.uschamber.com/press/releases/2012/april/us-chamber-small-business-survey-shows-stalled-hiring-despite-increased-op" type="external">press release</a> from the Chamber of Commerce acknowledges as much: “This online survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.”</p>
<p>Back in June, we spoke with Scott Keeter, director of survey research at the Pew Research Center and the most recent past president of the American Association for Public Opinion Research. He talked about the limitations of such surveys. “The bottom line is that surveys that have self-selected samples don’t have any known relation to the target group [in this case small-business owners],” Keeter said. “As a result, it is difficult, if not impossible, to know what kind of weight to give this.”</p>
<p>That is why, Keeter noted, major news organizations like the Washington Post, New York Times and ABC News have strict policies prohibiting the reporting of such surveys.</p>
<p>Raiding Medicare to Pay for Obamacare?</p>
<p>Romney often says that Obama funneled $716 billion from Medicare to pay for the health care law — as he did at a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2B8oFC8dTs&amp;feature=player_embedded" type="external">campaign event</a> in Mansfield, Ohio, on Sept. 10:</p>
<p>Romney: He’s cut Medicare by $716 billion to pay for Obamacare.</p>
<p>Various incarnations of this claim have cropped up in Romney’s campaign speeches — including claims that Obama is “cutting” “funneling” or “raiding” $716 billion from Medicare to pay for the health care law. But Medicare money isn’t being taken away. The Affordable Care Act calls for a <a href="http://cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/43471-hr6079.pdf" type="external">$716 billion reduction</a> in the growth of Medicare spending over 10 years, a move that — if successful — would keep the hospital insurance trust fund solvent for an additional eight years. Most of the $716 billion reduction — <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/43471-hr6079.pdf" type="external">about $415 billion</a> — comes from a reduction in the future growth of payments to hospitals through Medicare Part A. And Medicare Part A’s trust fund, <a href="" type="internal">as we’ve explained before</a>, is in trouble financially. Without the spending reductions, the program is projected to be insolvent — paying out more than is taken in from payroll taxes — in 2016. With the reductions, that insolvency date is projected to be put off until 2024.</p>
<p>Furthermore, as <a href="" type="internal">we explained in detail in our story “Medicare’s ‘Piggy Bank,’ “</a> Medicare doesn’t have $716 billion sitting around that could be “raided.” The president can’t take money out of the trust fund — which had <a href="http://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/ReportsTrustFunds/Downloads/TR2012.pdf" type="external">$244.2 billion</a> at the end of 2011. Medicare holds its trust fund bonds and can cash them in as it needs to cover whatever isn’t paid by current payroll taxes. The health care law even increases the amount of tax revenue that will flow into the trust fund by imposing a 0.9 percent Medicare surcharge on certain high-income individuals.</p>
<p>If Part A doesn’t need to spend income it receives from payroll taxes immediately, Treasury issues Medicare a bond and the amount is credited to Medicare’s Part A trust fund. When Medicare wants to cash that bond, Treasury has to pay it, even if Treasury already spent the original money on something else.</p>
<p>And that’s where Romney has a point. The health care law counts those savings as money that can also cover other aspects of the law. But both the Congressional Budget Office and Medicare’s chief actuary have said that in practice, the $716 billion savings can’t cover two things at once.</p>
<p>Killing Jobs?</p>
<p>In the same speech, Romney repeated another frequent attack on “Obamacare”:</p>
<p>Romney: I want to get rid of Obamacare because it’s killing jobs in small business.</p>
<p>This <a href="" type="internal">oft-cited claim</a> is based, in part, on a faulty reading of a report from the Congressional Budget Office in <a href="http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/117xx/doc11705/08-18-Update.pdf" type="external">August 2010.</a> Here’s what the report says:</p>
<p>CBO: The Congressional Budget Office(CBO) estimates that the legislation, on net, will reduce the amount of labor used in the economy by a small amount—roughly half a percent—primarily by reducing the amount of labor that workers choose to supply. …</p>
<p>The expansion of Medicaid and the availability of subsidies through the exchanges will effectively increase beneficiaries’ financial resources. Those additional resources will encourage some people to work fewer hours or to withdraw from the labor market. …</p>
<p>Changes to the insurance market, including provisions that prohibit insurers from denying coverage to people because of preexisting conditions and that restrict how much prices can vary with an individual’s age or health status, will increase the appeal of health insurance plans offered outside the workplace for older workers. As a result, some older workers will choose to retire earlier than they otherwise would.</p>
<p>CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlBvrp4qV7Q&amp;feature=player_embedded" type="external">estimated</a> in February 2011 that “roughly half a percent” of the labor in the economy would be equal to 800,000 jobs at the end of this decade, a statement that Romney and other Republicans translated into the claim that the healthcare law would kill 800,000 jobs. But CBO didn’t say that 800,000 Americans would be without jobs unwillingly. Rather, as the quote above makes clear,&#160; it said there would be a reduction in the amount of labor supplied by workers — many of whom would decide to retire earlier than they normally would, or work fewer hours or fewer jobs, because of the subsidies provided by the law, and greater security for those buying their own coverage outside the workplace. In other words, some folks were keeping jobs they didn’t otherwise want simply because of the insurance benefits.</p>
<p>Medical Malpractice</p>
<p>Romney: I want to focus on getting the cost of health care down. And one way to do that, by the way, is to finally deal with the malpractice costs.</p>
<p>As we have <a href="" type="internal">written before</a>, medical malpractice doesn’t have as big an impact on health care spending as Romney implies. The Congressional Budget Office <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/publication/41334" type="external">estimated</a> that limiting malpractice liability would reduce the federal deficit by $54 billion over 10 years. That’s a lot of money, to be sure, but in the context of a $2 trillion-plus health care spending market over 10 years, CBO Director Elmendorf <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/108xx/doc10802/12-10-medical_malpractice.pdf" type="external">noted</a> the savings would “reduce total U.S. health care spending by about 0.5 percent.”</p>
<p>So what are the biggest drivers of health care spending? The nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation provides a <a href="http://www.kaiseredu.org/topics_im.asp?imID=1&amp;parentID=61&amp;id=358" type="external">list of the major drivers</a>, which includes prescription drugs and technology, chronic disease (which accounts for more than 75 percent of health care spending), an aging population, and administrative costs.</p>
<p>We Built It</p>
<p>Romney: [Obama] said something that was so contrary to the American experience that shocked people, regardless of their backgrounds, when he said, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that – someone else did that.”</p>
<p>The GOP practically built its convention on the “We Built It” theme, and virtually every Romney campaign speech for the last month has contained some variation of it. The problem with the Romney attack is that it is based on a clumsily worded Obama quote taken a bit out of context.</p>
<p>The full context of <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/07/13/remarks-president-campaign-event-roanoke-virginia" type="external">Obama’s remarks</a> makes it clear he was saying taxpayer-funded public support — such as education, infrastructure and research — “gave you some help” to succeed in business. He was making an argument to continue&#160; funding government programs that help businesses flourish.</p>
<p>Obama, July 13: If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.</p>
<p>The Obama campaign contended the word “that” in the phrase “you didn’t build that” referred to roads and bridges. That is not grammatically correct; in strictly proper usage, “that” would refer back to the closest noun, in this case “business.” But given that it was an oral rather than written speech, the Obama camp’s explanation is certainly plausible. The sentence Obama spoke just prior to his now infamous phrase does refer to infrastructure. He said: “Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that.”</p>
<p>More important, Obama concluded his remarks by saying: “The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.”</p>
<p>— by Robert Farley</p>
<p>Romer, Christina and Bernstein, Jared. “ <a href="http://otrans.3cdn.net/ee40602f9a7d8172b8_ozm6bt5oi.pdf" type="external">The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan</a>.” White House Council of Economic Advisers. 09 Jan 2009.</p>
<p>“ <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Briefing-by-Press-Secretary-Robert-Gibbs-with-Jared-Bernstein-the-Vice-Presidents-Chief-Economist-6-8-09/" type="external">Press Briefing by the Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and the Vice President’s Chief Economis, Jared Bernstein</a>.” White House Press Office, 8 June 2009.</p>
<p>“ <a href="http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_06052009.htm" type="external">Employment Situation News Release</a>.” Bureau of Labor Statistics, 5 June 2009.</p>
<p>Feldstein, Martin. “ <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/29/AR2008102903198.html" type="external">The Stimulus Plan We Need Now: The President-Elect Won’t Have to Wait Till January to Act</a>.” Washington Post, 30 Oct. 2008.</p>
<p>Green, Gordon and Coder, John. “ <a href="http://www.sentierresearch.com/reports/Sentier_Household_Income_Trends_Report_June2012_07_24_12.pdf" type="external">Household Income Trends: June 2012</a>.” Sentier Research. July 2012.</p>
<p>White House blog. <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/09/12/annual-census-data-income-poverty-and-health-insurance-2011" type="external">Annual Census Data on Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance for 2011</a>. 12 Sep 2012.</p>
<p>Claxton, Gary, Rae, Matthew, Panchal, Nirmita, Lundy, Janet and Damico, Anthony. “ <a href="http://ehbs.kff.org/pdf/2011/8225.pdf" type="external">Employer Health Benefits: 2011 Annual Survey</a>.” The Kaiser Family Foundation.</p>
<p>U.S. Energy Information Administration. <a href="http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&amp;s=EMM_EPMR_PTE_NUS_DPG&amp;f=W" type="external">Weekly U. S. Regular All Formations Retail Gasoline Prices.</a> Released 17 Sep 2012.</p>
<p>San Francisco Chronicle. <a href="http://blog.sfgate.com/opinionshop/2008/01/17/an-interview-with-sen-barack-obama/" type="external">An interview with Sen. Barack Obama</a>. 17 Jan 2008.</p>
<p>Open Congress. <a href="http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h2454/show" type="external">H.R.2454 – American Clean Energy And Security Act of 2009</a>. Passed the House 26 Jun 2009.</p>
<p>Murphy, Kim. “ <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2011/nov/15/nation/la-na-keystone-pipeline-20111115" type="external">Keystone pipeline builder proposes changing Nebraska route</a>.” Los Angeles Times. 15 Nov 2011.</p>
<p>Murphy, Kim. “ <a href="http://www.yellowbrix.com/index.nsp?sid=bp&amp;pid=6&amp;demo=1&amp;story_id=176702452&amp;&amp;ID=infobrix&amp;scategory=Environment" type="external">Route is changed for oil pipeline</a>.” Los Angeles Times. 06 Sep 2012.</p>
<p><a href="http://keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov/documents/organization/182421.pdf" type="external">Keystone XL Assessment</a>. Prepared by Ensys Energy for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Policy &amp; International Affairs. 23 Dec 2010.</p>
<p>U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Press release: <a href="http://www.uschamber.com/press/releases/2012/april/us-chamber-small-business-survey-shows-stalled-hiring-despite-increased-op" type="external">U.S. Chamber Small Business Survey Shows Stalled Hiring Despite Increased Optimism</a>. 16 Apr 2012.</p>
<p>Elmendorf, Douglas W. “ <a href="http://cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/43471-hr6079.pdf" type="external">Estimated direct spending and revenue effects of H.R. 6079, the Repeal of Obamacare Act, as passed by the House of Representatives on July 11, 2012</a>.” Congressional Budget Office. 24 Jul 2012.</p>
<p>Congressional Budget Office. <a href="http://cbo.gov/publication/21670" type="external">The Budget and Economic Outlook: An Update</a>. 18 Aug 2010.</p>
<p>Congressional Budget Office. <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/publication/41334" type="external">CBO’s Analysis of the Effects of Proposals to Limit Costs Related to Medical Malpractice (“Tort Reform”)</a>. 09 Oct 2009.</p>
<p>The Kaiser Family Foundation. “ <a href="http://www.kaiseredu.org/en/Issue-Modules/US-Health-Care-Costs/Background-Brief.aspx" type="external">What is driving health care spending?</a>”</p>
<p>White House Website. <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/07/13/remarks-president-campaign-event-roanoke-virginia" type="external">Remarks by the President at a Campaign Event in Roanoke, Virginia</a>. 13 Jul 2012.</p>
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Romney’s Stump Speech
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https://factcheck.org/2012/09/romneys-stump-speech/
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2012-09-20
| 2 |
<p>&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/cainandtoddbenson/5742382305/sizes/z/in/photostream/"&gt;Cain and Todd Benson&lt;/a&gt;/Flickr</p>
<p>Newt University, the former speaker of the House’s eight-hour, one-week Tampa lecture series on why America is really great, is a collaborative effort in which a host of GOP luminaries, businessmen, and industry groups talk about awesome things about America.</p>
<p>Gingrich is here today at the Wyndham Hotel in Tampa to talk about how North Dakota is awesome and we should emulate it. Harold Hamm, the billionaire oil baron who gave almost $1 million to the pro-Romney and—no hard feelings here—anti-Gingrich super-PAC Restore our Future, is here to talk about how North Dakota is awesome and we should emulate it. Sen John Hoeven (R-N.D.), is also here to talk about how North Dakota is awesome and we should emulate it.&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.)</a> is here to talk about how North Dakota is…no, he’s actually here to talk about energy independence.</p>
<p>The awesomeness of&#160;North&#160;Dakota isn’t really why I’m here, though.&#160;I’m curious what Gingrich, the architect of the 1990s welfare reform push and more recently the man who accused Barack&#160;Obama of being a “food stamp president,” thinks about the Romney campaign’s roundly debunked attack on&#160;the president’s welfare policies. Given that the charges are <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/08/29/766141/brownback-romney-ads-fals/" type="external">false</a>, and Romney has followed up on his charge by accusing the president of wanting to “ <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/08/27/747161/romney-obama-gutting-welfare-work-requirements-to-shore-up-his-base/" type="external">shore up his base</a>” with handouts, some people think Romney is hoping to stir up historic animosity among white working-class voters.</p>
<p>There’s a hitch, though. “There’s no way in hell I’m letting you talk to him,”&#160;says&#160;Gingrich’s spokesman, R.C. Hammond.</p>
<p>So&#160;I asked West, the only Republican member of the Congressional Black Caucus, for his thoughts. No dice here, either. “You guys says there’s a racial component for everything except when y’all attack me,” he tells me when I ask about the welfare attacks. Twice, actually. “No, no, you guys say there’s a racial component for everything except when you attack me. So don’t even ask me about that silliness.”</p>
<p>When Illinois Rep. John Shimkus (most famous for <a href="" type="internal">suggesting</a> that God would protect the United States from climate change) finished his presentation at Newt U., I asked him what he thought about the racial implications of the welfare ads. “WHAT!? There’s no increasing racial tone of this campaign.” I asked him about the false claim, repeated in a recent ad, that Obama had eased welfare work requirements to “shore up his base.”</p>
<p>“Does welfare only go to a racial population?”&#160;Shimkus asked. “I don’t think so.” At this point, Hammond, Gingrich’s aide, piped in. “What’s up with the Chris Matthews racism there?” he asks, a nod to the MSNBC host whom&#160; <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0812/80224.html" type="external">Gingrich has accused of being a racist</a> for discussing the racial implications of the welfare attack.</p>
<p>“Come on, give me a break!” Shimkus said with a laugh, and turned away to greet an admirer.</p>
<p>The GOP’s welfare evolution is Gandhi in reverse:&#160;First they fight you, then laugh at you, then they ignore you. No word yet on who wins.</p>
<p>Relatedly, here’s my interview from&#160;Tuesday with&#160;Herman&#160;Cain, who is also adamant that there are no racial overtones in the welfare attack:</p>
<p />
<p />
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Don’t Talk About Welfare at Newt University
| true |
https://motherjones.com/politics/2012/08/romney-welfare-newt-university/
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2012-08-29
| 4 |
<p>Thursday's <a href="" type="internal">strikes on Syria</a> have been met with <a href="" type="internal">criticism by members of Congress</a>, but the media has largely covered the attack positively.</p>
<p />
<p>On CNN, The Intercept co-founder Jeremy Scahill was critical of the media's analysis of the strikes, calling them atrocious and singling out particular reporters for their coverage.</p>
<p>"Fareed Zakaria, if that guy could have sex with this cruise missile attack, I think he would do it," said Scahill. "Brian Williams seemed to just be in true love with the cruise missile strike."</p>
<p>Scahill joined others <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/style/wp/2017/04/08/even-the-liberals-were-all-over-this-bill-maher-disgusted-by-the-cable-news-response-to-syria/" type="external">like Bill Maher</a> in saying the support the media had for the missile strike shows a bipartisan support for the strike among the media and, specifically, television news.</p>
<p>Lara Setrakian, co-founder and CEO of Syria Deeply, said that where the Syrian strikes were not totally ignored, they were "feitishized".</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2017/04/07/america-struck-syria-and-the-media-swooned-trump-will-remember-that/" type="external">Washington Post op-ed</a>, James Downie said Trump would learn a valuable and unsettling lesson from the media's approval of him following these attacks.</p>
<p>"In the blink of a news cycle, gone was talk of his many failures, replaced by tributes - and all he needed was a few dozen cruise missiles. He will not soon forget that," said Downie. "Someone as hungry for approval as Trump remembers what gets him plaudits, especially from the establishment that has looked down on him all his life."</p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/syria-policy-news-cycle_us_58e6b4cfe4b0cdad578e52ef" type="external">Huffington Post analysis</a> pointed to a history of policy about Syria being driven by news coverage. In particular, Thursday's attack on Syria was motivated in no small part by images of children being killed in a chemical weapons attack.</p>
<p>In light of that, Scahill's criticisms are important, particularly his calls for the media to disclose what pundits and retired generals are invested in, and what profit they might make off of attacks that are driven by media coverage.</p>
<p>"There is not the kind of transparency that is required of a truly democratic press when you're not revealing the extent to which these people have benefited in the private sector from these wars," he said.</p>
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CNN pundits 'would have sex with a missile': Jeremy Scahill slams media for 'atrocious' Syria coverage
| true |
http://resistancereport.com/news/cnn-pundits-sex-missile-scahill/
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2017-04-09
| 4 |
<p>Who's Alienated?</p>
<p>Editors: If one is to judge from the Winter 1956 DISSENT, a blind spot has afflicted its contributors en masse. I refer to the contention that Marx believed that a simple cancellation of private property, "capitalism minus exploitation," is sufficient to dispose of alienation. Andrieux and Lignon, Henri Rabassiere, Erich Fromm and his reviewer, H. P., all believe that Marx held that to abolish private property is to abolish the alienation of the worker.</p>
<p>Marx held precisely the opposite. As early as 1844 (in the Okonomisch-philosophische&#160;Manuskripte), Marx argued that any overthrow of capitalism would be empty unless the alienated human values were recovered for man. The various utopian schemes for supplanting private property which would not humanize man he dismissed as "vulgar communism," mere logical extensions of private property, which require the continued mediation of alienation for their realization. Alienation ceases only when man becomes man in and for himself (an sich and fur sich) .</p>
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Letters
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https://dissentmagazine.org/article/letters-66
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2018-10-03
| 4 |
<p>I call one of my sons and say, “Listen, I have something to tell you.”</p>
<p>He says, “As long as it isn’t about <a href="" type="internal">bedbugs.</a>”</p>
<p>Expertly, with parental precision, I slickly shift from the bedbug scene in my head to one of the many issues among a plethora of plagues (POP). I talk about the “Emergency Call to Action” email I received about stopping hate, hatred of gays, hatred of Muslims, hatred of anything that is not sliced, white-bread, Bible-thumping, heterosexual America—this climate of shameful rhetoric, leading to violence, even in New York City, the location I love, and the place I see when I think of tolerance.</p>
<p>It’s just that I want my children to be vigilant, aware of the growing problem of bedbugs. I had this great story, really, the result of responses from readers who provided tips on eradicating the vampires if and when they invade my apartment. One very helpful person, and, by the way, new friend, told me to pull my bed away from the wall and put the legs of the bed in disposable cups with Diatomaceous Earth (DE) in each cup. My bed is not legged I told her. My mattress is supported by an upholstered box spring. It’s such a good look.</p>
<p>Anyway, she suggested I put the upholstered piece on wooden blocks and set them in containers of DE. Suddenly, I pictured a large, sandbox-like structure. I could set my bed in a moat-like container, carefully add DE, and I’d be secure from the march and attack of blood-sucking warriors.</p>
<p>But this seemed like a bad idea. So, I went to a furniture store and looked at books with images of legged platform beds, explaining to the saleswoman, someone I know, that I’m freaking out about the run-up to invasion and occupation.</p>
<p>She said:</p>
<p>Oh, I had them. I had them and they were f**king horrible. I woke up covered with itchy places. I went to the emergency room and was told I had scabies. I bought prescription ointment that cost $80.00. Of course, it didn’t work. So one night, I just felt like I was on fire. Jumped up, threw off the sheet, and they were ALL over the bed. I collected them with tweezers and put them in a baggy to take to the apartment manager the next morning. And I told him I was moving out and wanted them gone. An exterminator came and froze them. I moved back a month later and they were STILL there so I left everything and got a new place. I just left.</p>
<p>I was making noises, like gasps and groans, throughout the jeremiad. This is the story I wanted to tell my son. But it seems I’ve exhausted the subject of bedbugs with my children.</p>
<p>It’s just that with all the other debacles, you know, the POP, such as home foreclosures, joblessness, poverty, the debt, the healthcare crisis, environmental disasters, endless wars of terror, more troop deaths, increased troop suicide, civilian war casualties, images of maimed children, torture, spying on Americans, erosion of liberties, corporate personhood, corruption, greed, voting machines that can be hacked, candidates for public office who have not an iota of integrity, incumbents who are Wall Street-owned, and a government controlled by the Military Industrial Complex, I guess the only area where I think I have any control at all is my power over an insect.</p>
<p>I can use suggestions from people who’ve battled the bugs, and I can research methods of eradication. I can defeat these pests. I can.</p>
<p>But it seems I can do little to stop the horror perpetuated in my name, imperialism, Zionism, and the advance of fascism in my country.</p>
<p>MISSY BEATTIE lives in Baltimore, Maryland. Her email address is <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
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Nearly Helpless
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https://counterpunch.org/2010/10/15/nearly-helpless/
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2010-10-15
| 4 |
<p>The BBC has been met with both outrage and praise for a satirical skit produced by its new comedy show "Revolting" that (pretty accurately) depicts the lives of the women who have chosen to chain themselves, at times literally, to jihadists.</p>
<p>"It's only three days till the beheading, and I've got no idea what I'm going to wear," says jihadi bride Afsana in the mock trailer for the first episode of "The Real Housewives of ISIS."</p>
<p>The skit emphasizes the false promises of ISIS militants and the grim reality that the brides face when the join their barbaric movement.</p>
<p>"Abdul seduced me online," says Mel, another hijab-wearing Jihad Jane. "He had me at 'free healthcare.'"</p>
<p>"So this is my sixth marriage. I've been widowed five times," says Zaynab. After a bomb explodes, shaking the room, she adds, "Six times."</p>
<p>"I'm so glad I've moved over here. It’s everything those guys on the chatrooms told me it would be," says Hadiya, who is shown scrubbing the floor of her bombed-out apartment. "And it's full of so many wonderful surprises."</p>
<p>​The next scene shows the women getting together for a little fashion show. To the faux delight of the others, one of the women enters wearing a suicide bomb vest. But she's devastated when she learns that another one of the Jihad Janes is wearing the same vest. The scene quickly devolves into petty bickering a la every "Real Housewives" ever produced.</p>
<p>Later, Zaynab announces that her husband just got her a new chain, "which is 8-foot long, so I can almost get outside. Which is great."</p>
<p>The skit, which had over 20 millions of views within two days, has generated a lot of blowback, but the creators, comedians Jolyon Rubinstein and Heydon Prowse, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/real-housewives-of-isis-spoof-galvanizes-fans-haters_us_586f3f62e4b043ad97e2ca2d" type="external">stand by</a> they're choice to mock the trend of Western women traveling to Syria to join ISIS.</p>
<p>“It’s important not to pull your punches in satire," Prowse told the press. "You have to be fearless or it undermines your credibility."</p>
<p>"It’s about people who are vulnerable to these kind of approaches,” sad Rubinstein.</p>
<p>Muslim comedy writer Faraz Ali slammed the skit, <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/01/bbc-real-isis-housewives-skit-170104195156887.html" type="external">telling Al Jazeera</a>, “For the few documented events where young girls, often under 18, have left the UK, there is no doubt this has been a result of dangerous grooming and misguidance," he said, adding, "Making light of this situation feels inherently wrong, almost capitalizing on the suffering of these young girls who acted without proper insight."</p>
<p>Some have taken to social media to condemn BBC for the "Islamophobic" and "racist" video, while others have cheered them for having the guts to take on the very real problem.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/beheading-attire-sexy-suicide-vests-satire-isis-wives-114819587.html" type="external">Reuters</a> underscores, tens of thousands of people, including many women, have travelled to Syria and Iraq to join Islamic State. "British police said last January 56 women and girls from Britain had gone to Syria and there have been several high-profile cases including three schoolgirls who left London in February, 2015," the outlet reports. "IS demands what it calls proper Islamic behaviour for citizens of its self-proclaimed caliphate but allows sexual slavery of non-Muslim women, and widespread rape of women and girls, according to witnesses from the region."</p>
<p>This article has been updated to include more information about the Islamic State.</p>
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WATCH: BBC's 'Real Housewives of ISIS'
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https://dailywire.com/news/12188/watch-bbcs-real-housewives-isis-james-barrett
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2017-01-06
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<p>Joe Kennedy, a Seattle-area high school assistant football coach, was <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/29/us/washington-football-coach-joe-kennedy-prays/" type="external">placed on leave</a> back in October for refusing to stop inviting players for a midfield prayer after games. Now he's fighting back.</p>
<p>Since he was hired in 2008, the widely beloved coach had a tradition of inviting players to join him at the 50-yard line after games for a time of prayer. The prayer session was entirely voluntary and the students kept their prayers private. Despite the innocuous nature of the years-long tradition, in 2015 the Bremerton School District abruptly decided that the practice was unacceptable.</p>
<p>"While the district appreciates Kennedy's many positive contributions to the BHS football program ... Kennedy's conduct poses a genuine risk that the district will be liable for violating the federal and state constitutional rights of students or others," read a letter posted by the school district.</p>
<p>At first Kennedy complied, but after seeking legal council on his First Amendment rights, he went ahead with the prayer following the Oct. 16 homecoming game. The school district immediately placed him on paid leave requiring him to discontinue to practice if he wanted reinstatement.</p>
<p>Now Kennedy is taking action, <a href="https://www.libertyinstitute.org/coachkennedy" type="external">filing an official complaint</a>, the final step before filing a lawsuit, maintaining that the school district discriminated against him and "violated my rights to free exercise of religion and free speech by prohibiting my private religious expression."</p>
<p>As evidence of the <a href="http://townhall.com/columnists/toddstarnes/2015/12/16/football-coach-suspended-for-midfield-prayer-files-discrimination-complaint-n2094" type="external">discrimination against him</a>, Kennedy pointed to the school district's decision to ignore similar actions of others, particularly the team's offensive coordinator, who had conducted Buddhist chants in a similar manner but was not suspended for his actions. Kennedy, a Christian, argues that he was unjustly singled out for his faith.</p>
<p>Since his suspension, Kennedy has worked with the <a href="https://www.libertyinstitute.org/take-action/give?gclid=CJXhl6vB48kCFYcbgQodLRYKrg" type="external">Liberty Institute</a>, a Texas-based legal advocacy group, which maintains that the school district has failed to honor his request for religious exemption under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The group dismisses the idea that the coach's post-game prayers represent the school or in any way violate the constitutional rights of others.</p>
<p>"There is no lawful prohibition against Coach Kennedy’s practice of saying a private, post-game prayer," <a href="https://www.libertyinstitute.org/coachkennedy" type="external">said</a> attorney Hiram Sasser. "The prayers are Coach Kennedy’s private religious speech, and no reasonable observer could conclude that BHS sponsors, endorses, or encourages student participation."</p>
<p>Here's the Liberty Institute's announcement of the complaint filed Tuesday:</p>
<p>On December 15, Coach Kennedy filed a charge of religious discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) against Bremerton School District.</p>
<p>In the charge, Coach Kennedy said, “[Bremerton School District] violated my rights to free exercise of religion and free speech by prohibiting my private religious expression.” Filing an EEOC complaint is a final, mandatory step Coach Kennedy must take before filing a lawsuit against the school district.</p>
<p>Mike Berry, Senior Counsel at Liberty Institute says, “All we are asking is for Coach Kennedy to be allowed to pray silently, for thirty seconds, at the fifty-yard line after the game. We are committed to defending his rights to private religious expression. No one should be suspended from their job over a moment of silence.”</p>
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Coach Was Suspended for Praying. Now He's Taking Action. Here's Why.
| true |
https://dailywire.com/news/1947/coach-was-suspended-praying-now-hes-taking-action-james-barrett
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2015-12-17
| 0 |
<p />
<p>Kobe Bryant can now add a new record to his list of NBA accolades throughout his 20-year basketball career; merchandise king.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>In the 24-hours surrounding his final game with the Los Angeles Lakers, Bryant set the highest merchandise sales in a single day.</p>
<p>Sales of Kobe Bryant merchandise at the Staples Center (NASDAQ:SPLS), home of the Lakers, generated $1.2 million on Wednesday alone, <a href="http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/15203007/staples-center-sells-12-million-worth-kobe-bryant-merchandise-set-one-day-record" type="external">according to ESPN Opens a New Window.</a>. The previous merchandise sales record was held by Led Zeppelin. The rock band sold $1 million worth of memorabilia at the O2 Arena in London in 2007, during the group's first full-length concert in three decades.</p>
<p>Fans at the game spent an estimated $61 on merchandise and ran up a bill averaging $230. Hats went for $72.48 while snakeskin-texture Kobe Bryant jerseys that retailed for $424 a piece sold for $824 each. Only 248 of the limited-edition version of the same jersey were available to fans.</p>
<p>There were 24 leather jackets with Swarovski crystals marketed for $5,824 of which three went unsold. Bryant and his wife Vanesa were each gifted with one of the extra jackets.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Along with the merchandise mania, the recently retired Bryant set some other records during his final game at the Staples Center, including scoring 60 points for a player of his age at his final NBA game.</p>
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Basketball Fans Spend $1.2 Million on Kobe Bryant Merchandise
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http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/04/14/basketball-fans-spend-1-2-million-on-kobe-bryant-merchandise.html
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2016-04-14
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<p>That’s according to state Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Secretary Ken McQueen.</p>
<p>He said Tuesday that his agency will be prepared as early as July to help commission engineering plans to stabilize the cavity left by the extraction of a salt formation underneath a crossroads outside Carlsbad.</p>
<p>The formation was mined by flushing water through it to extract brine for use by the oil and gas industry for drilling operations. Operations were halted in 2008 after cavern collapses at two similar brine wells in nearby unpopulated areas with similar geology.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“Basically, the idea is to fill that void space, which is filled with water, with solid material, which is designed to keep the cavern from collapsing at any time in the future,” McQueen said.</p>
<p>The cavity near Carlsbad is between 450 feet and 600 feet below ground. Studies show a collapse would affect an area of roughly 1,000 feet by 1,700 feet, with the likelihood of broader, gradual damage to pipes, sewers and structures as earth slumps and washes toward the depression.</p>
<p>The most likely and cost-effective solution is to drill holes into the cavern and fill it with a gravel mixture, capped with concrete, said McQueen, who will join other state and local officials on a new oversight authority commissioned by the Legislature and governor this month.</p>
<p>State lawmakers earmarked $250,000 to engineer a remediation project that can be put out to bid among specialized contractors. That initial financing won’t be disbursed without matching funds from local governments and remains in limbo as Republican Gov. Susana Martinez weighs vetoing major provisions of a $6.1 billion budget approved by the Democratic-led Legislature.</p>
<p>Michael Lonergan, a spokesman for Martinez, declined to comment Tuesday on whether funding for the brine well would be approved.</p>
<p>Carlsbad is a city of 26,000 best-known for nearby Carlsbad Caverns National Park. The Carlsbad City Council has reacted to rising tensions about the stability of the brine-well cavern by proposing a moratorium on new development permits in the area, and a vote is scheduled for April 11.</p>
<p>McQueen acknowledged full remediation costs could run as high $25 million. The new Carlsbad Brine Well Authority will meet as soon as July to assess future funding sources that might include federal grants or bonds backed by state severance taxes.</p>
<p>The operator of the brine well provided just over $3 million to state and local authorities in bankruptcy proceedings, and the tab for monitoring the cavern as a precaution against collapse has topped $5.3 million, according to McQueen’s agency.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Carlsbad City Councilor Dick Doss places blame for the cavern and its perils on state officials, noting they issued the original permits and collected royalties for decades.</p>
<p>About 100 people live near the cavern, and Doss said many are elderly and cannot afford to move.</p>
<p>The endangered area includes two highways designated as transportation routes for the federal government’s only underground nuclear waste repository, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, east of Carlsbad. Also nearby are an agricultural feed shop, a church and an irrigation canal supplying about 25 square miles of farmland.</p>
<p>Studies show the cavern is likely to collapse within four to 20 years, said George Veni, executive director of the nonprofit National Cave and Karst Research Institute.</p>
<p>Local residents and businesses are depending on a combination of technologies designed to detect minuscule ground movements and changes in underground water pressure.</p>
<p>“We believe that will give us an indication of an imminent collapse,” McQueen said. “The hopes are that would give us enough time to evacuate the area.”</p>
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Plans to fill Carlsbad cavern scheduled for summer
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2017-03-28
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<p>WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – U.S. wholesale inventories fell slightly more than initially estimated in October as sales increased strongly, suggesting that inventory investment will probably not provide a large boost to economic growth in the fourth quarter.</p>
<p>The Commerce Department said on Friday that wholesale inventories dropped 0.5 percent after edging up 0.1 percent in September. The department reported last month that wholesale inventories declined 0.4 percent in October.</p>
<p>The component of wholesale inventories that goes into the calculation of gross domestic product – wholesale stocks excluding autos – fell 0.5 percent in October.</p>
<p>Inventory investment contributed eight-tenths of a percentage point to the economy’s 3.3 percent annualized growth pace in the third quarter.</p>
<p>Inventory investment increased solidly in the third quarter after slowing sharply at the start of the year.</p>
<p>Auto inventories fell 0.7 percent in October after a similar drop in September. There were decreases in inventories of computer, electrical and professional equipment, among others.</p>
<p>Sales at wholesalers advanced 0.7 percent in October after surging 1.4 percent in September. Sales of motor vehicles jumped 3.4 percent in October after rising 0.8 percent the prior month.</p>
<p>At October’s sales pace it would take wholesalers 1.25 months to clear shelves, down from 1.26 months in September.</p>
<p>(</p>
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<p>Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.</p>
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U.S. wholesale inventories fall as sales rise solidly
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2017-12-08
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<p>Starting a winery is a common dream among wine aficionados, so if you've got the time, space and drive, why not turn your love of wine into a profitable business? Producing quality wine is no easy undertaking, but with a little know-how and a lot of passion, you may be able to make that long-held dream a reality.</p>
<p>LicensingFirst and foremost, you must ensure that you gain the appropriate permits and licenses to produce wine. Laws and restrictions will vary depending on your county or state, so be sure to consult with the relevant local authorities before producing any wine. Virtually all wineries will require three basic licenses to operate: a food production license, a liquor license to sell alcoholic beverages and general business license. In addition, you'll need to consult an insurance broker about getting the appropriate coverage for your winery.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>LocationYou don't need to move to the Napa Valley to produce high-quality, delicious wine. In fact, virtually every state in the country has its own wine production industry, <a href="http://www.ttb.gov/statistics/2009_wine_calendar_year.pdf" type="external">according to the U.S. Department of Treasury Opens a New Window.</a>. Nevertheless, Jacque Wilson, co-owner and founder of&#160;Pilot Peak Vineyard &amp; Winery in northern California, says location is of critical importance when producing your own wine.</p>
<p>Many wineries rely on visitors to generate business, and location plays a critical role in attracting these customers, she explains.</p>
<p>"People go wine tasting where there are more than one or two wineries," she explains. "You need some sort of critical mass in numbers to become a true destination."</p>
<p>Sourcing raw materialsWhen producing your own wine, you have two main options for sourcing raw ingredients. You could purchase grapes from a local vineyard, or you might consider cultivating and harvesting your own homegrown grapes. If you choose to team up with a local vineyard, you should sample their grapes first to ensure that they contain the right attributes for the type of wine you wish to make.</p>
<p>If you do decide to grow your own produce, your location should play an important role in type of grapes you harvest, Wilson says.</p>
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<p>"If you are going to grow your own grapes," she explains, "soil, water, county ordinances and, therefore, location is extremely important. Soil sampling is a must to determine what root stocks will work best for your selected varietals."</p>
<p>If you plan on cultivating a large, multi-acre vineyard, you can hire a contractor to perform irrigation instillation, ground preparation, trellis system installation and planting for a cost&#160; between $20,000 and $25,000 per acre.</p>
<p>DistributionOnce you've grown your grapes and completed the finished product, you need to decide on the best way of distributing it to consumers. Many smaller wineries sell their products online, as it's often cheaper than selling through liquor stores. You could also consider establishing up your own store, or welcoming guests and groups to tour the vineyard and sample your products.</p>
<p>Effective marketing is imperative to generating extra customers, according to Wilson. These marketing strategies often produce return visits and help increase brand awareness through word-of-mouth.</p>
<p>"We try to differentiate our tasting experience from the thousands of California wineries by offering a seated, complimentary wine tasting with appetizers served in flights," she says.</p>
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How to Start Your Own Winery
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2016-03-23
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<p>Late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel brought his weekend Twitter battle with Donald Trump Jr. to the air during his show’s monologue.</p>
<p>On Monday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” the host broke down the <a href="" type="internal">skirmish that broke out</a> between himself, President Trump and his son in the wake of&#160;the <a href="" type="internal">Harvey Weinstein</a> sex scandal.</p>
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<p>After Kimmel responded to a tweet by the president on Saturday calling for “equal time” on late-night shows which are “always anti-Trump,” Trump Jr.&#160;fired a tweet to him asking,&#160; “Thoughts on Harvey Weinstein? #AskingForAFriend.”</p>
<p>“The insinuation was that we, as part of the biased leftwing media propaganda machine wouldn’t say anything about him because he’s a Democrat,” Kimmel told his audience Monday, adding how he responded to the tweet by acknowledging the story was “disgusting.”</p>
<p>The Hollywood executive was <a href="" type="internal">fired from his own company</a> Sunday,&#160;The Weinstein Company, after allegations surfaced about decades of sexual harassment.</p>
<p>Trump Jr. responded to Kimmel by mocking his monologues, which have put the talk show host in the headlines over the past few weeks as he has very vocally weighed in on the health care debate.</p>
<p>“I posted a link to the video of Daddy in the ‘Access Hollywood’ bus,” Kimmel explained to the crowd which broke out in applause.</p>
<p>He addressed the reports about Weinstein being a supporter of Hillary Clinton and financially donating to her failed presidential campaign, saying he was “not defending” her. “The fact is her campaign did take money from a high-profile man who has been accused of sexual harassment multiple times,” Kimmel said as the camera pulled up split screen photos of Clinton with Weinstein and another of her with Donald Trump from 2008.</p>
<p>“Note to DJTJ,” Kimmel continued, addressing Trump Jr. “Next time you’re defending your father, you think it’s a good idea to draw comparisons between him and a freshly-accused sexual predator, don’t. It doesn’t help. It really doesn’t.”</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Dolphins coach resigns; video of him allegedly snorting ‘blow’ released as payback for NFL picking on Kaepernick</a></p>
<p>Kimmel appeared to finally break the hypocritical silence of liberals on the Weinstein story by offering up a joke about the Hollywood mogul.</p>
<p>“What’s the difference Harvey Weinstein and the Pillsbury Dough Boy?” Kimmel asked. “When the Pillsbury Dough Boy offers you a roll, he doesn’t ask you to watch him take a shower for it.”</p>
<p>For many Twitter users, however, it was Kimmel’s comparison of Trump to Weinstein that was “disgusting” and his joke simply a case of too little, too late.</p>
<p>Wake up right! Receive our free morning news blast&#160; <a href="" type="internal">HERE</a></p>
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Kimmel uses air time to continue battle with Donald Trump Jr. – Psst! You’re still losing, Jimmy
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2017-10-10
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<p>By Bob Allen</p>
<p>Opening local government meetings with prayer violates the conscience of not just religious minorities, but also of Christians who believe that worship must be voluntary, a Baptist church-state group argues in a legal brief filed Sept. 23 in the U.S. Supreme Court.</p>
<p>“By opening a local government meeting with an exercise of religious devotion, a political assembly is transformed into a religious congregation,” <a href="http://www.bjconline.org/index.php?option=com_content&amp;task=view&amp;id=5749&amp;Itemid=112" type="external">said</a> Hollyn Hollman, general counsel for the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. “It is because of — not in spite of — the importance of prayer and religion that we object to this government assumption of religious functions.”</p>
<p>The Washington-based BJC, which represents 15 national and regional Baptist bodies <a href="http://www.bjconline.org/index.php?option=com_weblinks&amp;catid=67&amp;Itemid=63" type="external">including</a> the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, joined the General Synod of the United Church of Christ and the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in a friend-of-the-court <a href="http://www.bjconline.org/index.php?option=com_docman&amp;task=doc_download&amp;gid=239&amp;Itemid=76" type="external">brief</a> in <a href="http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=9276153224108544691&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=2&amp;as_vis=1&amp;oi=scholarr" type="external">Town of Greece v. Galloway</a>, opposing the practice of opening municipal meetings with prayer.</p>
<p>The case <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/town-of-greece-v-galloway/" type="external">scheduled</a> for argument Nov. 6, asks the Supreme Court to decide whether a court of appeals erred in deciding that Greece, N.Y., violated the First Amendment’s ban on establishing religion by allowing private volunteer citizens to open its town board meetings with prayer.</p>
<p>The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals <a href="http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=13574198750186036788&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=2&amp;as_vis=1&amp;oi=scholarr" type="external">ruled</a> in May 2012 that because the prayers were overwhelmingly led by Christians, the practice gave the appearance that the town was endorsing one religion over others.</p>
<p>Parties diverse as the Obama administration and the Southern Baptist Convention <a href="" type="internal">Ethics &amp; Religious Liberty Commission</a> filed briefs maintaining that the appellate court erred.</p>
<p>The federal government filed a <a href="http://sblog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/SG-brief-in-Town-of-Greece.pdf" type="external">brief</a> in August citing the nation’s long tradition of solemnizing government meetings with legislative prayer. The government says such prayers are constitutional unless they are “exploited to proselytize or advance any one, or disparage any other, faith or belief.”</p>
<p>Commenting on the first ERLC brief since he took office in June, President Russell Moore <a href="http://erlc.com/article/prayers-at-city-meetings-supported-in-erlc-brief" type="external">said</a>: “We shouldn’t have a state-sponsored Baptist church, I agree, but we shouldn’t have a state-sponsored Unitarian church either, and that’s what some are attempting.”</p>
<p>The Baptist Joint Committee brief argues, however, that the government shouldn’t be in the business of deciding whether or how its citizens pray.</p>
<p>“Although people of faith often pray collectively — for example, in churches, synagogues and mosques — they make a voluntary decision to do so, exercising their constitutional right to form a congregation of persons who have the same approach to worshiping God,” the <a href="http://www.bjconline.org/index.php?option=com_docman&amp;task=doc_download&amp;gid=239&amp;Itemid=76" type="external">brief</a> maintains. “In contrast, attendees at a town meeting have not agreed to join a government-formed congregation. They come to participate in local government, not communal prayer.”</p>
<p>The problem with “ceremonial” prayers, the BJC contends, is that for many Christians prayer is not something that can be reduced to a ceremony. “Rather, prayer is an act of communication with God that is profound, personal, and — crucially — voluntary,” the brief argues.</p>
<p>“The Religion Clauses of the First Amendment respect the individual, voluntary nature of prayer by allowing each person to worship God as dictated by his or her own conscience, and by prohibiting the government from interfering with this right,” the brief concludes. The town of Greece’s “practice of opening town meetings with a faith-specific, communal prayer violates the Establishment Clause, because it infringes the freedom of conscience guaranteed to each person.”</p>
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<p>Cuba’s living example of 45 years of successful resistance to US military aggression and economic boycott is extremely damaging to Washington’s goal of world empire for several reasons. In the first place Cuba’s success refutes the notion put forth by the “center-left” that “small”, “undeveloped” countries cannot resist imperial powers, or sustain a revolution in the face of “globalization”. Secondly the survival of the Cuban revolution refutes the idea that Caribbean or Latin American countries located proximate to the US must conform to the dictates of Washington. Thirdly, Cuba demonstrates that the US empire is not invincible ­ Cuba has defeated almost all major aggressive military, political and diplomatic attacks.</p>
<p>Diplomatically, Cuba is recognized by almost all countries in the world, and receives the support of over 150 countries (versus 3 for the US) in opposition to the US embargo in the United Nations. Economically, Cuba has trade and investment relations with all major European, Asian, African, Latin American and North American nations (except the US). Militarily, the Cuban armed forces and intelligence agencies have defeated every US-sponsored terrorist attack on the islands for the past half-century in addition to raising the political cost for any potential invasion. In response to a half century of failures, the Bush Administration has escalated its aggression: practically eliminating all US travel to Cuba, blocking almost all family remittances, and tightening trade restrictions on food and medicine. While these harsh measures have had some negative effects on Cuba, they have also provoked opposition among some conservative sectors of the US public. Many Cuban exiles who would normally support Bush have been antagonized because they cannot provide economic assistance to aging family members. Agricultural interests (from 38 states) which supported Bush are furious at the new restriction on trade. Liberal and conservative enemies of the Cuban revolution who hoped to subvert the revolution via cultural and ideological penetration are upset by the travel and cultural restrictions.</p>
<p>In other words the harsher and more extreme the measures adopted by the Bush Administration against Cuba the greater Washington’s isolation. This is true externally as well as internally. Let us examine several illustrations.</p>
<p>The US exploited the jailing of over 70 US paid propagandists, labeling them “political dissidents”, initially securing the support of the European Union. A year later, the EU has broken with Washington and renewed and expanded its cultural and economic ties with Cuba.</p>
<p>While the US tightens its trade embargo, Cuban trade and investment ties with China and the rest of Asia, Venezuela and the rest of Latin America, Canada and Europe have expanded and deepened. The US restrictions on family remittances has been weakened by family members sending money via “third countries such as Mexico, Canada, Dominican Republic etc. Canadian, European, Latin American and Asian visitors have topped 2 million annually and new influxes of investment have made up for most of the shortfall from the restrictions on remittances.</p>
<p>Finally Washington’s attempts to limit Cuba’s access to energy sources after the fall of the USSR have been defeated by the far-reaching trade and investment agreements with the Venezuelan government of President Chavez. The Chavez regime provides Cuba with petrol at subsidized prices in exchange for Cuba providing a vast health and education program for the poor of Venezuela. The Cuban-Venezuelan political and economic ties have undercut US efforts to force the Caribbean and Latin American countries to break with Cuba. As a result of past and present failed policies of directly attacking Cuba, the Bush administration has turned toward destroying Cuba’s strategic alliance with the Chavez regime.</p>
<p>The Two Stage Strategy</p>
<p>US strategy toward destroying the Cuban revolution is increasingly following a “two step” approach: first overthrow the Chavez government in Venezuela, cut off the energy supply and trade links and then proceed toward economic strangulation and military attack. The “two step” strategy against Cuba, involves the elaboration of a calibrated action plan to overthrow the Chavez government.</p>
<p>Washington’s anti-Chavez efforts up till 2005 have resulted in severe defeats. These efforts have largely been based on an “insider” approach, utilizing the local ruling class, sectors of the army and the corrupt trade union bureaucracy. Not only have Washington’s domestic instruments been defeated but they have been severely weakened for future use. Washington’s support for the failed military coup resulted in the loss of several hundred counter-revolutionary officers who were forced to resign. Bush’s support for the petroleum elite’s lockout led to the expulsion of thousands of oil officials allied with Washington. The defeat of the referendum to expel Chavez, mobilized, politicized and radicalized millions of poor Venezuelans and demoralized Washington’s middle class supporters. The result of these failed policies has been to turn Washington’s attention to an “outsider” strategy: the key to which is incremental military intervention in association with the terrorist Uribe regime in Colombia.</p>
<p>The US strategy against Cuba involves a joint US-Colombian attack of Venezuela backed by internal terrorists and the ruling class. This indirect attack on Cuba, involves complex, external preparation in cooperation with Colombia. First of all Washington and Uribe have greatly strengthened military bases surrounding the Venezuelan border. Secondly “trial military incursions” involving both Colombian military and paramilitary forces occur on a regular basis ­ testing Venezuelan defenses. In 2004 six Venezuelan soldiers were killed, a number of Venezuelan officials were bribed to kidnap a Colombian resistance leader and numerous cross border attacks killing and kidnapping Colombian refugees took place in Venezuela. Thirdly the US has provided nearly $3 billion dollars in military aid to Colombia, tripled the size of its armed forces (to over 275,000), greatly increased its air force combat units (helicopters, fighter bombers), provided advanced military technology and several thousand official and “contracted” military specialists. Fourthly Washington has recruited the Gutierrez regime in Ecuador, invaded Haiti, established military bases in Peru and the Dominican Republic, and has engaged in navy maneuvers just off the Venezuelan coast in preparation for a military attack.Fifthly Colombia (under US tutelage) signed a joint military-intelligence cooperation agreement on December 18, 2004 with the Venezuelan Ministry of Defense, providing the US with “inside information” and serving as a possible source of infiltration of the Venezuelan Armed Forces to counter pro-Cuban officers. The Triangular Strategy</p>
<p>The US is relying on a “triangular strategy” to overthrow the Chavez regime: A military invasion from Colombia, US intervention (air and sea attacks plus special forces to assassinate key officials) and an internal uprising by infiltrated terrorists and military traitors, supported by key media, financial and petrol elites. The strategy involves seizing state power, expelling the Cuban aid missions and breaking all agreements with Cuba.</p>
<p>Prior to this concerted military strategy, Washington has designed a propaganda campaign against the Cuban-Venezuelan alliance, Venezuela’s attempts to rectify the enormous military deficit with Colombia by purchasing defensive arms, and raising the specter of Venezuela’s “subversion” of Latin American regimes. The key to US policy is to prevent Venezuela from joining Cuba as an alternative social welfare regime to the US neo-liberal clients in Latin America. US aggression escalates as the agrarian reform expands, Venezuela prepares self-defense and Chavez diversifies trade and investment ties. Cuba’s powerful support for Venezuela’s social welfare programs has consolidated mass support for the Chavez regime and is a main base of defense for the radicalization of the process.</p>
<p>As Venezuela confronts Washington’s threats, it consolidates its ties with Cuba. The fate of the two projects become intertwined and bound together in a single common anti-imperialist alliance, despite the differences in social systems and political composition. Strengths of the Venezuelan-Cuban Alliance</p>
<p>The US “external” strategy toward Venezuela and its “two step” approach toward Cuba face powerful limitations.</p>
<p>First of all the Colombian regime faces a powerful internal opposition: 20,000 veteran guerrilla fighters and millions of Colombians sympathetic to the agrarian reform program, independent foreign policy and political freedoms of the Chavez regime. It is very dangerous for Uribe to start a “two-front war” which might open the way to attacks on the principle cities including Bogotá.</p>
<p>The US is heavily tied down militarily in Iraq and puts a higher priority on war against Iran/Syria than Venezuela. The US intervention would be limited to air and sea attacks and Special Forces.</p>
<p>The war would mobilize millions of Venezuelans in a war of national liberation, defending their own land ­ homes, neighborhoods, families and friends. Moreover popular liberation wars radicalize the population and frequently lead to the confiscation of counter-revolutionary property. A failed invasion could push Venezuela toward greater socialization of the economy and eliminate the domestic elite.</p>
<p>Moreover, US economy and multi-nationals stand to lose a reliable supply of petroleum in a tight market and billions of dollars in investments ­ weakening the US position in the global energy market.</p>
<p>An invasion would likely to lead to a joint military defense pact between Venezuela and Cuba, which would counter-US policy in the Caribbean. Such an invasion would also be likely to provoke major unrest and instability throughout Latin America, threaten US clients and undermining neo-liberal regimes and policies.</p>
<p>For all these reasons, Washington’s attempts to pursue the external, two step policy toward Venezuela and Cuba, while extremely dangerous to both countries, could have a boomerang effect, setting in its wake a new wave of anti-imperialist struggles throughout the region.</p>
<p>Up to now the escalation of US diplomatic and economic aggression against Cuba has led to the greater isolation of the US in Europe and throughout the Third World. An escalation of military aggression against Venezuela as part of a “two-step strategy” against Cuba could have even more severe consequences ­ the expansion of the revolutionary struggle in Colombia and the rest of Latin America.</p>
<p>JAMES PETRAS, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50 year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in brazil and argentina and is co-author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1856499383/counterpunch" type="external">Globalization Unmasked</a> (Zed). He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
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Cuba and Venezuela Face US and Colombia
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2005-03-22
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<p>The Atlanta Falcons don’t want fans to break the bank at the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium. On Monday, the team revealed a menu of low-priced foods and beverages, saying fans shouldn’t be scared away by pricey stadium food.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Mercedes-Benz Stadium’s concession stands will sell $2 soft drinks with unlimited refills, $5 domestic beer and other fan favorites at cheaper prices. The Atlanta Falcons say the new pricing structure creates a “fan-first menu,” addressing a primary concern for ticket holders. Citing the NFL’s Voice of the Fan Survey and internal research, the Falcons noted that food and beverage is the third-most important driver of satisfaction on game days. However, concession offerings are also the lowest-rated aspect of the in-stadium experience.</p>
<p>“We felt like we needed to change the game,” Falcons President and CEO Rich McKay said in an interview with FOXBusiness.com. “We don’t want people to feel like they paid for entry and then we marked up all the prices after they enter the building.”</p>
<p>McKay noted that fans aren’t used to seeing low prices at live events, with the Masters tournament being one of the few exceptions. Augusta National is known for its inexpensive concession menu, including the course’s famous pimento cheese sandwiches for $1.50.</p>
<p>According to Team Marketing Report’s annual Fan Cost Index, the average cost of a beer was $7.42 at the start of the 2015 season.&#160; Soft drinks were priced at $4.79 on average, and hot dogs were $5.29. At the Georgia Dome, the Falcons’ current home, the cost of beer ($7.50), soft drinks ($6.50) and hot dogs ($5.50) were all slightly above league average.</p>
<p>We don't want people to feel like they paid for entry and then we marked up all the prices after they enter the building.</p>
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<p>The Falcons want Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which opens in 2017, to make the fan experience more inviting.</p>
<p>“The food and beverage experience in most stadiums is broken, and we didn’t want to perpetuate that,” Mike Gomes, senior vice president of fan experience at AMB Sports &amp; Entertainment Group, told FOXBusiness.com.</p>
<p>Team officials are bracing for more demand as a result of the price cuts. Mercedes-Benz Stadium will have more than 670 points-of-sale, a 65% increase over the Georgia Dome’s concession stands. And to keep concession lines moving, self-serve soda refill stations will be separated from concession stands, and prices were intentionally rounded to the whole dollar. The Falcons also say extra kitchen capacity will speed up service and improve quality.</p>
<p>“It’s an investment in fan experience more than anything that’s going to return a financial gain,” McKay said.</p>
<p>The business case for slashing concession prices can be seen as a larger proposition. More than ever before, sports franchises are competing with the in-home experience, as more fans shun the cost of attending games and stick to their high-definition televisions.</p>
<p>“It’s something that we as a league have talked about in the past. I do think it’s an issue, but we are a live experience, and people want to go to live events. I think what we’ve got to do is deliver on that experience,” McKay said, adding that lower concession prices and big-screen displays in Mercedes-Benz Stadium are just two ways to draw fans. “What we’re trying to do is change the game for fans and make the live experience so great that the only way they get it is by coming to the stadium.”</p>
<p>Falcons owner Arthur Blank, a co-founder of Home Depot (NYSE:HD), wants the experience inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium to match “the wow factor when [fans] approach the building.” He also said the menu should encourage families to eat inside the stadium, rather than eat elsewhere before or after games to avoid paying steep prices.</p>
<p>“We took the food and beverage model, a traditional one, and threw it out the window,” Blank said at a news conference in Atlanta.</p>
<p>Cheeseburgers will be $5 apiece, and a chicken tender basket will go for $6. Other value-oriented items on the menu include pretzels ($2), popcorn ($2), nachos ($3) and pizza slices ($3). Coca-Cola will be priced at $2, Dasani bottled water at $2 and Coca-Cola in a souvenir cup at $4. A 12-ounce Bud Light will cost $5. Prices include sales tax.</p>
<p>Gomes, a former Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS) executive, said the deal is a great value for families. Rather than use other stadiums and ballparks as points of comparison, executives considered pricing at local restaurants.</p>
<p>Prices will be the same across all major events at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. In addition to the Falcons, Mercedes-Benz Stadium will be home to the Atlanta United, a new Major League Soccer franchise formed by Blank’s AMB Group.</p>
<p>The “fan favorites” revealed on Monday account for about 80-85% of all food and beverage volume at the stadium, according to Gomes. Beyond traditional stadium food, the Falcons plan on rolling out healthier options and premium food items. McKay said the team is in discussions with local restaurants and beer makers to bring their creations inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium, and those prices will also reflect what customers pay outside the stadium.</p>
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Falcons CEO: New Stadium's Cheap Eats Will Change the Concession Game
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2016-05-16
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<p>They say the assault aims to drive out al-Qaida-inspired groups from several villages of the restive border region, where militants have established strongholds and stockpiled an unprecedented amount of weapons.</p>
<p>Also Sunday, a militant group in northern Sinai allegedly claimed responsibility for a failed assassination attempt on the country’s interior minister last week. Ansar Jerusalem, the Islamic extremist group, claimed it was behind the attack. The group said military chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who led a coup against former Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, is another target.</p>
<p>A military official said 11 militants and one soldier were killed in the fighting Sunday. He said 10 militants had been arrested. A day earlier two soldiers and nine militants were killed in the offensive.</p>
<p>Gen. Osama Askar told reporters troops had seized at least 10 shoulder-fired Sam-7 anti-aircraft missiles a day earlier. They were found in a mosque and in homes of suspected militants in the town of Sheikh Zuweyid, near the border with the Gaza Strip and Israel.</p>
<p>Western officials say thousands of shoulder-launched missiles have gone missing from Libyan arsenals since that country’s 2011 civil war. Egyptian authorities say Libyan missiles have been smuggled into the Sinai and some of them have gone on through underground tunnels to Gaza.</p>
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<p>Sunday’s airstrikes targeted the villages of el-Mahdiya and el-Moqataa on the outskirts of Rafah and Sheikh Zuweyid. One official said U.S.-made Apache helicopters hit shacks, houses, olive farms and cars used by militants.</p>
<p>The strikes paved the way for a ground offensive, allowing troops backed by armored vehicles to sweep homes of suspected militants.</p>
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<p>Recently, the United States has been anxiously trying to pre-empt every possible uncomfortable situation in South Asia. Its ambassadors are actively intervening in internal political debates in South Asian countries. Of course, it is nothing new for the US, but in order to understand specific implications of this activism in specific contexts, the peeping tom has to be caught red-handed at the site of the crime and interrogated. The ambassador in India was recently in the dock for threatening Indians to behave well on the Iran issue. Now it is the turn of the ambassador in Nepal, James F. Moriarty. However, for our convenience, Moriarty has been too explicit in his conduct.</p>
<p>In his speech to the Ganesh Man Singh Academy (Kathmandu) on February 15, 2006, Moriarty clearly stated that the US wanted “reconciliation and compromise” between Monarchy and parliamentary parties, and any other arrangement is unacceptable to it. And what is unacceptable to it needs to be checked with all its might. (1) Moriarty cleared away the confusion that the US statement after the royalty’s failed attempt to conduct elections to municipal bodies in the beginning of February 2006 engendered among a few people. They thought that the US seemed to be drifting away from its support to monarchy. Moriarty’s speech much be welcomed in this regard. He made clear that the US thought the elections could have been a successful exercise; “unfortunately” it was proved “hollow” and “yet another missed opportunity”, with the Maoists’ violence and parties’ boycott being the main culprits. In the Question-Answer session of his speech, in answer to a particular question, Moriarty immediately tried to reinstall the ambiguity. Such kind of ambiguity allows a hegemonic power to opportunistically play various contradictory forces at the same time.(2)</p>
<p>Moriarty presented a comprehensive overview of the American perceptions of the Nepalese crisis. Firstly, for the US, the main task of the Nepalese politicians must be to eliminate the Maoists, not to bring in a stable democracy. The latter could be just an instrument in this regard. The “authoritarian rule” imposed by Monarchy per se was not wrong, If it had eliminated the Maoists, it would have been declared successful. Monarchy proved to be wrong in its “envisioning”. Secondly, the US really thinks that the recent agreement between the “parties” and the Maoists is a result of the frustration of the former, who are trying to use the latter as “political leverage against the palace”. In fact, within the US’ scheme of things, the King and the “parties” are equally obstinate “locked in a circle of mistrust” using the Maoists as “bargaining chip in their ongoing struggle of wills”. Thirdly, in this struggle of wills and fancies, of course, “the Maoists will only continue to gain advantage”. Fourthly, of course, speaking for the Big Brother (BB), Moriarty feels free to philosophise, “wishing that something were so does not make it that way, as we all learn in life”. And with BB watching and judging, how did Nepalese politicians dare to make judgement on their own that the insurgents would renounce violence? BB thinks that the Maoists are “committed to violence to achieve political ends”, so they must be; believe it or else you are doomed! Don’t talk about the revolutionaries of Nicaragua or El Salvador whose struggles contributed in stabilising democracy in those countries, BB knows better!</p>
<p>To teach the Nepalis, Moriarty makes a list of FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQs) and, of course, supplied with answers, too. His first question is: “Are the Maoists truly committed to peace and democracy, as the 12-point understanding suggests?” Moriarty comes out with a “Bushy” style of argumentation. When Maoist leader Baburam Bhattarai talks about “absolute democracy” and about attacking the “autocratic monarchy”, can’t you see what he means? He means “murder, extortion, and intimidation”. If you don’t see that, Uncle Sam sees that; hence, you must see that. Don’t you remember Bhattarai said something about the simultaneity of armed and unarmed struggle to achieve the goal of absolute democracy? Why did he call for an armed struggle to complement the unarmed? What if the Royal Nepalese Army (RNA) and the police shoot at your demonstrations and protests? You must never defend yourself because Uncle Sam himself trained them to do that.</p>
<p>The second question, which Moriarty supplies with an answer, is “Are the Maoists committed to joining the political mainstream?” The argumentation is similar. Because he has found “that the insurgents seek to bring the parties further into their sphere, and to the Maoists’ advantage”, so everybody must see the “common sense”. How did he find that? Somewhere Baburam Bhattarai said, “since our working policy [with the parties] is now the same, we have forged this partnership,” and also that “tomorrow if the nature of the political intercontradiction changes, the nature of our relations could change as well.” So the conclusion is “icy”. Actually, the parties didn’t have any mind when they signed the 12-point agreement with the Maoists. Look Uncle Sam has done the homework for them, he has “translated” “Maoist thinking” for these illiterate Nepalis, and it is icy because he himself was frozen by its implications. Did you say, even Uncle Sam changes his colours frequently as “the nature of the political intercontradiction changes” – that he supported all kinds of dictatorial regimes to eliminate nationalists, democrats and people’s movements all over the world? He fed Pinochet, Talibans, Osama, Saddam, literally everybody against whom he claims to wage the War on terrorism todayOh, boy! You can’t even understand that! Firstly, because he is big he can dare to do this; secondly, if you go on telling his own story to him, he might do what he did in Chile, beware!</p>
<p>The last FAQ is “If the parties and Maoists were ever able to topple the monarchy, what then?” Of course, “the answer here is particularly worrisome: The Maoists would be armed; the parties would be unarmed.” Here comes a major revelation: “the Royal Nepalese Army” is “the parties’ one logical source of defense”. So what if all these days it has terrorised you? Once you become the King’s compliant little brothers, you will find them handy and playful. Don’t listen to the Maoists! In fact, the RNA is the King’s private army and it is not professional because it is in the best interest of you and the Nepalese people in general. You all are very innocent and young; you could have misused the Army and its arms. BP Koirala (the first and only prime minister to serve during Nepal’s first fling of democracy (1959-60) was overthrown because he dared to support some land reform measures) was not in his mind when he questioned the compatibility of the democratic system in Nepal with the preponderance of the Nepalese Army. You must be happy with the “elections”, that’s democracy. More regularly you are ousted by the King and his army, you will have more elections, and hence, more democracy You don’t understand the logic, boy! Moreover, “we like elections”.</p>
<p>Moriarty himself found all these trivial questions “provocative, which is their aim”. To “provoke” more he finds that “if ever the phrase ‘politics makes strange bedfellows’ was appropriate, it is in Nepal in 2006”. Did all these provoke you? No, but they must, they were meant to be provocative. Look, Uncle Sam has caught you in bed, too! So what if every night he himself has strange bedfellows! You are still young and struggling. You must not sleep with bedfellows whom he finds strange. Don’t sleep with his enemies! Do you know how much you have aggrieved the Big Boy Gyani, because of your “lack of leadership and unwillingness to compromise”? He too was at fault, agreed, but he is the Big Boy. Moreover, you were the one who aligned with “a separate violent force” and isolated the Big Boy, maddening him. Further don’t you see Russia, North Korea, China, Cuba and others, the Maoists, Marxists etc found totalitarian states? Don’t talk about Allende, Chavez, Ortega and others? It is good that Uncle Sam and his cronies fund local criminals, drug pedlars, mafias to check them or eliminate them before they are successful in building totalitarian states. And that is why you don’t find totalitarianism flourishing there. You talk about Pinochet and his ilk, you must understand the logic of tit for tat. Choices are before you – decide what you want to become. Now stop provoking Uncle Sam. But are you provoked, or not?</p>
<p>In the speech, Moriarty clearly comes out with a warning: Behave yourself or you will impair your “democratic credentials” by aligning with the Maoists. It does not matter whether the ‘demos’ supported your boycott and the Maoists’ General Strike, what matters is that you have not behaved according to the ‘democratic’ recipe that Uncle Sam proposes. Your partnership with the Maoists is “uneasy”, because it makes him uneasy. It is wrongheaded, because he has been wronged. Worse for you, Uncle Sam has started believing that what you have done “is fraught with danger”? You know what this means. You have enraged Uncle Sam, and you don’t know the results that are in store “for the political parties themselves, and for the future of the Nepalese people”. So, start rethinking.</p>
<p>It is clear from the speech that the Maoists’ coming out openly in the media and rising popular sympathy and support for them have forced the US to prepare for its last ditch attempt to save monarchy and buy back at least the inconsistent elements in the democracy movement. The US game plan is to downplay the Maoists’ genuine stress on an effective Constituent Assembly that can decide upon the nature of the political system for Nepal in a genuinely democratic manner. Moriarty’s jugglery with facts and statements by the Maoists taken out of context is meant for this. The US and its allies know quite well that the Nepalese royalty, which they fed for more than 50 years, is almost doomed, if this demand is honestly met. The royalty is their only stable agency that can keep the political economic aspirations of the enlightened Nepalese population in check, from ‘harming’ foreign interests in Nepal – both security and business. The royalty’s doom is Nepal’s complete independence, its freedom to decide its own destiny.</p>
<p>Moriarty uses all kinds of attacks that can make the Maoists look like the simple mindless terrorists whom the Americans trained during the Cold War and whom they utilise today to legitimise their invasion of “non-compliant” (“rogue”) free nations. In the name of chasing the terrorists they can freely bombard innocent people. Of course, in order to pre-empt the rise of a future ‘terrorist’, they must slaughter the whole generation, as Herod “slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof” (St. Mathew, 2:16).</p>
<p>They themselves know that the Maoists are not like those terrorists whom they brainwashed for their own Cold War loots. That is why the Ambassador shows his desperation by evoking the logic of “common sense” so many times, without telling what sense it is. Don’t you see the common sense that “the King and parties” are natural allies? Don’t you see the common sense that the Maoists are violent? Don’t you see the common sense that “There is no other practical, workable solution to your constitutional crisis and to effectively face the most immediate, as well as the most serious long-term, threat to your peace and prosperity ­ the insurgency”, except that “at some point, for the sake of Nepal, senior party and palace leaders must gather together in a room and begin hashing out the hard details of the way forward. No one else can do it for them”. So party leaders must gather in a room, not on the streets, not like Zapatistas in Mexico, who go in thousands when they go for negotiation.</p>
<p>Throughout the speech Moriarty is trying to entice the Democrats and the King to be ready for “hard compromise, tough give and take”. “The United States, for one, would look eagerly for ways to assist a new Nepal government that respects and supports democracy, human rights, and freedom. This also could include renewing assistance for the Royal Nepalese Army.” So don’t you see that Uncle Sam will now onward protect both the Big Boy and the little ones, if you behave well with each other? This is the common sense. And if you don’t believe Moriarty’s “common sense plea”, then you must listen to “the commander of the U.S. Pacific Command”. You know, what it means</p>
<p>[Note: Most of the quotes here are from US Ambassador in Nepal, James F Moriarty’s speech. Its text and audio versions are available at <a href="http://kathmandu.usembassy.gov/" type="external">http://kathmandu.usembassy.gov/</a>. The audio includes the Question-Answer session. A partial transcript of the Q-A session is available on the website of International Nepal Solidarity Network for Democratic Peace (insn.org) at <a href="http://66.116.151.85/?p=2772" type="external">http://66.116.151.85/?p=2772</a>. The Q-A session shows the desperation of US diplomacy in Nepal, as its Ambassador in his answers had the audacity to break the basic diplomatic discursive ethos, using phrases like “with the middle fingers”]</p>
<p>PRATYUSH CHANDRA can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
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What the US Ambassador Taught Nepalis
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https://counterpunch.org/2006/02/20/what-the-us-ambassador-taught-nepalis/
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2006-02-20
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<p>Spending edged up 0.1 percent after a similar tiny gain in September, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday.</p>
<p>Incomes jumped 0.4 percent, double the rise in September. Wages and salaries climbed 0.6 percent. That was the strongest wage gain in five months and a reflection of the big surge in hiring that occurred last month.</p>
<p>The second straight month of spending weakness could signal trouble, given that consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of economic activity. However, economists are counting on the strong labor market to bolster the incomes needed to fuel spending in the months ahead.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>In October, spending on durable goods such as cars was flat following a 0.5 percent rise in September. Spending on nondurable goods such as food and clothing edged up 0.1 percent following a big 1.1 percent drop the previous month that in part reflected falling gasoline prices.</p>
<p>Spending on services such as haircuts and auto repairs rose 0.1 percent after bigger gains of 0.4 percent in August and September.</p>
<p>With the growth in incomes and a small rise in spending, the saving rate rose to 5.6 percent of after-tax income in October, up from 5.3 percent in September. It was the highest monthly savings level in nearly three years.</p>
<p>Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics, said Friday's data showed a "muted start" to the fourth quarter. But he described rise in the savings rate as encouraging because it means that households will have money to spend during the upcoming holiday shopping season.</p>
<p>"Even if labor market conditions weakened, that leaves plenty of scope for some solid gains in consumption over the holiday season," Ashworth said.</p>
<p>The strong gain in wages and salaries came in a month when employers added 271,000 jobs, the biggest monthly increase this year. The strong job growth pushed the unemployment rate down to a seven-year low of 5 percent.</p>
<p>The government on Tuesday reported that the overall economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, grew at an annual rate of 2.1 percent in the July-September quarter, an upward revision from an initial estimate of 1.5 percent GDP growth in the third quarter.</p>
<p>Economists are forecasting growth will accelerate to around 2.5 percent in the fourth quarter, helped by stronger consumer spending.</p>
<p>Americans did boost online shopping and restaurant spending in October, but retail sales rose only 0.1 percent during the month. Part of that weakness reflected falling gasoline prices.</p>
<p>There is a growing expectation that the Federal Reserve will decide at its Dec. 15-16 meeting to boost interest rates for the first time in seven years. The Fed has said it is prepared to move once it sees further improvements in the labor market and is confident that inflation will move back to its 2 percent target over the next couple of years.</p>
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Consumer spending up a weak 0.1 percent in October
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<p>Spencer Ackerman got to join General David Petraeus on his morning exercise routine recently, and <a href="http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_petraeus_workout" type="external">the results</a> give us some clue as to what Petraeus will say <a href="/mojoblog/archives/2007/09/5364_iraq_debate_ope.html" type="external">before Congress next week</a>.</p>
<p>“There are some encouraging signs,” [Petraeus] said cautiously. “It’s still pretty early, but sectarian violence and murders are down [in Baghdad], and that’s hugely important. It’s about [stopping] sectarian violence.” He qualified his statement. “There are still, obviously, huge car bombs, since al-Qaeda is trying to reignite sectarian violence.”</p>
<p>So the results of the surge are a decidedly mixed bag. The security is getting mildly better ( <a href="http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003631296" type="external">very much in question</a>) but the politics of Iraq have not improved. In fact, they’re worse than they were a year ago. We may be winning on some of the details, but we’re still losing on the big picture. Why continue the occupation?</p>
<p>Politics in the country was moving slowly, [Petraeus] conceded, but he was impressed with the performance of the Iraqi Army in Baghdad. I wasn’t exactly sure what the connection was. Could a competent Army really convince Sunnis to accept minority status, or stop Shiites from hoarding power? But nothing is a non sequitur to Petraeus. Instead, the strategy he describes is one where each small contingency exerts an ephemeral but real influence on every seemingly unrelated aspect of the war.</p>
<p>It appears the surge meant something very different to General Petraeus than it did to the rest of America. To everyone here stateside, the surge in troops was a temporary effort to give Iraqi politicians the space and stability they needed to achieve some kind of reconciliation. To Petraeus, it was a chance to implement his strategy and re-fight the war.</p>
<p>And you know what’s funny? Inklings of this were reported in February. I spotted a Newsweek story by Michael Hirsh and wrote a blog entitled <a href="/mojoblog/archives/2007/02/3653_newsweek_petrae.html" type="external">“Petraeus is Engaged in a Giant ‘Do-Over'”</a> on 02/23/07. Maybe we should have all raised a bigger fuss.</p>
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Talking Surge (and Jogging) with General Petraeus
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2007-09-04
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<p>Shares of Allergan PLC rallied 1.1% in premarket trade Wednesday, after the biopharmaceutical company announced a $10 billion accelerated stock repurchase (ASR) program and initiated a dividend, offsetting third-quarter profit and sales that missed expectations. The company said it would buy back $8 billion worth of its stock in November, as part of the ASR, and the rest will be acquired by the third-quarter of 2017. The previously-announced $5 billion share repurchase program was completed ahead of schedule. The company said it will start paying a quarterly dividend of 70 cents a share on March 28, 2017, to shareholders of record on Feb. 28, 2017. "We continue to believe there is no greater investment than Allergan stock, given our powerful growth prospects," said Chief Executive Brent Saunders. Separately, Allergan reported net earnings that rose to $15.15 billion, or $38.58 a share, from $5.23 billion, or $13.29 a share, in the same period a year ago. Excluding non-recurring items, adjusted earnings per share came to $3.32, below the FactSet consensus of $3.56. Revenue increased to $3.62 billion from $3.47 billion, but missed the FactSet consensus of $3.68 billion. For 2016, revenue is expected to be $14.45 billion to $14.65 billion and adjusted EPS is expected to be $13.30 to $13.50, both below the FactSet revenue consensus of $14.73 billion and the EPS consensus of $13.91. The stock has plunged 33% year to date through Tuesday, while the SPDR S&amp;P Biotech ETF has tumbled 19% and the S&amp;P 500 has gained 3.3%.</p>
<p>Copyright © 2016 MarketWatch, Inc.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
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Allergan's Stock Gains As $10 Billion ASR And New Dividend Offsets Profit And Sales Miss
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2016-11-02
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<p><a href="" type="internal" /> Syrian Arab Army in southern Syria. (Photo: Facebook)</p>
<p><a href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article197477.html" type="external">VoltaireNet</a></p>
<p>In this article, Thierry Meyssan distinguishes the analysis and strategy of President Assad on the one hand and Maduro and Morales on the other. His aim is not to place these leaders in competition, but rather to call upon each of them to remove themselves from political catechisms and to pay due attention to the lessons learnt from the most recent wars.</p>
<p>In May 2017, Thierry Meyssan appeared on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHpGvKCazgg" type="external">Russia Today</a> and explained where the South American elites were going wrong in their fight against US imperialism. He insisted that there has been a sea-change in the way the US now wages armed conflicts and we now need to radically rethink how we should defend our homeland.</p>
<p>The operation to destabilize Venezuela continues. The first phase: violent gangs demonstrating against the government killed passers by, as if citizenship created no bonds between them. The second phase: the major food suppliers organized food shortages in the supermarkets. Then some members of the forces attacked several ministers, called for a rebellion and now have retreated into hiding.</p>
<p>Of course the international press never ceases to hold the “regime” responsible for the deaths of demonstrators. Yet it is a fact that a number of videos testify that these demonstrators were deliberately assassinated by demonstrators themselves. No regard is paid to this and on the basis of this false information, the press then proceeds to qualify Nicolas Maduro as a “dictator” just as it did six years ago with respect to Muammar Gaddafi and Bashar el-Assad.</p>
<p>The United States has used the Organization of American States (the OAS) as an arm against President Maduro just like it once used the Arab League against President al-Assad. Caracas, not expecting to be excluded from the Organization, denounced this method and left of its own accord.</p>
<p>Maduro’s government has however two failures on its balance sheet: the vast majority of its voters did not go to the polling stations for the legislative elections of 2015, allowing the opposition to sweep a majority in Parliament. it was caught out by the crisis of food products, even though the same thing had been organized in the past in Chile against Allende and in Venezuela against Chávez. It required several weeks to put in place new circuits to provide food.</p>
<p>In all likelihood, the conflict that begins in Venezuela will not be held back by its borders. It will ooze out, embracing the entire North West of the South American continent and the Caribbean.</p>
<p>An additional step has been taken with military preparations against Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador following Mexico, Colombia and British Guyana. The team responsible for co-ordinating these measures is from the former Office of Global Democracy Strategy. This was a unit established by President Bill Clinton, then continued by Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz. Mike Pompeo, the current director of the CIA, has confirmed that this unit exists. This has led to rumours in the press, followed up by President Trump, of a US military option.</p>
<p>To save his country, President Maduro’s team has refused to follow the example of President al-Assad. Maduro’s team thinks that there is no real comparison between what is happening in Venezuela and Syria. The United States, the principal capitalist power, would set off to Venezuela to steal its oil, according to a plan that has been repeatedly played out in the past on three continents. This point of view was given further weight by a speech that Evo Morales, Bolivia’s President, recently delivered.</p>
<p>Let us recall that in 2003 and 2011, President Saddam Hussein, the Guide Muammar Gaddafi and a number of President Assad’s advisors reasoned similarly. They thought that the US would attack the following states in succession: Afghanistan and Iraq, then Tunisia, Egypt and Libya and Syria. And why? For the sole reason of bringing about the collapse of regimes that were resisting its imperialism and controlling hydrocarbon resources in an expanded Middle East. A number of anti-imperialist authors cling to this analysis today. So for example, they use it to try to explain the war against Syria by reference to the interruption of the Qatari gas pipeline project.</p>
<p>Now, this line of thinking is turning out to be false. The US is not looking to reverse progressive governments (Libya and Syria), nor to steal the region’s oil and gas. Its intent is to decimate States, to send people of these countries back to a pre-historic time where “man did not love his neighbour as God loved him but would pounce like a wolf upon his neighbour” [Translator’s note: the literal translation of the French original is: “man was a wolf for man”].</p>
<p>Has toppling the Saddam Hussein regime and the regime of Gaddafi brought peace back to these states? No! Wars have continued even though “government of occupation” has been set up in Iraq, then a government composed of other governments in the region including those who collaborated with the imperialists opposed to national independence. Wars are still being waged. This surely evidences that Washington and London had no intention of toppling these regimes nor defending democracy. These were transparent covers for their true intentions which were to eliminate the people in these states. It is a basic observation that rocks our understanding of contemporary imperialism.</p>
<p>This strategy, radically new, was taught by Thomas P. M. Barnett following 11-September 2001. It was publicly revealed and exposed in March 2003 – that is, just before the war against Iraq— in an article in&#160;Esquire, then in the eponym book,&#160;The Pentagon’s New Map. However, such a strategy appears so cruel in design, that no one imagined it could be implemented.</p>
<p>Imperialism seeks to divide the world in two. One part will be a stable area which profits from the system while in the other part a terrifying chaos will reign. This other will be a zone, where all thought of resisting has been wiped it; where every thought is fixated on surviving; an area where the multinationals can extract raw materials which they need without any duty to account to anyone.</p>
<p>Since the eighteenth century and the British Civil War, Western development has been triggered by its attempt to do all it can to avoid chaos. Thomas Hobbes taught us to support the thinking of the State rather than risk experiencing this torment for another time. The notion of chaos only returned to us with Leo Strauss, after the Second World War. This philosopher, who has personally trained a number of personalities within the Pentagon, intended to build a new form of power by plunging part of the world into hell.</p>
<p>Jihadism inflicted onto an expanded Middle East has shown us what is chaos.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>While President Assad reacted as anticipated to the events of Deraa (March – April 2011), by sending his army to quell the jihadists of the Mosque al-Omari, he was the first to understand what was happening. Far from increasing the powers of the forces to maintain order to repress the aggression sourced from abroad, he equipped his people with the means to defend their homeland.</p>
<p>First: he lifted the state of emergency, dissolved the special courts, freed the Internet communications and forbade the armed forces to use their arms if to do so would endanger the lives of innocent civilians.</p>
<p>When Assad took these decisions he was clearly not going with the flow. And these decisions were ladened with consequences. For example, at the time of the attack of a military convoy at Banias, soldiers held off using their weapons in self-defence; they preferred to be mutilated by the bombs of their attackers and occasionally die, rather than to fire, risking injuring inhabitants that were looking at them being massacred without intervening.</p>
<p>Like many at this time, I thought that the President was too weak and his troops too loyal; that Syria was going to go down. However six years on, Bashar el-Assad and the Syrian armed forces met the challenge. While at the beginning the soldiers have struggled alone against foreign aggression, gradually, every citizen came on board, to defend the country.</p>
<p>Those who were not able to or who did not want to resist, went into exile. It is clearly the case that the Syrian people have greatly suffered. That said, Syria is the only State in the entire world, since the Vietnam War, to have resisted until imperialism tires itself out and surrenders.</p>
<p>Second: faced with this invasion of a multitude of jihadists, from Muslim populations all over the world – Morocco to China, President Assad took the decision to abandon part of his territory to save his people.</p>
<p>The Syrian Arab Army confined itself to the “useful Syria”, that is, to the cities. It abandoned the countryside and the deserts to the attackers. Damascus kept supervising, uninterruptedly, the provision of food to every region under its control. Contrary to an idea accepted by the West as common knowledge, the only areas where there is famine are those areas under Jihadi control and in the cities that it has besieged; the “ foreign rebels” (forgive this oxymoron), supplied by “humanitarian” associations, use the distribution of food packages as a means of making starving populations submit to them.</p>
<p>The Syria people have seen for themselves how the Republic alone assumed the role of feeding them and protecting them. The Muslim Brotherhood and their jihadists played no part.</p>
<p>Third: In a speech delivered on 12 December 2012, President Assad traced, how he intended to remake political unity in his country. Of special mention, he pointed out the need to draft a new constitution and to submit it to adoption by a qualified majority of his people then to proceed to democratically elect all institutional officials, including of course, the President.</p>
<p>At that time, the Westerners mocked the claim of President Assad to call elections when the war was at its bloodiest. Today, all diplomats involved in resolving this conflict including the UN, support Assad’s plan.</p>
<p>While Jihadi commandos were freely roaming the entire country, notably Damascus, and were murdering politicians even invading their homes where their families were, to do so, President Assad has encouraged dialogue with nationals who oppose him. He guaranteed the security of the liberal Hassan el-Nouri and the Marxist Maher el-Hajjar so that they too, might risk presenting themselves at the presidential elections in June 2014. Despite an appeal to boycott issued by the Muslim Brotherhood and Western governments, despite jihadi terror, despite the fact that millions of citizens were exiled abroad, voter turn out (of those present) was 73.42 %.</p>
<p>In the same way, from the beginning of the war, he created a ministry for National Reconciliation, something never seen before in a country where war is going on. Assad handed the ministry over to Ali Haidar, the President of PSNS, an allied party. He negotiated and concluded thousands of agreements taking into account the amnesty of citizens who had taken arms against the Republic and their integration in the Syrian Arab Army.</p>
<p>During this war, President Assad has never used force against his own people. This is so, despite the allegations of those who freely accuse him of widespread torture. So, let me be clear: he has never set up mass executions nor mandatory conscriptions. It is always possible for a young man to avoid his military obligations. Administrative procedures allow any male citizen to evade national service if he does not desire to defend his country with weapons in hand. Only the exiled who have not had the occasion to pursue these procedures may find themselves in violation of these laws.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /> President Assad being greeted by Syrian civilians on a recent tour of areas recently liberated from US coalition terrorism. ( <a href="https://www.facebook.com/syriatimes.sy/" type="external">Photo: Syria Times</a>)</p>
<p>For six years, President Assad has not stopped on the one hand, making an appeal to his people, asking them to thrust upon him obligations, and on the other hand, trying to feed them and to protect them, as far as he is able. He has always assumed the risk of giving before receiving. That is why today, he has won the confidence of his people, and can count on their active support.</p>
<p>South American elites are wrong to pursue the fight of the previous decades for a fairer distribution of their wealth. The battle which they must focus is no longer one where the majority of the people and small class of privileged individuals are on opposite sides.</p>
<p>The choice put to the peoples of the expanded Middle East and to the people of South America is this: aut defendendum vobis patriam est aut morendum vobis est (you must either defend your homeland or die). It is this question that they will have to respond to.</p>
<p>The facts prove it: the number one priority of imperialism today is no longer plundering natural resources. Imperialism, unscrupulous, dominates the world. Yet now its vision has expanded to wiping out people and to destroying the societies in the regions where it is already exploiting resources.</p>
<p>In this iron era, the Assad strategy alone allows us to stand tall and free</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>READ MORE SYRIA NEWS AT:&#160; <a href="" type="internal">21st Century Wire Syria Files</a></p>
<p>SUPPORT OUR&#160;WORK BY SUBSCRIBING &amp; BECOMING A MEMBER&#160; <a href="https://21wire.tv/membership/plans/" type="external">@21WIRE.TV</a></p>
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President Assad and the Syrian Armed Forces have Shaken US Hegemony to the Core
| true |
http://21stcenturywire.com/2017/08/30/president-assad-and-the-syrian-armed-forces-have-shaken-us-hegemony-to-the-core/
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2017-08-30
| 4 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>SANTA FE, N.M. — I saw recently that Sen. Ted Cruz read from “Green Eggs and Ham” during his 21-hour non-filibuster against the Affordable Healthcare Act. Did he not realize the delicious irony of such a choice? The popular moral of Dr. Suess’ classic children’s yarn is that we should not fear things that are new and different, and that might actually be good for us. Maybe there’s hope – if Sam can learn to like Green Eggs and Ham, then perhaps Ted can learn to like Obamacare!</p>
<p>NICHOLAS V. GIACONA</p>
<p>Santa Fe</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
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Cruz misses irony of Seuss book
| false |
https://abqjournal.com/271378/cruz-misses-irony-of-seuss-book.html
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2013-09-29
| 2 |
<p>By <a href="" type="internal">Roy Peter Clark</a> ( <a href="" type="internal">more by author</a>) Senior Scholar, Poynter Institute</p>
<p>I’m getting nervous.</p>
<p>As someone who lives on the Gulf of Mexico, I sympathize with those who have lost homes and livelihoods to Katrina and Rita. I feel their pain. I really do. If either hurricane had made a right turn, it could have hit me, my house, my dog, my family. As a moral duty, I’ve given to the Red Cross. I’m outraged by the seeming incompetence of government leadership at every level. And I’m proud of the reporters who showed both moral and physical courage to broadcast across the nation and the world the horrific consequences of natural disaster.</p>
<p />
<p>But I’m still nervous.</p>
<p>Why am I nervous? Because, as is my habit, I’ve been watching the NBC Today Show this week. As volunteers from Habitat for Humanity construct house frames for hurricane victims, Katie Couric and Matt Lauer have introduced us to a series of hurricane survivors. Each day we meet a family who has lost a home. Each day we experience the family’s personal story. Each day we cry with them and for them. And then each day we share their "surprise" when they reunite with family members, when they are hugged by celebrities, when they reach out their hands to donors, when – now my eyes are welling with tears – they receive gifts to replaces the things they lost – including backpacks for the kids – and a new house!</p>
<p>Wait a minute. Am I watching NBC or ABC? Is it morning or evening? Is this the Today Show or Extreme Makeover – Home Edition? Or have I been caught in a time warp and transported back to the 1950s? That’s it! It’s 1958, I am ten years old, and I’m watching Queen for a Day.</p>
<p />
<p>Queen for a Day, hosted by former carnival barker Jack Bailey, ran as an enormously popular radio program after World War II, which then grew into early television’s archetypal "sob show." Here’s how it worked: Women in the studio audience were interviewed about their problems and needs. With slicked back hair and a pencil-thin mustache, the oily Bailey interviewed four finalists. An audience Applause Meter determined who would become Queen For A Day, the winner robed and crowned, and then given a washing machine or some other appliance.</p>
<p><a href="http://history.acusd.edu/gen/projects/hanley/queen.html" type="external">This marvelous personal history</a> of the show&#160;points out that the winners were never chosen if they needed money for medical help or a trip to be united with a love one. They only made the cut if their needs could be satisfied by an appliance, in particular, one manufactured by the show’s sponsor.</p>
<p>To this day, the sob story works like this: You find a needy person or family, you tell their story in a way that wrings the emotion out of it, you make sure the protagonists cry on camera, you promote yourselves by helping them, and you provide lots of plugs for the sponsors providing the goods and services.</p>
<p>These shows convert pathos into bathos, a strategy to lure a female audience.</p>
<p>Sentimentality is to women, what pornography is to men. Just as porn is designed to arouse a physical response in men, so the sob story is designed to create an emotional catharsis for women. TV Guide once exposed the manipulation by designating Queen for a Day the "No. 1 mesmerizer of middle-aged females and most relentless dispenser of free washing machines."</p>
<p>No doubt, we feel vicarious satisfaction when we see "our" social capital, "our" money and sweat directed to specific families in need.Perhaps because the contemporary versions of these sob shows are geared toward women – and I am such a muy macho man – they don’t appeal to me. Some of them have&#160; <a href="http://www.greenjem.com/notes.htm#ehm" type="external">huge appeal</a> and many apologists. The makeover shows, Oprah, Dr. Phil, the new NBC show Three Wishes combine charity and wish fulfillment in a cloying but compelling combination. No doubt, we feel vicarious satisfaction when we see "our" social capital, "our" money and sweat directed to specific families in need. So I’m not nervous about the quality or values of these shows.</p>
<p>I’m nervous about the news. Katie Couric looks a little nervous too. One day this week, as she was giving away the store to a needy family, she giggled and said "I feel like Oprah." She knows, and we all know, that from the earliest days of television the standards of responsible news reporting have been in tension with the entertainment values of the television medium.</p>
<p>In 1976, here’s what Dick Salant wrote in the preface to an internal document, CBS News Standards: "One [of my convictions] is the overriding importance peculiar to our form of journalism of drawing the sharpest possible line – sharp perhaps to the point of eccentricity – between our line of broadcast business, which is dealing with fact, and that in which our associates on the entertainment side of the business are generally engaged, which is dealing in fiction and drama….It is particularly important that we recognize that we are not in show business and should not use any of the dramatic licenses, the ‘fiction-which-represents-truth’ rationales, or the underscoring and the punctuations which entertainment and fiction may, and do, properly use. This may make us a little less interesting to some – but that is the price we pay for dealing with fact and truth, which may often be duller – and with more loose ends – than fiction and drama."</p>
<p>From the vantage point of contemporary news practice, Salant looks like a relic, a Catholic who still goes to confession every Saturday.</p>
<p>I do not deny that one of the unwritten responsibilities of the news business is, to adapt the lyrics of a song, to lift us up when we are down. No society can tolerate too much bad news, whether it be about war, fire, earthquake, tsunami, or hurricane. We need to rescue a few dogs and dolphins. And we probably need to see a few families, who have shed tears of pain, now shed tears of joy.</p>
<p>Our culture also benefits when the news media endorses the ideal of America as a generous society. Most descriptions of this generosity are little more than political sloganeering -- charity as a cover for tax cuts for the rich. How much better to record the percussion of hammers in the hands of volunteers for Habitat for Humanity.</p>
<p>But here’s the catch: these stories of good will toward men and women must be authentic. When they come out wrapped in self-promotion; when they seem connected to building audience; when they look like an imitation of the day’s latest sob entertainment; when Katie Couric begins to look like Oprah; when news gets confused with Queen for a Day; then hope turns to skepticism and sours into cynicism.</p>
<p>The country, and the folks who are trying to recover deserve better. In the original version of this article, I wrote that the Today Show does not belong to the news division of NBC. I was wrong. Lauren Kapp of the Today Show informs us that the show does, indeed, belong to the news division and always has.</p>
<p>All the more reason for concern.&#160;With the revival of the sob story, I hope that news leaders will revisit Dick Salant’s conviction that a thick line should exist between television news and television entertainment. Actually, I fear that that may be too much to ask. How about a thin line? How about&#160;any line?</p>
<p>CORRECTION: The original version of this article reported incorrectly that the Today Show is not part of the news division of NBC. In fact, it is part of the news division.</p>
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Return of the Sob Story
| false |
https://poynter.org/news/return-sob-story
|
2005-09-30
| 2 |
<p>On Sunday, a Muslim driver shouting "Allahu Akhbar" ran over 11 people in France. This time, the Islamic zealot "appeared to deliberately mow down about a dozen pedestrians in the French city of Dijon before being arrested," <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/driving-shouting-allahu-akbar-runs-down-11-french-pedestrians-n272866" type="external">reports</a> NBC News.</p>
<p>According to a spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior, the driver managed to plow into pedestrians in five different locations in the city before he was finally stopped by authorities. Officials say his rampage resulted in the injury of 11 people, two of them suffering serious injury.</p>
<p>France has found itself at the epicenter of the jihadist attack against the West. The embattled country is still grieving the 130 victims butchered in Paris just a few weeks ago.</p>
<p>The suspect, who had a criminal history dating back to the 1990s, tapped into every Islamic grievance in the books. “According to testimonies on the scene, the driver also invoked ‘the children of Palestine’ to explain his actions” while plowing down human beings with his motor vehicle, <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/driving-shouting-allahu-akbar-runs-down-11-french-pedestrians-n272866" type="external">notes</a> NBC.</p>
<p>The car attack was preceded the day before by an attack on officer by another apparent radicalized Muslim who <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/french-cops-shoot-dead-knife-wielding-man-police-station-n272366" type="external">shot stabbed and wounded three officers</a> in Tours while shouting "Allahu Akbar."</p>
<p>In the wake of the Islamic terrorist attack in Paris, France plans on <a href="" type="internal">shutting down up to to 160 mosques</a> in the next few months. French President Francois Hollande announced a <a href="" type="internal">state of emergency</a> after the attacks, bolstering security measures across the country. Authorities argue that the mosques pose a threat to national security, operating as hubs of radicalism.</p>
<p>As The Daily Wire’s James Barrett <a href="" type="internal">reported</a>, "French authorities are actually taking the real and present danger of radical Islamic terrorism seriously...they kicked down doors, closed three mosques (with plans to close potentially more than a hundred), and in the process found an alarming number of weapons, ammo, and terrorist propaganda.”</p>
|
Driver Plows Into 11 Pedestrians, Shouts 'Allahu Akbar!'
| true |
https://dailywire.com/news/2114/driver-plows-11-pedestrians-shouts-allahu-akbar-michael-qazvini
|
2015-12-24
| 0 |
<p>NASA’s Cassini Solstice Mission <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/newsreleases/newsrelease20140929/" type="external">released a statement</a> Monday detailing the observations of a mysterious feature in one of the largest seas on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan.</p>
<p>The feature, which is approximately 100 square miles (260 square kilometers) and located in the Ligeia Mare sea of Titan, was first observed in radar images during a July 2013 Titan surveillance by the Cassini spacecraft. According to the statement, no reports of this feature were ever previously recorded, and the feature disappeared over the next several months from Cassini’s infrared imager. During a recent fly-by on Aug. 21, however, the feature reappeared with a noticeably altered appearance.</p>
<p>Scientists believe that the feature is not a flaw in their data and suggest that it could be surface waves, rising bubbles, or even floating solids similar to Earth’s icebergs. “For a bit of background, on Earth, it’s quite a simple situation because ice floats in water,” said Jason Hofgartner, member of the Cassini Radar Science Team, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2776552/Is-Titan-s-mystery-feature-giant-ICEBERG-Washington-DC-sized-object-Saturn-s-moon-risen-depths-say-experts.html?ITO=1490&amp;ns_mchannel=rss&amp;ns_campaign=1490" type="external">in a recent statement</a> to MailOnline. “On Titan, it’s more complicated because you have a methane and ethane mixture, we think, and there’s nitrogen from the atmosphere that also gets dissolved.”</p>
<p>“So when you freeze it, it undergoes complicated composition changes. Whether you can get icebergs that can float is a matter for debate, but it’s possible. When it warms, those icebergs could switch from sinking to floating.”</p>
<p>The researchers believe that changing seasons on Titan could play a role in the feature’s reappearance. “That’s sort of an ongoing theme for a lot of the Cassini results; a lot of things depend on the season at Saturn as it moves in orbit,” said Emma Bunce, who is also a member of the Cassini mission team. “Because this lake itself is actually near to Titan’s northern pole, perhaps it is something to do with illumination conditions”</p>
<p>According to the statement by Cassini, a major goal of the current mission is to monitor all these possibly seasonal changes on Titan. “Science loves a mystery, and with this enigmatic feature, we have a thrilling example of ongoing change on Titan,” said Stephen Wall, deputy team lead of Cassini’s radar team. “We’re hopeful that we’ll be able to continue watching the changes unfold and gain insights about what’s going on in that alien sea.”</p>
<p />
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Cassini spacecraft observes reappearance of mysterious feature in Titan sea
| false |
http://natmonitor.com/2014/10/02/cassini-spacecraft-observes-reappearance-of-mysterious-feature-in-titan-sea/
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2014-10-02
| 3 |
<p>Why is it that Republicans, who once may have been more or less traditional conservatives, now have become the antithesis of traditional conservatism on nearly every issue? Consider water. Michigan, my home state, is blessed with a high water table and is surrounded by the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes basin holds twenty percent of the world’s fresh water. You would think that Republicans would be eager to conserve that water-but no. Quite the reverse.</p>
<p>It was under the reign of Governor John Engler [R] in the late 1990s that the French company Perrier [now the Swiss multinational Nestle] was allowed to come into the state and drill a massive well into an aquifer in the center of lower Michigan. No fees, nothing at all for the state, just a free pass for a foreign corporation to come in and sell for private gain an aquifer upon which a whole region depends. In fact, so eager was that governor (with his Republican cronies) to give away Michigan’s fresh water that his administration gave Perrier $9.5 million dollars in tax abatements to boot-before “environmental permits” were issued.</p>
<p>You might argue that Perrier brought in jobs, but in reality, the number of low-paying plant jobs was minimal-and consider the consequences. Engler and his cronies set a terrible precedent for the state and for the region. Wisconsin had already driven a similar plant out of the state, but Michigan, whose government was entirely under the control of neoconservative Republicans (even the previously non-partisan Supreme Court, the Republican state chair had boasted!), had invited the wolf into the flock and offered it incentives to gorge itself.</p>
<p>The well that Perrier [now Nestle] put in pumps up to 400 gallons a minute out of the ground-24,000 gallons an hour, and over a staggering half million gallons a day, day in, day out. Millions upon millions of gallons a year pumped out of an aquifer that is part of a larger ecology, and upon which many people depend for their water. We all know what will happen-and for what? So that a foreign corporation can make a million and a half dollars a day from a public resource, while paying nothing back to the people, nothing to compensate for the environmental damage upon which their profit is based?</p>
<p>Worst of all, though, is the precedent. Those millions of gallons pumped in a pipeline across a dozen miles of countryside to a bottling plant represent only a minuscule fraction of what may happen. Fresh water is in increasingly short supply across the United States as people suck dry huge aquifers under the great plains and in the far west. So far, Michigan’s “conservative leaders” have only put a large “take me, I’m free” sign on the state’s precious water. What is conservative about that? Nothing.</p>
<p>But all this is part of a still larger agenda that is being put forward by the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, and other organizations that in fact represent chiefly the interests of multinational corporations. The WTO rules provide incentives for countries that “privatize public resources”-that invite the wolf into the flock-and punish those countries who try to return to the public ownership of what is rightfully theirs.</p>
<p>The truth is, those who support the wholesaling of what rightfully belongs to the public for private corporate gain-they are not conservatives, but radicals. And this pro-corporate radicalism inevitably is going to cause a backlash, as people realize what their craven politicians have done to their state. Why do the politicians do it? In order to get more campaign donations from corporations, and in order to get big money from those same corporations through seats on boards and “consulting” or “lobbying” work after leaving office. It’s a great mystery how so many politicians become millionaires, often while in office. At least the extremists are well paid as they give away the public good for private gain.</p>
<p>A Judge Who Conserves</p>
<p>It was an astonishing development when, in December, 2003, Michigan’s Mecosta County Circuit Court Judge Lawrence Root ruled that the global Nestle corporation has no right to pump millions of gallons of water out of a local aquifer, bottle it, and sell it without recompensing anyone and without regard to public or landowners’ rights. So confident had the global corporation been that it went ahead and built the $150 million bottling plant without legal certainty that it could pump all that water out of the ground, figuring it could bulldoze its opposition.</p>
<p>So everyone was startled at Judge Root’s decision, not least the small local coalition of landowners who had brought the original lawsuit against Nestle for depleting the region’s aquifer. Perhaps most startled of all, though, were the cadre of Nestle lawyers and executives, for Root’s reputation is as a conservative-which to corporate minds meant that he embraced all rapacious global corporations. Yet to everyone’s surprise, the good judge turned out to be a rare and fine specimen of none other than: a traditional conservative.</p>
<p>There was a sign during the trial in the summer that the judge was an unusual man. In July, he took a canoe down to the streams and wetlands in the region in order to see for himself what was there, and what were the dangers of Nestle’s depleting the local aquifer. As it turned out, the judge had grown up in the area and recalled, in his 68-page legal opinion, times as a boy when he and his friends enjoyed themselves near what is now, misleadingly, he added, called “Dead Stream.” Local newspapers carried photos of the judge in a canoe, paddle in hands, going down the stream.</p>
<p>No one questions Judge Root’s integrity. Even his opponent in the last election is quoted as saying that the judge is a man of great character who knows and follows the law. And in his opinion, the judge makes clear that his decision is not based on any external factors-not local views, not corporate claims, but only on the law. The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality [DEQ] was “simply wrong,” he wrote, to allow the plant to go forward without recognizing the potentially devastating effect it would have on the local aquifer, and so on streams and wetlands. It is true that the bottling plant had 150 employees, and it is unfortunate if they no longer have those jobs. But those jobs were based on depleting the local aquifer, and on a pumping station that set a terrible precedent for the entire state of Michigan by making possible the sale of public water for private gain.</p>
<p>Judge Root is a courageous and wise judge, no doubt of that. But will his ruling stand? This is another question. In the last decade of the twentieth century, Michigan Republicans boasted that they had gotten control of the legislature, the governorship-and the previously non-partisan Michigan Supreme Court. If the Court can be “controlled” by Republicans, can it then be swayed by a global corporation, like Nestle? How much money might go where, in order to grease the wheels of justice in favor of the corporation and against the citizens of Michigan and the preservation of the state’s fresh water? These are questions still to be answered. But Judge Root deserves our respect and commendation-in this case, he showed himself to be, not a toady to corporations, but a man of real integrity.</p>
<p>Water Conservation and the Democrats</p>
<p>What happened, you ask? Very soon, the judge’s ruling was stayed by an appeals court, and the plant remained open, pumping out millions of gallons of water. In January, 2004, the state’s Democratic governor, Jennifer Granholm, and her appointee to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, Steven Chester, sided with the Nestle corporation and against the local Michigan residents who were opposed to the Nestle corporation’s withdrawal and sale of their local groundwater. Had the former Republican governor, John Engler, still been in office, one would have expected him to side with the corporation and against the citizens as a matter of course. But a Democratic governor?</p>
<p>Intrigued by this turn of events, I took a look at the DEQ website, <a href="http://www.michigan.gov/deq" type="external">www.michigan.gov/deq</a>, and the explanatory documents there. Among these documents were the DEQ director’s open letter to citizens, and the amicus brief filed by the state in favor of the international corporation and its water bottling plant (and therefore against the local Michigan citizens who opposed the plundering of their aquifer). These documents, albeit tedious, contained some curious details concerning the support for the Nestle-Perrier bottling plant from the governor and her Department of Environmental Quality.</p>
<p>In his public statement, Chester writes that “The filing of an amicus and the issuance of a stay allows the DEQ the opportunity to play an active role and apply its expertise in the review of monitoring data collected in the area of the potentially impacted waters to insure during the stay that no deleterious impacts or unacceptable harm occurs to the water bodies of concern. If adverse impacts are confirmed, the DEQ is committed to bringing these to the attention of the courts and parties.” This is hardly a statement of principle–indeed, it doesn’t even strongly endorse protecting the groundwater. The DEQ will merely bring the depletion of groundwater “to the attention of the courts and parties.” Boy, wording like that must really have the corporate lawyers quaking in their shiny faux Italian loafers.</p>
<p>The amicus brief adds a new element. It acknowledges that this case has the potential to be the single most important legal precedent for water jurisprudence in Michigan history. But, like Chester’s statement, it refers exclusively to the extraction of groundwater in the smallest figures possible–250 gallons per minute–as opposed, say, to half a million gallons a day, or millions of gallons a week. In other words, the phrasing implicitly tends to favor the international corporation. And in its conclusion, the amicus brief says that the Michigan DEQ will “conduct additional monitoring and promptly bring to the Court’s attention and the parties’ attention any change in circumstances that would further threaten the environment.” Note the phrasing here: further threaten the environment. This implies that the current threat to the environment posed by groundwater depletion is no problem, but the DEQ will “monitor” “further” threats. Great.</p>
<p>What’s saddest about all this: the Democratic Governor Granholm and the DEQ director had the opportunity to show real leadership here. They could have stood up for fundamental principles: that Michigan’s groundwater isn’t for sale; that international corporations can’t come in and exploit public resources for private gain. Instead, Granholm, in Clintonesque fashion, “triangulated.” She cast her eye over to the Republican-controlled state legislature, the Republican-controlled Attorney General’s office, and the Republican-controlled state Supreme Court, and decided, even in a case that will likely set a precedent for water rights, that she wouldn’t stand up for the simplest of ethical principles.</p>
<p>The fact is: it’s wrong for an international corporation to pump groundwater out of a region’s aquifer for private gain. Why? Because the water does not belong to the corporation. The groundwater is a public resource; citizens rely on it for their water supply; the groundwater is essential to the local and regional ecology. The logic of the amicus brief is this: we stand for no fundamental principles here; we show no leadership; we are not interested in protecting the state’s citizens or the region’s ecology until the environment is “further” threatened or more likely, irreparably damaged. That is a weak, irresponsible position, and, once again, it sets a terrible precedent. One could expect this sort of thing from Republicans. But from Democrats too? Will no one stand up for what’s right? And so the battle over Michigan’s water continues.</p>
<p>ARTHUR VERSLUIS is a professor of American Studies at Michigan State University, and author of more than twenty books. He can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
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Water: Public Good or Private Gain?
| true |
https://counterpunch.org/2004/01/19/water-public-good-or-private-gain/
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2004-01-19
| 4 |
<p>Talks between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and U.S. President Barack Obama went better than planned, both sides said Friday before emphasizing that differences remained between the two leaders and their visions for Palestinian-Israeli peace.</p>
<p>The two leaders met a day after Obama delivered a speech on the U.S. policy in the Mideast in which he reportedly angered Netanyahu by stating as a matter of U.S. policy that "the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states."</p>
<p>In what the Wall Street Journal referred to as a rebuke, Netanyahu rejected Obama's proposal that it negotiate a peace deal with Palestinians based on borders that existed before the <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704904604576335071093979138.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories" type="external">Six Day War</a>, saying that such borders were "indefensible."</p>
<p>In an Oval Office meeting that lasted far longer than was scheduled Friday, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/21/world/middleeast/21prexy.html" type="external">Netanyahu</a> reportedly told Obama that he shared his vision for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Then, according to the New York Times, he promptly listed a series of non-negotiable conditions.</p>
<p>According to the NYT:</p>
<p>Israel flatly refuses to negotiate with a Palestinian Authority that includes Hamas, the faction that now controls Gaza, he said. Nor will Israel accept the return of Palestinian refugees on Israeli soil, an issue Mr. Obama had suggested on Thursday should be deferred while the two sides worked on borders and security issues.</p>
<p>Most significant, Mr. Netanyahu said that Israel would not accept a return to the boundaries that existed before the war in 1967 gave Israel control of the West Bank and Gaza.</p>
<p>He reportedly warned Obama against "a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/21/world/middleeast/21prexy.html" type="external">peace based on illusions</a>," referring to compromises outlined by Obama on Thursday.</p>
<p>"Remember that before 1967, Israel was all of nine miles wide; it's half the width of the Washington Beltway," Netanyahu reportedly said. "These were not the boundaries of peace. They were the boundaries of repeated wars."</p>
<p>Netanyahu went further in saying that the international expectation that Israel return to 1967 borders was an obstacle to peace, Haaretz reports.</p>
<p>According to the ABC's Jake Tapper, Netanyahu, whose father is a retired academic, offered Obama repeated <a href="http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&amp;ct2=us%2F0_0_s_0_2_aa&amp;usg=AFQjCNHMoJ4PRss6mrl83EmnCinbnj0Zsg&amp;did=7a7a54f5dd7bf480&amp;cid=8797699477028&amp;ei=q83WTZj6KIKjgwffqZsM&amp;rt=SEARCH&amp;vm=STANDARD&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.abcnews.com%2Fpoliticalpunch%2F2011%2F05%2Fin-oval-office-bibi-offers-history-lessons-to-obama.html" type="external">history lessons</a>, saying Jews had "been around for almost 4,000 years. We have experienced struggle and suffering like no other people. We've gone through expulsions and pogroms and massacres and the murder of millions. But I can say that even at the dearth of - even at the nadir of the valley of death, we never lost hope and we never lost our dream of reestablishing a sovereign state in our ancient homeland, the land of Israel."</p>
<p>White House spokesman Jay Carney said that the length of the one-on-one between Obama and Netanyahu, at an hour and a half more than twice the time expected, was "an indication of just how productive and constructive this meeting was."</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p />
<p />
|
Obama-Netanyahu Oval Office meeting cordial but tense (VIDEO)
| false |
https://pri.org/stories/2011-05-20/obama-netanyahu-oval-office-meeting-cordial-tense-video
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2011-05-20
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<p>Washington Post That's what some legal experts tell the Washington Post, whose reporters avoided jail in the CIA leak case. Law prof Jonathan Turley says that "with all the reporters who found ways around this, there was the impression that the New York Times was spoiling for a fight." He finds it "strange" that Judith Miller and her attorney have said nothing about seeking a personal waiver from her source or sources. "That seemed to me a step they could have taken," Turley tells Howard Kurtz. &gt; <a href="http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/shoptalk_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000977538" type="external">Was Miller a "carrier" of the rumor about Plame's real identity? (E&amp;P)</a> &gt; <a href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2005/07/13/judy_miller/" type="external">"Judy Miller might be the Skokie case of press-freedom issues" (Salon)</a></p>
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Miller is in jail because of a confrontational legal strategy
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2005-07-13
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<p />
<p>Chinese shares plunged more than 6 percent to 14-month lows on Tuesday after oil prices dropped again, reviving concerns about global growth and prompting a sell-off in the world's equity markets.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index ended down 6.4 percent after a late selling frenzy at 2749.79 points, its lowest close since Dec. 1, 2014.</p>
<p>The CSI300 index of the largest listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen dropped 6 percent to 2940.51, also its lowest since the beginning of December 2014.</p>
<p>After a rebound on Friday and early Monday, crude prices fell back below $30 a barrel, not far from last week's 12-year lows, ending a couple of days of gains for Wall Street stocks.</p>
<p>China's fickle stock markets have now slumped about 22 percent so far this year on concerns about the slowing economy and confusion over the central bank's foreign exchange policy.</p>
<p>Many investors have lost the stomach for the market after a wild ride since last summer, when shares crashed 40 percent. Beijing intervened to stem that rout and orchestrate a recovery of sorts, but anyone who mistook that for a bottom and bought in will have lost their shirt again in January.</p>
<p>"We've seen another stampede driven by panic," said Yang Hai, analyst at Kaiyuan Securities.</p>
<p>"There's no good news in sight，while investors are being affected by the global 'risk-off' mood."</p>
<p>The slump has triggered a lot of forced liquidation, he added.</p>
<p>Indeed,&#160;China's outstanding margin loans - money investors borrow to buy stocks - declined for 16 consecutive sessions to Jan. 22, the longest losing streak on record, with 209 billion yuan ($32 billion) worth of leveraged bets unwound during the period.</p>
<p>"Volume is getting very thin, as there are hardly any fresh inflows, and the process of deleveraging is continuing," said Chang Chengwei, analyst at brokerage Hengtai Futures.</p>
<p>YUAN STRAINS</p>
<p>Investors remain wary about further weakness in the yuan, too, despite assurances from Beijing that it has no intention of pushing it lower to gain a competitive advantage.</p>
<p>Chastened by the market's bearish reaction to an early January depreciation in the yuan, the People's Bank of&#160;China&#160;(PBOC) has since kept the yuan's daily midpoint fixing little changed.</p>
<p>Spot yuan was at 6.5796 on Tuesday, just a few pips from Monday's close, while offshore it weakened to 6.6194, a 0.6 percent discount to the onshore rate.</p>
<p>In a move that could help ease market strains, Japan and&#160;China, Asia's two largest economies, said on Tuesday they were working to create a new framework to discuss economic policy coordination, such as steps to stabilise the yuan, the Nikkei newspaper said on Tuesday.</p>
<p>China's central bank has jolted global financial markets twice in six months by allowing sharp, sudden slides in the currency, only to step in aggressively to stabilise it.</p>
<p>Chinese state media also weighed in on Tuesday to warn billionaire investor George Soros against betting on falls in the yuan or the Hong Kong dollar.</p>
<p>Soros, dubbed "the man who broke the Bank of England" when he made more than $1 billion from shorting sterling in 1992, has said he is betting against the S&amp;P 500, commodity-producing countries and Asian currencies, though he has not specifically mentioned the yuan or Hong Kong dollar.</p>
<p>The central bank has also been making plenty of liquidity available to the banking system to avoid any cash squeeze ahead of long Lunar New Year celebrations beginning in early February. Traders said on Tuesday that the bank would inject 440 billion yuan into the money markets, the biggest daily injection in three years.</p>
<p>The decline in the yuan and concerns about the country's growth prospects have fuelled a flight of capital out of the world's second-largest economy which policymakers are struggling to contain.</p>
<p>January has already seen a slew of weak economic data, and on Tuesday the nation's top economic planner said rail freight, a barometer of industrial activity, fell 11.9 percent by volume last year.</p>
<p>Other stock markets in Asia were also down on Tuesday, with Japan's Nikkei dropping 2.4 percent and MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan down 1.5 percent, extending earlier losses after the late slide in&#160;China.</p>
<p>All eyes will be on a U.S. Federal Reserve meeting this week to see whether it acknowledges concerns over the faltering Chinese outlook and global market turmoil and whether that will delay any interest rate increases this year.</p>
<p>(Additional reporting by Nathaniel Taplin; Writing by Will Waterman; Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Kim Coghill)</p>
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China Shares Tumble to 14-Month Lows as Oil Slips Back
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http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/01/26/china-shares-tumble-to-14-month-lows-as-oil-slips-back.html
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2016-01-26
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<p>Harvey Weinstein appears to have fled the country for Europe "Polanski-style" on Tuesday night.</p>
<p>From&#160; <a href="http://www.tmz.com/2017/10/10/harvey-weinstein-sex-rehab-sexual-harassment-europe/" type="external">TMZ</a>:</p>
<p>Harvey Weinstein is boarding a private jet Tuesday night, bound for a rehab center in Europe for sex addiction - sources connected with the former mogul tell TMZ.</p>
<p>We're told Harvey has decided to take the advice of the people around him and leave immediately. We're told he will enter a live-in facility and will deal both with sex and other behavioral issues.</p>
<p />
<p>[?]We're told Weinstein still believes he can get help, come back and make a fresh start. As a source close to Weinstein put it, "He wants to come back with fresh, new ideas." As we reported, he and his team are in settlement discussions with The Weinstein Co. and the idea of him serving in some outside capacity is still on the table.</p>
<p>He wants to wait out the storm to see how many of his victims come forward and learn if he's going to be criminally charged. He should have never been allowed to leave the country.</p>
<p />
<p>As Ronan Farrow&#160; <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/from-aggressive-overtures-to-sexual-assault-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-tell-their-stories" type="external">reported</a>&#160;yesterday, New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. dropped Filipino-Italian model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez's case against Weinstein in 2015 even though police sources said, "We had the evidence."</p>
<p />
<p>Weinstein's lawyer&#160; <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4959248/Weinstein-lawyer-donated-10-000-NYC-district-attorney.html" type="external">gave Vance, Jr. a $10,000 donation just weeks later</a>.</p>
<p>Courtesy of <a href="http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=57493" type="external">Information Liberation</a></p>
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Polanski 2.0: Harvey Weinstein 'Flying To Europe For Sex Addiction Rehab'
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http://dcclothesline.com/2017/10/12/polanski-2-0-harvey-weinstein-flying-to-europe-for-sex-addiction-rehab/
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2017-10-12
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<p>Jan 22 (Reuters) - Lundin Gold Inc:</p>
<p>* LUNDIN GOLD SECURES CREDIT APPROVAL FOR US$300 MILLION SENIOR DEBT FACILITY FOR FRUTA DEL NORTE</p>
<p>* LUNDIN GOLD INC - ‍FRUTA DEL NORTE​ PROJECT REMAINS ON SCHEDULE AND ON BUDGET TO ACHIEVE FIRST GOLD PRODUCTION BY END OF 2019</p>
<p>* LUNDIN GOLD INC - ‍TERM OF DEBT FACILITY WILL BE EIGHT AND A HALF YEARS​ Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>MINGORA, Pakistan (Reuters) - In the Pakistani hometown of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai, reminders are frequent of the daughter of scenic northwestern Swat Valley who survived a gun attack – and so are memories of harsh rule by the Taliban.</p> Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai adjusts her scarf as she speaks during an interview with Reuters at a local hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan, March 30, 2018. REUTERS/Saiyna Bashir
<p>Yousafzai flew into Swat on Saturday by helicopter during her first visit to Pakistan since the Pakistani Taliban - now on the run but still able to launch attacks - shot her in the head in 2012 over her advocacy for girls’ education and opposition to Islamist militancy.</p>
<p>Yousafzai’s return to her hometown was eagerly awaited by admirers and family friends.</p>
<p>“We’re very happy that Malala has come to Pakistan. We welcome Malala,” said Arfa Akhtar, a third grade student in a school where Yousafzai once studied. “I’m also Malala. I’m with Malala in this mission.”</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-pakistan-malala-swat/nobel-winner-malala-visits-hometown-in-pakistan-for-first-time-since-shooting-idUSKBN1H7052" type="external">Nobel winner Malala visits hometown in Pakistan for first time since shooting</a>
<p>Barkat Ali, 66, says he remembers holding Malala in his lap when she was a child in Mingora. He is proud of the 20-year-old’s struggle to promote girls’ education, just as he is of his refusal 10 years ago to turn over his son when the Taliban demanded new fighters.</p>
<p>“They were the old illiterate people who would say that our daughters will not go to schools,” Ali said, recalling two mortar shells landing in his street, often patrolled by the Taliban.</p>
<p>“Now people have become sensible. They educate their girls.”</p>
<p>The Taliban took over much of the valley starting in 2007, banning girls’ education, killing people, flogging women and hanging bodies from electric poles to enforce their harsh interpretation of Islamic law before the Pakistani army drove them out in 2009.</p>
<p>Not everyone in Swat, though, has such reverence for Yousafzai, who became the youngest Nobel laureate in history in 2014 at age 17.</p>
<p>Resident Mohammad Nisar Khan says the international celebrity and official protection given to the young woman overshadows the sacrifices made by others in Swat.</p> A helicopter carrying Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai prepares to land at her hometown of Mingora in Swat Valley, Pakistan, March 31, 2018. REUTERS/Faisal Mahmood
<p>“We were the ones who stood up against the Taliban...&#160;My four uncles and two cousins were slaughtered by the Taliban in Matta. They were brutally martyred. Yet, no one has asked about me,” Khan said.</p>
<p>“Can someone show me one brave deed that Malala Yousafzai has performed ... that we have not performed&#160;at age 50?”</p>
<p>Elsewhere in parts of Pakistan, her arrival was met with outright hostility from those who accuse her of building a career abroad by painting a negative picture of her homeland.</p>
<p>In the eastern city of Lahore, a group of private schools staged a protest on Friday with teachers and their students chanting “I am not Malala”, some wearing black armbands.</p>
<p>The organizer of the protest, Kashif Mirza, said dozens of private school chains participated and teachers told students in classes “that Malala does not represent true Pakistan”.</p>
<p>“She maligned Pakistan, Islam and the Pakistani army after going abroad,” said Mirza, who leads the President of All Pakistan Private Schools Federation. He said his group condemned the gun attack on Yousafzai but said since going abroad she had been influenced by foreign powers.</p>
<p>Other private schools, however, declined to join the anti-Malala protest.</p>
<p>“No such day was observed in any of our branches, because we don’t support any event which spreads hatred,” said Tabraiz Bokhari, spokesman of Beacon House School System, with 200 affiliates across Pakistan.</p> Slideshow (3 Images)
<p>In the nine years since the army drove out the Taliban, Swat has become mostly peaceful, though there are still occasional militant attacks including one several weeks ago targeting the military.</p>
<p>Many Swat residents, including family friend Jawad Iqbal, were hopeful Malala would be able to return on this trip.</p>
<p>“The people of Swat and the whole of Pakistan are with Malala,” Iqbal said standing in front of a portrait of Yousafzai with her father, who is a teacher.</p>
<p>“God willing, we will counter the terrorism and extremism in our region with the weapon of education, with the weapon of a pen, with the weapons of teachers and with the weapons of books.”</p>
<p>Along the road where Malala was shot on her school bus, resident Amir Zeb also said he hoped Malala will visit.</p>
<p>“Malala Yousafzai is the daughter of Pakistan,” he said, adding. “We’re proud of her.”</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Mubasher Bukhari in LAHORE, Pakistan; Writing by Asif Shahzad; Editing by Peter Graff and Kim Coghill</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - Fox News show host Laura Ingraham announced on her show late Friday that she is taking next week off, after almost a dozen advertisers dropped her show after the conservative pundit mocked a teenage survivor of the Florida school massacre on Twitter.</p> A combination of file photos show media personality Laura Ingraham in Washington October 14, 2017 and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student David Hogg, at a rally in Washington March 24, 2018. REUTERS/Mary F. Calvert, Jonathan Ernst/Files
<p>Eleven companies so far have pulled their ads after a pushback by Parkland student David Hogg, 17, who called for a boycott of her advertisers.</p>
<p>Hogg took aim at the host’s show, “Ingraham Angle”, after she taunted him on Twitter on Wednesday, accusing him of whining about being rejected by four colleges to which he had applied.</p>
<p>Hogg is a survivor of the Feb. 14 mass shooting that killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in the Parkland suburb of Fort Lauderdale. He and other classmates have become the faces of a new youth-led movement calling for tighter restrictions on firearms.</p>
<p>Hogg tweeted a list of a dozen companies that advertise on “The Ingraham Angle” and urged his supporters to demand that they cancel their ads.</p>
<p>On Thursday, Ingraham tweeted an apology “in the spirit of Holy Week,” saying she was sorry for any hurt or upset she had caused Hogg or any of the “brave victims” of Parkland.</p>
<p>But her apology did not stop companies from departing.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TRIP.O" type="external">TripAdvisor Inc</a> 40.89 TRIP.O Nasdaq +0.28 (+0.69%) TRIP.O W.N NESN.S EXPE.O SFIX.O
<p>The companies announcing that they are cancelling their ads are: Nutrish, the pet food line created by celebrity chef Rachael Ray, travel website TripAdvisor Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TRIP.O" type="external">TRIP.O</a>), online home furnishings seller Wayfair Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=W.N" type="external">W.N</a>), the world’s largest packaged food company, Nestle SA ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=NESN.S" type="external">NESN.S</a>), online streaming service Hulu, travel website Expedia Group Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=EXPE.O" type="external">EXPE.O</a>) and online personal shopping service Stitch Fix ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SFIX.O" type="external">SFIX.O</a>).</p>
<p>According to CBS News, four other companies joined the list Friday: the home office supply store Office Depot, the dieting company Jenny Craig, the Atlantis, Paradise Island resort and Johnson &amp; Johnson which produces pharmaceuticals as well as consumer products such as Band-Aids, Neutrogena beauty products and Tylenol.</p>
<p>Hogg wrote on Twitter that an apology just to mollify advertisers was insufficient.</p>
<p>Ingraham’s show runs on Fox News, part of Rupert Murdoch’s Twenty-First Century Fox Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FOXA.O" type="external">FOXA.O</a>). A Fox News representative was not immediately available for comment.</p>
<p>Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; additional reporting by Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago, Gina Cherelus in New York, Andrew Hay; Editing by David Gregorio, Matthew Lewis, Diane Craft and Kim Coghill</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>ALBANY, N.Y. (Reuters) - New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and the state legislature agreed late on Friday on a $168 billion budget for fiscal 2019, including measures aimed at offsetting damage to taxpayers from new federal tax changes.</p> FILE PHOTO: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo speaks during an announcement at The Moynihan Train Hall in New York City, U.S., August 17, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
<p>Cuomo outlined details of the agreement - which must be passed and signed before the new fiscal year begins on April 1 - at a press briefing following the agreement.</p>
<p>Cuomo likened the federal tax changes enacted early this year to a missile launched at New York.</p>
<p>“We’re under attack by the federal government,” he said.</p>
<p>To avoid a new federal cap on state and local tax deductions, New York will make those payments charitable contributions, similar to measures working their way through other high-tax states.</p>
<p>New York, which had faced a $4.4 billion deficit, will also create a new payroll tax to replace state income tax, Cuomo said.</p>
<p>New York lawmakers, with a base pay of $79,500, will also get a chance at their first raise since 1999 as the budget includes a legislative compensation review commission.</p>
<p>Republican State Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan said the bills avoided $1 billion in new taxes. The package also includes $18.9 billion in Medicaid spending.</p>
<p>Cuomo also agreed to boost school aid beyond earlier proposals. The budget adds $1 billion in education funding, bringing school spending to $26.7 billion altogether. It also invests $750 million in regional economic growth plans and $100 million to downtown revitalization initiatives, Cuomo said.</p>
<p>Cuomo, who has fashioned himself as a potential presidential candidate, is fending off a Democratic primary challenge in his quest for a third term from actress Cynthia Nixon, a public schools activist.</p>
<p>An extra $2 billion of revenue over four years is to come by capturing some of the sale of the nonprofit New York State Catholic Health Plan, which does business as Fidelis Care.</p>
<p>The budget also impacts New York City, allowing for the use of a new “design-build” procurement method to help renovate three major city projects - an expressway, the notorious Rikers Island correctional facility and the city’s troubled public housing authority.</p>
<p>A new fee on for-hire vehicles in Manhattan would raise $415 million annually for the state’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the city’s decaying subway system and has been the subject of repeated squabbles between Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.</p>
<p>The measures lack changes sought by government reform activists who hoped a series of corruption cases involving lawmakers and people tied to Cuomo would propel reform.</p>
<p>Reporting by James Odato in Albany; Editing by Hilary Russ and Tom Hogue</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>BEIJING (Reuters) - North Korea will take part in the next two Olympic Games in Japan and China, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said on Saturday after meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang.</p> International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang March 31, 2018. KCNA/via Reuters
<p>Bach traveled to Pyongyang on Thursday in a visit that comes after North Korea’s participation in the Pyeongchang Winter Games helped ease tensions over the Korean peninsula.</p> International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang March 31, 2018. KCNA/via Reuters
<p>Speaking to reporters at Beijing airport upon his return, Bach said North Korea will participate in the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo and the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing.</p>
<p>“This commitment was fully supported by the supreme leader of the DPRK in a very open and fruitful discussion I had with him yesterday,” Bach said, using the country’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.</p>
<p>“The IOC will make a proposal for a potential joint march or potential other joint activities for Tokyo and then maybe also for Beijing at the appropriate time,” he added.</p>
<p>The North’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Bach told Kim the trip was to “express the most heartfelt thanks” to North Korea’s leader for helping make February’s the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics a Games that were “symbolic of peace.”</p> International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang March 31, 2018. KCNA/via Reuters
<p>Athletes from North and South Korea marched under a unified peninsula flag at the opening ceremony in Pyeongchang, and the two Koreas have seen a significant thaw in tensions since.</p>
<p>KCNA said Kim expressed thanks for the IOC’s support and for cooperating with North Korea “regardless of any political climate and conditions”.</p>
<p>He said he hoped that the IOC’s relationship with the North’s Olympic Committee would continue to develop favorably and expected cooperation in developing and improving sport in North Korea, the report added.</p>
<p>An official from South Korea’s Unification Ministry said it was aware of the KCNA’s report but declined to comment further.</p>
<p>Bach had accepted North Korea’s invitation in February, and told Reuters at the time that he saw sports as a way to reduce political tensions.</p>
<p>After Kim made a surprise trip this week to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, his engagement with the international community has sparked speculation he may try to meet other leaders ahead of summits with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and United States President Donald Trump.</p>
<p>The two Koreas have experienced a significant easing in tensions since the Winter Olympics in South Korea in February, leading them to set a date to hold their first summit in more than a decade on April 27.</p>
<p>Reporting by Heekyong Yang; Additional reporting by Joori Roh; Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Peter Rutherford and Kim Coghill</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
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BRIEF-Lundin Gold Secures Credit Approval For $300 Mln Senior Debt Facility For Fruta Del Norte Joy in Nobel winner Malala's hometown, though some Pakistanis decry her Fox's Ingraham to take week off as advertisers flee amid controversy New York moves to offset federal tax changes in $168 billion budget deal North Korea will take part in next two Olympics: IOC chief Bach
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https://reuters.com/article/brief-lundin-gold-secures-credit-approva/brief-lundin-gold-secures-credit-approval-for-300-mln-senior-debt-facility-for-fruta-del-norte-idUSASB0C1OM
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2018-01-22
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<p>However, with many traders already off for the Christmas break, volumes were low and are expected to remain so at least until the New Year.</p>
<p>Figures Friday showed the U.S. grew at an annualized rate of 4.1 percent in the third quarter of the year, up from the previous estimate of 3.6 percent. The unexpected strength prompted International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde to say the Washington D.C.-based institution would raise its 2014 U.S. growth forecast from the current estimate of 2.5 percent.</p>
<p>“Sentiment was helped after it emerged the IMF said it will raise its outlook for the U.S.,” said Lee Mumford, a trader at Spreadex.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>In data released Monday, the Commerce Department said consumer spending rose 0.5 percent in November and core consumer prices rose 0.1 percent from October, for a subdued 1.1 percent annual inflation rate.</p>
<p>In Europe, stocks opened higher and drifted upward. Shortly before the start of U.S. trade, Britain’s FTSE 100 index was up 0.7 percent to 6,653, France’s CAC 40 rose 0.1 percent to 4,198, and Germany’s DAX was up 0.7 percent to 9,455.</p>
<p>U.S. stocks appeared set for further gains after Friday’s record close, with Dow futures up 54 points to 16,235 and the broader S&amp;P 500 index futures up 9 points to 1,823.</p>
<p>Earlier in Asia, China’s Shanghai Composite rose 0.2 percent to 2,089.71 — its first gain in nine sessions — while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 0.5 percent to 22,921.56. South Korea’s KOSPI rose 0.7 percent to 1,996.89. Tokyo stock markets were closed for the Emperor’s Birthday.</p>
<p>Stock markets have largely held their own despite worries over China’s credit markets. Even though the Chinese monetary authorities injected more cash into the markets, the rate banks charge each other for 7-day loans spiked to 9.8 percent at one point Monday, up from 4.3 percent at the start of the month.</p>
<p>“The tightening of liquidity conditions in China heading into year-end continues to attract some broader financial market attention,” said Lee Hardman, an analyst at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ.</p>
<p>Elsewhere, trading was fairly muted. In the currency markets, the euro was 0.2 percent stronger against the dollar at $1.367 and the dollar fell 0.2 percent against the yen to 103.91 yen. In the oil markets, a barrel of benchmark crude was 20 cents lower at $98.10.</p>
<p>———-</p>
<p>AP Business writer Youkyung Lee contributed to this story from Seoul, South Korea</p>
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Optimism over US economy shores up markets
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<p>Citigroup's quarterly profit plunged 27 percent as its trading revenue fell and its costs related to shrinking some businesses rose.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The profit decline is the biggest among big U.S. banks that have reported first-quarter results so far, but Citigroup's earnings and revenue beat Wall Street's low expectations, helped by a fall in operating expenses.</p>
<p>Shares of the No.4 U.S. bank by assets were up more than 2 percent in premarket trading on Friday.</p>
<p>Banks globally have had a tough start to the year amid near-zero interest rates, a slowdown in China and low oil prices.</p>
<p>Citigroup's revenue from fixed income markets fell 11.5 percent to $3.09 billion, while investment banking revenue slumped 27.2 percent to $875 million.</p>
<p>"While our market-sensitive products clearly suffered from weak investor sentiment during the quarter, we continued to make progress in several key areas," Chief Executive Michael Corbat said in a statement.</p>
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<p>Operating expenses declined 3.3 percent to $10.5 billion.</p>
<p>The bank, like rivals such as JPMorgan Chase &amp; co and Bank of America Corp, has resorted to aggressive cost controls to underpin earnings over the past several quarters as revenue growth remains sluggish.</p>
<p>Citigroup, which has more assets in emerging markets than other U.S. banks, has been exiting less profitable markets and cutting jobs to become more efficient. The company recorded $491 million in so-called "repositioning" charges.</p>
<p>The results come two days after Citigroup won a huge endorsement from regulators, who determined that the bank was the only one of eight reviewed to have a credible plan to deal with a potential bankruptcy that did not rely on public money.</p>
<p>The endorsement gave investors reason to believe that Citigroup will win approval in June from the U.S. Federal Reserve, which is stress-testing big banks, to return more money to shareholders.</p>
<p>Citigroup's net income fell to $3.5 billion, or $1.10 per share, in the first quarter ended March 31, beating the average analyst estimate of earnings of $1.03 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.</p>
<p>Revenue fell 11 percent to $17.56 billion, topping the average estimate of $17.48 billion.</p>
<p>(Reporting by Sweta Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Kirti Pandey)</p>
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Citigroup’s 1Q Earnings Fall 27% as Trading Revenue Falls
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http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/04/15/citigroup-s-1q-earnings-fall-27-as-trading-revenue-falls.html
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2016-04-15
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<p>LAKE FOREST, Ill. (AP) — Quarterback Mitchell Trubisky never expected to line up under center only five games into his rookie season with the Chicago Bears.</p>
<p>With one game left, Trubisky would now like nothing better than to provide tangible evidence of how far he has come since first stepping into the starting lineup.</p>
<p>Against a backdrop of uncertainty over the coaching staff for next year, Trubisky on Sunday closes his first season against the Minnesota Vikings, the same team he lost to 20-17 at Soldier Field on Oct. 9 in his NFL debut.</p>
<p>"I think every situation's different," Trubisky said. "For me personally, I wanted to be thrown in as quickly as possible, but I respected and appreciated the plan they had for me, and I think it worked out.</p>
<p>"You can't go back and change things but knowing what I know now, it worked for what we were trying to do here. For me the best experience is to actually go through it. But you can also gain a lot of experience from sitting and watching. It all depends on the person and how much you can benefit from each situation."</p>
<p>Trubisky was supposed to play behind Mike Glennon, but eight turnovers in a three-game stretch led to a quarterback change for the first Vikings game.</p>
<p>Although Trubisky has won just four of his 11 starts and has a passer rating of 78.5, he calls his forced playing time a success.</p>
<p>"I feel good about it," Trubisky said. "Just go back to two words: growth and development. Try to get better every day. I had a lot of fun."</p>
<p>In the first game with the Vikings, Trubisky went 12 for 25 for 128 yards and gave the Vikings the chance for the winning field goal by throwing a late fourth-quarter interception to Harrison Smith at the Bears 22-yard line.</p>
<p>"I think they'll be impressed (with Trubisky)," Fox said. "I think they'll see some of the things they saw in that first game. I think he's probably seen a little bit more defense now since that time.</p>
<p>"We're doing a little bit more with him. So they're a very, very good defense, they're No. 1 in probably four of the five main categories of defense. At their place on a fast track, that'll be a stiff challenge no doubt, no different than it was here months ago in his first start."</p>
<p>The Bears ran a scaled-down version of the playbook in Trubisky's early starts.</p>
<p>"We've expanded it, we definitely have," offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains said. "And he's doing more at the line of scrimmage now with protection checks and audibles.</p>
<p>"We're able to do some more check-with-me stuff. We're not where we'd like to be, still, yet. But he's done a really good job of handling all that stuff."</p>
<p>As the Bears have removed restraints on Trubisky, he's put up bigger and better numbers. In the last four games, Trubisky is 82 for 116 (71 percent) for 880 yards. He had completed 53 percent for an average of 162 yards over his first seven games.</p>
<p>After being taken 1-2 in the 2016 NFL draft, Rams quarterback Jared Goff and Eagles QB Carson Wentz made drastic improvement in Year 2. Trubisky, chosen second this year, anticipates something similar in 2018.</p>
<p>"I expect to make a big jump from Year 1 to Year 2," Trubisky said. "The experience I've got this year, I'm definitely going to carry that with me into the offseason, going into next year, and expect to have a lot of momentum and just a full head of steam going into next year."</p>
<p>Fox sees the same, although it's uncertain he'll even be the one coaching Trubisky.</p>
<p>"I think anytime it's a second go-around, regardless of what profession you're in, I think it's helpful," Fox said. "To do it the first time, you'll come back, you'll look at tape and think, 'Wow, I didn't really get that,' or 'Are you kidding me?' It's just a second go-around, regardless of what position you play. That's typical of any rookie at the completion of his first NFL season."</p>
<p>While the Vikings are playing for a first-round playoff bye, the Bears could be playing their final game under Fox. Trubisky isn't thinking about that now.</p>
<p>"Block it out, I don't really listen to anything," he said about the talk Fox will be fired. "It's not up to me."</p>
<p>NOTES: Bears guard Josh Sitton (ankle) and tackle Bobby Massie (knee) missed Wednesday's practice with injuries. Sitton's replacement, Tom Compton, returned to practice after missing last week's game due to a concussion.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>For more NFL coverage: http://www.pro32.ap.org and http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL</p>
<p>LAKE FOREST, Ill. (AP) — Quarterback Mitchell Trubisky never expected to line up under center only five games into his rookie season with the Chicago Bears.</p>
<p>With one game left, Trubisky would now like nothing better than to provide tangible evidence of how far he has come since first stepping into the starting lineup.</p>
<p>Against a backdrop of uncertainty over the coaching staff for next year, Trubisky on Sunday closes his first season against the Minnesota Vikings, the same team he lost to 20-17 at Soldier Field on Oct. 9 in his NFL debut.</p>
<p>"I think every situation's different," Trubisky said. "For me personally, I wanted to be thrown in as quickly as possible, but I respected and appreciated the plan they had for me, and I think it worked out.</p>
<p>"You can't go back and change things but knowing what I know now, it worked for what we were trying to do here. For me the best experience is to actually go through it. But you can also gain a lot of experience from sitting and watching. It all depends on the person and how much you can benefit from each situation."</p>
<p>Trubisky was supposed to play behind Mike Glennon, but eight turnovers in a three-game stretch led to a quarterback change for the first Vikings game.</p>
<p>Although Trubisky has won just four of his 11 starts and has a passer rating of 78.5, he calls his forced playing time a success.</p>
<p>"I feel good about it," Trubisky said. "Just go back to two words: growth and development. Try to get better every day. I had a lot of fun."</p>
<p>In the first game with the Vikings, Trubisky went 12 for 25 for 128 yards and gave the Vikings the chance for the winning field goal by throwing a late fourth-quarter interception to Harrison Smith at the Bears 22-yard line.</p>
<p>"I think they'll be impressed (with Trubisky)," Fox said. "I think they'll see some of the things they saw in that first game. I think he's probably seen a little bit more defense now since that time.</p>
<p>"We're doing a little bit more with him. So they're a very, very good defense, they're No. 1 in probably four of the five main categories of defense. At their place on a fast track, that'll be a stiff challenge no doubt, no different than it was here months ago in his first start."</p>
<p>The Bears ran a scaled-down version of the playbook in Trubisky's early starts.</p>
<p>"We've expanded it, we definitely have," offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains said. "And he's doing more at the line of scrimmage now with protection checks and audibles.</p>
<p>"We're able to do some more check-with-me stuff. We're not where we'd like to be, still, yet. But he's done a really good job of handling all that stuff."</p>
<p>As the Bears have removed restraints on Trubisky, he's put up bigger and better numbers. In the last four games, Trubisky is 82 for 116 (71 percent) for 880 yards. He had completed 53 percent for an average of 162 yards over his first seven games.</p>
<p>After being taken 1-2 in the 2016 NFL draft, Rams quarterback Jared Goff and Eagles QB Carson Wentz made drastic improvement in Year 2. Trubisky, chosen second this year, anticipates something similar in 2018.</p>
<p>"I expect to make a big jump from Year 1 to Year 2," Trubisky said. "The experience I've got this year, I'm definitely going to carry that with me into the offseason, going into next year, and expect to have a lot of momentum and just a full head of steam going into next year."</p>
<p>Fox sees the same, although it's uncertain he'll even be the one coaching Trubisky.</p>
<p>"I think anytime it's a second go-around, regardless of what profession you're in, I think it's helpful," Fox said. "To do it the first time, you'll come back, you'll look at tape and think, 'Wow, I didn't really get that,' or 'Are you kidding me?' It's just a second go-around, regardless of what position you play. That's typical of any rookie at the completion of his first NFL season."</p>
<p>While the Vikings are playing for a first-round playoff bye, the Bears could be playing their final game under Fox. Trubisky isn't thinking about that now.</p>
<p>"Block it out, I don't really listen to anything," he said about the talk Fox will be fired. "It's not up to me."</p>
<p>NOTES: Bears guard Josh Sitton (ankle) and tackle Bobby Massie (knee) missed Wednesday's practice with injuries. Sitton's replacement, Tom Compton, returned to practice after missing last week's game due to a concussion.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>For more NFL coverage: http://www.pro32.ap.org and http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL</p>
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Mitchell Trubisky takes final rookie step against Vikings.
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https://apnews.com/amp/c9b0112b2f304d038881a85dcd8a0795
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2017-12-28
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<p>What a time for the world to lose Studs Terkel. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author, activist and radio and television star died Friday in his adopted hometown of Chicago. Terkel was 96.</p>
<p>AP via Google News:</p>
<p>“A lot of people feel, ‘What can I do, (it’s) hopeless,’&#160;” Terkel told The Associated Press in 2003. “Well, through all these years there have been the people I’m talking about, whom we call activists … who give us hope and through them we have hope.”</p>
<p>The tougher the subject, the harder Terkel took it on. He put out an oral history collection on race relations in 1992 called “Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About The American Obsession,” and, in 1995, “Coming of Age,” recollections of men and women 70 and older.</p>
<p />
<p>He cared about what divided us, and what united us: death — in his 2001 “Will the Circle Be Unbroken? Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith,” and hope, in his 2003 “Hope Dies Last.”</p>
<p>Terkel won a 1985 Pulitzer Prize for “The Good War,” remembrances of World War II; contrasted rich and poor along the same Chicago street in “Division Street: America,” 1966; limned the Depression in “Hard Times,” 1970; and chronicled how people feel about their jobs in “Working,” 1974.</p>
<p>[…] Andre Schiffrin — Terkel’s longtime editor, publisher and close friend who gave Terkel the idea for many of his books — said Terkel “had been in bad shape in recent weeks and he really felt that his life had come to an end. But he was as engaged as ever. He was a big fan of (Democratic presidential candidate Barack) Obama and he said one of the things that kept him going was that he wanted to see the results of the election.”</p>
<p><a href="http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gqxU04B1GBLlG4zzBf64o1ZdcV3QD945QS7G0" type="external">Read more</a></p>
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Studs Terkel Dies at 96
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https://truthdig.com/articles/studs-terkel-dies-at-96/
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2008-11-01
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<p>Shares of health-care companies were about flat as traders rotated into more economically sensitive areas. Adamas Pharmaceuticals shares shot up after the Food and Drug Administration approved its treatment in patients with Parkinson's disease, Gocovri, in combination with another medicine.</p>
<p>-Rob Curran, [email protected]</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>August 25, 2017 16:34 ET (20:34 GMT)</p>
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Health Care Flat on Cyclical Rotation -- Health Care Roundup
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http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/08/25/health-care-flat-on-cyclical-rotation-health-care-roundup.html
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2017-08-25
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<p />
<p>Small Business Spotlight: Sharp Mamas</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Who: Dara Tarkowski</p>
<p>What: A consulting service for new or expectant mothers</p>
<p>When: 2013</p>
<p>Where: Chicago, Illinois</p>
<p>How: From nutrition classes and breastfeeding help to courses on advanced infant care, Sharp Mamas aims to give new families peace of mind when it comes to childrearing.</p>
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<p>“Sharp Mamas offers in-home and classroom workshops on prenatal education,” says founder Dara Tarkowski. She says she considers the company to be a “general contractor for all things related to Baby.”</p>
<p>For in-home instruction, Sharp Mamas charges $100 per hour; group workshops are less expensive. Tarkowski’s partner is a professional nanny, and medical advice comes from clinical partners in the Chicago area.</p>
<p>Biggest challenge: For Tarkowski, the biggest challenge is just finding enough time in the day, considering that she still works full-time as a lawyer in addition to running Sharp Mamas.</p>
<p>One moment in time: “I’m proudest that we’ve made Sharp Mamas a reality, and that people are receiving it so positively,” says Tarkowski.</p>
<p>Best business advice: “Be the businesswoman you want your daughter to be!”</p>
<p>Quote from the owner: “Kelly and I are both crazy perfectionists, and we’re both a little controlling. Learning to rely on each other is something we’ve just figured out how to do,” says Tarkowski, referring to her business partner.</p>
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Mompreneur on Marketing ‘Sharp Mamas’
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http://foxbusiness.com/features/2013/04/30/mompreneur-on-marketing-sharp-mamas.html
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2016-03-22
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<p>FOX Business: Capitalism Lives Here</p>
<p>U.S. equity markets pulled back sharply from session highs as energy stocks underperformed and enthusiasm over tepid data wore off.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Today's Markets</p>
<p>As of 12:40 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 13 points, or 0.11%, to 15290, the S&amp;P 500 gained 0.87 point, or 0.05%, to 1694 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 16.7 points, or 0.44%, to 3778.</p>
<p>The markets have taken a hit recently -- with the S&amp;P 500 falling for five days -- as traders worry about the fiscal showdown in Washington, D.C. and the potential for tapering come October. A set of economic data due out on the day could help provide market participants with more direction.</p>
<p>The Commerce Department’s second reading on U.S. GDP shows the economy expanded at an annual rate of 2.5% in the second quarter, matching a previous estimate. Economists expected GDP to grow by 2.6%.</p>
<p>Todd Schoenberger, managing partner at LandColt Capital, said the markets will "respond favorably" to the report since the tepid reading could force the Federal Reserve to continue on with its aggressive easing program.</p>
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<p>Meanwhile, the Labor Department said claims for initial jobless benefits fell to 305,000 last week from an upwardly revised 310,000 the week prior. Economists expected the number of claims to rise to 325,000 from an initially reported 309,000. The Labor Department said computer issues that caused a backlog of unprocessed claims have been resolved.</p>
<p>The National Association of Realtors said signed contracts to buy previously-owned homes fell 1.6% in August, more than the 1% drop economists expected. The housing market has been picking up steam, and helping the economy, according to economists. However, analysts are keeping a close eye on how rising interest rates may affect demand.</p>
<p>In corporate news, eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) said it would buy global payment platform Braintree for $800 million in cash.</p>
<p>In commodities,&#160;U.S. crude oil futures rose 48 cents, or 0.47%, to $103.14 a barrel. Wholesale New York Harbor gasoline advanced 0.65% to $2.674 a gallon. Gold rose $1.30, or 0.1%, to $1,338 a troy ounce.</p>
<p>Foreign Markets</p>
<p>The Euro Stoxx 50 dipped 0.21% to 2921, the English FTSE 100 fell 0.02% to 6550 and the German DAX sliped 0.1% to 8657.</p>
<p>In Asia, the Japanese Nikkei 225 rallied 1.2% to 14799 and the Chinese Hang Seng slumped 0.26% to 23125.</p>
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Wall Street Rally Loses Steam
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http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2013/09/26/wall-street-rises-as-data-support-no-taper-hopes.html
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2016-03-06
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<p>The Phoenix TV bureau in Washington, DC. &lt;a href="https://www.google.com/maps?q=&amp;layer=c&amp;z=17&amp;iwloc=A&amp;sll=38.892499,-77.013176&amp;cbp=13,2.0,0,0,0&amp;cbll=38.892087,-77.013194&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=Bb_5UaLII4SNygG-yYCwCQ&amp;ved=0CEMQxB0wAg"&gt;Google Images</p>
<p />
<p>One of China’s largest and most prominent media companies—12 percent of which is owned by a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox—has been rocked by a major sexual harassment and assault scandal. A lawsuit&#160;filed on July 19 in federal court against Phoenix Satellite Television contains a series of jaw-dropping allegations concerning its onetime Washington, DC, bureau chief,&#160;Zhengzhu Liu. The Chinese journalist is accused of a litany of offenses, including encouraging job applicants to meet him in hotel rooms for interviews and then groping them, attempting to coerce the wife of a cameraman to have sex with him to preserve her husband’s job, telling a job candidate about the “gigantic and powerful penis” of his black friend, and attempting to rape a reporter.</p>
<p>The plaintiffs, two of whom are US citizens, claim at least one high-ranking Phoenix executive knew about this conduct for years before the company fired Liu last December. They also say&#160;that after Phoenix ousted Liu, the media conglomerate installed a new bureau chief who proceeded to retaliate against employees who had complained about the alleged abuses.</p>
<p>Four of the five plaintiffs—Meixing Ren, Ching-Yi Chang, Taofeng Wang, and&#160;Haipei Shue—are men who say that Tao Lu, the current bureau chief, punished them for speaking out about his predecessor’s alleged conduct by downsizing their job duties and firing one of them. The fifth plaintiff&#160;is a former Phoenix intern who alleges that Liu repeatedly groped&#160;her. Another former Phoenix intern filed a separate lawsuit in New York earlier this year&#160;making similar allegations. Mother Jones interviewed three of the male plaintiffs and four of Liu’s alleged female&#160;victims.</p>
<p>Phoenix Television, which is based in Hong Kong, is one of few private broadcasters permitted by the Chinese government to operate in mainland China. The multimedia empire maintains bureaus around the world, covers more than 150 countries, and is worth about <a href="https://www.google.com/finance?cid=673877" type="external">$1.9&#160;billion</a>.&#160;In 2008, the company’s current CEO, Liu Changle, won an <a href="http://www.iemmys.tv/news_item.aspx?id=58" type="external">International Emmy</a> for being “one of Asia’s leading broadcast entrepreneurs.”</p>
<p>The lawsuit is “full of inaccuracies and false statements about the Company,” Wu Xiaoyong, the CEO of Phoenix’s American subsidiary, told Mother Jones in a statement. “We have retained counsel to defend the Company’s interests, and we will have no further comment regarding this case.” Mother Jones left messages at several phone numbers associated with Liu; he did not respond to these repeated requests for comment.&#160;Both Xiaoyong and the law firm representing the plaintiffs said they do not know the ex-bureau chief’s whereabouts. Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox declined to comment.</p>
<p>Lu, the new Phoenix bureau chief, told Mother Jones that he would not comment on any of the allegations, but he said that “some media organizations made or are making sensational and irresponsible coverage on the case without proper investigation… We believe such practice is not only irresponsible [and] ill-intentioned but also involves potential consequence of defamation.”</p>
<p>The Chinese government, which regularly censors press reports and Internet content, appears to be blocking Chinese citizens from reading about the allegations. China’s biggest state-run news station, CCTV, has ignored the story. Xinhua, another major state-run network, published a story about the scandal on Tuesday night that vanished hours later. (Xinhua did not respond to a request for comment.)</p>
<p>A secret video</p>
<p>Central to the case is a video that the plaintiffs claim was secretly recorded last August on an iPhone by Anne, a female Phoenix reporter. (The alleged victims requested they be referred to by American pseudonyms.) The video, reviewed by Mother Jones, shows an exchange in Mandarin between a man and a woman whose faces are not visible. The complaint identifies the pair as Anne and&#160;Zhengzhu Liu, the ex-bureau chief. “You are doing well now,” the man says. “You look pretty good, that’s it…let me hug you.” The video shows the woman’s legs moving towards the door. But the man continues: “Don’t move, don’t move, I like you so much…No, no one will come in…Let me have a look; let me ‘kao‘ [ <a href="http://www.chinasmack.com/glossary#%E6%93%8D" type="external">fuck</a>] you.” The woman quickly exits the room. The music for Phoenix’s morning broadcast can be heard playing in the background.</p>
<p>In September, Anne filed a sexual harassment complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), requesting an&#160;investigation into her allegations. Five of Anne’s coworkers—including the four male plaintiffs in the lawsuit—informed the EEOC they would serve as witnesses in any potential inquiry. Soon after, Anne settled with Phoenix for an undisclosed amount, according to Bernabei &amp; Wachtel, the Washington, DC-based law firm representing the plaintiffs. Xiaoyong, the CEO of Phoenix’s American subsidiary, told Mother Jones that Anne “withdrew her charges voluntarily” and continues to work for the company. Phoenix declined to make Anne available for comment.</p>
<p>Plaintiffs allege a history of harassment</p>
<p>But Liu’s sexual harassment allegedly started long before Anne filmed her video.</p>
<p>Jane, who worked as a reporter in Phoenix’s DC bureau in 2006 while completing a master’s thesis, was one of Liu’s first alleged victims, according to the complaint. “To this day, my body feels so tense when I think about it. I want to forget about everything that happened with my whole body and my whole mind,” she told Mother Jones.</p>
<p>During her first week on the job, Jane said, she accepted a ride from Liu to a work&#160;event at the Chinese embassy. During the drive, she said, Liu told her a disturbing story about a rape victim, going so far as to detail the positions the victim was in when she was assaulted. Jane said Liu then attempted to fondle her legs and breasts. The alleged harassment escalated in the weeks to come, she said. “He would call me in and say that he could no longer type Chinese from his keyboard, and then he would touch my breasts,” Jane claimed. Toward the end of 2006, Liu unexpectedly showed up at her apartment when her fiancé wasn’t home, forced his way through the door, and unzipped his pants, the EEOC complaint alleges;&#160;he only stopped when she was able to make a racket, spooking him.&#160;</p>
<p>“I was just a student, I didn’t know anyone in DC,” Jane said. “I didn’t want to talk to my parents, I could have talked to my fiancé, but I was so afraid. [Liu] made it clear that he was the one in charge, and I didn’t want to get fired.”</p>
<p>Mother Jones spoke with three other women who say they were assaulted by Liu. Mary interned at Phoenix’s New York office in late 2009 and early 2010, when she was a journalism student at Syracuse University. During her internship, Liu visited the New York office, which he also oversaw; Mary said he&#160;asked to discuss her job performance at the&#160;Hilton Hotel in midtown where he was staying. After she arrived, Mary alleges, Liu forced himself on her and attempted to kiss her. She fled the hotel room. “I often blamed myself for being so stupid—after all the unease I still followed him to his hotel room,” Mary said.</p>
<p>After graduating from Syracuse in 2010, Mary tried to get a full-time job with the company. “In my mind, Phoenix was still a very reputable media outlet,” she said. “I thought I could handle working with him, as long as we were not in the same bureau. I even remembered a friend&#160;telling me that there were bosses like this everywhere, but you can’t pass on a great job opportunity just because of it.” After Mary inquired about a job, she said Liu invited her to accompany him to Atlantic City to discuss a position with the company. She declined—”I knew what he was really asking,” she said—after which Liu allegedly told her there were no more US work visas available.</p>
<p>Two other women—job applicants who each claim they were interviewed by Liu in hotel rooms—provided Mother Jones&#160;with accounts that echoed Mary’s allegations. Both&#160;said they believed that in order to obtain employment with the company, they had to submit to Liu’s sexual advances. “Liu asked me to bring my tripod to his hotel room, to see if I was good on camera. Then he grabbed me and tried to kiss me,” said Allyson, who&#160;Liu interviewed in August 2012.&#160;“I was terrified…People should be able to pursue their dreams without fear.” Another woman, whose husband still works for Phoenix, was interviewed for a job in 2006 by Liu. She alleged that Liu invited her to the Waldorf Hotel to discuss job opportunities at Phoenix, and then forced her to get into the elevator and accompany him to his hotel room. He allegedly pushed her down on the bed and began playing with his penis in front of her.</p>
<p>“I was very afraid he was going to retaliate against my husband, and even prevent him from getting a job at another Chinese media company,” she told Mother Jones. “Mr. Liu had a very powerful influence.”</p>
<p>The plaintiffs claim that at least one Phoenix executive knew of the complaints against Liu for years and did nothing. Liu was ultimately fired by the company in December 2012. According to the complaint, Taofeng Wang, one of the male plaintiffs, told a Los Angeles Phoenix executive, Zeng Shiping, about Liu’s misconduct in 2009. Zeng declined to comment, but according to the lawsuit, she told Wang that “the company would not do anything to stop Mr. Liu.”</p>
<p>Allegations of a retaliation campaign</p>
<p>The plaintiffs say that after Anne settled with Phoenix in the fall of 2012, Liu, in what would be his final months as bureau chief, began to retaliate against Phoenix employees who had agreed to serve as witnesses for her EEOC complaint. According to the lawsuit, Liu reduced their job duties, cut their overtime, and fired one of the male plaintiffs,&#160;Haipei Shue, an on-air commentator. His alleged retaliation campaign only&#160;came to an end when Phoenix dismissed him. “We fired Mr. Liu because his behavior was contrary to company regulations and code of conduct,” Xiaoyong, the CEO of Phoenix’s American subsidiary, told Mother Jones. “This decision was based on comprehensive investigation rather than the alleged existence of [Anne’s] video recording.”</p>
<p>But the plaintiffs say that Tao Lu, who replaced Liu as bureau chief, continued the retaliation. Lu fired Meixing Ren,&#160;one of the plaintiffs, on July 18, according to the lawsuit. Ren had worked as a broadcast engineer in the DC office since April 2011, and he had signed Anne’s&#160;EEOC complaint.</p>
<p>Lu said that Phoenix&#160;is not commenting on the specific allegations in the case because it wants “to refrain from interfering in anyway the judicial justice” and the company “firmly believes in the justice of the judicial system of this country.”</p>
<p>One of the plaintiffs, who asked to speak anonymously because he fears that talking to the press will cause Chinese companies to blacklist him as a “corporate troublemaker,” said, “if this has happened in China, the sexual harassment victims will most probably get little or no serious attention from either the company or the legal system.” He added, “Our friends back in China say that we’re crazy for pursuing a case like this, against such a big, powerful corporation. But then they say, ‘Oh right, you’re in America. Well, maybe you have a small chance.'”</p>
<p>Update: Phoenix Television sent an additional statement on August 2 stating that “Phoenix Satellite Television (U.S.) Inc. (Phoenix Satellite Television US) has received official notices from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s Washington D.C. Field Office (EEOC), dismissing the retaliation complaints filed by Ren Meixing, Wang Taofeng and Chang Chingyi against Phoenix Satellite Television US.”&#160;Bernabei&#160;&amp;&#160;Wachtel, the law office representing the plaintiffs, told Mother Jones that they asked the EEOC&#160;to drop the charges using the common legal procedure of asking for a&#160;“ <a href="http://www.eeoc.gov/employees/lawsuit.cfm" type="external">Notice-of-Right-to- Sue</a>,” instead of waiting for EEOC to complete its investigation.&#160;EEOC&#160;told Mother Jones it does not comment on cases.&#160;</p>
<p>Phoenix Television also says that “Phoenix Satellite Television US does not tolerate discrimination, sexual harassment, or retaliation in its workplace.”?</p>
<p />
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Inside the Washington Sexual Assault Scandal Rocking a Chinese Media Empire
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https://motherjones.com/politics/2013/08/phoenix-sex-scandal-liu-zhengzhu/
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2013-08-01
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<p>&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/timothykrause/6988401302/sizes/z/in/photolist-bDxoeC-8aG5BV-bSs81H-9txFrN-dv7HX8-dv7JEv-dv7P9n-dvdpcm-dv7F8n-dvdpLf-dv7PD6-dv7Q96-dvdmdq-dv7Jme-dvdn35-dvdob9-dvdimA-dv7Nxt-dv7FmX-dvdj9o-dvdhtQ-dvdpvS-dv7Npi-dvdhWW-dv7KxB-dv7M3i-dv7GYF-dvdjvm-dvdnVE-dv7HnB-dvdosU-dvdnEb-dvdh4b-dvdkjs-dv7Fwk-dv7FCg-dv7HMk-dvdhh9-dvdmoS-dv7HG4-dvdmMA-dvdjFE-dvdiu1-dv7Hip-dvdkuY-dvdk1N-dvdoRm-dv7M96-dvdiSd-dv7J9H-dv7KMe/"&gt;WarmSleepy&lt;/a&gt;/Flickr</p>
<p />
<p>The <a href="http://www.mainstreetpac.com/about/" type="external">Republican Main Street Partnership</a>,&#160;led by former Ohio Congressman Steven LaTourette, plans to spend millions of dollars in the 2014 midterm elections&#160;supporting what it calls “the governing wing of the GOP.” LaTourette’s group&#160;aims to give political support and air cover to more moderate Republicans open to compromise in Congress, neutralizing the efforts of&#160;conservative stalwarts such as the Club for Growth and getting Ted Cruz-style&#160;hardliners out of Congress. The Main Street Partnership&#160;is a&#160;hybrid entity—part&#160;super-PAC, which&#160;can raise and spend unlimited sums of money but must disclose its activities, and part&#160;nonprofit, which can accept anonymous donations but can’t focus primarily on campaigns and elections.</p>
<p>LaTourette has said his group plans to get involved in eight to 10 Republican primaries, and the Main Street Partnership has raised nearly $2 million to date. Yet <a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/hotline-on-call/guess-who-s-funding-the-republican-civil-war-20131209" type="external">according to National Journal</a>, a good chunk of that money comes from two unlikely sources: the International Union of Operating Engineers and the Laborers’ International Union of North America.</p>
<p>That’s right: Two prominent labor unions are underwriting a group stoking the&#160;civil war that threatens to tear apart the Republican Party. Documents reviewed by National Journal show that the two unions have together given $400,000 to the Main Street Partnership, accounting for 20 percent of the group’s funds.</p>
<p>Here’s more from National Journal:</p>
<p>Certainly, labor’s not alone in funding Main Street. The group’s money is “coming from business folks, from private donors,” said Main Street spokesman Chris Barron. “It has a wide range of folks who are interested in supporting the governing wing of the Republican Party.”</p>
<p>Barron rejected critiques of Main Street’s funding and positioning. “If the money came from Mother Teresa, the Club for Growth would attack where it came from,” Barron said.</p>
<p>Both the Operating Engineers and the Laborers’ union have given millions of dollars to Democratic candidates and millions more to the party’s quasi-official House and Senate super PACs over the last few years. Only one other PAC gave more to Democratic candidates than the Operating Engineers’ in 2012, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.</p>
<p>But both unions have also consistently invested in the campaigns of friendly Republicans, including LaTourette’s (when he was in Congress). Earlier this year, LIUNA endorsed New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie for reelection and its PAC gave $300,000 to the Republican Governors Association, which ran pro-Christie advertising in the Garden State.</p>
<p>The Operating Engineers’ PAC has given 23 percent of its donations to federal candidates to Republicans this year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and it supported a super PAC called “Lunch Pail Republicans” last year. At the AFL-CIO’s national convention in September, the Operating Engineers and another group offered a successful resolution urging “that the AFL-CIO take practical steps…to cultivate and nurture relationships with members of all parties” and “encourage moderate candidates” in Republican-leaning congressional districts as part of a “pragmatic, bipartisan approach” to its political giving and advocacy.</p>
<p>“Especially with this crazy political atmosphere, this is a place where we need to be lending support to middle-of-the-road Democrats and Republicans both, and this is part of that effort,” Jeffrey Soth, the Operating Engineers’ political director, said.</p>
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Labor Unions Are Underwriting the Republican Party’s Civil War
| true |
https://motherjones.com/politics/2013/12/union-donation-republican-civil-war-main-street-partnership/
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2013-12-09
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<p>Washington PostMichael Getler asks that question. "One could hardly have a better ally," he notes. The Washington Post ombudsman also says war correspondents face bigger tests and risks in upcoming days. He writes: "Will the military try to restrict reporting if there are battlefield setbacks or mistakes, including friendly-fire casualties? How will reporters be able to account for civilian casualties? How will they assess claims that weapons of mass destruction have been found or not found?" OBSERVATION: "So far, the Pentagon's new policy of access through embedding seems to be paying off for both the military and news consumers." OTHER OMBUD/EDITOR COLUMNS: &gt; <a href="http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/columnists/david_house/5462712.htm" type="external">House: Journalists unable to report "great Why" about this war (FWST)</a> &gt; <a href="http://www.azstarnet.com/star/sun/30323advocate.html" type="external">Arizona Star didn't run Dave Barry's "goofiness" because of war (AzStar)</a> &gt; <a href="http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/uniontrib/mon/opinion/news_mz1e24lubran.html" type="external">Lubano: Readers find fault with Union-Trib where none exists (SDU-T)</a> &gt; <a href="http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/insidethetimes/134659916_fancher23.html" type="external">Seattle Times war coverage guided by four goals, says Fancher (ST)</a> &gt; <a href="http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/epaper/editions/saturday/opinion_e3c7d0ab74de20cc0096.html" type="external">Atlanta J-C has an emergency publishing site ready to go (AJC)</a> &gt; <a href="http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/columns/ombudsman/story/6328086p-7281377c.html" type="external">SacBee readers accuse paper of promoting, ignoring war protests (SB)</a></p>
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Why do U.S. war reporters write so little about Brit troops?
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https://poynter.org/news/why-do-us-war-reporters-write-so-little-about-brit-troops
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2003-03-24
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<p><a href="http://pienews.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Ben.jpg" type="external" />The following was sent to me and in turn I will do my civic duty and widen its reach. It is very detailed research and I will leave it to you to draw your own conclusion. But I will tell you this, it reads better than any spy thriller [?]</p>
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<p><a href="http://allenbwest.com/2014/06/operation-zero-footprint-bombshell-truth-benghazi/" type="external">Click here to view original web page at allenbwest.com</a></p>
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Operation Zero Footprint: The bombshell truth about Benghazi?
| true |
http://politicalillusionsexposed.com/operation-zero-footprint-the-bombshell-truth-about-benghazi/
| 0 |
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<p>BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Commission said on Wednesday it was taking Ireland to the European Court of Justice for its failure to recover up to 13 billion euros ($15.3 billion) of tax due from Apple Inc (O:).</p>
<p>The Commission ordered the U.S. tech giant in August 2016 to pay the unpaid taxes as it ruled the firm had received illegal state aid, one of a number of deals the EU has targeted between multinationals and usually smaller EU states.</p>
<p>“More than one year after the Commission adopted this decision, Ireland has still not recovered the money, also not in part,” EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.</p>
<p>“We of course understand that recovery in certain cases may be more complex than in others, and we are always ready to assist. But member states need to make sufficient progress to restore competition,” she added.</p>
<p>The Commission said the deadline for Ireland to implement its decision had been Jan. 3 this year and that, until the aid was recovered, the company continued to benefit from an illegal advantage.</p>
<p>($1 = 0.8507 euros)</p>
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<p>Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.</p>
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EU takes Ireland to EU court over 13 billion euro Apple tax bill
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https://newsline.com/eu-takes-ireland-to-eu-court-over-13-billion-euro-apple-tax-bill/
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2017-10-04
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<p>Liz O. Baylen/Los Angeles TimesThe plated Legumes de Saison is an artistic vision.</p>
<p>LOS ANGELES – We live in a time of outrageously beautiful food, when our Instagram feeds routinely show the latest garden on a plate from kitchens in Copenhagen or Mugaritz, when lunch at the corner restaurant can mean the chef’s market haul translated into a Caravaggio still life.</p>
<p>Even so, the dish of seasonal vegetables that you’re presented at Spring, chef Tony Esnault’s French restaurant in downtown Los Angeles, will arrest your fork in mid-flight.</p>
<p>Esnault’s legumes de saison has been a staple at Spring since it opened last year, a plate of perfectly articulated vegetables that the chef calibrates to the season like his</p>
<p>Los Angeles chef Tony Esnault uses seasonal vegetables from the farmers’ market to prepare his Legumes de Saison.</p>
<p>own personal Farmer’s Almanac. There is nothing overtly remarkable about it. It is a plate of vegetables, albeit more than a dozen of them. Each vegetable is cooked, or not cooked, separately and with great attention, and then the plate is assembled like a jigsaw puzzle.</p>
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<p>Methodology</p>
<p>“The technique improves with experience, like a musician,” says Esnault, his voice registering his childhood in the Loire Valley. The chef and his crew have washed and dried the 16 vegetables that constitute the current version of legumes de saison and are now peeling radishes, trimming Swiss chard, fashioning yellow beets and purple carrots into a rainbow geometry. Each vegetable is then arranged on a giant sheet pan in a collage of colors, more Rauschenberg than Caravaggio.</p>
<p>“I love to prep,” says Esnault, surveying the counter and appraising a row of sunchokes lined up like an abacus. “It’s like meditation; this is my yoga.” A good thing, as this exercise is accomplished by either Esnault or one of his sous chefs every morning the restaurant is open.</p>
<p>Watching the chef cook the vegetables is like watching a man play a shell game. Esnault rotates sauté pans around the flat surface of the stove, moving lids from one pan to another to adjust the cooking inside, shifting the vegetables with a flick of his wrist.</p>
<p>The methodology is actually simple: Cook each vegetable according to itself. And watching this becomes a tutorial in technique. Depending on the size, texture and flavor, Esnault steams, braises, sautes, roasts, glazes or shaves the contents of the sheet pan, which have migrated into various bowls like an enormous mis en place.</p>
<p>“You want something crispy, something sweet, something caramelized, something</p>
<p>Washed, peeled, trimmed and sliced, the prepped vegetables await chef Tony Esnault’s magic.</p>
<p>fresh – not everything mushy,” Esnault says, adding cloves of garlic and sprigs of thyme to many of the pans. Nubs of butter, pours of olive oil. “You need to have diversity on the plate. It needs to be appealing visually. And in your mouth too.”</p>
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<p>A pan of red cabbage is braised in a heady mixture of olive oil and garlic, fresh ginger and thyme and spoonfuls of stock that he’d made with the trimmings of the vegetables.</p>
<p>Nothing is wasted here: Radish peels have been used to make their own stock, stained a bright red and infused with more thyme and garlic and verjus, the pressed and unfermented juice of unripe grapes that’s often used in Southern French cooking.</p>
<p>Esnault strains the radish stock and adds it to the sautéing radishes, the contents of the pan turning the color of plums. He moves many of the pans into the oven, some covered, some not, adjusting the seasoning, shifting the contents.</p>
<p>“I grew up on farms, at my grandparents’ farms in the Loire Valley,” Esnault, 45, says between sampling bites of celeriac and parsnips, kohlrabi and the chestnuts that he’s been sautéing in a short broth of browned butter, olive oil, stock, star anise and a small branch of dried fennel. “I used to pick the vegetables.”</p>
<p>Sleight of hand</p>
<p>As the vegetables reach their desired states, he tips them back onto the sheet pan until it’s again an enormous canvas of colors and shapes. A few vegetables remain raw: bright carrots and yellow beets, discs of watermelon radishes like cross-sectioned geodes. He makes a vinaigrette of reduced broth, vinegar and olive oil, and then sets out a shallow ceramic bowl.</p>
<p>Watching him plate the dish is like watching a farmer set out a market stand: He arranges the vegetables, adding a pour of vinaigrette, some celery leaves and borage flowers, then finally a drizzle of French turnip seed oil.</p>
<p>“Fall is the most interesting,” Esnault says, rearranging a few caramelized chestnuts. “It’s more work, more challenging to cook rutabagas than English peas.”</p>
<p>As a sous chef deftly removes the last sauté pan from the stove, you realize that the sleight of hand in Esnault’s kitchen shell game is not in the resulting beautiful plate, but in the amount of work it takes to achieve it. Without a kitchen crew, without years of classical training and restaurant experience, this recipe (10 hours! a dozen and a half vegetables!) will take more than a little patience.</p>
<p>So at home, maybe try a few vegetables, a little stock, white wine instead of verjus, your favorite nut oil instead of French turnip seed oil, one or two pans. Contemplate the vegetables. Consider their properties. It’s your garden.</p>
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Chef turns produce into art
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<p>Elsie was the kind of partisan who was incapable of seeing beyond the edges of her voter registration card. I’m sure she’s still planning to support Hillary Clinton in November, assuming she can find the polling place nearest to her plot at Holy Cross Cemetery.</p>
<p>Elsie was not alone in her unique, single-minded devotion. Many people are incapable of deviating from lifelong loyalties and biases and will go to their graves rejecting, out of hand, anything the other side has to say on any topic of significance. There are Republicans who wouldn’t wear an “I’m With Him” button even if the “Him” in question was Jesus Christ, assuming the Son of God was a registered Democrat.</p>
<p>We vote our prejudices, our preferences and our comfort zone.</p>
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<p>I never thought I was that kind of voter. I was a registered Democrat for many years, until last March, when I changed my registration to Republican so I could vote for John Kasich in the Pennsylvania primary. Still, I don’t feel any different; I’ll continue to vote across party lines if the person on the other side of that line is appealing enough. Sorry, Grandma.</p>
<p>But I recently realized that there is one thing that I cannot compromise, and that is my dignity. I will not vote for someone who shows a lack of respect for my principles, my values, my most intimate beliefs. She doesn’t need to share them, necessarily. But she cannot show, either through her own actions or by proxy through those who keep her counsel, that she treats them like gum at the bottom of an orthopedic shoe.</p>
<p>I’m Christine, I am a Catholic, and I vote.</p>
<p>I’ve often seen bumper stickers that say, “I’m Pro Gun and I Vote,” “I’m Pro Choice and I Vote,” “I’m Dead and I Still Vote (In Philadelphia).” I’m embarrassed to say that I regarded them with some elitist disdain, confident that I was a better-educated, more open-minded citizen because I couldn’t be a one-issue voter.</p>
<p>I’ve come close when that issue is abortion, and I can count on two fingers the pro-choice candidates I’ve supported in 37 years of voting. But it was only this past week, when I read the emails that were leaked by Julian Assange, or Vlad of the impeccable pectorals, that flurry of exchanges between John Podesta and other Clinton intimates, that I realized I am a one-issue voter.</p>
<p>And that issue is my faith.</p>
<p>It’s a little different from what I’ve talked about in the past. Sometimes my columns have focused on the duties of Catholic candidates to be consistent with their spiritual formation, as I did when comparing Tim Kaine with Mike Pence, or when I chastised Joe Biden for being pro-choice.</p>
<p>But this time, it’s more serious than that, and transcends specific issues.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Reading those emails was a revelation to me. There was such disdain for Catholics, such pre-packaged vitriol, such high school bathroom mocking that I thought they were parodies of real conversations. It didn’t occur to me that people who were that close to a candidate who has always touted the importance of tolerance would, themselves, be avatars of bigotry.</p>
<p>I don’t have the stomach to reproduce the emails in detail, but here is an excerpt from a three-way discussion among Podesta, John Halpin and Jen Palmieri, all close associates of Clinton:</p>
<p>“Many of the most powerful elements of the conservative movement are all Catholic (many converts) from the (Supreme Court) and think tanks to the media and social groups. It’s an amazing bastardization of the faith. They must be attracted to the systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations and must be totally unaware of Christian democracy.”</p>
<p>Yes, we all know there are far too many Catholics on the Supreme Court. They’re going to overturn Roe v. Wade. Just give them another 43 years and you know they’ll finally do it, one of these days. Those sneaky papists, they lull you into a sense of security and then, wham! back to the coat hanger.</p>
<p>Excuse my digression. The fact is, the emails were indicative of some very vile biases on the left that have been allowed to fester in the darkness, because bringing them into the open would lose the Democrats some key votes. Not the vote of Grandma Elsie, who was a political lemming, but the support of those Catholics on the fence who were blue-collar, simple folk who loved both the social safety net and unborn babies.</p>
<p>Now, all bets are off.</p>
<p>Unless Clinton disavows the sentiment behind those emails, she is showing very clearly how much value she places on Catholic dignity: none.</p>
<p>Christine Flowers is a lawyer and a special contributor to the Philadelphia Daily News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.</p>
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Clinton associates contemptuous of Catholics
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<p>Palestinian mourners carry the body of 21-year-old Mohammed Ahmed Alauna, who was killed in clashes with Israeli troops in the West Bank village of Burqin, near Jenin on Wednesday, July 22, 2015. The Israeli military said its troops were on a routine patrol in the West Bank when they were attacked by a group of Palestinians hurling rocks in their direction. (AP Photo/Mohammed Ballas)</p>
<p>JERUSALEM - A West Bank hospital says a Palestinian man has died after he was shot by Israeli troops during a clash near the town of Jenin.</p>
<p>It says 21-year-old Mohammed Ahmed Alauna was shot in the chest early Wednesday and later died of his wounds at the hospital.</p>
<p>The Israeli military says its troops were on a routine patrol in the West Bank when they were attacked by a group of Palestinians hurling rocks in their direction.</p>
<p>The military says its troops called on the men to halt and when they did not, soldiers opened fire toward the main instigator.</p>
<p>Such clashes are common during Israeli arrest raids in search of wanted Palestinian suspects. The Israeli military says it is investigating.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
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Palestinian dies after being shot by Israeli troops in clash
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https://abqjournal.com/616431/palestinian-dies-after-being-shot-by-israeli-troops-in-clash.html
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<p>MIAMI (AP) — The number of legal immigrants from Latin American nations who access public health services and enroll in federally subsidized insurance plans has dipped substantially since President Donald Trump took office, many of them fearing their information could be used to identify and deport relatives living in the U.S. illegally, according to health advocates across the country.</p>
<p>Trump based his campaign on promises to stop illegal immigration and deport any immigrants in the country illegally, but many legal residents and U.S. citizens are losing their health care as a result, advocates say.</p>
<p>After Trump became president a year ago, "every single day families canceled" their Medicaid plans and "people really didn't access any of our programs," said Daniel Bouton, a director at the Community Council, a Dallas nonprofit that specializes in health care enrollment for low-income families.</p>
<p>The trend stabilized a bit as the year went on, but it remains clear that the increasingly polarized immigration debate is having a chilling effect on Hispanic participation in health care programs, particularly during the enrollment season that ended in December.</p>
<p>Bouton's organization has helped a 52-year-old housekeeper from Mexico, a legal resident, sign up for federally subsidized health insurance for two years. But now she's going without, fearing immigration officials will use her enrollment to track down her husband, who is in the country illegally. She's also considering not re-enrolling their children, 15 and 18, in the Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, even though they were born in the U.S.</p>
<p>"We're afraid of maybe getting sick or getting into an accident, but the fear of my husband being deported is bigger," the woman, who declined to give their names for fear her husband could be deported, said through a translator in a telephone interview.</p>
<p>Hispanic immigrants are not only declining to sign up for health care under programs that began or expanded under Barack Obama's presidency -- they're also not seeking treatment when they're sick, Bouton and others say.</p>
<p>"One social worker said she had a client who was forgoing chemotherapy because she had a child that was not here legally," said Oscar Gomez, CEO of Health Outreach Partner, a national training and advocacy organization.</p>
<p>My Health LA provides primary care services in Los Angeles County to low-income residents and those who lack the documents to make them eligible for publicly funded health care coverage programs, such as state Medicaid. According to its annual report, 189,410 participants enrolled in the program during Fiscal Year 2017, but 44,252, or about 23 percent, later dis-enrolled. It's not clear how many of those who dropped out are Hispanic; the report did not describe ethnicity.</p>
<p>Enticing Hispanics to take advantage of subsidized health care has been a struggle that began long before Trump's presidency.</p>
<p>Hispanics are more than three times as likely to go without health insurance as are their white counterparts, according to a 2015 study by Pew Research Center. Whites represented 63 percent, or 3.8 million, of those who signed up for Affordable Care Act plans last year compared to 15 percent, or just under a million, Hispanics, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The reasons vary, but some have always feared deportation, regardless of who is in office.</p>
<p>Recent events have not helped. Despite initial signs of a compromise agreement, Trump now isn't supporting a deal to support young people who identified themselves to the federal government so that they could qualify for protections against deportation despite being brought to the U.S. illegally as children.</p>
<p>Last fall, Border Patrol agents followed a 10-year-old immigrant with cerebral palsy to a Texas hospital and took her into custody after the surgery. She had been brought to the U.S. from Mexico when she was a toddler.</p>
<p>And in Okeechobee, a small rural city about an hour and a half north of Miami that is home to many immigrant farm workers, green-and-white-striped immigration vehicles were spotted driving around town and parking in conspicuous places last spring and summer. After a few immigrants were picked up and deported, health advocates said patients canceled their appointments, waiting until immigration officials left to reschedule them.</p>
<p>In Washington state and Florida, health workers report that immigrant patients start the enrollment process, but drop out once they are required to turn in proof of income, Social Security and other personal information. The annual report from My Health LA noted that it denied 28 percent more applicants in Fiscal 2017 than it had the year before, mostly due to incomplete applications.</p>
<p>In a survey of four Health Outreach Partner locations in California and the Pacific Northwest, social workers said some of their patients asked to be removed from the centers' records for fear that the information could be used to aid deportation hearings.</p>
<p>The dilemma has forced social workers at Health Outreach Partner to broaden their job descriptions, Gomez said. Now, in addition to signing people up for health insurance or helping them access medical treatments, they are fielding questions about immigration issues and drawing up contingency plans for when a family member is deported.</p>
<p>"That planning is seen as more helpful and immediate to their patients than their medical needs right now," he said.</p>
<p>MIAMI (AP) — The number of legal immigrants from Latin American nations who access public health services and enroll in federally subsidized insurance plans has dipped substantially since President Donald Trump took office, many of them fearing their information could be used to identify and deport relatives living in the U.S. illegally, according to health advocates across the country.</p>
<p>Trump based his campaign on promises to stop illegal immigration and deport any immigrants in the country illegally, but many legal residents and U.S. citizens are losing their health care as a result, advocates say.</p>
<p>After Trump became president a year ago, "every single day families canceled" their Medicaid plans and "people really didn't access any of our programs," said Daniel Bouton, a director at the Community Council, a Dallas nonprofit that specializes in health care enrollment for low-income families.</p>
<p>The trend stabilized a bit as the year went on, but it remains clear that the increasingly polarized immigration debate is having a chilling effect on Hispanic participation in health care programs, particularly during the enrollment season that ended in December.</p>
<p>Bouton's organization has helped a 52-year-old housekeeper from Mexico, a legal resident, sign up for federally subsidized health insurance for two years. But now she's going without, fearing immigration officials will use her enrollment to track down her husband, who is in the country illegally. She's also considering not re-enrolling their children, 15 and 18, in the Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, even though they were born in the U.S.</p>
<p>"We're afraid of maybe getting sick or getting into an accident, but the fear of my husband being deported is bigger," the woman, who declined to give their names for fear her husband could be deported, said through a translator in a telephone interview.</p>
<p>Hispanic immigrants are not only declining to sign up for health care under programs that began or expanded under Barack Obama's presidency -- they're also not seeking treatment when they're sick, Bouton and others say.</p>
<p>"One social worker said she had a client who was forgoing chemotherapy because she had a child that was not here legally," said Oscar Gomez, CEO of Health Outreach Partner, a national training and advocacy organization.</p>
<p>My Health LA provides primary care services in Los Angeles County to low-income residents and those who lack the documents to make them eligible for publicly funded health care coverage programs, such as state Medicaid. According to its annual report, 189,410 participants enrolled in the program during Fiscal Year 2017, but 44,252, or about 23 percent, later dis-enrolled. It's not clear how many of those who dropped out are Hispanic; the report did not describe ethnicity.</p>
<p>Enticing Hispanics to take advantage of subsidized health care has been a struggle that began long before Trump's presidency.</p>
<p>Hispanics are more than three times as likely to go without health insurance as are their white counterparts, according to a 2015 study by Pew Research Center. Whites represented 63 percent, or 3.8 million, of those who signed up for Affordable Care Act plans last year compared to 15 percent, or just under a million, Hispanics, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The reasons vary, but some have always feared deportation, regardless of who is in office.</p>
<p>Recent events have not helped. Despite initial signs of a compromise agreement, Trump now isn't supporting a deal to support young people who identified themselves to the federal government so that they could qualify for protections against deportation despite being brought to the U.S. illegally as children.</p>
<p>Last fall, Border Patrol agents followed a 10-year-old immigrant with cerebral palsy to a Texas hospital and took her into custody after the surgery. She had been brought to the U.S. from Mexico when she was a toddler.</p>
<p>And in Okeechobee, a small rural city about an hour and a half north of Miami that is home to many immigrant farm workers, green-and-white-striped immigration vehicles were spotted driving around town and parking in conspicuous places last spring and summer. After a few immigrants were picked up and deported, health advocates said patients canceled their appointments, waiting until immigration officials left to reschedule them.</p>
<p>In Washington state and Florida, health workers report that immigrant patients start the enrollment process, but drop out once they are required to turn in proof of income, Social Security and other personal information. The annual report from My Health LA noted that it denied 28 percent more applicants in Fiscal 2017 than it had the year before, mostly due to incomplete applications.</p>
<p>In a survey of four Health Outreach Partner locations in California and the Pacific Northwest, social workers said some of their patients asked to be removed from the centers' records for fear that the information could be used to aid deportation hearings.</p>
<p>The dilemma has forced social workers at Health Outreach Partner to broaden their job descriptions, Gomez said. Now, in addition to signing people up for health insurance or helping them access medical treatments, they are fielding questions about immigration issues and drawing up contingency plans for when a family member is deported.</p>
<p>"That planning is seen as more helpful and immediate to their patients than their medical needs right now," he said.</p>
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Deportation fears have legal immigrants avoiding health care
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https://apnews.com/amp/9f893855e49143baad9c96816ec8f731
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2018-01-22
| 2 |
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<p>PHOENIX – Owners of the NFL’s teams, meeting Monday at a Phoenix resort for the annual league meeting, voted 31-1 to ratify the Raiders’ proposed relocation from Oakland to Las Vegas in a move that once would have been practically unthinkable given the league’s longstanding public opposition to sports gambling.</p>
<p>The Raiders will be the second major professional sports franchise to place a team in Las Vegas, the country’s epicenter of sports betting. An NHL expansion franchise, the Vegas Golden Knights, will begin play in the league’s 2017-18 season. With the Raiders set to join them, the sports betting-related stigma of “Sin City” that once repelled professional leagues appears greatly diminished, if not extinguished.</p>
<p>The league has opposed efforts to legalize sports betting in other states throughout its history and is currently fighting the legalization of sports betting in New Jersey. Commissioner Roger Goodell regularly has said the league is against legalization efforts and the NFL has cited the integrity of the sport as a major reason. Any overarching concerns regarding the placement of a team just blocks away from casinos that regularly take bets on NFL games — with over $132 million reportedly wagered on Super Bowl 50 through Nevada sports books in 2016 — appears to have taken a back seat to concerns around the Raiders’ inability to secure a new stadium in Oakland.</p>
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<p>Owners initially seemed wary about the size of the Las Vegas market, with a population of around 600,00o, roughly half the combined size of the Bay Area cities of Oakland and San Francisco. But those concerns melted away as the league contended there was no viable new-stadium alternative to keep the franchise in the Bay Area. After Oakland submitted a revised stadium-financing plan, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell reportedly wrote to Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf that the parties were yet to find a solution to keep the Raiders in Oakland.</p>
<p>“We believe we and the Raiders worked earnestly in Oakland for over a decade to try to find that viable option in Oakland. . . . I know the ownership feels they went that extra mile to try to find that solution in Oakland. . . . Unfortunately, as you know, we didn’t get that done and we’re all disappointed,” Goodell said Monday.</p>
<p>It is the third franchise relocation approved by NFL owners in a little more than a year. They voted in January 2016 to ratify the Rams’ move from St. Louis to Los Angeles. The Rams played this past season in L.A. and they are to be joined there in the 2017 season by the Chargers, who announced earlier this year that they would exercise their option to move from San Diego to L.A.</p>
<p>The owners’ approval of the move is contingent on the Raiders getting a lease agreement and a stadium developer in Las Vegas, according to a person familiar with the details of the resolution approved Monday. The franchise is to remain in Oakland while a $1.9 billion stadium for the Raiders and UNLV’s football team is under construction. But then the Raiders are headed to Vegas for the 2019 or 2020 season.</p>
<p>“My father used to say that the greatness of the Raiders is in [their] future,” Raiders owner Mark Davis said. “The opportunity to build a world-class stadium in the entertainment capital of the world is one opportunity that will give us the ability to achieve that greatness.”</p>
<p>It is the second time that the Raiders will leave Oakland. The franchise departed following the 1981 season and played in Los Angeles from ’82 through ’94 before returning to Oakland.</p>
<p>“I have mixed feelings, obviously,” Davis said. “I love Oakland. I love the fans in Oakland. And I know that there’s gonna be disappointment and maybe some anger. I just hope that in the future as we play in Oakland that they understand it wasn’t the players. It wasn’t the coaches that made this decision. But it was me that made it. If they have anybody to talk to about it, it should be me. And I’m going to, in the coming days, try to explain to them what went into making this difficult decision.”</p>
<p>Davis said he would honor any refund requests by fans in Oakland who made season ticket deposits. But he also said he believes that his father, late Raiders owner Al Davis, would have been proud of this decision.</p>
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<p>“These are difficult decisions,” Pittsburgh Steelers President Art Rooney II said. “I think that anybody who has visited Oakland and played a game there in the last couple of years understands the stadium situation there was difficult at best. And so we needed a solution. I think that we did wait a considerable amount of time to see if a plan could be developed to keep the team in Oakland. . . . The future of the Raiders can be much more solid playing in a first-class stadium. And so we are happy that the Raiders are going to have a home for the long-term.”</p>
<p>Raiders quarterback Derek Carr wrote on Twitter that he was “overwhelmed with emotion.”</p>
<p>Carr also wrote: “I don’t know how we should feel. I feel the pain of our fans in Oakland. I also see the joy on the faces of our new fans in Las Vegas.”</p>
<p>Schaaf criticized the NFL’s decision in a written statement issued Monday.</p>
<p>“I am disappointed that the Raiders and the NFL chose Las Vegas over Oakland when we had a fully-financed, shovel-ready stadium project that would have kept the Raiders in Oakland where they were born and raised,” she said. “I am proud that we stood firm in refusing to use public money to subsidize stadium construction and that we did not capitulate to their unreasonable and unnecessary demand that we choose between our football and baseball franchises.</p>
<p>“As a lifelong Oaklander, my heart aches today for the Raider Nation. These are the most committed and passionate fans any city or team could hope to have. They deserved better.”</p>
<p>Mark Davis set his sights on Las Vegas after the owners last year chose the Inglewood, California, stadium proposal of Rams owner Stan Kroenke over the Carson project proposed by Davis and the Chargers’ Dean Spanos. The L.A. option granted then to the Chargers would have passed to the Raiders if Spanos had kept his team in San Diego. But Davis didn’t wait for that possibility, pledging that he was committed to taking his franchise to Las Vegas.</p>
<p>Any reluctance by the league and the owners to place a franchise in the country’s gambling capital never seemed to become a significant obstacle to the move proposed by Davis. By the time Monday’s vote was taken, it had become clear that no meaningful opposition to the relocation had formed among the owners. The Miami Dolphins cast the lone dissenting vote in the 31-1 approval.</p>
<p>“The second announcement of a major sports franchise to locate a team in Las Vegas [along with the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights] in just the last 12 months demonstrates how far gaming has come, from a niche industry to a $240 billion economic engine that supports 1.7 million jobs in 40 states,” the American Gaming Association said in a written statement.</p>
<p>“The gaming industry currently partners with professional teams around the country and we look forward to soon doing the same in Nevada. We applaud the many leaders in Las Vegas who have worked tirelessly to make the city the world’s premier tourist, convention and entertainment destination – and a market worthy of an NFL team.”</p>
<p>The Raiders had to scramble to reassemble the stadium-financing deal in Las Vegas when casino mogul Sheldon Adelson dropped out. But Bank of America agreed to provide the $650 million of funding that was needed after Adelson’s withdrawal. The Raiders are to provide $500 million and there is $750 of public financing in place.</p>
<p>Adelson was among the people thanked by Davis during Davis’s public remarks Monday.</p>
<p>The Raiders’ lease in Oakland gives them one-year team options for the 2017 and 2018 seasons. Davis said the Raiders might seek a third one-year option for the 2019 season to play in Oakland.</p>
<p>NFL executive Eric Grubman said the Raiders’ options for the 2019 season include playing in Oakland, playing in Vegas at UNLV or playing in another market. Grubman later suggested playing in another market would mean an existing NFL market.</p>
<p>“They have a unique fan base that I think is very loyal to them and will travel with them,” New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft said. “I think Las Vegas is a destination for visiting teams [and] will be very strong. . . . I think it’ll be a wonderful venue and a wonderful market. Its unique — one of the only small markets I can think of that could be in that category.”</p>
<p>The Raiders will pay a relocation fee of an estimated $325 million to $375 million; that fee largely will be divided among the other NFL teams. Grubman declined to specify the amount of the relocation fee.</p>
<p>The team will be known as the Oakland Raiders as long as it plays in Oakland, Goodell said. Davis said he rejects the notion that the Raiders will be a lame-duck franchise for the remainder of their stay in Oakland. The team reached the playoffs this past season and might have been a legitimate Super Bowl threat if Carr had not been hurt before the postseason.</p>
<p>“Our first choice was to try and find an answer in Oakland,” Houston Texans owner Robert McNair said. “Unfortunately we were not able to do that. And the plan that the Raiders now have to be in Nevada and Las Vegas is a very sound plan. It’s one that we’ve looked at very carefully and it meets all of our standards and financial conditions. And so we’re delighted for the Raiders. We think this could lead to a more stable franchise.”</p>
<p>– – –</p>
<p>Staff writer Liz Clarke contributed to this report from Phoenix.</p>
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By approving Raiders’ plan the NFL makes its move on Las Vegas
| false |
https://abqjournal.com/976968/nfl-approves-raiders-move-to-las-vegas.html
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2017-03-27
| 2 |
<p>Walter Mondale said people are “right to be scared” about President Donald Trump’s ability to launch nuclear weapons, the former vice president said in an interview with the <a href="https://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2017/08/i-don-t-know-why-you-wouldn-t-be-scared-former-vice-president-walter-mondale-" type="external">Minnesota Post.</a></p>
<p>The nation’s 42nd VP under Jimmy Carter is no fan of Trump’s, referring to him as a “crazy” and “very dangerous” president,” adding that he “has an appalling record of using lies,” and saying he thinks Trump “might just quit and go home.”</p>
<p>But top of mind for Mondale, 89, is the nukes, he told Minnesota Post, sharing an opinion mentioned last week by former director of national intelligence <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/james-clapper-donald-trump-nuclear-codes-phoenix/2017/08/23/id/809260/" type="external">James Clapper.</a></p>
<p>“You’re right to be scared. You’ve gotta be scared. I don’t know why you wouldn’t be scared,” Mondale told MinnPost.</p>
<p>Mondale told the Minnesota Post that when former President Richard Nixon started “to lose it, some of the key national security people in his administration organized a deal to block him from doing anything crazy,” he said.</p>
<p>“I don’t have any idea whether any of those conversations are going now, but my guess is, if he keeps this up, security officials in his administration might have an informal understanding about getting together if there’s a crisis and talk things over,” Mondale told the Minnesota Post. “If you’ve got a crazy president, I’ve got to assume that they will do whatever they can to slow things down.”</p>
<p>Mondale told the Post that Nixon, nevertheless, “was a brilliant man,” something Trump is not.</p>
<p>“You can’t find it, because it’s not there. I follow this guy as closely as I can and nothing rings true. He’s got some people there, mostly generals, who are maybe stable and strong that seem to be providing some stability but, boy, the rest of it is just a mess,” Mondale said of Trump.</p>
<p>“I don’t know the man, so I shouldn’t pretend to know what he might do. But he’s been quoted as saying this job is so tough that people are asking him why he puts up with it. He’s been quoted as saying that the White house is a dump. And he looks like a very lonesome, unsettled man,” Mondale said.</p>
<p>“I’m not predicting it, but what might happen is he’ll just quit and go home.”</p>
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Former VP Mondale: 'You're Right to Be Scared' About Trump With Nukes
| false |
https://newsline.com/former-vp-mondale-youre-right-to-be-scared-about-trump-with-nukes/
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2017-08-29
| 1 |
<p>They've both won the Copa America more times than anyone else. Fourteen times apiece to be exact.</p>
<p>Argentina, the home team, bears the weight of an <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/jun/30/argentina-copa-america-brazil" type="external">expectant nation</a>, frustrated by 18 years without a major tournament victory.</p>
<p>Uruguay, coming off a surprising semifinal run in last year's World Cup, didn't exactly sparkle in first-round play.</p>
<p>They come head to head tomorrow in the quarterfinals. Tune in at&#160;6:15 p.m. ET for this year's Battle of the Rio Plate.</p>
<p>Supporters of Argentina cheer on their team before a first-round match. (Omar Torres/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>A Uruguay fan cheers for her team before the start of a first-round match. (Alejandro Pagni/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>Argentine forward Gonzalo Higuain vies for the ball against Costa Rican defender Oscar Duarte. (Antonio Scorza/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>Uruguayan defender Diego Lugano runs for the ball during a first-round match against Mexico. (Daniel Garcia/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>The starting line-up for the Argentine national soccer team. (Cris Bouroncle/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>Uruguay's starting line-up poses with Suri, the Copa America mascot. (Daniel Garcia/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>Argentine goalkeeper Sergio Romero punches the ball during a match against Colombia.&#160;(Antonio Scorza/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>Uruguayan forward Diego Forlan heads the ball to the goal during a match against Chile.&#160;(Alejandro Pagni/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>Argentina's star player, forward Lionel Messi, prepares for a corner kick during a first-round match. (Daniel Garcia/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>Uruguay's star player, forward Diego Forlan, eyes the ball during a first-round match. (Rodrigo Arangua/AFP/Getty Images)&#160;</p>
<p><a href="http://twitter.com/#!/stephaniegarlow" type="external">Follow Stephanie on Twitter: @stephaniegarlow</a></p>
<p>Hannah McGoldrick contributed to this story.</p>
<p>#node-5670665 div.lead-media-photo {</p>
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Photos: Battle of the Rio Plate
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https://pri.org/stories/2011-07-15/photos-battle-rio-plate
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2011-07-15
| 3 |
<p>It was never in question that real estate mogul Donald Trump would win his home state of New York in next week's primary. But will he reach at least 50 percent statewide and in all 27 congressional district to take all 95 delegates? That may be in doubt.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/trump-poised-for-new-york-landslide-221985" type="external">Politico</a> reports that while Trump is poised for a landslide in New York, a new poll from Optimus shows Trump polling at 49 percent, followed by Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) at 24 percent and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) at 14 percent. Trump leads in all 27 districts, but he may not reach 50 percent in all of them. Trump is above 50 percent in five congressional districts, but it is within the margin of error in 14 states. Some upstate districts showed Trump polling at around 40 percent.</p>
<p>"The results suggest that Trump is poised to win, even on an only mediocre night, at least 65 delegates in New York," the report says. "A stronger evening would lift him to closer to 85 delegates or more. Trump’s campaign is banking on New York serving as a turning point after a big loss in Wisconsin earlier this month, and after delegate wipeouts at state conventions in Colorado and North Dakota."</p>
<p>Trump being unable to reach above the 50 percent threshold would be disastrous for his campaign, and this is certainly a real possibility. Outside of the Optimus poll, most of the polling data in New York shows Trump at or above 50 percent. But <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/04/trump-may-get-under-50-percent-new-york" type="external">Conservative Review</a>'s Rob Eno writes that two internal polls show Trump closer to the 46-48 percent range, and the current public polling data may be overstating Trump's support.</p>
<p>"In state after state, Trump’s support among registered Republicans has been lower than among Independents," writes Eno. "In New York, if you were a registered Independent, you needed to switch your party registration to Republican in October 2015 in order to vote in the primary for Trump on Tuesday. Trump’s own children, and one of his top surrogates Michael Cohen, failed to do so and can’t vote for Trump. If three of the members of Trump’s inner circle didn’t know about the registration law, it is highly probable that many of his fans did not either."</p>
<p>A new poll from Optimus shows Trump polling at 49 percent.</p>
<p>This is significant because, according to Eno, most polls only survey likely voters, and don't examine voter files for only Republican voters. As a result, many Trump supporters could be turned away from the voting booth on primary day if they're not registered Republicans. As a result, if enough of these voters are turned away and cause Trump to fall below 50 percent statewide, the 14 statewide delegates would handed out proportionally, with a 20-percent threshold. Each congressional district has three delegates at stake. If Trump gets above 50 percent, then he wins all three. But if he doesn't, he only wins two and the second-place finisher wins one.</p>
<p>Eno then runs through hypothetical delegate scenarios:</p>
<p>With a statewide win, Trump would win the 14 statewide delegates. With 17 district wins above 50 percent, and six districts with under 50 percent, and a second place finish in the remaining six districts, Trump would garner 81 delegates. Splitting the other wins and second place finishes could give Kasich eight and Cruz six. That is a very good scenario for Trump.</p>
<p>Here’s what happens if the election ends up Trump 49, Kasich 26 and Cruz 25. The statewide delegates are split Trump seven, Kasich four, and Cruz three. The number of districts Trump would win with over 50 percent could be cut in half, to nine for 27 instead of 51 delegates. Cruz and Kasich would pick up a significant amount of second place finishes in the districts. In that scenario, it is possible for Trump to finish with 64 delegates, Kasich 18, and Cruz 13.</p>
<p>The latter scenario would destroy the narrative that Trump would dominate the northeast, according to Eno, and would all but guarantee a contested convention.</p>
<p>New York's primary will be held on April 19.</p>
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So, How Will Trump Do In New York Next Week?
| true |
https://dailywire.com/news/4994/so-how-will-trump-do-new-york-next-week-aaron-bandler
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2016-04-15
| 0 |
<p><a href="" type="internal" />Every year without fail the “War On Christmas” begins once again, and every year without fail we see the same tired old memes and talking points from the same old sources about how we need to “Put Christ Back In Christmas.” Whether it’s <a href="" type="internal">Sarah Palin</a> hawking another lousy book which is released just in time for the Christmas shopping season (complete coincidence, I’m sure) or Bill O’Reilly’s <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/oreilly/2012/11/30/bill-oreilly-war-christmas-big-picture" type="external">annual kvetching</a> about the “Secular Progressive assaults on the traditions of Christmas” – enough is enough.</p>
<p>It’s not just these two self-promoting snake oil salespeople spreading misinformation for a buck – there’s millions of people out there who are actually convinced that people like myself and others who believe fully in the separation of church and state are coming for their Christmas. It’s also not a surprise that many of the same people think that Obamacare has death panels, that the government is coming to take their guns, or that gay marriage will somehow be a threat to their own heterosexual union.</p>
<p>Let’s be absolutely clear – there isn’t a “War On Christmas” and nobody is trying to outlaw the holiday. Nobody is going to come and seize your tree or take little Bobby’s presents from under it like The Grinch. This whole fake outrage is nothing more than a gimmick by opportunistic individuals to drive TV ratings and book sales. Christmas isn’t going anywhere; in fact, the holiday now seems to stretch from before Halloween until the dried out tree hits the curb around New Year’s Eve.</p>
<p>However, once upon a time, Christmas was banned – and it wasn’t by “godless atheist secular progressives,” either. Remember the Puritans who came to the New World in search of religious freedom? They <a href="https://theweek.com/article/index/222676/when-americans-banned-christmas" type="external">completely outlawed</a> Christmas in 1659, and even fined people who celebrated it:</p>
<p>Puritans in the English Parliament eliminated Christmas as a national holiday in 1645, amid widespread anti-Christmas sentiment. Settlers in New England went even further, outlawing Christmas celebrations entirely in 1659. Anyone caught shirking their work duties or feasting was forced to pay a significant penalty of five shillings. Christmas returned to England in 1660, but in New England it remained banned until the 1680s, when the Crown managed to exert greater control over its subjects in Massachusetts. In 1686, the royal governor of the colony, Sir Edmund Andros, sponsored a Christmas Day service at the Boston Town House. Fearing a violent backlash from Puritan settlers, Andros was flanked by redcoats as he prayed and sang Christmas hymns.</p>
<p />
<p>Yes, the “Christian values” that our nation was supposedly founded on did not include Christmas, and it wasn’t even made a federal holiday until 1870 when it was signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant.</p>
<p>So the next time some talking head on Fox News or your Republican uncle who believes every word they say tells you that “liberal secularists” are out to destroy Christmas, feel free to teach them some history. Remind them if it had been left up to the religious right, we may not have celebrated the holiday at all.</p>
<p>Screen capture image via <a href="http://www.foxnews.com" type="external">Fox News</a></p>
<p />
<p><a href="" type="internal">Stop Whining That We Need to Say 'Merry Christmas' When You Have No Idea What It Means</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">The War on Christmas: Brought to you by Fox News and Paranoid Republicans Everywhere</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Want To Put "Christ Back In Christmas"? Here's Where You Can Start</a></p>
<p>0 Facebook comments</p>
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“The War On Christmas” is a Big, Fat Lie
| true |
http://forwardprogressives.com/the-war-on-christmas-is-a-big-fat-lie/
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2013-12-04
| 4 |
<p />
<p>Mother Jones: Can you give a quick review of the “media chaos” scenario that you’ve been writing about?</p>
<p>Bob Garfield: Well, “chaos” envisions that the old media structure basically collapses because they are no longer economically viable due to fragmentation, technology, and so forth. Eventually, most media are distributed online and probably that we’re a long way from having the infrastructure online to support all media and all marketing and so forth, and that there is a period of chaos in which content has no place to live and marketers have nothing to underwrite because there just isn’t enough out there. That is chaos in a nutshell.</p>
<p>At the same time, obviously the Internet is expanding dramatically, and Web 2.0 has combined applications to make the web far more robust than it used to be. And politicians are obviously taking advantage of it. At least for this cycle, it’s certainly not going to displace television, because television happens to be one of the few remaining things that’s perfect for political advertising clustered around elections.</p>
<p>MJ: So you’re not predicting the death of the 30-second attack ad, at least not in the next two years?</p>
<p>BG: No, absolutely not. Unfortunately. It’s a blight on our democracy and our media environment, but no.</p>
<p>MJ: But is there any reason to believe that YouTube attack ads are going to be any better? Are we trading one blight for another?</p>
<p>BG: YouTube’s not a captive audience, obviously. You have to opt in, and people are not going to opt in with the same kind of slimeball attack. The Hillary thing, through the Obama aide, was very clever. I clicked on it to see it, because I wanted to see how well it was done. And the George Allen thing [“macaca”] was good because it was a smoking-gun video. Those are going to flourish on the Internet. But nobody is going to opt in to see somebody’s legislative votes misrepresented in an attack ad—because why would you?</p>
<p>MJ: So in the same way that you think that TV and advertising executives are freaking out about the shift from TV to the Internet, do you sense a similar mood among political consultants and the guys who make the attack ads?</p>
<p>BG: I think the guys who make the attacks ads are so busy making money that they haven’t given a whole lot of thought to their future. I certainly don’t care what happens to them. I hope they starve, to tell you the truth. If they think it through, they will see that they don’t have a future.</p>
<p>MJ: The future of political advertising is more decentralized and has more average people involved in making these videos or getting information out there. What does that mean for the future of campaigns?</p>
<p>BG: Political campaigns, like every other organization that dictates a message from the top down, will discover that the world will no longer accommodate them because we are now in a bottom-up world. Everything percolates to the top in the digital world. And while they may wish to finely craft and hone messages in order to distribute them to the masses, they’re going to discover that the masses are not paying much attention because they are too busy sending their own messages up.</p>
<p>Campaigns are all about delivering information, and now the sources of information are so many and varied and so better trusted on the Internet that the fundamental raison d’etre for political campaigns is on the verge of being irrelevant.</p>
<p>MJ: We’ve talked to other people who have said that they think that will happen and see that as a positive development in that candidates will no longer be marketed as products but will get to be real people and people will appreciate that, and are getting the sense that the average American really wants to see politicians as real people.</p>
<p>BG: Well, you have to understand that we are still talking about a narrow slice of the public here. The average American is only dimly aware of their politicians. About half of them have completely opted out of the political process whatsoever.</p>
<p>They are living in ignorance that is leveled slightly by vague notions which may or may not be accurate. And Americans, when they vote, vote more by feel than by issues and actual data. If you went to the polls and asked them what they knew about candidates’ legislative record or positions on certain issues, I think you would be appalled.</p>
<p>MJ: So does this really change anything if it’s still just the same elite who can spend all day online digesting this stuff going out and voting every couple of years?</p>
<p>BG: Yes, because the elite is the fuel that runs the engine. They are the ones who give the money, they are the ones who vote, and the ones who determine the nature of the debate. So maybe only 10 percent of the public is truly engaged, but that 10 percent really dominates and controls the discussion. And to the extent that the Internet becomes more and more a part of our daily lives, the 10 percent will grow somewhat, and their power and influence will grow, too.</p>
<p>MJ: Do you think there is any trickle down to people outside that 10 percent?</p>
<p>BG: As the Internet becomes second nature in everyone’s life, the power of information will prevail, and people with easy access to information will find themselves availing themselves. The Internet is all about information, and I just don’t see how the net of this could be anything other than a public that is more informed.</p>
<p>MJ: Are there any downsides to this shift?</p>
<p>BG: There’s hardly any downside, really. There is the risk of people putting abstract, filthy lies like the Swift Boat campaign on the Internet and just torpedoing campaigns with something invented from whole cloth. But that’s pretty much the status quo on TV. It’s not as though it can get a whole lot worse.</p>
<p>MJ: What do you think the most exciting use of new technologies in politics is?</p>
<p>BG: The upside-down nature of the Internet. Politicians in the future will have to listen carefully. And not to the stupid focus groups that help them do what is most politically expedient five minutes before an election. That’s over. Now they can actually find out what people are thinking in a very granular way. It’s going to reverse the power flow.</p>
<p>The coolest application to me is still the fact that if I’ve got a cell phone, and a little bit of patience, I can catch somebody doing something that proves he’s a liar or a hypocrite or just a bad guy. We’ll see a rise in people getting totally caught being politicians, which will be fun, and probably pretty enlightening. Maybe politicians will realize that since they cannot control every word, thought, and action, they might actually have to be honest with themselves and everyone else.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p><a href="/interview/2007/07/index.html" type="external">More Interviews</a> &lt;&lt; &gt;&gt; <a href="/news/feature/2007/07/fight_different.html" type="external">Politics 2.0 Index</a></p>
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Interview with Bob Garfield: Advertising Age Columnist and On the Media Co-host
| true |
https://motherjones.com/politics/2007/06/interview-bob-garfield-advertising-age-columnist-and-media-co-host/
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2007-06-29
| 4 |
<p>CRANSTON, R.I. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Thursday evening’s drawing of the Rhode Island Lottery’s “Wild Money” game were:</p>
<p>01-11-14-18-23, Extra: 35</p>
<p>(one, eleven, fourteen, eighteen, twenty-three; Extra: thirty-five)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $198,000</p>
<p>CRANSTON, R.I. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Thursday evening’s drawing of the Rhode Island Lottery’s “Wild Money” game were:</p>
<p>01-11-14-18-23, Extra: 35</p>
<p>(one, eleven, fourteen, eighteen, twenty-three; Extra: thirty-five)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $198,000</p>
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Winning numbers drawn in ‘Wild Money’ game
| false |
https://apnews.com/f8087060d4654d33a184b96b638795ea
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2018-01-12
| 2 |
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<p />
<p>I just witnessed one of these “cuts” that increases violence in America, this one being bigger than most, and it was right here at home in New Mexico, inflicted by the state Senate Conservation Committee in a hearing about a bill to ban trapping on public land.</p>
<p>First, let’s all acknowledge one thing like adults: Trapping is violent and cruel. Forget the spin, the BS. Trapping is cruel, period. It fits one definition of torture.</p>
<p>And that issue, that trapping is cruel, and the danger it presents to the public, are the only issues of contention from the opponents of trapping. Just that. Remember that as you read the rest of this.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Sadly, in all the discussions by and between those senators on the Senate Conservation Committee about SB 286 to ban trapping on public land, none mentioned cruelty or danger. (The bill is being re-worked in the committee.)</p>
<p>Of all the seven senators from this committee that were there, none of them even mentioned the words. You’d think that at least one would say something like “but this trapping is cruel, folks.” But no, they wouldn’t. So I will.</p>
<p>But I won’t tell you about my experience with my dog stepping in a trap, while on a leash, on public land, me being not 2 feet from it myself. It was bad. We’ve all heard hundreds of such experiences for decades now – decades.</p>
<p>Trapping perpetuates cruelty and violence in America. Violence begets violence.</p>
<p>Trapping only benefits a tiny minority of residents, while it is a clear and present danger to many thousands of citizens and tourists and children and their pets.</p>
<p>Trapping sends the wrong message to our youngsters – that inflicting cruelty for money is OK. Studies have concluded that children who are cruel to animals are far more likely to perpetrate domestic violence as adults.</p>
<p>As for the financial impact, trapping accounts for only about $40,000 from licenses yearly.</p>
<p>I should also add that state government even increased the amount of trapping allowable on public land recently.</p>
<p>And here we have seven highly intelligent state senators, all of whom have admirably chosen to serve the common good. But they can’t even say the word “cruelty.” These senators had a chance to reduce the amount of cruelty, and therefore violence, in New Mexico, and thus in America, too. But they wouldn’t even speak the word.</p>
<p>I ask that you pray for these seven Senators, or make a wish if you prefer, that they mature in their morality. Otherwise, violence in New Mexico and America will continue to increase rather than decrease. Especially when senators can’t even say the words.</p>
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Senators can’t even say the word ‘cruelty’
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<p />
<p />
<p>Shareholders of Yahoo will vote on June 8 to decide whether to sell the company's internet business to Verizon Communication for $4.48 billion. A vote for a yes would end the unsuccessful five-year effort to restore the internet pioneer to greatness.</p>
<p>Marissa Mayer, Yahoo's chief executive was considered to be the worst CEO in modern tech company history.</p>
<p />
<p>She will be well compensated for her failure. Mayer stock options and restricted stock units on Yahoo stock are worth a total of $186 million based on Monday's stock price of $48.15 ad could change. This was according to data filed on Monday in the documents sent to shareholders about the Verizon deal.</p>
<p />
<p>Her compensation does not include her salary and bonuses over the past five years and the value of the other stock which Mayer already sold.</p>
<p>As a penalty for Mayer's management team's failure to act on a 2014 breach of the company's systems that led to the theft of data on 500 million users, Mayer gave up her additional equity compensation that she would have received in 2017.</p>
<p />
<p>Four people, including two Russian intelligence officials, were charged last month with the said crime by the federal government.</p>
<p />
<p>Mayer's payout was based on the 208 percent increase in Yahoo's stock price since she left Google for Yahoo in 2012. Yahoo's stock price increased because of the continuation of Yahoo's business code email, news, and search; a long-held investment with China's leading e-commerce Company, Alibaba and Yahoo Japan, an affiliated company controlled by SoftBank.</p>
<p />
<p>Yahoo's sale to Verizon will leave the two investments along with other assets like the patent portfolio in a new company called Altaba. The management seeks to unlock a $44 billion stake in Alibaba and $9.5 billion stake in Yahoo Japan while minimizing a $15 billion tax bill that Yahoo estimated due on an outright sale.</p>
<p>Altaba will be led by Yahoo director Thomas McInerney, McInerney led the Verizon sale process.</p>
<p>Yahoo invested in Snap that owns 4.6 million shares valued at $98 million. Yahoo also owns Hortonworks, Paperless and SeatGeek stakes.</p>
<p />
<p>The data breach in 2014 prompted Yahoo and Verizon to renegotiate their original deal last July and eventually agreed to cut the price by $350 million.</p>
<p />
<p>Source:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/24/technology/marissa-mayer-will-make-186-million-on-yahoos-sale-to-verizon.html?_r=0" type="external">nytimes.com/2017/04/24/technology/marissa-mayer-will-make-186-million-on-yahoos-sale-to-verizon.html?_r=0</a></p>
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Marissa Mayer will make $186 Million on Yahoo's Sale to Verizon
| true |
http://thegoldwater.com/news/2498-Marissa-Mayer-will-make-186-Million-on-Yahoo-s-Sale-to-Verizon
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2017-04-25
| 0 |
<p>By Jeremey DuVall for <a href="http://dailyburn.com/life/?partner=dailybeast&amp;mtype=5&amp;utm_source=dailybeast" type="external">Life by DailyBurn</a></p>
<p>The words "big, strong heart" likely bring to mind examples of suffering through emotional breakups, offering kindness to strangers, and giving out the perfect cards on Valentine's Day. Of course, the heart has more value than just providing a fictional center for all things love-related. It plays a crucial role in our overall health. Since the heart is responsible for transporting blood and nutrients throughout the rest of the body, a weak or untrained heart can mean problems down the road.</p>
<p>To keep the heart in tiptop shape, you might think that means miles upon <a href="http://dailyburn.com/life/fitness/new-cardio-routines/" type="external">miles on a treadmill</a> or a grueling hour locked away in a spin class. While those are certainly excellent examples of training methods that can strengthen the heart, cardiovascular training (training meant to improve the heart and lungs) actually incorporates much more than meets the eye. "Traditional methods of developing the cardiovascular system are commonly limited to cyclical exercise," says <a href="http://www.jkconditioning.com/" type="external">Jon-Erik Kawamoto</a>, MS, CPT, personal trainer and owner of JK Conditioning in St. John's, Newfoundland. "Resistance training circuits are my go-to cardiovascular workout for the average user because trainees not only develop their cardiovascular system, they also develop proper movement patterns, improve mobility and full-body coordination, and lastly develop muscle and strength," Kawamoto says.</p>
<p>In fact, a newer method of training, heart rate training, that bases intensity levels off of an individual's heart rate, is now making it possible to get the same great workout from a run, ride, or even a lifting session. According to Kawamoto, "Heart rate training provides more focus, structure, guidance and potentially more motivation for your cardiovascular workouts." For slackers, they now have an exact method to determine when it's time for the next set. And for the overachievers, a heart rate monitor may provide the perfect tool to help them reign in their enthusiasm and pace themselves throughout a workout.</p>
<p>Here are six training methods to get a great cardiovascular workout that will kick your heart into high gear.</p>
<p>Heart-Healthy Workouts</p>
<p>1. Interval Training</p>
<p>Perhaps one of the most popular cardiovascular training methods on the market, <a href="http://dailyburn.com/workout_videos/inferno-intervals" type="external">interval training</a> combines short periods of rest with max effort bursts of activity. Benefits include getting in a quick workout and building up your capacity for intense work. On the bright side, these workouts tend to be short and sweet. On the other hand, they're usually extremely tough (so maybe not so "sweet" after all).</p>
<p>Get Moving: Get the structure and precision of heart rate training without leaving your living room with <a href="http://dailyburn.com/inferno" type="external">DailyBurn's Inferno HR</a> program. Launching in December, this program offers live heart rate feedback in real-time on your TV screen, alongside a new high-intensity training program. Plus, it provides the perfect combination of flexibility (you can do it from almost anywhere) and intensity.</p>
<p>2. Group Fitness Classes</p>
<p>If the thought of pushing the limits by yourself isn't enough to get you going, <a href="http://dailyburn.com/totalcardio" type="external">group fitness classes</a> provide a perfect opportunity to elevate your fitness level using motivation from others. Plus, class variations ensure there is something for everyone. Kick, spin, jump, and yes, even dance, your way to a stronger heart. Good instructors can usually tailor a class to fit any ability level, and there's always the opportunity to meet a new workout buddy!</p>
<p>Get Moving: To find the perfect class for you, check with your local gym to see what types are offered, then drop by a few that fit into your schedule. Be sure to try out several instructors before settling on one (or more) to frequent. Also, don't be afraid to ask questions, both to the instructor and other participants. The goal is to find a group environment that makes you feel comfortable while getting in a great workout!</p>
<p>Start and finish your day with the top stories from The Daily Beast.</p>
<p>A speedy, smart summary of all the news you need to know (and nothing you don't).</p>
<p>3. Organized Races</p>
<p>Looking for a way to kick-start a cardiovascular training program? It's hard to beat the motivation of a race entry fee, finish line, and a stopwatch. Races, including <a href="http://dailyburn.com/life/fitness/best-marathons-fall/" type="external">running</a> (road and off-road), biking, swimming, and a combination of all three, are a great way to get moving. Alongside a friendly dose of competition, races also offer a huge element of camaraderie and an opportunity to meet like-minded individuals and potential training partners.</p>
<p>Get Moving: While it's easy to get caught up in the excitement of racing, doing too much too soon could lead to injury. To pace yourself, check out the <a href="http://www.c25k.com/" type="external">Couch-2-5k</a>. By taking users through a progressive plan, the program ensures that participants don't push too hard, too soon. One caveat: the training mainly provides distance guidelines so it's up to participants to monitor their heart rate and intensity levels.</p>
<p>4. Lifting Weights</p>
<p>Get a cardio workout in while lifting weights! The idea seems a bit out of whack, but by planning rest periods appropriately, lifters can get a significant cardio boost from their weight session. To amp up heart rate in the weight room, incorporate total-body movements with limited rest in between sets.</p>
<p>Get Moving: Whether you're familiar with weight training or brand new, the best option is probably to get some professional help. Working with a certified trainer will help make sure that you're doing the exercises correctly and pairing them appropriately. Don't want to go one-on-one with a trainer? Try any of DailyBurn's <a href="http://tracker.dailyburn.com/training_plans" type="external">strength training programs</a> for the right amount of freedom (do them on your time) and guidance.</p>
<p>5. Long, Slow Cardio</p>
<p>Slow doesn't always equate to ineffective. Occasionally, an easier workout is just what your body needs. Although it will take a longer amount of time to burn the same amount of calories as an interval session, lower-intensity cardio still offers important benefits like building the aerobic system and promoting recovery. And while it may be tempting to go hard all the time, don't eliminate this important form of cardiovascular exercise from your workout altogether!</p>
<p>Get Moving: To find the right combination of long and fun, consider checking out local <a href="http://www.rrca.org/find-a-running-club/" type="external">running</a> or <a href="http://www.usacycling.org/clubs/" type="external">riding</a> groups. Most towns have a group of link-minded individuals that head out in the mornings for a sweat session complete with great company. These clubs usually also get discounted entry into local races and potential discounts at local retail stores (new workout gear!).</p>
<p>As with any workout program, it's important to experiment with different variations to find out what works best for you. However, with the availability of heart rate training and the numerous workout tools at your disposal, cardio training shouldn't mean mindless hours spent on <a href="http://dailyburn.com/life/fitness/worst-exercise-machines/" type="external">workout machines</a>. Open your routine up to an endless variety of exercises, any of which can give you a great cardiovascular workout - when done with enough intensity, of course!</p>
<p>MORE FROM DAILYBURN</p>
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Five Smarter Ways to Train Your Heart
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https://thedailybeast.com/five-smarter-ways-to-train-your-heart
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2018-10-06
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<p />
<p>The Czech people are about to have a right re-instated that the overwhelming majority of their fellow Europeans don’t have. Specifically that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”</p>
<p>Sound familiar? It should. Those are the very words of our Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.</p>
<p>For the law-abiding people of the Czech Republic, after decades of Nazi and then Communist totalitarian repression, the central European nation will finally have the right to protect their hearth and home.</p>
<p>Even then, the right of the people to keep and bear arms is based on the Czechs’ realization that despite years of European Union interference, repressive gun control simply doesn’t work.</p>
<p>Perhaps stating it best would be reporter <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/czech-parliaments-aims-shoot-down-european-gun-control" type="external">Ilya Shapiro of the CATO Institute</a> who recently penned;</p>
<p>As a wave of Islamist terror attacks sweep across Europe, London police urge people to “run, hide, tell”. The Czech Republic’s response? Fight back.</p>
<p>And fighting back is exactly what the Czechs intend to do. While the rest of Europe wallows in even more gun control being passed in the European Parliament, the Czech’s Lower House of Parliament (Poslanecká sněmovna: Chamber of Deputies) have voted 139-9 to send the bill to the nation’s Senate, according to the Prague newspaper&#160;Hospodářské Noviny (Economics News).</p>
<p>As cited by the news service, “The authors of the constitutional draft look forward to a greater involvement of legal gun owners to aid in the defense of the country. They should help as appropriate, especially in case of terrorist attacks, in which they could intervene before the arrival of armed authorities.”</p>
<p>In a well-thought through and forceful apologia of personal responsibility and self-protection, Shapiro also noted;</p>
<p>The Czech parliament is working to liberalize the country’s gun laws, allowing people to better defend themselves. The reason for this new policy is safety, as well as practicality; in light of recent attacks in neighboring countries, the Czech government recognizes that disarming people puts them in danger, and that broad European gun control policies are ineffective. The Interior Minister said it best when he asked parliament to “show [him] a single terrorist attack in Europe perpetrated using a legally-owned weapon”.</p>
<p>In contrast, the European Union’s answer to terror is as counterintuitive as it is feckless. France has spearheaded efforts to ban all “military-style” rifles – AR and AK-style rifles, not to be confused with those capable of automatic fire, commonly</p>
<p>referred to as “machine guns” – from Europe. As my colleague&#160;Dan Mitchell&#160;has noted, the EU is violating its own commitment to state sovereignty in favor of radical, unsuccessful gun prohibition.</p>
<p>Despite strict gun control in France, Islamic radicals were still able to obtain rifles and kill 17 people in the Charlie Hebdo attack of 2015. More recently, in places like Nice and London, terrorists have worked around gun restrictions by using trucks and other vehicles to kill civilians.</p>
<p>The Czech Republic, which already boasts 800,000 registered firearms and 300,000 licensed gun owners, is taking proactive steps to avoid their citizens becoming victims without a means of defending themselves. The new measure is a protest against the self-destructive dogma of European gun control and in favor of civil liberties and self-empowerment.</p>
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Islamist Terrorism: Czech Republic to legalize private gun ownership
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http://conservativefiringline.com/islamist-terrorism-czech-republic-legalize-private-gun-ownership/
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2017-06-29
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<p>Russell Simmons is facing a lawsuit from a documentary filmmaker who claims that he raped her at his home in 2016. Jennifer Jarosik alleges that the hip-hop mogul invited her to his house on Doheny Drive in Los Angeles and then asked her to have sex. When she said no, he became aggressive and pushed […]</p>
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Russell Simmons Facing Lawsuit for Alleged Rape of Documentary Filmmaker
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https://newsline.com/russell-simmons-facing-lawsuit-for-alleged-rape-of-documentary-filmmaker/
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2018-01-25
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The U.S. Marshals Service will be auctioning 38 vehicles at 10 a.m. Friday at Apple Towing Company/Dugger Services, 7601 San Pedro Dr. NE, Albuquerque, according to a news release.</p>
<p>The vehicles, seized due to illegal activities, are valued at a total of $271,344.50, according to the marshals service.</p>
<p>You can see detailed photos of the vehicles at <a href="http://www.appletowing.com/teamappleauctions/Auctions/New%20Mexico/auctions_albuquerque.htm" type="external">www.appletowing.com</a>, and previews will be held from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday and from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. Friday at the auction site.</p>
<p>Registration to participate in the auction can be done during preview hours, according to the news release.</p>
<p>“This important program enhances law enforcement cooperation between state, local and federal agencies, as well as strips criminals of their ill-gotten gains,” New Mexico’s U.S. Marshal Conrad Candelaria said in the release.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
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Marshals’ auto auction in ABQ on Friday
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2013-05-15
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<p>Whether it’s Christmas or an anniversary, it’s always the same story. Guy wants to buy jewelry for his girlfriend or wife; guy is confronted with paralyzing fear: where do I even begin?</p>
<p>Enter <a href="http://latestrevival.com/" type="external">Latest Revival</a>, an online luxury retailer specifically for jewelry. The glossy site, which launched last week, offers everything from high-end baubles (such as Cartier, Van Cleef, and Buccellati) to pieces of the more contemporary variety -- such as those by cult favorites <a href="http://latestrevival.com/designers/gaia-repossi" type="external">Gaia Repossi</a> and <a href="http://latestrevival.com/products/delfina-delettrez-addolorata-collar-and-heart" type="external">Delfina Delettrez</a>.</p>
<p>It’s the brainchild of Dalia Oberlander, a native New Yorker who worked at Sotheby’s, and who brings a high-fashion and art sensibility to the site. “It’s a destination where you can find all statement-based pieces in one location rather than going across the different channels and scouting them out,” she tells The Daily Beast. She’s filled the site with a hand-picked mix of estate jewelry (with some prices as steep as $60,000) to more trend-focused pieces, which retail for as low as $150. “It’s an approachable way in which to enter into collecting because it offers different price points,” she says.</p>
<p>Auction houses and jewelry dealers might be intimidating to some – but that’s where Oberlander sources many of her finds. Every month, she features a different sale: for September the focus is vintage Chanel, and in October there will be a combination of vintage Yves Saint Laurent and Lanvin. (Her favorite piece is a sparkling <a href="http://latestrevival.com/products/1960-cartier-diamond-bypass-ring-in-18k" type="external">18-karat diamond bypass ring from 1960</a>.)</p>
<p>And while some of the jewels might be a little pricey to purchase online, Oberlander invites clients to come into her New York showroom to try things on (besides, who knows if the ring will really fit?). Similarly, she offers a little bit of hand-holding for shoppers who have an idea of what they want (or want to buy for their significant others) but don’t know where, or how, to find it. “Jewelry is such a personal thing,” she says. “It’s so special to everyone who acquires it. And I’d love to be part of that story.”</p>
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Jewelry's New One-Stop Shop
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https://thedailybeast.com/jewelrys-new-one-stop-shop
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2018-10-02
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<p>WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has told the leaders of Mexico and Canada that he will not immediately pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement. That came just hours after administration officials said he was considering a draft executive order to do just that.</p>
<p>The White House made the surprise announcement Wednesday in a read-out of calls involving Trump, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.</p>
<p>The White House said “the leaders agreed to proceed swiftly, according to their required internal procedures,” to work on renegotiating the deal.</p>
<p>Trump said he believes “the end result will make all three countries stronger and better.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
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White House says Trump won’t immediately pull out of NAFTA
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https://abqjournal.com/994215/white-house-says-trump-wont-immediately-pull-out-of-nafta.html
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2017-04-27
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<p>You knew it was just a matter of time, didn’t you? &#160;Liberals always somehow manage to blame the Tea Party for what ails the country, no matter how ridiculous the leap in logic.</p>
<p />
<p>Fortunately for MSNBC, they’ve hired a whole slew of ridiculously ideological, far left, and unintelligent people to host their shows.</p>
<p />
<p>Take for instance Ed Schultz, an MSNBC Host who consistently injures his knuckles every time he walks.</p>
<p />
<p>Schultz went on air and somehow managed to blame the heavily armored police presence in Ferguson on anti-government hate groups.</p>
<p />
<p>Using my trusty Liberal-English dictionary, I see that anti-government hate groups equates to the Tea Party, or conservatives in general.</p>
<p />
<p>In the midst of running footage of the chaos in Ferguson, Schultz asked his guest, “What about the (police) equipment?”</p>
<p />
<p>Rather than making a coherent comment regarding the police force and the necessity of such equipment, Schultz moved on to a different reason law enforcement would need the armor.</p>
<p />
<p>“The Department of Homeland Security recently came out with a report saying that the biggest threat to our security is here within our own borders. &#160; There’s a lot of anti-government groups that have popped up in this country, hate groups that have popped up in this country. &#160;And law enforcement in some respects feels pretty much outgunned and they want to be prepared.”</p>
<p>Got that? &#160;Police force, police armor, and a heavy police presence in the midst of race riots in Ferguson are all due to you wanting less taxes and limited government.</p>
<p />
<p>Watch…</p>
<p />
<p />
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Insane: Ferguson Police Armor Blamed On Tea Party?
| true |
http://thepoliticalinsider.com/insane-ferguson-police-armor-blamed-tea-party/
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2014-08-20
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<p>The arrival of <a href="" type="internal">Zika virus</a> in Brazil doubled the rate of birth defects involving the nervous system, including microcephaly, researchers reported Wednesday.</p>
<p>Rates of Guillain-Barré syndrome — a rare, paralyzing side-effect of some infections — nearly tripled, the researchers said. And rates of other inflammatory conditions such as encephalitis doubled in the northeastern part of Brazil that was hardest hit by Zika.</p>
<p>Separately, the World Health Organization <a href="http://www.who.int/emergencies/zika-virus/causality/en/" type="external">tweaked its statement on Zika</a> and the rise in rates of birth defects and Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), saying the virus is the “most likely explanation” for both.</p>
<p>For their report, the team at Brazil’s Oswaldo Cruz Foundation looked at rates of birth defects, GBS and nervous system inflammatory conditions before and after the arrival of Zika virus.</p>
<p>Related: <a href="" type="internal">US Agencies Run Out of Zika Money</a></p>
<p>“Beginning in mid-2014, we observed an unprecedented and significant rise in the hospitalization rate for congenital malformations of the nervous system, Guillain-Barré syndrome, encephalitis, myelitis, and encephalomyelitis,” the organization explained in the report, which was published in the Center for Disease Control and Prevention journal <a href="http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/22/11/16-0901_article" type="external">Emerging Infectious Diseases.</a></p>
<p>“We found increases in the number of hospitalizations for congenital malformations of the nervous system, GBS, and some inflammatory diseases of the central nervous system. These complications began to cause more hospitalizations, with strong fluctuations over the course of the study period, beginning even before the first warning in November 2015 about the possible effects of infection with Zika virus on microcephaly and other malformations.”</p>
<p>Zika has swept across much of Latin America and the Caribbean, and there’s no doubt that it can cause birth defects that permanently damage the brain and cause miscarriages. The virus invades brain and nervous system tissue, with catastrophic effects in a developing fetus.</p>
<p>Like other infections, it can also cause Guillain-Barré, which causes usually temporary paralysis, and on very rare occasions, other inflammations of the nervous system.</p>
<p>Zika’s also arrived in south Florida, infecting at least 56 people locally. Thousands of travelers have carried the virus to the U.S.</p>
<p>Related: <a href="" type="internal">More Evidence Zika Goes Straight to the Brain</a></p>
<p>It’s spread mostly by mosquitos but also through sex.</p>
<p>Christovam Barcellos and colleagues in Brazil looked at data from Brazil’s hard-hit northeastern region. Before 2014, about 40 out of every 100,000 babies born there had birth defects affecting their nervous systems, including their brains.</p>
<p>After Zika’s arrival, this rate quadrupled to 170 per 100,000 births. By February of this year, the rate of such birth defects across Brazil had doubled, the team reported.</p>
<p>Similarly, rates of Guillain-Barré syndrome soared.</p>
<p>“In the Northeast region, the hospitalization rate for GBS was 0.05 per 100,000 residents until May 2015, when an outbreak occurred, which peaked in July 2015,” they wrote.</p>
<p>“From June 2015 through February 2016, the hospitalization rate was 0.11 per 100,000 residents, an increase by a factor of 2.7.”</p>
<p>Related: <a href="" type="internal">Guillain-Barre Skyrocketed as Zika Spread</a></p>
<p>There was a similar increase in rarer nervous system conditions, including encephalitis, myelitis, and encephalomyelitis, the team found. These are inflammations of the brain and spinal cord that can be deadly.</p>
<p>The researchers say it’s possible that other factors help Zika cause such devastating effects, including other infections such as Zika’s cousins dengue virus and chikungunya virus, which were also circulating in Brazil’s northeast.</p>
<p>“The region had one of the worst droughts in its history, during 2010–2013, resulting in contamination of drinking water, food insecurity, and outbreaks of diarrhea across the region, which could have affected the immunity status of the population,” they wrote.</p>
<p>Related: <a href="" type="internal">Zika Funding Fails Again in Congress</a></p>
<p>WHO’s expert panel on Zika said it’s worth at least ruling out this possibility.</p>
<p>“The expert panel recognizes that Zika virus alone may not be sufficient to cause either congenital brain abnormalities or GBS. It is not known whether these effects depend on as yet uncharacterized co-factors being present. Nor is it known whether dengue virus plays a part; dengue virus is carried by the same species of mosquito and has circulated in many countries during the same period,” WHO said in the statement posted Wednesday.</p>
<p>But WHO also said Zika at the very least plays an important role in causing GBS and birth defects.</p>
<p>“The most likely explanation of available evidence from outbreaks of Zika virus infection and clusters of microcephaly is that Zika virus infection during pregnancy is a cause of congenital brain abnormalities including microcephaly,” it said.</p>
<p>“The most likely explanation of available evidence from outbreaks of Zika virus infection and Guillain-Barré syndrome in whole populations is that Zika virus infection is a trigger of Guillain-Barré syndrome.”</p>
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Zika Doubled Birth Defect Rate in Brazil, Study Shows
| false |
http://nbcnews.com/storyline/zika-virus-outbreak/zika-doubled-birth-defect-rate-brazil-study-shows-n644196
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2016-09-09
| 3 |
<p>CJR | NPR What advice does Dan Okrent have for Barney Calame, the next NYT ombud? "Blame everything on me!," he says. "Yeah, I will have a lot of advice. There are some people on the staff I will warn him about. I will recommend certain systems I have set up for dealing with things. On the other hand, it’s quite possible that he will approach the job quite differently, and that’s fine." PLUS: <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4645068" type="external">Listen</a> to Okrent's "Talk of the Nation" chat.</p>
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Okrent plans to warn new ombud about some NYT staffers
| false |
https://poynter.org/news/okrent-plans-warn-new-ombud-about-some-nyt-staffers
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2005-05-10
| 2 |
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>A high school football game came to an abrupt end when the coach of Moncton high school's football team in New Brunswick, Canada said he was forced to forfeit the game. The coach cited several of his players had suffered head injuries and were showing signs of concussion as the reason for the forfeiture.</p>
<p>Marcel Metti is the coach of the team that forfeited, the "cole L'Odyss"e Olympiens, and he says nine of his players received blows to the head significant enough to warrant hospital visits in many as a precaution. Metti did not confirm how exactly the players were injured saying, "I'm not going to get into that. It's part of the football game," but he did say he spoke with the referees and the coach of the opposing team, the Titans', about the forfeiture. The Titans were leading the game 35-0 and the "cole L'Odyss"e Olympiens forfeit halfway through.</p>
<p>The coach of the Titans' insists his team was playing by the rules and no penalty's were issued for any wrongdoing by any of the Titans' players. The Titans' coach also said if any of their players were injured it was because their coaches failed to prepare them. He went on to say, "They were outmatched, that's as simple as it was. That's how football is."</p>
<p>On Twitter:</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/ErvinProduction" type="external">@ErvinProduction</a></p>
<p>Tips? Info? Send me a message!</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/new-brunswick/football-game-head-injuries-olympiens-titans-1.4355765" type="external">cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/new-brunswick/football-game-head-injuries-olympiens-titans-1.4355765</a></p>
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9 High School Football Players Suffered Head Injuries In One Game
| true |
http://thegoldwater.com/news/9685-9-High-School-Football-Players-Suffered-Head-Injuries-In-One-Game
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2017-10-15
| 0 |
<p />
<p>Image source: IBM.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>IT giant International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM) has paid investors uninterrupted quarterly dividends since 1916, and it has increased that dividend for 21 years in a row. The latest dividend hike, which was in April of this year, boosted the quarterly payment to $1.40 per share. That's an 8% increase compared to the prior payment.</p>
<p>IBM has ramped up its dividend over the past decade, turning what was once a lackluster dividend stock into one of the best in the technology sector. The quarterly dividend has grown from just $0.30 per share in 2006, a nearly fivefold increase that, combined with a slumping stock price over the past few years, has pushed IBM's dividend yield up to around 3.5%.</p>
<p><a href="http://ycharts.com/companies/IBM/dividend_yield" type="external">IBM Dividend Yield (TTM) Opens a New Window.</a> data by <a href="http://ycharts.com" type="external">YCharts Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>With IBM's dividend already more generous than many of its big tech peers, is another dividend increase coming next year? Almost certainly.</p>
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<p>Despite IBM's ongoing transformation, which has knocked down revenue and profit over the past few years, the company remains a cash flow machine. IBM expects to produce about $12 billion of free cash flow this year, the bulk of which will be returned to shareholders.</p>
<p>The current $1.40-per-share quarterly dividend costs IBM about $5.35 billion each year, or 44.6% of the company's expected free cash flow. It's important to note that this free cash flow number is depressed; when and if IBM returns to growth, free cash flow should start to recover as well.</p>
<p>IBM has also been spending heavily on acquisitions. Through the first nine months of this year, IBM has spent $5.4 billion on acquisitions, more than six times as much as it spent during the same period last year. IBM has been building out its cloud capabilities with some of these purchases, adding companies like Ustream and Sanovi Technologies. Others represent big bets on specific areas. Truven Health Analytics and Promontory Financial Group further IBM's plan to push Watson, its cognitive computing system, into various industries with long-term growth potential.</p>
<p>Share repurchases also eat up billions of dollars, but IBM has slowed the pace of buybacks in recent years. The company spent more than $10 billion on buybacks annually from 2011 through 2014, but it has since shifted its priorities. Reducing its share count by 2% to 3% each year is the new plan, representing between $3 billion and $4.5 billion of spending annually.</p>
<p>I suspect that IBM's pace of acquisitions will slow down a bit in 2017, given how much the company has spent this year. And share buybacks can be shifted up and down at will. CFO Martin Schroeter had this to say during IBM's latest earnings conference call:"We will absolutely continue to grow the dividend, and then to the extent that we have excess capital to return, we will return it. And over the long term, that number from a share repurchase would be a 2% to 3% reduction."</p>
<p>Growing the dividend comes first, which should be music to dividend investors' ears.</p>
<p>IBM has been consistent with its annual dividend increases, keeping the same schedule for the past 15 years, even throughout the financial crisis. If that schedule holds, an announcement will come in late April or early May, with a record date around May 10 and a payable date around June 10. Investors will receive two more dividend payments before any increase, assuming nothing unexpected happens. The first will be paid on Dec. 10, and the second will be paid around March 10.</p>
<p>The size of next year's dividend increase is an open question. Given the fact that IBM's profits are still in decline, a double-digit increase may be too much to ask for. A mid- to high-single-digit increase seems like the most likely scenario; a new quarterly payment of $1.50 per share would be a nice even number.</p>
<p>IBM will almost certainly raise its dividend next year, rewarding shareholders for sticking around as it works to transform itself into a cloud- and cognitive-computing powerhouse. The increase may be smaller than in in the past, but with a dividend yield already greater than that of many other large technology companies, investors should have little reason to complain.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than IBM 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=c4c42df1-507a-4b7b-8848-f3907375b8cb&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 IBM 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=c4c42df1-507a-4b7b-8848-f3907375b8cb&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 Nov. 7, 2016</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFBargainBin/info.aspx" type="external">Timothy Green Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of IBM. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=isiedilnk018048&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/motley.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
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Will International Business Machines Corp. Raise Its Dividend in 2017?
| true |
http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/08/28/will-international-business-machines-corp-raise-its-dividend-in-2017.html
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2016-12-06
| 0 |
<p>Ah, the hypocrisy is so thick with liberals! It is just sickening!</p>
<p>Enter New Yorker Charlie Rangel. Democrat in the House of Representatives.</p>
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<p>He has been serving in the House since 1971.</p>
<p>Raised in Harlem, schooled at New York University and St. Johns University.</p>
<p>Breaking news updates and daily headlines from a news source you can trust.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>It is clear by his remarks on the Second Amendment that it has been some time since he has had to worry about the safety of himself or his family.</p>
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<p>The recent Las Vegas tragedy, in which 58 individuals lost their lives at the trigger finger of Stephen Paddock, has reignited debate over gun control legislation.</p>
<p>And <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/22/rangel-no-guns-for-americans-but-i-need-police-protection-audio/" type="external">last Monday in New York</a> — in Rangel’s backyard — “four NYPD officials were arrested for accepting trips, expensive gifts and prostitutes from two Brooklyn men in exchange for police escorts, privileged access and gun licenses.”</p>
<p>This, combined with the Vegas tragedy, raises questions as to who should have access to guns, concealed carry permits, licenses, etc.</p>
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<p>According to Rangel, law-abiding Americans do not need guns.</p>
<p>Period. Not for recreational hunting, not for protection. Not for anything.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://ijr.com/the-declaration/2017/10/993514-dem-charlie-rangel-says-law-abiding-citizens-dont-need-guns-stuns-asked-deserves/" type="external">Independent Journal Review</a>:</p>
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<p>Rangel told the Daily Caller he was “glad” to hear that it was difficult to get a concealed permit in his home state of New York. He even went on to say he wouldn’t want the law-abiding residents of his Harlem district to be able to carry.</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t want them to have it,” he said.</p>
<p>Rangel’s comments come amid reports that NYPD officials accepted bribes in exchange for gun licenses and special privileges.</p>
<p>“Law-abiding citizens just shouldn’t have to carry a gun,” Rangel added. “You’re not gonna push me in that direction.”</p>
<p>Soooo … who should have guns if law-abiding American citizens shouldn’t, Congressman?</p>
<p>How are these law-abiding citizens supposed to protect themselves from citizens who don’t abide by the law?</p>
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<p>Are your Harlem constituents supposed to be sitting ducks? Waiting to be attacked? Robbed? Shot?</p>
<p>“Law-abiding citizens shouldn’t have to carry a gun.”</p>
<p>But obviously, criminals should have to carry a gun because that is the only way they can be effective criminals.</p>
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<p>But hold the bus…</p>
<p>Rangel has protection, no?</p>
<p>All of Congress is protected by armed U.S. Capitol Police.</p>
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<p>When the Daily Caller reminded Rangel of this, he said, “Well, that’s a little different. I think we deserve — I think we need to be protected down here.”</p>
<p>Oh. OK, congressman.</p>
<p>Only certain people deserve to be protected.</p>
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<p>Everyone else should be sitting ducks for the criminals around the country.</p>
<p>But you, all high and mighty congressman, should be protected so you can continue to push for laws that do not protect your constituents.</p>
<p>What is it with liberals?</p>
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<p>They have these ideas of who needs a gun. Who should have a gun.</p>
<p>Like we live in a world of unicorn transportation and calorie-free cupcake diets.</p>
<p>Of course, if you abide by the law, you shouldn’t need a gun.</p>
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<p>The problem is, we don’t live in a utopia, so it has become necessary to protect yourself from others who don’t abide by the law.</p>
<p>It’s like my dad always used to say, “honey, I trust&#160;you … I just don’t trust everyone else out there.”</p>
<p>Wake up, Congressman. You’re embarrassing yourself.</p>
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<p>What are your thoughts on Rangel? Share them in the comments below!</p>
<p>What do you think? Scroll down to comment below.</p>
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Democrat Charlie Rangel Says Law-Abiding Citizens Don’t Need Guns
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http://thefederalistpapers.org/us/democrat-charlie-rangel-says-law-abiding-citizens-dont-need-guns
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<p>Investing.com – Sweden stocks were higher after the close on Monday, as gains in the , and sectors led shares higher.</p>
<p>At the close in Stockholm, the gained 0.54%.</p>
<p>The best performers of the session on the were Kinnevik, Investment AB ser. B (ST:), which rose 2.81% or 7.6 points to trade at 278.2 at the close. Meanwhile, Fingerprint Cards AB ser. B (ST:) added 2.79% or 0.46 points to end at 16.97 and SSAB AB ser. A (ST:) was up 2.58% or 1.05 points to 41.73 in late trade.</p>
<p>The worst performers of the session were Swedish Match AB (ST:), which fell 0.96% or 3.2 points to trade at 330.5 at the close. Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson Class B (ST:) declined 0.60% or 0.32 points to end at 52.58 and Tele2 AB (ST:) was down 0.57% or 0.60 points to 105.40.</p>
<p>Falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the Stockholm Stock Exchange by 321 to 298 and 57 ended unchanged.</p>
<p>Shares in Kinnevik, Investment AB ser. B (ST:) rose to 3-years highs; gaining 2.81% or 7.6 to 278.2.</p>
<p>Crude oil for January delivery was up 1.01% or 0.58 to $57.94 a barrel. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Brent oil for delivery in February rose 2.00% or 1.27 to hit $64.67 a barrel, while the February Gold Futures contract fell 0.01% or 0.10 to trade at $1248.30 a troy ounce.</p>
<p>EUR/SEK was up 0.86% to 10.0274, while USD/SEK rose 0.60% to 8.4992.</p>
<p>The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.07% at 93.77.</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>
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Sweden stocks higher at close of trade; OMX Stockholm 30 up 0.54%
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https://newsline.com/sweden-stocks-higher-at-close-of-trade-omx-stockholm-30-up-0-54/
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2017-12-11
| 1 |
<p>Speaker of the House John Boehner <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/Commentary/2015/09/Meadows-Wins-Boehner-Resigns" type="external">announced</a> on Friday morning that he will be resigning from the speaker position. When all is said and done, Boehner will be remembered as an ineffective speaker who constantly capitulated to President Barack Obama's radical leftist policies while being increasingly hostile to conservatives who got him the speakership in the first place.</p>
<p>One of the <a href="http://cnsnews.com/blog/terence-p-jeffrey/boehner-broke-pledge-give-americans-least-72-hours-read-every-bill" type="external">promises</a> that Boehner made during the 2010 election was that if he took over the role of Speaker of the House, he would allow Americans 72 hours to review bills before they were voted. He did not keep that promise.</p>
<p>Boehner was first proved ineffective in the debt ceiling fight of 2011, where he helped craft the sequester, a bill that cut $1.2 trillion over a span of 10 years, 50% of which was defense spending. It was a <a href="http://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/05/29/report-outlines-how-sequestration-hurt-air-force.html" type="external">huge blow to the military</a>, but overall it only slightly <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2014/02/20/republicans-and-democrats-in-congress-agree-on-one-thing-americans-are-stupid/" type="external">slowed the rate of growth in the debt</a>. And even then, those "cuts" were put off for a later date.</p>
<p>When Obama won reelection in 2012, the big issue was the so-called "fiscal cliff" in which the Bush tax cuts expired. Instead of promoting radio host and constitutional scholar Mark Levin's <a href="http://cnsnews.com/blog/david-james/levin-take-class-warfare-argument-away-obama-cutting-middle-class-taxes-10" type="external">proposal</a> of cutting taxes cuts for the two middle class tax brackets and leaving the other brackets alone, Boehner bullied the House Republicans into voting for a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/house-members-meet-to-review-senate-passed-cliff-deal/2013/01/01/6e4373cc-5435-11e2-bf3e-76c0a789346f_story.html" type="external">tax increase with no spending cuts</a>, two things that Republicans are supposed to be opposed to. Not only that, <a href="http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/13826-party-over-principle-boehner-boots-conservatives-off-budget-committee" type="external">Boehner kicked conservatives off of committees for simply disagreeing with him</a>.</p>
<p>"The time has come to turn the page."</p>
<p>Sen. Marco Rubio</p>
<p>In 2013, Boehner had a golden opportunity to fight Obamacare using the House's power of the purse under <a href="http://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/articles/1/essays/67/appropriations-clause" type="external">Article I</a> to fight against Obamacare. The public has always been <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/obama_and_democrats_health_care_plan-1130.html" type="external">overwhelmingly against Obamacare</a>, and 2013 was the last chance to put a serious dent in Obamacare before it went into effect. However, Boehner drew a very thin line in saying he would only fund the government if <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/government-shutdown-obamacare-subsidies-boehner-exempt-2013-10" type="external">Congress was no longer exempt from Obamacare</a>. While the government shutdown lasted a couple of weeks, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/17/us/congress-budget-debate.html" type="external">Boehner completely caved in to Obama and the Democrats' demands</a>, and in doing so he proved that the Republicans could not be a viable opposition party to Obama.</p>
<p>It went downhill from there. Even though the Republicans won in a landslide election in 2014, Boehner and the rest of the GOP leadership have simply been a rubber stamp for Obama's agenda, as Obama has only had to issue a veto a whopping <a href="http://www.senate.gov/reference/Legislation/Vetoes/vetoCounts.htm" type="external">four times</a> during his presidency. Boehner and the Republican Congress have <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/03/03/boehner-caves-aims-now-to-support-obamas-executive-amnesty-with-tax-dollars/" type="external">funded Obama's illegal executive amnesty</a>, allowed Obama to turn the treaty provision of the Constitution on its head with the Corker bill and let <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/423771/iran-deal-corker-cardin-boehner-republicans" type="external">Obama get away with violating the Corker bill</a>, and <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/planned-parenthood-video-john-boehner-funding-120536" type="external">refused to seriously fight against Planned Parenthood</a> despite the fact that <a href="http://townhall.com/tipsheet/cortneyobrien/2015/07/21/i-want-a-lamborghini-planned-parenthood-employee-caught-talking-about-the-sale-of-fetal-body-parts-n2028198" type="external">videos</a> have proven that the organization has been illegally selling baby parts for profit. Boehner has also made <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/john-boehner-pledge-immigration-reform-top-of-agenda-1.2273040" type="external">comprehensive immigration reform</a> a high priority rather than reducing the size of government and has continued to <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/07/27/bossie-the-john-boehner-problem" type="external">purge conservatives who disagree with him</a>.</p>
<p>As a result, Boehner has had <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/09/24/endgame-begins-boehner-forced-to-rely-on-democrats-to-keep-speakership/" type="external">to rely on Democrats to maintain his speakership</a>. Rep. Mark Meadows, who was targeted by Boehner, had <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/Commentary/2015/09/Meadows-Wins-Boehner-Resigns" type="external">drafted a resolution calling for the removal of Boehner from the speakership</a>. Radio host and constitutional scholar Mark Levin <a href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-levin/it-is-time-for-mitch-mcconnell-and-john-boehner-to-resign/10152893856840946" type="external">called</a> on Boehner to resign, sentiments I <a href="http://townhall.com/tipsheet/aaronbandler/2015/07/27/levin-its-time-for-boehner-and-mcconnell-to-resign-n2030840" type="external">echoed</a> when I worked at Townhall. Conservatives had grown so fed up up with Boehner that when it was announced at the Value Voters Summit on Friday morning that he was stepping down, the result was <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/online/boehner-resignation-causes-standing-ovation-at-values-voter-summit/" type="external">thunderous applause</a> from euphoric conservative activists.</p>
<p>Naturally, Boehner isn't going out with sticking it to conservatives one last time, as Breitbart <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/09/25/rumors-capitol-hill-boehner-cut-deal-pelosi-avoid-government-shutdown/" type="external">reports</a> that Boehner has made a deal with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi that would completely fund the government until December 11.</p>
<p>As GOP presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/online/boehner-resignation-causes-standing-ovation-at-values-voter-summit/" type="external">said</a> this morning, "the time has come to turn the page."</p>
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What Will Boehner's Legacy Be?
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https://dailywire.com/news/157/what-will-boehners-legacy-be-aaron-bandler
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2015-09-25
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<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
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<p>Attorney General Hector Balderas said Tuesday that the state will get an estimated $14.5 million in additional funding next month, after a judge sided with the AG’s Office in a dispute over whether tobacco companies had previously paid less than they should have.</p>
<p>The state typically gets about $38 million annually under the tobacco master settlement, but will likely take in more than $50 million this year.</p>
<p>That would be slightly more than the $48 million that executive and legislative branch economists projected the state would receive in revenue estimates they released in December and provide a slight bump to the state’s dwindling cash reserves.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“At a time of severe budget shortfalls and economic crisis, this record recovery will ensure additional funds go to New Mexico children, Medicaid programs, HIV patients and smoking cessation programs,” Balderas said in a statement.</p>
<p>However, while money from the annual settlement payments was originally intended to be split between a state Tobacco Settlement Permanent Fund and tobacco education and health programs, that hasn’t happened in recent years.</p>
<p>Instead, lawmakers have raided nearly half of the tobacco settlement fund to help balance the state’s budget, after two consecutive years of lower-than-expected revenue collections caused largely by plummeting oil and natural gas prices.</p>
<p>And legislators have also used the annual payments to help fund early childhood programs and the state’s cash-strapped lottery scholarship fund.</p>
<p>With the state’s cash reserves largely depleted, Gov. Susana Martinez last week ordered a state government hiring freeze and has raised the possibility of ordering unpaid employee furlough days by as soon as next month.</p>
<p>A larger-than-expected payment from big tobacco companies would likely have little bearing on those budgetary issues, though a state Department of Finance and Administration spokeswoman said Tuesday that additional money would be “welcomed.”</p>
<p>The annual payments stem from a landmark agreement that New Mexico and 45 other states signed with big tobacco companies in 1998. The companies, which had been sued over the harmful effects of cigarette smoking, agreed to make ongoing annual payments to the states and stop certain advertising practices.</p>
<p />
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Judge: Tobacco companies owe NM $14.5M
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https://abqjournal.com/978105/tobacco-firms-to-pay-nm-additional-145m.html
| 2 |
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<p>Mediaite <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/tv/democratic-rep-trump-is-clearly-racist-and-an-abject-liar/" type="external">reports</a>:</p>
<p>On CNN this morning, Congressman Ruben Gallego (D- AZ) slammed President Trump as a racist and an “abject liar.” He told John Berman, “The President is clearly racist. I don’t understand how much more history we need… Many people may not want to admit it that we’ve elected a President that’s racist, but he is.”</p>
<p>During the segment, he cited Trump’s birtherism and his accusations against the Central Park Five to say “this President’s not good on racial issues.” Gallego said “the evidence is staring us in the face,” but Berman told him that’s quite an “explosive charge” to level against the President of the United States.</p>
<p />
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Dem US House Rep. Ruben Gallego: The Evidence That Trump Is A Racist Liar Is Staring Us Right In The Face
| true |
http://joemygod.com/2017/08/22/dem-house-rep-ruben-gallego-evidence-trump-racist-liar-staring-us-face-video/
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2017-08-22
| 4 |
<p>A new robotic arm, developed by the Learning Algorithms and Systems Laboratory (LASA), has demonstrated the ability to use lightning fast reflexes to catch flying objects. The 1.5-meter-long arm has three joints and a sophisticated hand with four fingers and can track and catch flying objects.</p>
<p>While the arm has a variety of potential applications, the truly revolutionary part may be the way it learns. Researchers modeled the robots programming on the way humans learn: By imitation, trial and error. This technique, called “ <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming_by_demonstration" type="external">programming by demonstration</a>,” replaces specific directions with a wide variety of examples. The arm is manually guided to the target several times until it “learns” what to do.</p>
<p>“Today’s machines are often pre-programmed and cannot quickly assimilate data changes. Consequently, their only choice is to recalculate the trajectories, which requires too much time from them in situations in which every fraction of a second can be decisive,” said Aude Billard, head of LASA, <a href="http://actu.epfl.ch/news/ultra-fast-the-robotic-arm-can-catch-objects-on-th/" type="external">in a statement</a>.</p>
<p>The robot was trained using a variety of objects, most of which were specifically selected because their center of gravity is abnormal which causes more complex movements and gives the robot a variety of axes to learn from. These included a ball, an empty bottle, a half full bottle, a hammer and a tennis racket.</p>
<p>Through the learning phase, the objects were tracked by the robot using cameras located all around it. This allows the robot to build up a database of various objects and how they behave when thrown. Scientists then translate those observations into an equasion which gives the robot hand the appearance of having quick reflexes.</p>
<p />
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Ultra-fast robotic arm catches objects on the fly
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http://natmonitor.com/2014/05/13/ultra-fast-robotic-arm-catches-objects-on-the-fly/
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2014-05-13
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<p>As Truthdig Editor-in-Chief Robert Scheer points out to Chris Hedges in this interview for The Real News Network about Scheer’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/They-Know-Everything-About-Data-Collecting/dp/1568584520/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1432094948&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=robert+scheer" type="external">new book</a>, “They Know Everything About You: How Data-Collecting Corporations and Snooping Government Agencies Are Destroying Democracy,” the safeguards written into the U.S. Constitution to protect Americans against abuses of their civil liberties don’t exactly apply to violations by the private sector.</p>
<p>What’s more, corporations are able to find out more about citizens from an array of legal methods of data collection — from voluntarily relinquished to disturbingly covert — than the most notorious totalitarian regimes of the last century. And of course, that information doesn’t stay within the bounds of business.</p>
<p>Take a look at the clip below (transcript follows the video) to hear Hedges and Scheer break it down in a wide-ranging and sobering discussion. Click <a href="" type="internal">here</a> to see Part 1 of the interview.</p>
<p>–Posted by <a href="" type="internal">Kasia Anderson</a></p>
<p />
<p>CHRIS HEDGES, JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR: Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Chris Hedges. And this is part two of my interview with the author Robert Scheer, who wrote They Know Everything about You, his brilliant study of the security and surveillance apparatus and how we got there.</p>
<p>In this book, Bob, you begin, at least from my reading of it, by positing that the security and surveillance apparatus really began as a commercial enterprise, primarily, and that government then came in, then saw what was going on, saw its usefulness in terms of the data collecting, and came in later. Would that be–?</p>
<p>PROF. ROBERT SCHEER, JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR: Yeah. At first it was really a boondoggle of the Defense Department. You know, we’re going to have–if we have a nuclear war–first of all, if we have nuclear war, there is no life, so there’s nothing to do. But the idiots that were talking about mutual assured destruction in the Defense Department and how do you fight a nuclear war and said, well, the first thing that’s going to go is the communications system–you know, electromagnetic impulse and all the other things that happen when you set off these bombs. So we won’t even be able to talk. We won’t be able to tell our plane, you can’t make the rubble, radioactive rubble dance unless you move over to this position; there’s still some surviving person in the Ukraine or something you’ve got to take out. And so they had this idea, how do we have redundancy in communication. And the whole idea of the internet is a system that’s decentralized.</p>
<p>And that has turned out to be the wonderful thing about it. It can be added on, it can be factored in, it can meet the situation in different countries. And we know that. That’s the great thing.</p>
<p>And so, suddenly the Cold War was over, you really didn’t have much reason for it. And meanwhile, the internet was out there. And the reason it was out there was that the people who want to sell stuff came to understand that in fact it was the great marketplace.</p>
<p>And the reason was that before the internet, when you were a newspaper or broadcast television or what have you, you could only guess at the impact of your readership on sales. You know, I worked for the L.A. Times for 29 years, and my wife was even a vice president and in a much higher position, and they would tell people on auto row or in the movie business, take out these full-page ads and you’re going to have people go to the movies this weekend or they’re going to buy cars. And broadcast television, it was the same thing: we have all these eyeballs, and they’re going to watch this, and they’ll buy stuff.</p>
<p>But it was really an inexact science, indeed a fraudulent one, you know, your Nielsen ratings and your surveys and focus groups. They basically were lying to the advertisers about who you can deliver. You could–you know, newspaper–did they buy it for fish wrap? Did they buy it for the sports section? Did they buy it for the classified ads? And yet, you know, you were claiming millions. You worked at The New York Times, I worked at the L.A. times. But economic model was based on kind of a phony, certainly inexact science of who’s reading stuff.</p>
<p>HEDGES: Well, it was a scattershot [crosstalk]</p>
<p>SCHEER: Yeah. And what the internet did is suddenly you had information on who these people are. You know–you started to see, you could know their most intimate habits, their emails, their shopping habits, their networks, particularly when social networking and things like Facebook developed, who their friends are, and so forth. And they were willing, these people out there who’re doing Google searches or on Facebook, to surrender voluntarily an enormous amount of information that you never had before about their age and their marital status and their sex life and their dress size and whether they’re bald or have a lot of hair or are taking different medicines. I mean the most intimate knowledge of people, not just in the United States, but all over the world, and you have this incredible data.</p>
<p>And then you’re able to target your advertising to get these people. And not only could you get them in the sense that you could find out if they went to an ad, clicked onto that ad, but you could find what they did with it. Did they tell somebody about it? Did they ask for more information? And the killer app of all: did they buy something? And were they satisfied with it? And then you could retarget them.</p>
<p>And so this heat-seeking missile of targeted advertising turned out to be a source of incredible profit, not for the producers of art and books, you know, or news articles. It really–The New York Times is in deep trouble, even though it’s still a very important paper. Why? Because the advertisers don’t really need to go to The New York Times. Once they got the readers and they got them in other databases, they can mine that data.</p>
<p>HEDGES: Well, it broke that monopoly, ’cause newsprint had for almost a century a monopoly connecting sellers with buyers.</p>
<p>SCHEER: Right.HEDGES: And that’s with the internet did. And that is why newsprint is withering away as quickly as it is. And classified, as you know, was 40 percent of most newsprint revenue.</p>
<p>SCHEER: Right.</p>
<p>HEDGES: And that immediately switched to the internet.</p>
<p>SCHEER: Right.</p>
<p>HEDGES: But there’s something else about the internet. It’s not just about surrendering information. You now have large corporations–not only does the government have profiles, but large corporations–it’s a huge, multibillion dollar business–have profiles on us. So if we go to apply for a job, you can pay one of these corporations, and you get an entire profile. They have everything on us, stuff that we couldn’t even imagine that they have. So it’s not just about connecting advertisers with consumers, but it is now, this data mining has become an independent business in itself.</p>
<p>SCHEER: Sure. And the reason people have done that–if a government, any government in the world, had asked for this kind of–required this kind of information, okay, how far did you read in that book, what movie did you go to, who did you have dinner with, you know, the information that is gathered up now by the so-called private sector, that would be considered the most totalitarian, invasive, coercive, threatening model. Right? I mean, this is something the Stasi in East Germany couldn’t presume. I mean, this was something Stalin never dreamed of. It’s something oHitler, Goebbels could not dream of, this kind of knowledge and following and the movement and the action and the thoughts. And then being able to manipulate it. You know, after all, in my book I describe Facebook’s experiment to give you cheerful news or depressing news. And we know, whether it’s Barack Obama or George W. Bush, they now do very effective political advertising. They can get this data and then they can target these people.</p>
<p>HEDGES: Well, the advertising is different depending on who you are.</p>
<p>SCHEER: Right.</p>
<p>HEDGES: Just the same–and I think you also mentioned about news stories. I mean, they kind of–they develop a profile of your habits, and then they feed those habits.</p>
<p>SCHEER: Right, and they can manipulate those habits, whether it’s taste or political direction or so forth.</p>
<p>So what happened was that in the private sector this became a source of enormous profits–not for the artists, though–we have to remember that–not for the news gatherers, not for the people doing the hard work, but for people who want to sell stuff. And they can grab this data, through Google searches or Facebook or so forth. So the people who are really making the money are not the people who are going to support journalism or the arts, right? Book publishing is in trouble. You know, Amazon may get the word out there, but they rip off the money. But the main money being made is being made by, without your really knowing it, exporting your data.</p>
<p>Now, again, if that were really a transparent activity and it remained in the private sector, you could see that as a matter of individual choice. If you really want to give Facebook all of this information and allow it to be marketed [incompr.] so forth, okay, that’s your stupid decision. But maybe you have the right to make that stupid decision. When you don’t know what’s happening with the data, then you’re not an informed consumer.</p>
<p>HEDGES: But it even goes beyond that, because if you go down to the pharmacy and run your credit card through, they immediately know what medicine you bought, and that goes to your profile. That’s not giving it up. I mean, we have gone far beyond the voluntary–it is far more sophisticated than that and far more intrusive.</p>
<p>SCHEER: Yes. And that’s why it’s important to have laws that protect our right to our data, to know what’s happening to our data.</p>
<p>But what changed in this picture and has alarmed people–and it bears repetition–is the connection between the private sector and the government. And as a result, thanks to Edward Snowden–and there were other whistleblowers, William Binney and Thomas Drake and others, but Edward Snowden occupies a the unique place, in my mind, of respect and decency and courage, that he let us on to the fact that we have what our founders, the framers of our Constitution, feared. Okay? Our protection in the Bill of Rights does not really do much to protect us in the private sector. It is aimed at protecting us against government overreach, totalitarian government, because if the government allows you no zone of privacy, then you have this thing that humans have feared throughout their history.</p>
<p>HEDGES: Well, we have no zone of privacy. I mean, we have no zone of privacy.SCHEER: Right. And the reason we have no privacy is: if the government had demanded this information, we would know it’s a totalitarian government. What happened here, this intellectual sleight of hand, is that increasingly the government was grabbing this data from the private sector. And the private sector was complicit. If you look at–in my book, for instance, I trace Google’s connection with the Pentagon and the top people at Google being on the top Pentagon [crosstalk]</p>
<p>HEDGES: Right. And then, when they’re exposed, they’re all saying it.</p>
<p>SCHEER: Yes. And so what changed was not suddenly the private sector was stricken by conscience: hey, we’re party to betraying the Fourth Amendment, we’re party to enslaving the American people, we’re party to destroying the most precious–. I begin my book by saying, when it comes–you know, privacy is the ballgame for freedom, ’cause if you don’t have a zone where you can collect your thoughts, where you can talk to friends, where you can organize, where you can think the different idea–.</p>
<p>Just take something Tea Party people Rand Paul, Ron Paul have thought about: should the Federal Reserve be abolished? Okay? And they’re–you’re having a discussion in your living room. But if your cell phone has been turned into a listening device, whether it’s on or off, because the government has grabbed the SIM card and given you a phony one and hardwired it, okay, and is recording this whole conversation, and you’re talking to your neighbors, and you say, why do we have a Federal Reserve? Oh, the Federal Reserve, as the Tea Party, many believe, and as Ron Paul and Rand Paul and other libertarians believe, oh, the Federal Reserve really just serves the banks and rips us off and steals our money and prints money to make our things worthless and so forth; we should abolish the Federal Reserve; it’s an agency of totalitarianism. Okay. And you’re having that conversation. That conversation is being recorded by the NSA, by the CIA, which we know, you know, FBI, and they’ve got this data. And they say, oh, in this really dangerous meeting that took place in this home in Texas, these people were plotting the end of the Federal Reserve. Now, in that profile they don’t say, they’re plotting the end of the Federal Reserve by voting for a Congressman who would abolish it. No. You can then add other information. Oh, I read this book by Ayn Rand or I read this book or that book–these people are plotting to blow up the Federal Reserve.</p>
<p>HEDGES: Well, what happens–I mean, and all of the great writers of totalitarianism have written on mass surveillance, Hannah Arendt being one in The Origins of Totalitarianism. And she says that when you collect data on every single citizen, it’s no longer about crime or justice; it is about having material so that when you criminalize a certain category of people–and Stalin was kind of the master of this–you can instantly arrest them, because there’s always something, and they can exactly do what you’ve done, where they take that rather innocent discussion and twist it to serve the ends of the state. That’s the danger of mass surveillance.</p>
<p>One of the things in your book is that you–I think you chronicle brilliantly, as I’ve said, the apparatus and how it works, and yet I would argue with you that we already live in a corporate totalitarianism that has extinguished any idea of democracy. Now this security and surveillance is so pervasive–and it was, of course, as you said, exposed by Snowden–but it’s not implemented, because they don’t need it. It is used very effectively against those who carry out dissent. We saw it in the Occupy movement. So, for instance, because everyone in Occupy communicated electronically, afterwards they knew who the engines of Occupy were, and they have gone back and used that data to slap them with felony convictions, usually for client crimes they didn’t commit, put them on probation for five years, so that if they do any kind of activism, they have to serve the sentence and they’re locked up, effectively neutralized. So they’ve–and I’ve watched in New York, and I was close enough to the Occupy movement to tell you they went after the right people.</p>
<p>We live in a period where we don’t have hyperinflation, you know, we’re not convulsed by catastrophic effects of climate change yet. But the moment that that comes, the mechanism is in place so that it’s just the flick of a switch, isn’t it? I mean, at this point, is there really any going back?</p>
<p>SCHEER: Well, there is going back, for a number of reasons. One is that what we do, our government does, can be done by any government. We’re setting a standard for the world. And, in fact, if–one of the great things about having somebody like William Binney, who worked in the NSA for 36 years–he’s the guy, for people who don’t know, where they broke into his house. His wife had worked for the NSA for 26 years. So this is–and he had been–before he was in the NSA, he was in the military for four years during the Vietnam War era. He was in the Army. And then he goes into the NSA for 36 years. So he’s a good Boy Scout and he believed in all this, right, till 9/11.SCHEER: He designed the system.</p>
<p>HEDGES: He designed the system and so forth. But he designed the system called ThinThread, which at least preserved privacy, respected to the Fourth Amendment, so forth. That system was taken over after 9/11 and distorted into something that became this vast spying network.</p>
<p>His wife had worked for the NSA for 26 years. I only bring that up because when the FBI, 12 FBI agents blasted into his home, and pointing guns, first at his son and then at his wife, and then he’s in the shower, you know, and there they are pointing guns right at his face, right, without any basis whatsoever–he’s never been charged with anything, okay, never been charged with anything. Terrorized. You know. Why? Because he told–he didn’t even do what Snowden–anything like Snowden. He went to a congressional committee and said, they’re wasting money, they’re not doing due diligence. We have–you know, they’re spending billions [crosstalk]</p>
<p>HEDGES: And they’re creating a system to spy on everyone.</p>
<p>SCHEER: And they’re–yeah. And he was a genuine, basically a conservative person who believed in limited government, that government is not supposed to spy. But he has been a translator for us of what these slides that Snowden revealed tell us. He’s one of the important translators. I’m speaking out of some knowledge, ’cause he just was at the University of Southern California, where I teach, for four days telling graduate students and everything how it works. And it was an incredible eye-opener, even after I’ve written this book, ’cause he said, look, here’s one of these sideshows, the degree of cooperation. So these are where we have these partnership agreements with Saudi Arabia. Okay?</p>
<p>HEDGES: With Israel.</p>
<p>SCHEER: With Israel, with Egypt, you know, all of these countries. Okay. But let’s take Saudi Arabia for example. That means if there’s some Saudi dissident who’s criticizing the Saudi Arabian government and he’s living in Detroit or she’s living in Cleveland, that our government is cooperating with the Saudi government to give them information on these dissidents living here. We had the Arab Spring. We had people in Egypt protesting for freedom. We’ve now forgiven the military junta that came back in power, we now give aid, or we’re cooperating with them on intelligence. So any Egyptian anywhere in the world, whether they’re in exile or at home, and they’re writing critically about the military dictatorship of Egypt, our government collecting all this data is cooperating with the secret police here.</p>
<p>HEDGES: And we know that they are collecting data on American citizens–</p>
<p>SCHEER: Oh, yeah.</p>
<p>HEDGES: –who are not dual nationals and giving it to countries like Israel.</p>
<p>SCHEER: Yes. But let me just say–.</p>
<p>HEDGES: Let me just–we’re going to go on, Bob, so I’m just going to stop here.</p>
<p>This is the end of part two. This is Chris Hedges for The Real News. I’ve been speaking with Robert Scheer on his book about the security and surveillance state called They Know Everything About You.</p>
<p>Thank you very much, Bob.</p>
<p>And please join us for part three.</p>
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VIDEO: Robert Scheer and Chris Hedges on How the Private Sector Buys and Sells Your Privacy
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https://truthdig.com/articles/video-robert-scheer-and-chris-hedges-on-how-the-private-sector-buys-and-sells-your-privacy/
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2015-05-20
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<p />
<p>North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper has endorsed a HB2 deal vehemently opposed by LGBT advocates. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael K. Lavers)</p>
<p />
<p>In exchange for repeal HB2, Republican leaders of the legislature and the governor agreed during a behind-the-doors meeting to <a href="" type="internal">a different measure</a> that still precludes efforts to prohibit discrimination against LGBT people.</p>
<p>Section 1 of the bill bars state agencies, including cities and the University of North Carolina, from the “regulation of access” to multiple-occupancy restroom, showers or changing facilities except in accordance with the legislature, which essentially leaves transgender people seeking to use those facilities vulnerable to harassment or discrimination.</p>
<p>Section 2 of the bill prohibits municipalities from enacting ordinances on private employment or public accommodations, which would bar cities from passing LGBT non-discrimination measures in those areas. Section 3 of the bill would sunset that provision on Dec. 1, 2020.</p>
<p>The deal was struck came in the same week the National Collegiate Athletic Association said it will make decisions on events. The NCAA has said North Carolina won’t be considered for championship events through 2022 “absent any change” to HB2. According to the Associated Press, North Carolina cities, schools and other groups have offered more than 130 bids for such events.</p>
<p>Cooper, who campaigned on HB2 repeal and was supported by LGBT advocates, endorsed the deal in a statement as means to revive North Carolina, which has suffered from economic boycott as a result of the law. Earlier this week, the Associated Press estimated HB2 would cost North Carolina $3.76 billion over the course of a dozen years.</p>
<p>“I support the House Bill 2 repeal compromise that will be introduced tomorrow,” Cooper said. “It’s not a perfect deal, but it repeals House Bill 2 and begins to repair our reputation.”</p>
<p>But LGBT rights supporters erupted into a fury shortly after the compromise was unveiled, saying the proposal isn’t repeal and instead reinforces discrimination in the state.</p>
<p>Chris Sgro, executive director of Equality North Carolina, said in a statement the proposal is “a train wreck that would double down on anti-LGBTQ discrimination.”</p>
<p>“Those who stand for equality and with LGBTQ people are standing strong against these antics,” Sgro said. “We’ve got less than 24 hours before the NCAA deadline. There is no time to waste – our leaders must fight for what’s right, and that is full repeal.”</p>
<p>According to media reports, the NCAA has issued no statement of position on the deal, nor has the Atlantic Coast Conference. Both leagues have cancelled championship games in North Carolina as a result of HB2.</p>
<p>Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, went into a tirade on Twitter after the proposal was made public, saying Cooper’s support for the measure amounts to a failure of leadership.</p>
<p />
<p>According to the Associated Press, lawmakers said the deal debated and voted on Thursday, although it’s unclear whether enough votes are present in the House and Senate to pass it.</p>
<p>Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said in a statement the proposal “pushes aside real North Carolinians in favor of political expediency.”</p>
<p>“Let me be clear: this is not a repeal,” Keisling said. “It’s a cynical ploy that will continue to hurt North Carolina and transgender people. Passing this bill would mean that North Carolina continues to be one of the very few states where it’s illegal for cities to protect the rights of their residents.”</p>
<p>It should be noted the compromise is less favorable to opponents of HB2 than a compromise that Democrats and Cooper rejected in December. The proposal would have repealed HB2, but left in place a moratorium prohibiting cities from enacting LGBT non-discrimination ordinances for six months.</p>
<p>Chase Strangio, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s LGBT &amp; AIDS Project, mocked the governor on Twitter for negotiating a deal that he said is worse than the one he opposed months ago.</p>
<p />
<p><a href="" type="internal">Chase Strangio</a> <a href="" type="internal">House Bill 2</a> <a href="" type="internal">North Carolina</a> <a href="" type="internal">Roy Cooper</a></p>
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N.C. lawmakers reach deal on HB2 criticized as ‘a train wreck’
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http://washingtonblade.com/2017/03/30/n-c-lawmakers-reach-deal-on-hb2-criticized-as-a-train-wreck/
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<p>Emerson Electric Co. plans to boost its takeover offer for Rockwell Automation Inc., ratcheting up an effort to bring its reluctant rival to the negotiating table.</p>
<p>Emerson is planning to send a letter as early as Thursday to Rockwell Chief Executive Blake Moret proposing a takeover at $225 a share, 60% in cash and 40% in stock for a total value of some $29 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>It is St. Louis-based Emerson's third bid for Rockwell and compares with a $215-a-share offer put forward in October and one in August worth $200 a share. Both were equal parts cash and stock.</p>
<p>The earlier overtures were met with resistance from Rockwell, which has refused to engage in negotiations, according to people familiar with the matter. It is not clear what Rockwell's reaction to the latest expected proposal would be.</p>
<p>A Rockwell spokeswoman had no immediate comment.</p>
<p>When Emerson's effort to buy Rockwell became public late last month, Rockwell said in a statement that its board determined the proposals weren't in the best interest of the company or its investors. Mr. Moret added that the board and management "are committed to serving the best interests of the company and Rockwell Automation shareowners, and are confident in the company's strategic direction and our ability to continue delivering superior levels of growth and value creation."</p>
<p>Emerson is hoping that the higher offer, with a greater proportion of cash, will be enough to convince Rockwell officials to sit down and talk -- either on their own or at the urging of the company's investors.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Rockwell is holding an investor meeting Thursday in Houston.</p>
<p>Emerson is pushing ahead with the bid because it believes that putting the companies together would create a new powerhouse in the production of machines and software used in manufacturing, a $200 billion global market. The combined company would have a market capitalization based on current values of more than $60 billion and approximately $23 billion in annual revenue, and potentially be in a position to better compete with European rivals like Siemens AG.</p>
<p>The companies have complementary product lines and geographies, and Emerson believes that combining them would accelerate their growth. Rockwell's strength is in so-called discrete products used in areas including auto assembly, packaging and printing, while Emerson excels in so-called process control for power plants, oil-and-gas facilities and the like.</p>
<p>Customers of Rockwell, Emerson and others in the industry are increasingly looking to simplify factory-control processes and for an integrated offering.</p>
<p>Automation systems broadly have been a sweet spot for industrial investment as customers look for more efficiency from existing plants and as manufacturing becomes ever-more automated and digital.</p>
<p>Emerson estimates more than $6 billion of synergies from the potential deal, which it reckons is worth an additional $10 a share to Rockwell shareholders, the people said. The deal would add to adjusted per-share earnings in the first year, by Emerson's calculations.</p>
<p>The expected offer is at a relatively rich multiple of 24 times past earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, and represents a 30% premium to Rockwell's average share price in the 90 days leading up to when the pursuit became public Oct. 31.</p>
<p>The combined company would have an "automation center of excellence" in Milwaukee, where Rockwell is based. Emerson is also open to giving Rockwell officials important roles in the governance of a new entity, one of the people said.</p>
<p>--Andrew Tangel and Bob Tita contributed to this article.</p>
<p>Write to Dana Cimilluca at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>November 16, 2017 06:48 ET (11:48 GMT)</p>
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Emerson Electric to Boost Takeover Offer for Rockwell Automation
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http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/11/16/emerson-electric-to-boost-takeover-offer-for-rockwell-automation.html
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2017-11-16
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<p>Building relationships, transparency and creating resources are crucial to LGBTQ organizing on HBCU campuses.</p>
<p>By TRINICE McNALLY and ALLISON MARIE TURNER</p>
<p>The intersection of race, sexual orientation and gender identity is the everyday lived experience of LGBTQ students on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). These factors create unique challenges for students on these campuses and the campuses themselves.</p>
<p>These types of campuses are often overlooked when it comes to money and resources. As a movement, we continually fail in providing support toward minority-serving institutions, especially those in rural areas and the South. However, there has been growing visibility and progress at HBCUs and in recent years.</p>
<p>Campuses working to meet the intersectional needs of students include Bethune-Cookman University’s Gay-Straight Alliance, which has more than 100 members; Morehouse College’s LGBTQ course offering; Fayetteville State University’s LGBTQ center, making it the third HBCU to have one; and Virginia State University’s Lavender Graduation ceremony to recognize its commitment to LGBTQ graduates.</p>
<p>Thanks to the work of student leaders and staff at HBCUs, these campuses are increasing the visibility of and resources for LGBTQ students and their specific needs. This July, at Campus Pride’s Summer Leadership Academy, there were more than 30 student leaders and staff in attendance from various HBCUs. Through caucuses, workshops and conversations between students and advisors, a theme of the unique issues HBCU LGBTQ students face, as well as the unique solutions to these issues, emerged.</p>
<p>A majority of HBCUs were founded on religious principles, causing a conflict when that particular faith, or the mainstream interpretations of that faith in the black community, do not support LGBTQ people. LGBTQ students who attend HBCUs are often told they are going to hell or that they should repent to “pray the gay away.”</p>
<p>Additionally, the black community has suffered from stigma in regard to mental health for years. Historically, people of color don’t seek counseling and are deemed as “crazy” if seeking mental health professional help or suggested to “pray about it.” This combines with a history of pathologizing queerness, creating additional barriers for black LGBTQ students when they experience feelings of difference when it comes to their gender identity or sexual orientation.</p>
<p>People of color often feel as if we must choose between our ethnicity and sexual orientation or gender identity because we are often ridiculed in both as if we cannot co-exist. This often leaves us feeling isolated, ignored and marginalized. Communities of color, because they have been historically hyper-sexualized by white people, may choose not to share their sexual or gender identities for fear of “airing dirty laundry” and buying into untrue stereotypes of black people.</p>
<p>In order to successfully organize on HBCU campuses, there are several components that guarantee success, including relationship building, transparency and creating resources. These components allow HBCUs to address the unique issues their LGBTQ students face as multifaceted, intersectional people.</p>
<p>As LGBTQ and ally leaders, whether staff or student, building relationships is important. Due to the stigma and “taboo” effect of LGBTQ culture, some people don’t how to approach sexuality or gender identity. Building a relationship where people trust you is how you will gain campus support. You can have an LGBTQ organization that LGBTQ people of color don’t support if they don’t know who you truly are.</p>
<p>Students need to see a reflection of themselves. Not enough people of color are out on HBCU campuses. It is detrimental to youth of color, especially black men and transgender people, including non-binary people. Many people who can pass as straight or as cisgender choose not to be out publicly for safety reasons. Many professionals are closeted in communities of color, perpetuating the idea that expressing your true self is detrimental to the fight against racial oppression. Black LGBTQ youth don’t get to see proud, successful black people often because of this and miss out on role models they may need to live openly themselves.</p>
<p>Out of the 105 HBCUs is the United States, only three have resource centers versus the hundreds that predominantly white institutions have. Culturally there are so many barriers that HBCU campuses face that prohibit them from being exposed to possible resources. Unfortunately, HBCUs are faced with financial crisis and the ones that are running are trying to keep their schools accredited and open.</p>
<p>HBCUs are often ridiculed, but produce the highest number of black graduates in the country. However, the lack of resources is dooming our culture for generations to come. HBCUs need resources when they receive pushback; they need financial support to assist with programming for LGBTQ student organizations. This increases visibility of LGBTQ students at HBCUs, allowing universities to better recognize and support these groups. HBCUs need organizations, companies and government officials to show them that they matter, so that those who are dedicated to this work don’t grow weary or tired before making that impact.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Trinice McNally is the Coordinator of Diversity Initiatives and Gay-Straight Alliance Advisor from Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Fla. She is proud to be an openly queer woman working at a historically Black university. Allison Marie Turner is an alumnus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she studied journalism and mass communication and women’s and gender studies. She is a 2015 Programs and Communications Fellow for Campus Pride.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">gays hbcu</a> <a href="" type="internal">hbcu</a> <a href="" type="internal">hbcus</a> <a href="" type="internal">historically black colleges and universities</a> <a href="" type="internal">lesbian gay bisexual transgender historically black colleges and universities</a> <a href="" type="internal">lgbt hbcu</a></p>
|
Young, gifted and gay
| false |
http://washingtonblade.com/2015/08/14/young-gifted-and-gay/
| 3 |
|
<p>CHARLES TOWN, W.Va. (AP) — Every evening this time of year, just before dusk, big black vultures appear one by one low in the sky over Virginia Webb's home.</p>
<p>Their broad wings spread wide, gathering the air in the fading light, as they glide-land silently in a cluster of tall white pines lining the edge of her front yard. Soon several scores of birds fill the brown branches, like hunched-back undertakers watchfully waiting to exploit any tragedy below.</p>
<p>"I have counted 400 before in those trees," said Webb, a cheerful 78-year-old lady with casually wavy white hair. "They get in the branches and spread their wings out.</p>
<p>"It's not fun," she added.</p>
<p>For the past 10 years or so this scene has played out nightly during the colder months of the year, usually from mid-October to mid-April.</p>
<p>Uninvited and unwanted invaders, a large number of vultures have selected Webb's trees outside her Charles Town home as their roosting spot for the winter. Usually about five to 15 birds linger year round.</p>
<p>"It's like they're guarding the property or something," Webb said. "I haven't heard any sound from them."</p>
<p>Two kinds of vultures are roosting in her trees. One is the more familiar turkey vulture with a wrinkly, gobbler-looking red balding head. The other is the more aggressive black vulture, with a gray wrinkly head and gray wing tips.</p>
<p>More black vultures than turkey ones roost at Webb's longtime residence.</p>
<p>"The black vultures will come down on the ground," she said. "They throw up balls of fur and stuff like that and you can see them down there picking like a flock of chickens around."</p>
<p>Webb said vultures, with wingspans as wide as six feet, prefer to roost in tall trees where the wind currents can provide generous lift dynamics for easy soaring takeoffs.</p>
<p>"And that's why they've picked these trees," she said with a slight nod to her front yard.</p>
<p>"I expect they're 90-feet tall," she said of the now-a-bit-scraggly, mature white pines. "They've been here a long time."</p>
<p>The vultures started coming to her property about the same time officials at the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park began an effort to scare a group of vultures away from there, Webb said.</p>
<p>For years, she has been searching for ways to persuade the birds to gather elsewhere. She and her late husband, David, talked to various city and state officials about the problem for years.</p>
<p>It's expensive, too. Various times the birds have pecked at the shingles and ridge vent on her roof, causing a few leaks that required professional repairs.</p>
<p>Standard homeowner policies don't cover any vulture vandalism, she said.</p>
<p>"They still peck at the roof," she added.</p>
<p>Webb has tried different things to persuade the birds to leave, and nothing has worked so far. She remembers trying to douse the birds with her grandson's plastic toy pump-action water gun. The water-gun spraying hasn't really done much to deter the birds, she said.</p>
<p>"As soon as I spray the water they all take off," she explained. "Well, then they come back the next evening, or a day or two later."</p>
<p>One time years ago a West Virginia Division of Natural Resources official hung a vulture carcass up in a tree in her yard to scare away the living loitering ones. The wildlife official sounded confident the gruesome ploy would work, Webb said. The carcass dangled there for several weeks.</p>
<p>"The vultures would fly over and they would look at it and go on up in the trees," she recalled with a laugh. "It didn't do a thing."</p>
<p>Webb said she would be glad for a mill or lumber company to clear away the pine trees in exchange for the wood. The birds are damaging the trees, stripping the bark off them, she notes.</p>
<p>"I don't know what the answer is," she said. "The only thing I know is to get rid of the source with the trees-cut the trees down."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Journal, <a href="http://journal-news.net/" type="external">http://journal-news.net/</a></p>
<p>CHARLES TOWN, W.Va. (AP) — Every evening this time of year, just before dusk, big black vultures appear one by one low in the sky over Virginia Webb's home.</p>
<p>Their broad wings spread wide, gathering the air in the fading light, as they glide-land silently in a cluster of tall white pines lining the edge of her front yard. Soon several scores of birds fill the brown branches, like hunched-back undertakers watchfully waiting to exploit any tragedy below.</p>
<p>"I have counted 400 before in those trees," said Webb, a cheerful 78-year-old lady with casually wavy white hair. "They get in the branches and spread their wings out.</p>
<p>"It's not fun," she added.</p>
<p>For the past 10 years or so this scene has played out nightly during the colder months of the year, usually from mid-October to mid-April.</p>
<p>Uninvited and unwanted invaders, a large number of vultures have selected Webb's trees outside her Charles Town home as their roosting spot for the winter. Usually about five to 15 birds linger year round.</p>
<p>"It's like they're guarding the property or something," Webb said. "I haven't heard any sound from them."</p>
<p>Two kinds of vultures are roosting in her trees. One is the more familiar turkey vulture with a wrinkly, gobbler-looking red balding head. The other is the more aggressive black vulture, with a gray wrinkly head and gray wing tips.</p>
<p>More black vultures than turkey ones roost at Webb's longtime residence.</p>
<p>"The black vultures will come down on the ground," she said. "They throw up balls of fur and stuff like that and you can see them down there picking like a flock of chickens around."</p>
<p>Webb said vultures, with wingspans as wide as six feet, prefer to roost in tall trees where the wind currents can provide generous lift dynamics for easy soaring takeoffs.</p>
<p>"And that's why they've picked these trees," she said with a slight nod to her front yard.</p>
<p>"I expect they're 90-feet tall," she said of the now-a-bit-scraggly, mature white pines. "They've been here a long time."</p>
<p>The vultures started coming to her property about the same time officials at the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park began an effort to scare a group of vultures away from there, Webb said.</p>
<p>For years, she has been searching for ways to persuade the birds to gather elsewhere. She and her late husband, David, talked to various city and state officials about the problem for years.</p>
<p>It's expensive, too. Various times the birds have pecked at the shingles and ridge vent on her roof, causing a few leaks that required professional repairs.</p>
<p>Standard homeowner policies don't cover any vulture vandalism, she said.</p>
<p>"They still peck at the roof," she added.</p>
<p>Webb has tried different things to persuade the birds to leave, and nothing has worked so far. She remembers trying to douse the birds with her grandson's plastic toy pump-action water gun. The water-gun spraying hasn't really done much to deter the birds, she said.</p>
<p>"As soon as I spray the water they all take off," she explained. "Well, then they come back the next evening, or a day or two later."</p>
<p>One time years ago a West Virginia Division of Natural Resources official hung a vulture carcass up in a tree in her yard to scare away the living loitering ones. The wildlife official sounded confident the gruesome ploy would work, Webb said. The carcass dangled there for several weeks.</p>
<p>"The vultures would fly over and they would look at it and go on up in the trees," she recalled with a laugh. "It didn't do a thing."</p>
<p>Webb said she would be glad for a mill or lumber company to clear away the pine trees in exchange for the wood. The birds are damaging the trees, stripping the bark off them, she notes.</p>
<p>"I don't know what the answer is," she said. "The only thing I know is to get rid of the source with the trees-cut the trees down."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Journal, <a href="http://journal-news.net/" type="external">http://journal-news.net/</a></p>
|
Unwanted visitors: Vultures perch seasonally at woman's home
| false |
https://apnews.com/amp/b99485938b084358b8563c71bb5f854f
|
2018-01-15
| 2 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>In this image taken from video made available on Monday March 21, 2016 a man believed to be Salah Abdeslam, right wearing white, the top suspect in the Paris attacks, runs from the police before being shot by the police during a raid in the Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussels, Belgium on Friday March 18, 2016. (I-Tele via AP) FRANCE OUT BELGIUM OUT TV OUT 24 HOURS USE ONLY NO ARCHIVE</p>
<p>BRUSSELS - A keen-eyed witness who spotted a pale, slender figure fleeing an apartment near a Brussels auto plant one week ago set in motion a vast police dragnet that within 72 hours led to the capture of Salah Abdeslam, the most-wanted man in Europe.</p>
<p>Another key - if unwitting - helper in leading authorities to the hideout of their high-value quarry was a pallbearer at the burial of the fugitive's brother.</p>
<p>Abdeslam is being held in a Belgian high-security prison, with France seeking his extradition so he can stand trial for his alleged role in the Nov. 13 rampage of gunfire and suicide bombings that killed 130 people.</p>
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<p>The 26-year-old Frenchman was arrested Friday after being run to ground by investigators in the same gritty Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussels where he grew up. Much remains unclear about Abdeslam's movements in the four months he managed to elude authorities multiple times.</p>
<p>"We're still far from completing the puzzle," Belgian federal prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw acknowledged Monday.</p>
<p>The fugitive's luck began to run out on the afternoon of March 15, when a six-member police team showed up to search an apartment believed linked to the Paris attackers, according to government and security officials.</p>
<p>The joint Belgian-French search party thought the residence near an Audi factory in south Brussels was vacant because the water and power had been turned off for weeks. But as soon as they opened the door, they were fired on from inside by at least two people wielding a Kalashnikov assault rifle and a riot gun, officials said.</p>
<p>In the melee, four police officers were slightly wounded, and two occupants of the apartment managed to slip away, reportedly via the rooftop.</p>
<p>One witness got a good enough look at one of the escapees to describe him to a police sketch artist, said Ahmed El Khannouss, the first deputy mayor of Molenbeek.</p>
<p>The portrait that resulted "bore a very strong resemblance to Salah Abdeslam," El Khannouss said. Forensic scientists found Abdeslam's fingerprints in the apartment.</p>
<p>There also was the body of a suspected Abdeslam accomplice who was shot and killed by a police sniper as the gunman prepared to fire on police from a window, along with a Kalashnikov, a stockpile of ammunition, and a banner of the Islamic State extremist group.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>That's what Belgian authorities made public. What they didn't disclose, said former French intelligence agent Claude Moniquet, was that they also recovered cellphones that quickly told them who the apartment's occupants had contacted.</p>
<p>Now that his cover had been blown, "the working assumption of the police was that Abdeslam would go to a place he knew," said Moniquet, director of the Brussels-based European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center. Most likely, that meant Molenbeek, home to one of the largest North African communities in Belgium and the area where Abdeslam grew up with several of the Paris attackers.</p>
<p>Abdeslam's older brother Brahim, one of the Paris suicide bombers, was buried Thursday in a Brussels cemetery after French investigators finally released his remains to the family. A score of mourners came to the funeral, as did police.</p>
<p>"There was a check of identify papers," El Khannouss said.</p>
<p>Moniquet added that police "interrogated people, took information on their phones."</p>
<p>Photos published in the Belgian press showed that one of mourners who carried Brahim Abdeslam's casket was a young man with a beard who wore a black knit cap.</p>
<p>Identified as Abid Aberkan, he is related to the Abdeslam family, El Khannouss said, although he added he wasn't sure of the precise blood connection.</p>
<p>The Molenbeek official believes some mourners were tailed by authorities as they left the cemetery. In any event, according to Moniquet, "from that time on, they immediately focused on Aberkan. By Thursday night, they were absolutely sure that he (Abdeslam) was hiding in the apartment of Aberkan's mother in Molenbeek."</p>
<p>That apartment is at No. 79 Rue des Quatre-Vents - the Street of the Four Winds - a rundown three-story dwelling that belongs to the municipality and serves as low-income housing. The ground-floor windows are boarded up and the basement windows are barred with ironwork.</p>
<p>At around 4:30 p.m. Friday, the usually quiet neighborhood was swarming with heavily armed police, said a 32-year-old woman who lives across the street. She identified herself only as Aman, refusing to give her last name because she said she was afraid and hasn't been able to sleep since then.</p>
<p>She said she watched through the curtains of her front window at about 4:40 or 4:45 p.m. as Abdeslam bolted from the front door of No. 79, turned left, and was shot in the leg by a SWAT team that had sealed off the street.</p>
<p>"Police said to stop. When he didn't, they shot him," Aman said.</p>
<p>The officers may not have realized who they had captured at first. According to El Khannouss, Abdeslam was so wan and had lost so much weight while on the run that police didn't immediately recognize him.</p>
<p>Two other locations connected to members of the Aberkan family were simultaneously surrounded, including Aberkan's home in Jette, said Thierry Werts, spokesman for the Belgian Federal Prosecutor's Office.</p>
<p>Aberkan and a suspected accomplice of Abdeslam's who had been hiding in the same Molenbeek apartment also were arrested and have been ordered held.</p>
|
Witness, funeral helped lead police to Paris attacks suspect
| false |
https://abqjournal.com/743963/witness-funeral-helped-lead-police-to-paris-attacks-suspect.html
| 2 |
|
<p />
<p>The globe recently experienced the hottest June on record, fitting in with&#160;the&#160;trend of global warming. Yet several top media outlets reported on the&#160;announcement without mentioning climate change at all.</p>
<p>2014 has been a record-breaking year for global temperatures. On July 21, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association <a href="https://twitter.com/NOAA/status/491236721649262593" type="external">&#160;announced</a>&#160;that the average global temperature for the month of June was the hottest experienced for&#160; <a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2013/13" type="external">134 years of records</a>. This finding follows the&#160; <a href="http://news.discovery.com/earth/global-warming/like-may-2014-june-was-hottest-on-record-140722.htm" type="external">hottest May</a>&#160;on record, the hottest&#160; <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/07/15/3460555/hottest-march-june-jma/" type="external">March to June</a>&#160;period on record, and the&#160; <a href="http://www.weather.com/news/science/environment/june-2014-worlds-record-hottest-warmest-june-noaa-20140721" type="external">third hottest</a>&#160;first half of the year on record. The average&#160; <a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2014/6" type="external">ocean surface temperatures</a>&#160;for the month of June were the warmest on record for any month of the year. NOAA's climate monitoring chief Derek Arndt <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/world-breaks-monthly-heat-record-times-row-24649337" type="external">explained</a>&#160;succinctly to the Associated Press -- the only top U.S. print source* that reported on the findings in the context of global warming -- stating that the planet is in the "steroid era of the climate system." Climate scientist Jonathan Overpeck&#160; <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/world-breaks-monthly-heat-record-times-row-24649337" type="external">added</a>: "This is what global warming looks like."</p>
<p><a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2014/6" type="external" /></p>
<p>But if you consume mainstream media, you likely missed this context.&#160; <a href="/embed/clips/2014/07/23/36135/cbs-morningnews-20140722-noaa" type="external">CBS</a>,&#160; <a href="/embed/clips/2014/07/23/36134/nbc-nightlynews-20140721-noaa" type="external">NBC</a>,&#160; <a href="/embed/clips/2014/07/23/36138/msnbc-firstlook-20140722-noaa" type="external">MSNBC</a>,&#160; <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2014/07/21/june-record-heat/12943367/?utm_source=feedblitz&amp;utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&amp;utm_campaign=usatodaycomworld-topstories" type="external">USA Today</a>, the&#160;Wall Street Journal,** and&#160;The&#160;Washington Post's&#160; <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/07/21/june-2014-was-earths-warmest-on-record-as-ocean-temperatures-surged/" type="external">Capital Weather Gang</a>&#160;all covered the announcement without mentioning its key context: global warming, driven by human activities, is making hotter temperatures&#160; <a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-direct-observations.html" type="external">the norm</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.climatecommunication.org/new/articles/heat-waves-and-climate-change/heat-waves-the-details/" type="external" /></p>
<p>The July 21 edition of ABC's&#160;World News With Diane Sawyer&#160;was the only broadcast network program to report on the record in the context of global warming, introducing it as "a new statistic for arguments about climate change," and going on to discuss extreme weather events currently happening across the United States:</p>
<p />
|
On The Hottest June On Record, Most Media Missed This Key Context
| true |
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/07/23/on-the-hottest-june-on-record-most-media-missed/200183
|
2014-07-23
| 4 |
<p>China Merchants Port Holdings Co. (0144.HK) posted an 86% jump in net profit for the first half, thanks to a one-off gain and higher volume handled by the company's ports.</p>
<p>The Hong Kong-listed company said Thursday net profit for the six months ended June 30 was 3.15 billion Hong Kong dollars (US$402.6 million), up from HK$1.69 billion a year earlier.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Revenue rose 5.5% to HK$4.06 billion from HK$3.85 billion.</p>
<p>The company attributed the earnings strength in part to a HK$813 million gain from the sale of its stake in China International Marine Containers (Group) (000039.SZ) during the period.</p>
<p>The unit of state-owned China Merchants Group declared an interim dividend of 22 Hong Kong cents a share and a special dividend of HK$1.35 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its listing.</p>
<p>Write to Joanne Chiu at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>August 31, 2017 00:40 ET (04:40 GMT)</p>
|
China Merchants Ports 1st-Half Net Profit Rose to HK$3.15 Billion
| true |
http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/08/31/china-merchants-ports-1st-half-net-profit-rose-to-hk-3-15-billion.html
|
2017-08-31
| 0 |
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