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<p />
<p>Gov. Susana Martinez signed a trio of bills today that authorize funding for hundreds of bricks-and-mortar projects around the state.</p>
<p>But the Republican governor also used her line-item veto authority to strike down more than 150 projects, and chastised lawmakers for having an "irresponsible" approach to infrastructure spending.</p>
<p>"It is frustrating and disappointing to watch how the Legislature squanders critical infrastructure funding - choosing to spend money on local pork projects that often do not create jobs or develop the economy instead of pooling resources to make long-lasting, impactful improvements throughout the state," Martinez said in her executive message to House leaders.</p>
<p>Projects axed by Martinez included $5,000 for band instruments at a Las Vegas high school, $10,000 for wrestling mats in Gallup and $20,000 to renovate facilities and buy zoo animals in Clovis.</p>
<p>She also vetoed a few big-ticket projects in a separate capital outlay bill, such as $8 million for a new health education building at the University of New Mexico's campus in&#160;Rio Rancho.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Martinez has previously clashed with the Legislature over the state's capital outlay system, objecting to the practices of only providing partial funding for projects and granting dollars for projects not sought by local government leaders.</p>
<p>But many lawmakers have been reluctant to sign off on changes to the state's current system, in large part due to fear it could mean less money going to their districts.</p>
<p>In all, the governor signed off on roughly $158 million worth of projects in the annual capital outlay bill backed by future severance tax revenue, House Bill 219, while vetoing $8.2 million worth of projects.</p>
<p>She authorized $174.4 million in a separate capital outlay bill, Senate Bill 122, the general obligation bond bill,&#160;while vetoing $10.9 million worth of projects from that legislation, which now goes before statewide voters in November.</p> | Gov. Martinez signs $158M public works package, but axes 150-plus projects | false | https://abqjournal.com/737638/gov-martinez-signs-158m-public-works-package-but-axes-150-plus-projects.html | 2least
| Gov. Martinez signs $158M public works package, but axes 150-plus projects
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>Gov. Susana Martinez signed a trio of bills today that authorize funding for hundreds of bricks-and-mortar projects around the state.</p>
<p>But the Republican governor also used her line-item veto authority to strike down more than 150 projects, and chastised lawmakers for having an "irresponsible" approach to infrastructure spending.</p>
<p>"It is frustrating and disappointing to watch how the Legislature squanders critical infrastructure funding - choosing to spend money on local pork projects that often do not create jobs or develop the economy instead of pooling resources to make long-lasting, impactful improvements throughout the state," Martinez said in her executive message to House leaders.</p>
<p>Projects axed by Martinez included $5,000 for band instruments at a Las Vegas high school, $10,000 for wrestling mats in Gallup and $20,000 to renovate facilities and buy zoo animals in Clovis.</p>
<p>She also vetoed a few big-ticket projects in a separate capital outlay bill, such as $8 million for a new health education building at the University of New Mexico's campus in&#160;Rio Rancho.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Martinez has previously clashed with the Legislature over the state's capital outlay system, objecting to the practices of only providing partial funding for projects and granting dollars for projects not sought by local government leaders.</p>
<p>But many lawmakers have been reluctant to sign off on changes to the state's current system, in large part due to fear it could mean less money going to their districts.</p>
<p>In all, the governor signed off on roughly $158 million worth of projects in the annual capital outlay bill backed by future severance tax revenue, House Bill 219, while vetoing $8.2 million worth of projects.</p>
<p>She authorized $174.4 million in a separate capital outlay bill, Senate Bill 122, the general obligation bond bill,&#160;while vetoing $10.9 million worth of projects from that legislation, which now goes before statewide voters in November.</p> | 3,200 |
|
<p>During an interview with the Wall Street Journal, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) said he is ready and willing to slash entitlements like Medicare, because, in his opinion, Americans have to “come to grips with the fact that promises have been made that frankly <a href="http://online.wsj.com/video/rep-eric-cantor-and-peggy-noonan/D5BB9C90-0453-43FB-B90C-00648C5A6603.html" type="external">are not going to be kept for many</a>”:</p>
<p>What we need to be able to do is to demonstrate that that is the better way for the people of this country. Get the fiscal house in order, come to grips with the fact that promises have been made that, frankly, are not going to be kept for many. […] The math doesn’t lie.</p>
<p>Watch it:</p>
<p>Republicans have been saying for months that they want to preserve programs like Medicare and Social Security for all people over the age of 55, but that those under 55 will have to shift into a different program. But Cantor’s pronouncement is maybe the most explicit explanation that, under the GOP’s vision, the government would be actively reneging on promises made to those who haven’t yet hit the arbitrary age of 55.</p>
<p>Of course, the math would look much better, particularly on Social Security, if the GOP <a href="http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/cantor-dear-young-people-were-going-to-slash-your-medicare.php" type="external">were to back off its insistence</a> that the government not collect a single dime in new revenue. Meanwhile, Jacob Hacker, political science professor at Yale University, has called the GOP’s scheme to raise the Medicare retirement age “ <a href="" type="internal">the single worst idea for Medicare reform</a>” since it “saves Medicare money only by shifting the cost burden onto older Americans caught between the old eligibility age and the new, as well as onto the employers and states that help fund their benefits.”</p> | Cantor: Entitlement Promises ‘Frankly, Are Not Going To Be Kept For Many’ | true | http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/08/04/287560/cantor-entitlement-promises-frankly-are-not-going-to-be-kept-for-many/ | 2011-08-04 | 4left
| Cantor: Entitlement Promises ‘Frankly, Are Not Going To Be Kept For Many’
<p>During an interview with the Wall Street Journal, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) said he is ready and willing to slash entitlements like Medicare, because, in his opinion, Americans have to “come to grips with the fact that promises have been made that frankly <a href="http://online.wsj.com/video/rep-eric-cantor-and-peggy-noonan/D5BB9C90-0453-43FB-B90C-00648C5A6603.html" type="external">are not going to be kept for many</a>”:</p>
<p>What we need to be able to do is to demonstrate that that is the better way for the people of this country. Get the fiscal house in order, come to grips with the fact that promises have been made that, frankly, are not going to be kept for many. […] The math doesn’t lie.</p>
<p>Watch it:</p>
<p>Republicans have been saying for months that they want to preserve programs like Medicare and Social Security for all people over the age of 55, but that those under 55 will have to shift into a different program. But Cantor’s pronouncement is maybe the most explicit explanation that, under the GOP’s vision, the government would be actively reneging on promises made to those who haven’t yet hit the arbitrary age of 55.</p>
<p>Of course, the math would look much better, particularly on Social Security, if the GOP <a href="http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/cantor-dear-young-people-were-going-to-slash-your-medicare.php" type="external">were to back off its insistence</a> that the government not collect a single dime in new revenue. Meanwhile, Jacob Hacker, political science professor at Yale University, has called the GOP’s scheme to raise the Medicare retirement age “ <a href="" type="internal">the single worst idea for Medicare reform</a>” since it “saves Medicare money only by shifting the cost burden onto older Americans caught between the old eligibility age and the new, as well as onto the employers and states that help fund their benefits.”</p> | 3,201 |
<p />
<p>Fishermen in New England say President Barack Obama needlessly dealt a big blow to their industry when he created the Atlantic Ocean's first marine national monument and circumvented the existing process for protecting fisheries.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The new Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument consists of nearly 5,000 square miles of underwater canyons and mountains off the New England coast. The designation will close the area to commercial fishermen, who go there primarily for lobster, red crab, squid, whiting, butterfish, swordfish and tuna.</p>
<p>After Thursday's announcement, fishermen pondered their next move: sue, lobby Congress to change the plan or relocate. It's hard to move, they said, because other fishermen would likely already be fishing where they would want to go.</p>
<p>They said the designation process wasn't transparent and the administration should have let the New England Fishery Management Council finish working on the coral protection measures it's considering.</p>
<p>"There seems to be a huge misconception that there are limitless areas where displaced fishermen can go," said Grant Moore, president of the Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen's Association. "Basically with the stroke of a pen, President Obama put fishermen and their crews out of work and harmed all the shore-side businesses that support the fishing industry."</p>
<p>The lobstermen's association and other fishermen wanted the White House to allow fishing in depths of up to 450 meters, so they could still go there but deep-sea corals would have been protected. Annually, about 800,000 pounds (362,877 kilograms) of lobster are caught near the canyons, according to the lobstermen's association.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>White House officials said the administration listened to industry's concerns and made the monument smaller, with a seven-year transition period for the lobster and red crab industries.</p>
<p>Industry advocate Robert Vanasse said it's clear the plan will decrease the supply of fish species, and typically a decrease in supply, raises prices. It's difficult to gauge the economic impact this early, added Vanasse, executive director of Saving Seafood.</p>
<p>A lobsterman in Newport, Rhode Island, wants Congress to act. One of Bill Palombo's three boats catches lobster exclusively in the monument area. If nothing changes within seven years, Palombo said, "I guess you just go out of business."</p>
<p>"What can you do," he said. "That's why we're so upset."</p>
<p>Palombo and others questioned why, if the area is considered pristine and fishermen have been going there for decades, can't fishing continue?</p>
<p>The designation was widely praised by environmentalists as a way to sustain important species and reduce the toll of climate change.</p>
<p>Priscilla Brooks, of the Conservation Law Foundation, said it's a "very small area" compared to what's currently open to fishing. She said the White House struck a balance so there would be a "soft landing" for the industry, with seven years to phase out fishing.</p>
<p>"The fishing activities taking place in the monument aren't compatible with the protection of vulnerable marine life," she said.</p>
<p>Brad Sewell, of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said fishing gear has been seen on top of coral and has entangled marine mammals in the area. He worries these problems will worsen over time as fishing gear reaches deeper.</p>
<p>"You want to protect an area like this is when it's relatively pristine," he said. "The time to do it is now, not wait until the damage is done."</p>
<p>Affected fishermen formed the Southern Georges Bank Fishing Coalition on Wednesday to oppose the monument. Coalition attorney Drew Minkiewicz said the president doesn't have the authority to use the American Antiquities Act to declare a marine monument far offshore and Congress granted the right to protect these areas to the fisheries councils that manage them.</p>
<p>"For people who live and work on the water, this is terrifying," he said. "This is the government using eminent domain on your workplace."</p>
<p>Minkiewicz wouldn't say whether the coalition plans to sue.</p>
<p>The New England Fishery Management Council said it needs to reassess its management strategy given the new developments. Mary Beth Tooley, a council member from Maine, said the public process used by the council "is the way it should be done" and she's disappointed it was circumvented.</p>
<p>Eric Reid, general manager of a seafood processing facility in Rhode Island, knows more than 20 boats that fish in the area covered by the monument.</p>
<p>"If they can't get fish, I'm not in the processing business," said Reid, of Seafreeze Shoreside Inc.</p>
<p>Reid said Obama will deal with the intended and unintended consequences of his decision for the rest of his term, while fishermen have to live with them forever.</p> | Fishermen upset over creation of Atlantic's first monument | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/09/16/fishermen-upset-over-creation-atlantic-first-monument.html | 2016-09-16 | 0right
| Fishermen upset over creation of Atlantic's first monument
<p />
<p>Fishermen in New England say President Barack Obama needlessly dealt a big blow to their industry when he created the Atlantic Ocean's first marine national monument and circumvented the existing process for protecting fisheries.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The new Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument consists of nearly 5,000 square miles of underwater canyons and mountains off the New England coast. The designation will close the area to commercial fishermen, who go there primarily for lobster, red crab, squid, whiting, butterfish, swordfish and tuna.</p>
<p>After Thursday's announcement, fishermen pondered their next move: sue, lobby Congress to change the plan or relocate. It's hard to move, they said, because other fishermen would likely already be fishing where they would want to go.</p>
<p>They said the designation process wasn't transparent and the administration should have let the New England Fishery Management Council finish working on the coral protection measures it's considering.</p>
<p>"There seems to be a huge misconception that there are limitless areas where displaced fishermen can go," said Grant Moore, president of the Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen's Association. "Basically with the stroke of a pen, President Obama put fishermen and their crews out of work and harmed all the shore-side businesses that support the fishing industry."</p>
<p>The lobstermen's association and other fishermen wanted the White House to allow fishing in depths of up to 450 meters, so they could still go there but deep-sea corals would have been protected. Annually, about 800,000 pounds (362,877 kilograms) of lobster are caught near the canyons, according to the lobstermen's association.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>White House officials said the administration listened to industry's concerns and made the monument smaller, with a seven-year transition period for the lobster and red crab industries.</p>
<p>Industry advocate Robert Vanasse said it's clear the plan will decrease the supply of fish species, and typically a decrease in supply, raises prices. It's difficult to gauge the economic impact this early, added Vanasse, executive director of Saving Seafood.</p>
<p>A lobsterman in Newport, Rhode Island, wants Congress to act. One of Bill Palombo's three boats catches lobster exclusively in the monument area. If nothing changes within seven years, Palombo said, "I guess you just go out of business."</p>
<p>"What can you do," he said. "That's why we're so upset."</p>
<p>Palombo and others questioned why, if the area is considered pristine and fishermen have been going there for decades, can't fishing continue?</p>
<p>The designation was widely praised by environmentalists as a way to sustain important species and reduce the toll of climate change.</p>
<p>Priscilla Brooks, of the Conservation Law Foundation, said it's a "very small area" compared to what's currently open to fishing. She said the White House struck a balance so there would be a "soft landing" for the industry, with seven years to phase out fishing.</p>
<p>"The fishing activities taking place in the monument aren't compatible with the protection of vulnerable marine life," she said.</p>
<p>Brad Sewell, of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said fishing gear has been seen on top of coral and has entangled marine mammals in the area. He worries these problems will worsen over time as fishing gear reaches deeper.</p>
<p>"You want to protect an area like this is when it's relatively pristine," he said. "The time to do it is now, not wait until the damage is done."</p>
<p>Affected fishermen formed the Southern Georges Bank Fishing Coalition on Wednesday to oppose the monument. Coalition attorney Drew Minkiewicz said the president doesn't have the authority to use the American Antiquities Act to declare a marine monument far offshore and Congress granted the right to protect these areas to the fisheries councils that manage them.</p>
<p>"For people who live and work on the water, this is terrifying," he said. "This is the government using eminent domain on your workplace."</p>
<p>Minkiewicz wouldn't say whether the coalition plans to sue.</p>
<p>The New England Fishery Management Council said it needs to reassess its management strategy given the new developments. Mary Beth Tooley, a council member from Maine, said the public process used by the council "is the way it should be done" and she's disappointed it was circumvented.</p>
<p>Eric Reid, general manager of a seafood processing facility in Rhode Island, knows more than 20 boats that fish in the area covered by the monument.</p>
<p>"If they can't get fish, I'm not in the processing business," said Reid, of Seafreeze Shoreside Inc.</p>
<p>Reid said Obama will deal with the intended and unintended consequences of his decision for the rest of his term, while fishermen have to live with them forever.</p> | 3,202 |
<p>Approaching the Baldwin Hills shopping center in Los Angeles on Wednesday, I was struck by the youth of the men and women—mostly African-American—as they lined up outside the plaza’s theater and crowded the lobby and stairs leading to the packed auditorium.</p>
<p>They were attending “Manifest Justice,” a weeklong pop-up art show and discussion forum focused on the young African-American men who’ve been shot and killed by police, as well as the huge number of black and Latino young people imprisoned or expelled from school, potentially setting them on the path to lives of poverty.</p>
<p>The age of the crowd and its size at the shopping center in middle- and upper-class Baldwin Hills, which has a large black population, was significant. It showed how deeply these traumatic events have affected the African-American community, touching the poor and the affluent.</p>
<p>I attended the event just as African-Americans around the country were reacting to the death of Freddie Gray, a young black man in Baltimore who died at the hands of the police.</p>
<p />
<p>A few days before, a homeless black man was shot to death by a Los Angeles police officer, also African-American, in a melee in the beachside community of Venice, touching off protests in the area.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, members of the black community continue to demand the results of an investigation of another fatal shooting. The victim in this case was Ezell Ford Jr., a mentally ill young black man killed last August by two Los Angeles police officers, one Asian-American and the other Latino. The killings of an African-American boy in Cleveland and a black man in New York by white police officers took place around the same time.</p>
<p>Speaking Wednesday night was Sybrina Fulton, mother of Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old black Florida high school student shot to death by George Zimmerman, a Neighborhood Watch member in the subdivision where he killed the boy. Zimmerman was found not guilty of second-degree murder.</p>
<p>“It was absolutely about the color of his skin,” Fulton said of the shooting by Zimmerman, whose father is white and whose mother was born in Peru.</p>
<p>At first, she said, “I did not want to believe it was about racial profiling. …I didn’t believe we had people living in our communities who would shoot someone because of the color of their skin.” But as she worked her way through her grief and learned the facts of the case, she came to the conclusion that Zimmerman followed her son and shot him because of race.</p>
<p>That’s when she began speaking out. “I speak for those who cannot speak for themselves,” she said. “I am Trayvon Martin.”Sharing the platform with Fulton was actress Rosario Dawson and Robert K. Ross, president of The California Endowment, a not-for-profit organization that funds projects to improve the health of minority communities. Dawson is a leader of Voto Latino, which aims to increase Latino voting and elect public officials who will discipline out-of-control police.</p>
<p>The art show at “Manifest Justice” approached the problem with powerful paintings and images. I was particularly impressed with two sculptures. One was a seesaw made of wood by Jim Arnold. On the up side was a figure with hands raised in surrender. On the down side was a figure holding a gun, ready to fire. The other sculpture was an old police car, a Ford Crown Vic, painted white. One door read “Ferguson PD,” referring to the department responsible for the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager. The other door was marked “NYPD.” Sculptor Jordan J. Weber said he bought the used car, painted it, put dirt from Ferguson on the floor, and planted cactus and other invasive plants, which are growing through holes in the roof to symbolize police as an invasive force. Then he cut it up, trucked it from his Des Moines, Iowa, studio and reassembled it in Los Angeles.</p>
<p>Everything I saw and heard at “Manifest Justice” represented an attempt to cure an ailment that so far has failed to respond to the medicine offered by pundits, scholars, politicians, community activists, lawyers and others involved in the criminal justice system.</p>
<p>The easiest story line, one embraced by cable TV news, is “white cops versus black kids.” But it’s much more complicated. As Sybrina Fulton noted in her discussion, “The issue is not about white on black. Sometimes it is black on black or white on white.”</p>
<p>I explored that point in January, in a Truthdig column on young black men being shot to death by non-white cops. It’s the police culture, I was told, and the attitude cops bring to policing in poor, high-crime areas.</p>
<p>I met with members of the Youth Justice Coalition, made up of former prisoners who have organized to reform the criminal justice system.</p>
<p>“It’s not the person that fills the uniform, it’s what the uniform does to the person,” said Kim McGill, an organizer for the coalition. “Blue is the new white.”</p>
<p>Or, as another Youth Justice Coalition member, Abraham Colunga, told me, “It’s cop versus black and brown, any minority. It’s more a matter of cop versus us, no matter what the cop is, black, brown, Filipino.”</p>
<p>Los Angeles is a good example of that. The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report, a compilation of all killings, found that 594 people died in officer-involved shootings between 2000 and 2014. Of these, 114 were white, 300 Latino, 159 black and 16 Asian (the black total is disproportionately high, because African-Americans are a smaller part of the population than Latinos and whites). Yet the Los Angeles Police Department is multiethnic. It has 3,547 Latino officers, the largest ethnic group, followed by 2,756 whites, 861 blacks and 634 Asian-Americans.Kim McGill believes part of the answer is for neighborhoods to exert more control. “We have to change the culture of law enforcement and create real community authority over police if we want to address system violence and transform the treatment of black and brown communities,” she told me.</p>
<p>Another part of the answer is to call off the “war on crime”—police invasions of poor black and Latino neighborhoods that involve repeated stop-and-frisks, resulting in arrests for drug violations that are ignored in affluent white areas. The jails should be emptied of these minor offenders so they can return to their neighborhoods and be the parents their children need. And while ending that useless war, what about halting school expulsions that put young blacks and Latinos out on the street, possibly on the road to jail? And why can’t police learn to deal with the mentally ill instead of shooting them, as too often happens?</p>
<p>I went to “Manifest Justice” looking for answers. But having dealt with these questions for many years, I knew they would be hard to find.</p>
<p>I’ll bet members of the audience felt the same way as they pondered the future and worried about their black sons and brothers over Mother’s Day brunches that had a special, sad resonance this year.</p> | Is Blue the New White? | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/is-blue-the-new-white/ | 2015-05-14 | 4left
| Is Blue the New White?
<p>Approaching the Baldwin Hills shopping center in Los Angeles on Wednesday, I was struck by the youth of the men and women—mostly African-American—as they lined up outside the plaza’s theater and crowded the lobby and stairs leading to the packed auditorium.</p>
<p>They were attending “Manifest Justice,” a weeklong pop-up art show and discussion forum focused on the young African-American men who’ve been shot and killed by police, as well as the huge number of black and Latino young people imprisoned or expelled from school, potentially setting them on the path to lives of poverty.</p>
<p>The age of the crowd and its size at the shopping center in middle- and upper-class Baldwin Hills, which has a large black population, was significant. It showed how deeply these traumatic events have affected the African-American community, touching the poor and the affluent.</p>
<p>I attended the event just as African-Americans around the country were reacting to the death of Freddie Gray, a young black man in Baltimore who died at the hands of the police.</p>
<p />
<p>A few days before, a homeless black man was shot to death by a Los Angeles police officer, also African-American, in a melee in the beachside community of Venice, touching off protests in the area.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, members of the black community continue to demand the results of an investigation of another fatal shooting. The victim in this case was Ezell Ford Jr., a mentally ill young black man killed last August by two Los Angeles police officers, one Asian-American and the other Latino. The killings of an African-American boy in Cleveland and a black man in New York by white police officers took place around the same time.</p>
<p>Speaking Wednesday night was Sybrina Fulton, mother of Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old black Florida high school student shot to death by George Zimmerman, a Neighborhood Watch member in the subdivision where he killed the boy. Zimmerman was found not guilty of second-degree murder.</p>
<p>“It was absolutely about the color of his skin,” Fulton said of the shooting by Zimmerman, whose father is white and whose mother was born in Peru.</p>
<p>At first, she said, “I did not want to believe it was about racial profiling. …I didn’t believe we had people living in our communities who would shoot someone because of the color of their skin.” But as she worked her way through her grief and learned the facts of the case, she came to the conclusion that Zimmerman followed her son and shot him because of race.</p>
<p>That’s when she began speaking out. “I speak for those who cannot speak for themselves,” she said. “I am Trayvon Martin.”Sharing the platform with Fulton was actress Rosario Dawson and Robert K. Ross, president of The California Endowment, a not-for-profit organization that funds projects to improve the health of minority communities. Dawson is a leader of Voto Latino, which aims to increase Latino voting and elect public officials who will discipline out-of-control police.</p>
<p>The art show at “Manifest Justice” approached the problem with powerful paintings and images. I was particularly impressed with two sculptures. One was a seesaw made of wood by Jim Arnold. On the up side was a figure with hands raised in surrender. On the down side was a figure holding a gun, ready to fire. The other sculpture was an old police car, a Ford Crown Vic, painted white. One door read “Ferguson PD,” referring to the department responsible for the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager. The other door was marked “NYPD.” Sculptor Jordan J. Weber said he bought the used car, painted it, put dirt from Ferguson on the floor, and planted cactus and other invasive plants, which are growing through holes in the roof to symbolize police as an invasive force. Then he cut it up, trucked it from his Des Moines, Iowa, studio and reassembled it in Los Angeles.</p>
<p>Everything I saw and heard at “Manifest Justice” represented an attempt to cure an ailment that so far has failed to respond to the medicine offered by pundits, scholars, politicians, community activists, lawyers and others involved in the criminal justice system.</p>
<p>The easiest story line, one embraced by cable TV news, is “white cops versus black kids.” But it’s much more complicated. As Sybrina Fulton noted in her discussion, “The issue is not about white on black. Sometimes it is black on black or white on white.”</p>
<p>I explored that point in January, in a Truthdig column on young black men being shot to death by non-white cops. It’s the police culture, I was told, and the attitude cops bring to policing in poor, high-crime areas.</p>
<p>I met with members of the Youth Justice Coalition, made up of former prisoners who have organized to reform the criminal justice system.</p>
<p>“It’s not the person that fills the uniform, it’s what the uniform does to the person,” said Kim McGill, an organizer for the coalition. “Blue is the new white.”</p>
<p>Or, as another Youth Justice Coalition member, Abraham Colunga, told me, “It’s cop versus black and brown, any minority. It’s more a matter of cop versus us, no matter what the cop is, black, brown, Filipino.”</p>
<p>Los Angeles is a good example of that. The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report, a compilation of all killings, found that 594 people died in officer-involved shootings between 2000 and 2014. Of these, 114 were white, 300 Latino, 159 black and 16 Asian (the black total is disproportionately high, because African-Americans are a smaller part of the population than Latinos and whites). Yet the Los Angeles Police Department is multiethnic. It has 3,547 Latino officers, the largest ethnic group, followed by 2,756 whites, 861 blacks and 634 Asian-Americans.Kim McGill believes part of the answer is for neighborhoods to exert more control. “We have to change the culture of law enforcement and create real community authority over police if we want to address system violence and transform the treatment of black and brown communities,” she told me.</p>
<p>Another part of the answer is to call off the “war on crime”—police invasions of poor black and Latino neighborhoods that involve repeated stop-and-frisks, resulting in arrests for drug violations that are ignored in affluent white areas. The jails should be emptied of these minor offenders so they can return to their neighborhoods and be the parents their children need. And while ending that useless war, what about halting school expulsions that put young blacks and Latinos out on the street, possibly on the road to jail? And why can’t police learn to deal with the mentally ill instead of shooting them, as too often happens?</p>
<p>I went to “Manifest Justice” looking for answers. But having dealt with these questions for many years, I knew they would be hard to find.</p>
<p>I’ll bet members of the audience felt the same way as they pondered the future and worried about their black sons and brothers over Mother’s Day brunches that had a special, sad resonance this year.</p> | 3,203 |
<p>Photo by b de baca | <a href="" type="internal">CC BY 2.0</a></p>
<p>The best and worst of Mexico have been on view since the earthquake of Tuesday, September 19 that rocked Mexico City and surrounding states. This was the second major quake in Mexico in 12 days; the first affected principally the southern states of Oaxaca and Chiapas. As the officially-acknowledged death toll from the most recent tremor surpasses 400, it is important to recognize the work of students and other citizens who, with or without experience or expertise, have collected massive amounts of food, water, personal hygiene items, and blankets and distributed them to displaced persons and have cleaned rubble—manually, which is the only way to find survivors. Within minutes, people came up with ways to help: offer rides or glasses of water, find and go to buildings that had caved in or were at risk of doing so, collect provisions and move them immediately toward affected neighborhoods and towns, and go with groups of engineers, doctors, paramedics, psychologists, lawyers, veterinarians, and other specialists to affected locales. All of this apparently non-controversial human and humane activity is seen as a threat by the federal government, which knows that during Mexico City’s last massive earthquake, exactly 32 years earlier, citizen response to government neglect and to the earthquake itself was a key event in the building of resistance to one-party rule. And more recently, the 11-year-old war on drugs has led to an increasing militarization of the country, augmented by a fear of losing control in the wake of protests against atrocities like the forced disappearance of 43 education students three years ago (September 26, 2014). Authorities hoped that suppressing civilian participation in relief efforts would help in the pre-existing U.S.-style public relations strategy of glorifying police and military personnel as heroes.</p>
<p>In recent days, it has become increasingly evident that some of the most horrific accusations against state, local, and federal government officials and compliant mainstream media and personnel are true, ranging from inventing a little girl (“Frida Sofía”) who supposedly was communicating from under the rubble of a collapsed private school, Colegio Rebsamen in Mexico City, to government officials and military personnel actively blocking civilian efforts and confiscating relief supplies or forcing them to be surrendered to government warehouses. Volunteers and activists have asked donors and transporters of supplies to cross out barcodes on all products and write messages like “Not for resale—earthquake relief” or “No use of this material by governments or political parties is permitted”.</p>
<p>Burying victims alive?</p>
<p>Perhaps the gravest human rights violation committed by various governments—especially that of Mexico City mayor Miguel Ángel Mancera and president Enrique Peña Nieto—has been to bring in demolition equipment to knock down buildings before a thorough and skilled search has been made to rule out the presence of buried survivors. One such case is on Petén street, where rescue workers who arrived on Thursday were interrupted the next day by police who forced them out and began to move in demolition equipment. This despite rescue workers’ insistence that ten days would be necessary to search the site for survivors. Foreign rescue teams have been denied entrance to the country or have been left stranded at the airport.</p>
<p>Another troublesome site is on a street called Bolívar where it passes out of downtown into the Obrera neighborhood. Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, Peña Nieto’s top cabinet official, tried to visit a collapsed factory the day after the quake and was run off by neighbors and workers who threw everything they had at him and reportedly hit him with two bottles and one fist. Here, the disagreement between survivors and officials is also about the rush to demolish.</p>
<p>Government theft and repackaging of citizen-donated relief supplies</p>
<p>A report by Rubicela Morelos Cruz of the newspaper La Jornada documents an example of what numerous personal testimonies have asserted: that truck drivers carrying supplies from the state of Michoacán to Morelos (where Cuernavaca is the capital and Jojutla and Axochiapan are among the hardest-hit municipalities) were stopped by soldiers at roadblocks. These roadblocks prevented supplies from arriving to the state or forced that they be turned in to warehouses controlled by Elena Cepeda, wife of&#160; governor Graco Ramírez of the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD). This husband and wife team intercepts materials and puts stickers on them announcing that the relief is courtesy of the state government, i.e., them. A bizarre gender-role institutionalization persists in Mexico. When a president, governor, or mayor is a married man, his wife is president of the system of Desarrollo Integral de la Familia (DIF), a vehicle for distributing patronage under the guise of social services. A similar piece in the same newspaper the next day quotes the bishop of Cuernavaca corroborating the accusations and offering more examples.</p>
<p>Frida Sofía</p>
<p>The biggest television network in Mexico, Televisa, spent nine hours covering, non-stop, an effort to rescue a supposed student named Frida Sofía, who, according to &#160;government sources, Televisa, and other media, was under a desk which sheltered her from the rubble and was in contact with five other people in a similar situation. More than ten people from the school had already been found dead. While many people noticed that there was something suspicious about a tragedy of the magnitude of this earthquake being reduced to the possible rescue of one person, it took a while for people to question whether Frida Sofía existed. It was almost as if propagandists had researched what names the liberals on the south side of Mexico City give to their daughters and come up with the combination of Frida and Sofía. People associated with the school obviously knew that she did not exist but kept quiet out of fear that, if they spoke, their building, too, would be subject to premature demolition before the fate of people who really were missing could be clarified. Carlos Loret de Mola and Denise Maerker, the Televisa news anchors who peddled the story shamelessly, expressed shock and outrage and even criticized the military on the air when they realized that they had been used by their allies (or that the story whose fabrication they had participated in was no longer credible).</p>
<p>Gentrification</p>
<p>As in New Orleans and now Houston, disaster is an opportunity for certain parties. The mayor of Houston recently named a former Shell Oil executive to head a task force to rebuild the city. Mexico City is divided into 16 delegaciones, similar to boroughs. The head of the one that encompasses the center of the city, including several fashionable neighborhoods that were hard-hit by the earthquake, is Ricardo Monreal, who in the past 30 years has held elective office under the banner of five different political parties. He recently lost a bid to become the mayoral candidate of Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s center-left party, Morena, and announced that he will resign from the party. The day after the earthquake, he said that he has spent years trying to convince a group of residents of the Doctores neighborhood to leave their building, on the verge of collapse, according to him, since the 1985 earthquake, and now really&#160; about to come down. Will these residents heed his advice? Not likely; la Doctores is adjacent to la Roma, one of most hipster ‘hoods in the city, and la Doctores, in spite of its “poor and dangerous” reputation, is also heading that way. These neighbors, logically, feel that if they give up the little bit of turf that they have they will never make their way back into the city, let alone into any centrally-located neighborhood with access to subway and bus service. Monreal has been, along with mayor Mancera, one of the leading spokespersons and movers for real estate speculators, and both are licking their lips about the possibilities. At the same time, the tendency to build taller and shoddier buildings, exacerbated since 2007, has made the city much more vulnerable to the movements of an ever-shakier earth. (Colegio Rebsamen had two or more buildings; the one that was just built was the one that collapsed.)</p> | Mexico’s Earthquake: Government Represses Grassroots Rescue Work and May be Burying Survivors Alive | true | https://counterpunch.org/2017/09/26/mexicos-earthquake-government-represses-grassroots-rescue-work-and-may-be-burying-survivors-alive/ | 2017-09-26 | 4left
| Mexico’s Earthquake: Government Represses Grassroots Rescue Work and May be Burying Survivors Alive
<p>Photo by b de baca | <a href="" type="internal">CC BY 2.0</a></p>
<p>The best and worst of Mexico have been on view since the earthquake of Tuesday, September 19 that rocked Mexico City and surrounding states. This was the second major quake in Mexico in 12 days; the first affected principally the southern states of Oaxaca and Chiapas. As the officially-acknowledged death toll from the most recent tremor surpasses 400, it is important to recognize the work of students and other citizens who, with or without experience or expertise, have collected massive amounts of food, water, personal hygiene items, and blankets and distributed them to displaced persons and have cleaned rubble—manually, which is the only way to find survivors. Within minutes, people came up with ways to help: offer rides or glasses of water, find and go to buildings that had caved in or were at risk of doing so, collect provisions and move them immediately toward affected neighborhoods and towns, and go with groups of engineers, doctors, paramedics, psychologists, lawyers, veterinarians, and other specialists to affected locales. All of this apparently non-controversial human and humane activity is seen as a threat by the federal government, which knows that during Mexico City’s last massive earthquake, exactly 32 years earlier, citizen response to government neglect and to the earthquake itself was a key event in the building of resistance to one-party rule. And more recently, the 11-year-old war on drugs has led to an increasing militarization of the country, augmented by a fear of losing control in the wake of protests against atrocities like the forced disappearance of 43 education students three years ago (September 26, 2014). Authorities hoped that suppressing civilian participation in relief efforts would help in the pre-existing U.S.-style public relations strategy of glorifying police and military personnel as heroes.</p>
<p>In recent days, it has become increasingly evident that some of the most horrific accusations against state, local, and federal government officials and compliant mainstream media and personnel are true, ranging from inventing a little girl (“Frida Sofía”) who supposedly was communicating from under the rubble of a collapsed private school, Colegio Rebsamen in Mexico City, to government officials and military personnel actively blocking civilian efforts and confiscating relief supplies or forcing them to be surrendered to government warehouses. Volunteers and activists have asked donors and transporters of supplies to cross out barcodes on all products and write messages like “Not for resale—earthquake relief” or “No use of this material by governments or political parties is permitted”.</p>
<p>Burying victims alive?</p>
<p>Perhaps the gravest human rights violation committed by various governments—especially that of Mexico City mayor Miguel Ángel Mancera and president Enrique Peña Nieto—has been to bring in demolition equipment to knock down buildings before a thorough and skilled search has been made to rule out the presence of buried survivors. One such case is on Petén street, where rescue workers who arrived on Thursday were interrupted the next day by police who forced them out and began to move in demolition equipment. This despite rescue workers’ insistence that ten days would be necessary to search the site for survivors. Foreign rescue teams have been denied entrance to the country or have been left stranded at the airport.</p>
<p>Another troublesome site is on a street called Bolívar where it passes out of downtown into the Obrera neighborhood. Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, Peña Nieto’s top cabinet official, tried to visit a collapsed factory the day after the quake and was run off by neighbors and workers who threw everything they had at him and reportedly hit him with two bottles and one fist. Here, the disagreement between survivors and officials is also about the rush to demolish.</p>
<p>Government theft and repackaging of citizen-donated relief supplies</p>
<p>A report by Rubicela Morelos Cruz of the newspaper La Jornada documents an example of what numerous personal testimonies have asserted: that truck drivers carrying supplies from the state of Michoacán to Morelos (where Cuernavaca is the capital and Jojutla and Axochiapan are among the hardest-hit municipalities) were stopped by soldiers at roadblocks. These roadblocks prevented supplies from arriving to the state or forced that they be turned in to warehouses controlled by Elena Cepeda, wife of&#160; governor Graco Ramírez of the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD). This husband and wife team intercepts materials and puts stickers on them announcing that the relief is courtesy of the state government, i.e., them. A bizarre gender-role institutionalization persists in Mexico. When a president, governor, or mayor is a married man, his wife is president of the system of Desarrollo Integral de la Familia (DIF), a vehicle for distributing patronage under the guise of social services. A similar piece in the same newspaper the next day quotes the bishop of Cuernavaca corroborating the accusations and offering more examples.</p>
<p>Frida Sofía</p>
<p>The biggest television network in Mexico, Televisa, spent nine hours covering, non-stop, an effort to rescue a supposed student named Frida Sofía, who, according to &#160;government sources, Televisa, and other media, was under a desk which sheltered her from the rubble and was in contact with five other people in a similar situation. More than ten people from the school had already been found dead. While many people noticed that there was something suspicious about a tragedy of the magnitude of this earthquake being reduced to the possible rescue of one person, it took a while for people to question whether Frida Sofía existed. It was almost as if propagandists had researched what names the liberals on the south side of Mexico City give to their daughters and come up with the combination of Frida and Sofía. People associated with the school obviously knew that she did not exist but kept quiet out of fear that, if they spoke, their building, too, would be subject to premature demolition before the fate of people who really were missing could be clarified. Carlos Loret de Mola and Denise Maerker, the Televisa news anchors who peddled the story shamelessly, expressed shock and outrage and even criticized the military on the air when they realized that they had been used by their allies (or that the story whose fabrication they had participated in was no longer credible).</p>
<p>Gentrification</p>
<p>As in New Orleans and now Houston, disaster is an opportunity for certain parties. The mayor of Houston recently named a former Shell Oil executive to head a task force to rebuild the city. Mexico City is divided into 16 delegaciones, similar to boroughs. The head of the one that encompasses the center of the city, including several fashionable neighborhoods that were hard-hit by the earthquake, is Ricardo Monreal, who in the past 30 years has held elective office under the banner of five different political parties. He recently lost a bid to become the mayoral candidate of Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s center-left party, Morena, and announced that he will resign from the party. The day after the earthquake, he said that he has spent years trying to convince a group of residents of the Doctores neighborhood to leave their building, on the verge of collapse, according to him, since the 1985 earthquake, and now really&#160; about to come down. Will these residents heed his advice? Not likely; la Doctores is adjacent to la Roma, one of most hipster ‘hoods in the city, and la Doctores, in spite of its “poor and dangerous” reputation, is also heading that way. These neighbors, logically, feel that if they give up the little bit of turf that they have they will never make their way back into the city, let alone into any centrally-located neighborhood with access to subway and bus service. Monreal has been, along with mayor Mancera, one of the leading spokespersons and movers for real estate speculators, and both are licking their lips about the possibilities. At the same time, the tendency to build taller and shoddier buildings, exacerbated since 2007, has made the city much more vulnerable to the movements of an ever-shakier earth. (Colegio Rebsamen had two or more buildings; the one that was just built was the one that collapsed.)</p> | 3,204 |
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<p />
<p>Those include deciding a congressional race, several local legislative contests, and bond and tax proposals.</p>
<p>In the U.S. House, Democratic Rep. Ben Ray Luján seeks a third term representing New Mexico’s 3rd Congressional District against Republican Jefferson Byrd.</p>
<p>New Mexico Senate incumbent Democrat Phil Griego battles it out with Republican Aubrey Dunn Jr. for the District 39 seat.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>In the House of Representatives, Lucky Varela, the longtime Democrat incumbent, is up against Libertarian Party candidate Bob Walsh in District 48, while James “Jim” W. Hall, a Republican appointee, tries to hold off Democrat Stephanie Garcia Richard in District 43.</p>
<p>The House District 50 contest pits newcomers Stephen P. Easley, a Democrat, and Charles Larry Miller, a Republican.</p>
<p>Santa Feans are also being asked to cast votes on three separate bond proposals: $19 million for roads, $10 million for water and wastewater projects and $6 million for open space, parks and trails.</p>
<p>Rural Santa Fe County residents will also decide if they want a quarter-cent gross receipts tax increase that would raise money for the county Fire Department’s capital needs.</p>
<p>Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. A list of polling places can be found on Page 3. Voters should note that Santa Fe does not have “voting centers,” where people from any precinct can vote.</p>
<p>Altogether, there are 99,525 eligible voters in Santa Fe County. This election, 35,936 people voted early, according to the Santa Fe County Clerk’s Office.</p>
<p>“Early voting is very popular in Santa Fe, and it has been for many elections now,” county elections chief Denise Lamb said.</p>
<p>However, there is a substantial decrease in absentee ballots this year compared with the presidential election four years ago, according to Lamb. In 2008, around 16,000 people cast absentee ballots. The county issued just 6,800 such ballots this year.</p>
<p>“I don’t know what that means, (if) more people are going to the polls on Election Day or if they transferred over to early voting,” Lamb said.</p>
<p>For more information, visit <a href="http://www.santafecountynm.gov" type="external">www.santafecountynm.gov</a> or call the Santa Fe County Clerk’s Office at 505-986-6280.</p> | Voters Have Many Local Choices To Make | false | https://abqjournal.com/144124/voters-have-many-local-choices-to-make.html | 2012-11-06 | 2least
| Voters Have Many Local Choices To Make
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<p />
<p>Those include deciding a congressional race, several local legislative contests, and bond and tax proposals.</p>
<p>In the U.S. House, Democratic Rep. Ben Ray Luján seeks a third term representing New Mexico’s 3rd Congressional District against Republican Jefferson Byrd.</p>
<p>New Mexico Senate incumbent Democrat Phil Griego battles it out with Republican Aubrey Dunn Jr. for the District 39 seat.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>In the House of Representatives, Lucky Varela, the longtime Democrat incumbent, is up against Libertarian Party candidate Bob Walsh in District 48, while James “Jim” W. Hall, a Republican appointee, tries to hold off Democrat Stephanie Garcia Richard in District 43.</p>
<p>The House District 50 contest pits newcomers Stephen P. Easley, a Democrat, and Charles Larry Miller, a Republican.</p>
<p>Santa Feans are also being asked to cast votes on three separate bond proposals: $19 million for roads, $10 million for water and wastewater projects and $6 million for open space, parks and trails.</p>
<p>Rural Santa Fe County residents will also decide if they want a quarter-cent gross receipts tax increase that would raise money for the county Fire Department’s capital needs.</p>
<p>Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. A list of polling places can be found on Page 3. Voters should note that Santa Fe does not have “voting centers,” where people from any precinct can vote.</p>
<p>Altogether, there are 99,525 eligible voters in Santa Fe County. This election, 35,936 people voted early, according to the Santa Fe County Clerk’s Office.</p>
<p>“Early voting is very popular in Santa Fe, and it has been for many elections now,” county elections chief Denise Lamb said.</p>
<p>However, there is a substantial decrease in absentee ballots this year compared with the presidential election four years ago, according to Lamb. In 2008, around 16,000 people cast absentee ballots. The county issued just 6,800 such ballots this year.</p>
<p>“I don’t know what that means, (if) more people are going to the polls on Election Day or if they transferred over to early voting,” Lamb said.</p>
<p>For more information, visit <a href="http://www.santafecountynm.gov" type="external">www.santafecountynm.gov</a> or call the Santa Fe County Clerk’s Office at 505-986-6280.</p> | 3,205 |
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<p>file photo</p>
<p>Family, friends and fellow legislators gathered today at the state Capitol to honor the late Rep. Phillip Archuleta, a member of the House from a Las Cruces area district who died last month.</p>
<p>Archuleta, a Democrat who served in the House in 2013-14, was remembered at a ceremony in the rotunda as a tireless advocate for the rights of working people.</p>
<p>Rep. Miguel Garcia, D-Albuquerque, called the retired state government employee “a champion of labor … and a Chicano civil rights champion.”</p>
<p>Archuleta, who died at 65, had a leg amputated in January 2014 and&#160; missed the 30-day legislative session. But he ran for re-election in November, campaigning from a motorized wheelchair. He lost the election to the District 36 seat to Republican Andy Nunez.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Late Rep. Phillip Archuleta remembered as labor champion | false | https://abqjournal.com/523178/late-rep-phillip-archuleta-remembered-as-labor-champion.html | 2least
| Late Rep. Phillip Archuleta remembered as labor champion
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<p>file photo</p>
<p>Family, friends and fellow legislators gathered today at the state Capitol to honor the late Rep. Phillip Archuleta, a member of the House from a Las Cruces area district who died last month.</p>
<p>Archuleta, a Democrat who served in the House in 2013-14, was remembered at a ceremony in the rotunda as a tireless advocate for the rights of working people.</p>
<p>Rep. Miguel Garcia, D-Albuquerque, called the retired state government employee “a champion of labor … and a Chicano civil rights champion.”</p>
<p>Archuleta, who died at 65, had a leg amputated in January 2014 and&#160; missed the 30-day legislative session. But he ran for re-election in November, campaigning from a motorized wheelchair. He lost the election to the District 36 seat to Republican Andy Nunez.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | 3,206 |
|
<p>MIAMI (AP) — A Miami federal judge on Tuesday upheld the extradition request for former Panama president Ricardo Martinelli to face political espionage and embezzlement charges in his home country.</p>
<p>U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke ruled Tuesday at a hearing that a previous federal judge was correct that Panama’s extradition request is valid. But Cooke also stayed her decision until Feb. 6 to give Martinelli’s lawyers time to file notice of an appeal.</p>
<p>Martinelli, 65, was Panama’s president from 2009-2014. He is accused of illegally monitoring phone calls and other communications of at least 150 people using an extensive surveillance system. Martinelli is also accused of embezzling $13 million in public funds linked to the system.</p>
<p>Martinelli has been jailed since his June 2017 arrest at his Miami-area home based on the Panama extradition warrant. He had been seeking asylum in the U.S., claiming the charges are politically motivated.</p>
<p>His attorneys argued Tuesday that Panama’s extradition warrant was legally insufficient because it didn’t specifically list the key charges for which he is being sought and because of a peculiar retroactivity clause in Panama’s 113-year-old extradition treaty with the U.S.</p>
<p>One of Martinelli’s lawyers, David Howard, contended that an appeals court ruling in a different case established that an extradition warrant must list at least one charge for which a person can be extradited. The Panama warrant only lists contempt of court because Martinelli did not show up at a hearing, which is not an extraditable offense under the treaty.</p>
<p>“There has to be reference to at least one charge. It refers to none. There is no other way around it,” Howard told Cooke.</p>
<p>But Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Fels said the warrant lists the Panama case number that includes the surveillance and embezzlement charges and that the State Department has concluded the warrant passes legal muster.</p>
<p>“Panama would not agree to a treaty that would hamper their ability to extradite fugitives from the United States,” Fels said.</p>
<p>Martinelli’s attorneys also renewed their claims that the extradition request runs counter to terms of an updated treaty between the two countries involving cybercrimes that took effect in July 2014, after the alleged surveillance offenses were committed. They claim those crimes don’t apply to Martinelli because Panama’s original 1905 extradition treaty with the U.S. contains a clause saying it did not apply retroactively — and that it remains in effect today.</p>
<p>Fels, however, said that clause was meant only for crimes that were committed in Panama before the treaty took effect in 1905.</p>
<p>“This language basically doesn’t have any application anymore,” he said.</p>
<p>The next step for Martinelli’s attorneys would be to appeal Cooke’s ruling to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. There is no timetable for the appeals court to make a decision.</p>
<p>_____</p>
<p>Follow Curt Anderson on Twitter: <a href="http://twitter.com/Miamicurt" type="external">http://twitter.com/Miamicurt</a></p>
<p>MIAMI (AP) — A Miami federal judge on Tuesday upheld the extradition request for former Panama president Ricardo Martinelli to face political espionage and embezzlement charges in his home country.</p>
<p>U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke ruled Tuesday at a hearing that a previous federal judge was correct that Panama’s extradition request is valid. But Cooke also stayed her decision until Feb. 6 to give Martinelli’s lawyers time to file notice of an appeal.</p>
<p>Martinelli, 65, was Panama’s president from 2009-2014. He is accused of illegally monitoring phone calls and other communications of at least 150 people using an extensive surveillance system. Martinelli is also accused of embezzling $13 million in public funds linked to the system.</p>
<p>Martinelli has been jailed since his June 2017 arrest at his Miami-area home based on the Panama extradition warrant. He had been seeking asylum in the U.S., claiming the charges are politically motivated.</p>
<p>His attorneys argued Tuesday that Panama’s extradition warrant was legally insufficient because it didn’t specifically list the key charges for which he is being sought and because of a peculiar retroactivity clause in Panama’s 113-year-old extradition treaty with the U.S.</p>
<p>One of Martinelli’s lawyers, David Howard, contended that an appeals court ruling in a different case established that an extradition warrant must list at least one charge for which a person can be extradited. The Panama warrant only lists contempt of court because Martinelli did not show up at a hearing, which is not an extraditable offense under the treaty.</p>
<p>“There has to be reference to at least one charge. It refers to none. There is no other way around it,” Howard told Cooke.</p>
<p>But Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Fels said the warrant lists the Panama case number that includes the surveillance and embezzlement charges and that the State Department has concluded the warrant passes legal muster.</p>
<p>“Panama would not agree to a treaty that would hamper their ability to extradite fugitives from the United States,” Fels said.</p>
<p>Martinelli’s attorneys also renewed their claims that the extradition request runs counter to terms of an updated treaty between the two countries involving cybercrimes that took effect in July 2014, after the alleged surveillance offenses were committed. They claim those crimes don’t apply to Martinelli because Panama’s original 1905 extradition treaty with the U.S. contains a clause saying it did not apply retroactively — and that it remains in effect today.</p>
<p>Fels, however, said that clause was meant only for crimes that were committed in Panama before the treaty took effect in 1905.</p>
<p>“This language basically doesn’t have any application anymore,” he said.</p>
<p>The next step for Martinelli’s attorneys would be to appeal Cooke’s ruling to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. There is no timetable for the appeals court to make a decision.</p>
<p>_____</p>
<p>Follow Curt Anderson on Twitter: <a href="http://twitter.com/Miamicurt" type="external">http://twitter.com/Miamicurt</a></p> | US judge backs extradition of ex-Panama president Martinelli | false | https://apnews.com/cc9a1a99f22749408284df99eae238e5 | 2018-01-23 | 2least
| US judge backs extradition of ex-Panama president Martinelli
<p>MIAMI (AP) — A Miami federal judge on Tuesday upheld the extradition request for former Panama president Ricardo Martinelli to face political espionage and embezzlement charges in his home country.</p>
<p>U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke ruled Tuesday at a hearing that a previous federal judge was correct that Panama’s extradition request is valid. But Cooke also stayed her decision until Feb. 6 to give Martinelli’s lawyers time to file notice of an appeal.</p>
<p>Martinelli, 65, was Panama’s president from 2009-2014. He is accused of illegally monitoring phone calls and other communications of at least 150 people using an extensive surveillance system. Martinelli is also accused of embezzling $13 million in public funds linked to the system.</p>
<p>Martinelli has been jailed since his June 2017 arrest at his Miami-area home based on the Panama extradition warrant. He had been seeking asylum in the U.S., claiming the charges are politically motivated.</p>
<p>His attorneys argued Tuesday that Panama’s extradition warrant was legally insufficient because it didn’t specifically list the key charges for which he is being sought and because of a peculiar retroactivity clause in Panama’s 113-year-old extradition treaty with the U.S.</p>
<p>One of Martinelli’s lawyers, David Howard, contended that an appeals court ruling in a different case established that an extradition warrant must list at least one charge for which a person can be extradited. The Panama warrant only lists contempt of court because Martinelli did not show up at a hearing, which is not an extraditable offense under the treaty.</p>
<p>“There has to be reference to at least one charge. It refers to none. There is no other way around it,” Howard told Cooke.</p>
<p>But Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Fels said the warrant lists the Panama case number that includes the surveillance and embezzlement charges and that the State Department has concluded the warrant passes legal muster.</p>
<p>“Panama would not agree to a treaty that would hamper their ability to extradite fugitives from the United States,” Fels said.</p>
<p>Martinelli’s attorneys also renewed their claims that the extradition request runs counter to terms of an updated treaty between the two countries involving cybercrimes that took effect in July 2014, after the alleged surveillance offenses were committed. They claim those crimes don’t apply to Martinelli because Panama’s original 1905 extradition treaty with the U.S. contains a clause saying it did not apply retroactively — and that it remains in effect today.</p>
<p>Fels, however, said that clause was meant only for crimes that were committed in Panama before the treaty took effect in 1905.</p>
<p>“This language basically doesn’t have any application anymore,” he said.</p>
<p>The next step for Martinelli’s attorneys would be to appeal Cooke’s ruling to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. There is no timetable for the appeals court to make a decision.</p>
<p>_____</p>
<p>Follow Curt Anderson on Twitter: <a href="http://twitter.com/Miamicurt" type="external">http://twitter.com/Miamicurt</a></p>
<p>MIAMI (AP) — A Miami federal judge on Tuesday upheld the extradition request for former Panama president Ricardo Martinelli to face political espionage and embezzlement charges in his home country.</p>
<p>U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke ruled Tuesday at a hearing that a previous federal judge was correct that Panama’s extradition request is valid. But Cooke also stayed her decision until Feb. 6 to give Martinelli’s lawyers time to file notice of an appeal.</p>
<p>Martinelli, 65, was Panama’s president from 2009-2014. He is accused of illegally monitoring phone calls and other communications of at least 150 people using an extensive surveillance system. Martinelli is also accused of embezzling $13 million in public funds linked to the system.</p>
<p>Martinelli has been jailed since his June 2017 arrest at his Miami-area home based on the Panama extradition warrant. He had been seeking asylum in the U.S., claiming the charges are politically motivated.</p>
<p>His attorneys argued Tuesday that Panama’s extradition warrant was legally insufficient because it didn’t specifically list the key charges for which he is being sought and because of a peculiar retroactivity clause in Panama’s 113-year-old extradition treaty with the U.S.</p>
<p>One of Martinelli’s lawyers, David Howard, contended that an appeals court ruling in a different case established that an extradition warrant must list at least one charge for which a person can be extradited. The Panama warrant only lists contempt of court because Martinelli did not show up at a hearing, which is not an extraditable offense under the treaty.</p>
<p>“There has to be reference to at least one charge. It refers to none. There is no other way around it,” Howard told Cooke.</p>
<p>But Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Fels said the warrant lists the Panama case number that includes the surveillance and embezzlement charges and that the State Department has concluded the warrant passes legal muster.</p>
<p>“Panama would not agree to a treaty that would hamper their ability to extradite fugitives from the United States,” Fels said.</p>
<p>Martinelli’s attorneys also renewed their claims that the extradition request runs counter to terms of an updated treaty between the two countries involving cybercrimes that took effect in July 2014, after the alleged surveillance offenses were committed. They claim those crimes don’t apply to Martinelli because Panama’s original 1905 extradition treaty with the U.S. contains a clause saying it did not apply retroactively — and that it remains in effect today.</p>
<p>Fels, however, said that clause was meant only for crimes that were committed in Panama before the treaty took effect in 1905.</p>
<p>“This language basically doesn’t have any application anymore,” he said.</p>
<p>The next step for Martinelli’s attorneys would be to appeal Cooke’s ruling to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. There is no timetable for the appeals court to make a decision.</p>
<p>_____</p>
<p>Follow Curt Anderson on Twitter: <a href="http://twitter.com/Miamicurt" type="external">http://twitter.com/Miamicurt</a></p> | 3,207 |
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<p />
<p>Last Friday, it appears to have been the Santa Fe Fiesta Council.</p>
<p>By holding the permit to stage the annual Santa Fe Fiesta celebration on the Plaza, a public park, they get to make the rules, city officials say. And that’s why eight people there to protest last week’s Entrada, a re-enactment of the Spanish re-occupation of Santa Fe 12 years after the 1680 Pueblo Revolt, were charged with criminal trespass.</p>
<p>Police estimate that about 200 people showed up to protest the performance, which at the last minute was moved up two hours from its scheduled time “in the interest of public safety.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Protesters, which included many from Native American advocacy groups, say the Entrada is not only an inaccurate account of history, but also a celebration of one culture’s conquest of another. They say the Entrada is racist and want it abolished.</p>
<p>More from ABQJournal.com</p>
<p>Energy and spirit of the Pueblo people indicates start of a new era of organizing for liberation… continue reading »</p>
<p>Event organizers call the Entrada a religious event – which raises other questions about the constitutionality of the city’s financial support of the Fiesta – and is a celebration of the moment when the indigenous people, who had occupied the land for centuries, and Spanish conquistadors agreed to live together in peace.</p>
<p>That moment passed and, a year later, when Don Diego de Vargas returned with a caravan to resettle the territory, there was plenty of violence as the pueblo people resisted. Last Friday’s protest showed that more than 300 years later, there are still conflicts that haven’t been resolved.</p>
<p>One of the people arrested, Julian Rodriguez Jr. of Pola, Calif., claims he wasn’t there to protest. All he wanted was a pork sandwich and to listen to some music, but he was arrested for trespassing on “fiesta grounds without having in his possession written permission of the owner or person in control of the property thereof,” according to a criminal complaint.</p>
<p>More from ABQJournal.com</p>
<p>ACLU considering how city handles free speech issues and, possibly, its support of a religious event… continue reading »</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“When somebody holds a permit for the Plaza, it essentially becomes private property,” police spokesman Greg Gurulé said the day of the protest.</p>
<p>Todd Coberly, the attorney representing Rodriguez, said that’s absurd.</p>
<p>“What? You need written permission from the Fiesta Council to be on the Plaza during Fiesta?” he asked. “How can a public space be transformed to private property? It just seems bizarre that the police are saying whoever attends the Fiesta needs written permission.”</p>
<p>Not an exact science</p>
<p>Thousands of people attended the Fiesta celebration last weekend, an event free to the public. It’s unclear how many of them, if any, had written permission from the Fiesta Council to attend.</p>
<p>Rodriguez was reportedly on the Plaza wearing a headband and was asked by police to remove it. He did, but put it back on while he was walking away and was arrested.</p>
<p>The day before the performance of the Entrada, Santa Fe city government issued a press release saying that private organizations holding permits for events on city property can request that police ban certain items at the event “in the interest of public safety.” While not mentioning headbands, “gang colors” and “masks” were among the items the Fiesta Council wanted banned.</p>
<p>City code designates eight permitted events to be held on the Plaza each year, two of them Santa Fe Fiesta events. The Fiesta holds an arts and crafts market Labor Day weekend and the Fiesta itself a week later.</p>
<p>Other events covered under the code are the Challenge New Mexico Arts and Crafts Show, the Fourth of July pancake breakfast, the Indian and Spanish markets, the contemporary Hispanic Market, and the Girls’ Inc. Arts and Crafts Show.</p>
<p>City officials couldn’t cite another instance in which organizations requested items be banned from the Plaza during a permitted event.</p>
<p>SFPD Chief Patrick Gallagher</p>
<p>“This is the first time that’s come up,” said Santa Fe Police Chief Patrick Gallagher. “I think the experience of last year kind of prompted that.”</p>
<p>The letter requesting items to be banned came from Fiesta Council President Dean Milligan. His letter says the list of items it wanted banned came at the request of SFPD.</p>
<p>Bullhorns were another item the Fiesta Council wanted banned this year. Protesters used bullhorns to lead chants at the 2016 protest, which was smaller in scale, attracting about 50 demonstrators. Gallagher said the bullhorns startled horses that were a part of the pageant last year, creating a safety concern. Horses were not included in the Entrada performance this year.</p>
<p>Gallagher said groups granted permits on city property get to have a say about who and what is allowed on the Plaza, just as they would if someone got a permit to Frenchy’s Field to hold a birthday party.</p>
<p>But where do you draw the line as to what or who can be restricted?</p>
<p>“If it were (banning) African-Americans, we would tell them no, we’re not going to do that,” he said.</p>
<p>Gallagher said police preparations for the Entrada protest were made with the advice and consent of the City Attorney’s Office. That also included a so-called “free speech zone” at the northeast corner of the Plaza. Its purpose was to allow for demonstrators to exercise their First Amendment rights and have their voices heard, while keeping them separated from people who came to attend the Entrada performance.</p>
<p>The police chief said he has had experience – with some degree of success – with free speech zones, which he preferred to call “protest areas,” while serving as a New York City police officer.</p>
<p>More from ABQJournal.com</p>
<p>The left boot of the statue of Don Juan de Oñate was covered in red paint… continue reading »</p>
<p>Gallagher said that one of the strategies for trying to keep the peace during last Friday’s protest was to separate demonstrators from Fiesta attendees in terms of both time and space. Police took measures to try to keep protesters physically separated from attendees and the stage on which the Entrada was performed. Two rows of fencing separated the audience from the stage, with police officers occupying the space between.</p>
<p>That, too, was done based on the experience of last year.</p>
<p>“We were concerned about confrontations,” Gallagher said. “Last year, tensions ran pretty high.”</p>
<p>The police chief said that by no means is policing protests an exact science. “We’re always looking for ways to improve,” he said. And while arrests were made this year, as opposed to last year when no one was cited, Gallagher said the plan was a success in that no one got hurt.</p>
<p>With the violence that erupted in Charlottesville, Va., during a protest that turned deadly last month fresh on their minds, that was a major concern. Eighty Santa Fe police officers, as well as officers from other law enforcement agencies, were on hand for the protest.</p>
<p>“For the most part, the plan was able to be effected,” he said.</p>
<p>Moving the time of the pageant up two hours helped create separation in time. One lone protester heckled the Entrada performance for the first 15 minutes or more before other demonstrators gradually showed up, and only a few dozen had arrived by the time the performance ended.</p>
<p>It wasn’t until after the performance was over that police began to move protesters to the protest area at the intersection of Palace and Washington avenues. When some refused to be confined, they were arrested for trespassing. Protesters then split up, some of them marching through neighboring streets. When they returned to the Plaza by way of Lincoln Avenue, more arrests were made, including that of Jennifer Marley, a protest organizer and member of The Red Nation. While the other seven arrested were charged just with misdemeanor criminal trespass, Marley was also cited for two felony counts of battery on a police officer, as well as disorderly conduct.</p>
<p>In a ‘fact-finding phase’</p>
<p>Last November, an alliance of criminal defense lawyers in Santa Fe was formed to represent people participating in peaceful protests. They are representing the “Entrada 8” arrested last week, each of whom pleaded not guilty earlier this week.</p>
<p>One of the attorneys, Dan Cron, said Thursday that their cases are now in the discovery phase.</p>
<p>“Basically, it’s a fact-finding phase. We are going to need to find out from the city structurally how they had things set up so we can compare that with case law to see how the structure used by the city squares with the First Amendment right for freedom of expression,” he explained. “How that whole process was set up is going to be the crux of the case.”</p>
<p>The American Civil Liberties Union, which advocates for individual rights and liberties covered under the U.S. Constitution, also has its eye on what occurred last Friday. It has been involved in various lawsuits around the country challenging free speech zones, contending that in some cases they are used to repress the voice of protesters by keeping them out of sight and earshot.</p>
<p>A spokesman for the ACLU in Albuquerque echoed Cron in saying it was currently in fact-finding mode regarding last week’s protest.</p>
<p>“We’re going through the fact-finding process, researching the legality and looking into whether civil rights may have been violated,” ACLU spokesman Micah McCoy said. “But right now we are so early in the process, our staff attorney is not comfortable making proclamations about that right now.”</p>
<p>When asked, attorneys Cron and Coberly both said it was possible that the charges against the defendants could be dropped, but neither is counting on it.</p>
<p>“There’s always that chance,” Cron said. “From our point of view, we’re seeking to gather information and meet with the prosecution to see if it’s possible to reach a resolution everyone can live with.”</p>
<p>Several messages left with city of Santa Fe attorneys were not returned this week. City spokesman Matt Ross said it’s possible they would not want to talk because the ACLU is looking into the possibility of filing a lawsuit. The city’s policy is to not talk about threatened or pending litigation.</p>
<p>During a Wednesday City Council meeting, District 2 City Councilor Joesph Maestas asked City Manager Brian Sndyer to arrange a “debriefing” on last week’s arrests so that he and other city councilors could gain a better understanding of what rights are granted to groups that receive permits for events on city property and prohibitions regarding protests.</p>
<p /> | Officials: On Plaza, permit-holders can make the rules | false | https://abqjournal.com/1063911/officials-event-permitholders-can-make-the-rules-ex-permit-makes-a-public-space-private-says-sfpd-spokesman.html | 2least
| Officials: On Plaza, permit-holders can make the rules
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<p />
<p>Last Friday, it appears to have been the Santa Fe Fiesta Council.</p>
<p>By holding the permit to stage the annual Santa Fe Fiesta celebration on the Plaza, a public park, they get to make the rules, city officials say. And that’s why eight people there to protest last week’s Entrada, a re-enactment of the Spanish re-occupation of Santa Fe 12 years after the 1680 Pueblo Revolt, were charged with criminal trespass.</p>
<p>Police estimate that about 200 people showed up to protest the performance, which at the last minute was moved up two hours from its scheduled time “in the interest of public safety.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Protesters, which included many from Native American advocacy groups, say the Entrada is not only an inaccurate account of history, but also a celebration of one culture’s conquest of another. They say the Entrada is racist and want it abolished.</p>
<p>More from ABQJournal.com</p>
<p>Energy and spirit of the Pueblo people indicates start of a new era of organizing for liberation… continue reading »</p>
<p>Event organizers call the Entrada a religious event – which raises other questions about the constitutionality of the city’s financial support of the Fiesta – and is a celebration of the moment when the indigenous people, who had occupied the land for centuries, and Spanish conquistadors agreed to live together in peace.</p>
<p>That moment passed and, a year later, when Don Diego de Vargas returned with a caravan to resettle the territory, there was plenty of violence as the pueblo people resisted. Last Friday’s protest showed that more than 300 years later, there are still conflicts that haven’t been resolved.</p>
<p>One of the people arrested, Julian Rodriguez Jr. of Pola, Calif., claims he wasn’t there to protest. All he wanted was a pork sandwich and to listen to some music, but he was arrested for trespassing on “fiesta grounds without having in his possession written permission of the owner or person in control of the property thereof,” according to a criminal complaint.</p>
<p>More from ABQJournal.com</p>
<p>ACLU considering how city handles free speech issues and, possibly, its support of a religious event… continue reading »</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“When somebody holds a permit for the Plaza, it essentially becomes private property,” police spokesman Greg Gurulé said the day of the protest.</p>
<p>Todd Coberly, the attorney representing Rodriguez, said that’s absurd.</p>
<p>“What? You need written permission from the Fiesta Council to be on the Plaza during Fiesta?” he asked. “How can a public space be transformed to private property? It just seems bizarre that the police are saying whoever attends the Fiesta needs written permission.”</p>
<p>Not an exact science</p>
<p>Thousands of people attended the Fiesta celebration last weekend, an event free to the public. It’s unclear how many of them, if any, had written permission from the Fiesta Council to attend.</p>
<p>Rodriguez was reportedly on the Plaza wearing a headband and was asked by police to remove it. He did, but put it back on while he was walking away and was arrested.</p>
<p>The day before the performance of the Entrada, Santa Fe city government issued a press release saying that private organizations holding permits for events on city property can request that police ban certain items at the event “in the interest of public safety.” While not mentioning headbands, “gang colors” and “masks” were among the items the Fiesta Council wanted banned.</p>
<p>City code designates eight permitted events to be held on the Plaza each year, two of them Santa Fe Fiesta events. The Fiesta holds an arts and crafts market Labor Day weekend and the Fiesta itself a week later.</p>
<p>Other events covered under the code are the Challenge New Mexico Arts and Crafts Show, the Fourth of July pancake breakfast, the Indian and Spanish markets, the contemporary Hispanic Market, and the Girls’ Inc. Arts and Crafts Show.</p>
<p>City officials couldn’t cite another instance in which organizations requested items be banned from the Plaza during a permitted event.</p>
<p>SFPD Chief Patrick Gallagher</p>
<p>“This is the first time that’s come up,” said Santa Fe Police Chief Patrick Gallagher. “I think the experience of last year kind of prompted that.”</p>
<p>The letter requesting items to be banned came from Fiesta Council President Dean Milligan. His letter says the list of items it wanted banned came at the request of SFPD.</p>
<p>Bullhorns were another item the Fiesta Council wanted banned this year. Protesters used bullhorns to lead chants at the 2016 protest, which was smaller in scale, attracting about 50 demonstrators. Gallagher said the bullhorns startled horses that were a part of the pageant last year, creating a safety concern. Horses were not included in the Entrada performance this year.</p>
<p>Gallagher said groups granted permits on city property get to have a say about who and what is allowed on the Plaza, just as they would if someone got a permit to Frenchy’s Field to hold a birthday party.</p>
<p>But where do you draw the line as to what or who can be restricted?</p>
<p>“If it were (banning) African-Americans, we would tell them no, we’re not going to do that,” he said.</p>
<p>Gallagher said police preparations for the Entrada protest were made with the advice and consent of the City Attorney’s Office. That also included a so-called “free speech zone” at the northeast corner of the Plaza. Its purpose was to allow for demonstrators to exercise their First Amendment rights and have their voices heard, while keeping them separated from people who came to attend the Entrada performance.</p>
<p>The police chief said he has had experience – with some degree of success – with free speech zones, which he preferred to call “protest areas,” while serving as a New York City police officer.</p>
<p>More from ABQJournal.com</p>
<p>The left boot of the statue of Don Juan de Oñate was covered in red paint… continue reading »</p>
<p>Gallagher said that one of the strategies for trying to keep the peace during last Friday’s protest was to separate demonstrators from Fiesta attendees in terms of both time and space. Police took measures to try to keep protesters physically separated from attendees and the stage on which the Entrada was performed. Two rows of fencing separated the audience from the stage, with police officers occupying the space between.</p>
<p>That, too, was done based on the experience of last year.</p>
<p>“We were concerned about confrontations,” Gallagher said. “Last year, tensions ran pretty high.”</p>
<p>The police chief said that by no means is policing protests an exact science. “We’re always looking for ways to improve,” he said. And while arrests were made this year, as opposed to last year when no one was cited, Gallagher said the plan was a success in that no one got hurt.</p>
<p>With the violence that erupted in Charlottesville, Va., during a protest that turned deadly last month fresh on their minds, that was a major concern. Eighty Santa Fe police officers, as well as officers from other law enforcement agencies, were on hand for the protest.</p>
<p>“For the most part, the plan was able to be effected,” he said.</p>
<p>Moving the time of the pageant up two hours helped create separation in time. One lone protester heckled the Entrada performance for the first 15 minutes or more before other demonstrators gradually showed up, and only a few dozen had arrived by the time the performance ended.</p>
<p>It wasn’t until after the performance was over that police began to move protesters to the protest area at the intersection of Palace and Washington avenues. When some refused to be confined, they were arrested for trespassing. Protesters then split up, some of them marching through neighboring streets. When they returned to the Plaza by way of Lincoln Avenue, more arrests were made, including that of Jennifer Marley, a protest organizer and member of The Red Nation. While the other seven arrested were charged just with misdemeanor criminal trespass, Marley was also cited for two felony counts of battery on a police officer, as well as disorderly conduct.</p>
<p>In a ‘fact-finding phase’</p>
<p>Last November, an alliance of criminal defense lawyers in Santa Fe was formed to represent people participating in peaceful protests. They are representing the “Entrada 8” arrested last week, each of whom pleaded not guilty earlier this week.</p>
<p>One of the attorneys, Dan Cron, said Thursday that their cases are now in the discovery phase.</p>
<p>“Basically, it’s a fact-finding phase. We are going to need to find out from the city structurally how they had things set up so we can compare that with case law to see how the structure used by the city squares with the First Amendment right for freedom of expression,” he explained. “How that whole process was set up is going to be the crux of the case.”</p>
<p>The American Civil Liberties Union, which advocates for individual rights and liberties covered under the U.S. Constitution, also has its eye on what occurred last Friday. It has been involved in various lawsuits around the country challenging free speech zones, contending that in some cases they are used to repress the voice of protesters by keeping them out of sight and earshot.</p>
<p>A spokesman for the ACLU in Albuquerque echoed Cron in saying it was currently in fact-finding mode regarding last week’s protest.</p>
<p>“We’re going through the fact-finding process, researching the legality and looking into whether civil rights may have been violated,” ACLU spokesman Micah McCoy said. “But right now we are so early in the process, our staff attorney is not comfortable making proclamations about that right now.”</p>
<p>When asked, attorneys Cron and Coberly both said it was possible that the charges against the defendants could be dropped, but neither is counting on it.</p>
<p>“There’s always that chance,” Cron said. “From our point of view, we’re seeking to gather information and meet with the prosecution to see if it’s possible to reach a resolution everyone can live with.”</p>
<p>Several messages left with city of Santa Fe attorneys were not returned this week. City spokesman Matt Ross said it’s possible they would not want to talk because the ACLU is looking into the possibility of filing a lawsuit. The city’s policy is to not talk about threatened or pending litigation.</p>
<p>During a Wednesday City Council meeting, District 2 City Councilor Joesph Maestas asked City Manager Brian Sndyer to arrange a “debriefing” on last week’s arrests so that he and other city councilors could gain a better understanding of what rights are granted to groups that receive permits for events on city property and prohibitions regarding protests.</p>
<p /> | 3,208 |
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<p />
<p>The signing took place in the Downtown Albuquerque setting of the Family Advocacy Center, which puts police, child abuse investigators and social workers all under the same roof for better coordination and exchange of information in child abuse and neglect cases.</p>
<p>Centers like these are to be built around the state and are part of the reforms Martinez ordered last year to overhaul the state Children, Youth and Families Department and make it more efficient and effective.</p>
<p>Martinez said the legislation she enacted Wednesday is intended to “attract more professionals with degrees in criminal justice, sociology or psychology” who are “looking to go into this type of work, and so we can keep more of our experienced workers already in the field.”</p>
<p>The legislation allows CYFD to provide “targeted student loan repayment for caseworkers committed to establishing or maintaining a career with Children, Youth and Families Department,” the governor said.</p>
<p>The state Legislature has approved $450,000 that will be initially used for the loan repayment program. The governor noted that she asked for $1 million, “but there’s always next year,” she told those seated for the bill signing ceremony, many of them caseworkers.</p>
<p>“This is an important step toward reducing the high turnover among CYFD caseworkers because we know you all work very long hours, make many sacrifices and often find yourselves in dangerous situations,” she told them.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>CYFD Secretary Monique Jacobson explained that her department will be working with the Higher Education Department to set the rules for the loan repayment program, which in turn will determine how many caseworkers will qualify and how much money in loan repayment they may get.</p>
<p>House Bill 341, sponsored by Rep. Jimmie Hall, R-Albuquerque, and Doreen Gallegos, D-Las Cruces, specifies that “an award for each public service worker shall not exceed twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000) or the loan indebtedness of the worker, whichever is less.” However, the award amounts “may be modified based on available funding or other special circumstances.”</p>
<p>On Tuesday, Martinez signed three pieces of legislation designed to protect children and provide an added stream of revenue for the New Mexico Crime Victims Reparation Commission.</p>
<p />
<p /> | Gov. signs bill to help CYFD caseworkers with student loans | false | https://abqjournal.com/563614/governor-signs-bill-to-help-cyfd-workers.html | 2least
| Gov. signs bill to help CYFD caseworkers with student loans
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<p />
<p>The signing took place in the Downtown Albuquerque setting of the Family Advocacy Center, which puts police, child abuse investigators and social workers all under the same roof for better coordination and exchange of information in child abuse and neglect cases.</p>
<p>Centers like these are to be built around the state and are part of the reforms Martinez ordered last year to overhaul the state Children, Youth and Families Department and make it more efficient and effective.</p>
<p>Martinez said the legislation she enacted Wednesday is intended to “attract more professionals with degrees in criminal justice, sociology or psychology” who are “looking to go into this type of work, and so we can keep more of our experienced workers already in the field.”</p>
<p>The legislation allows CYFD to provide “targeted student loan repayment for caseworkers committed to establishing or maintaining a career with Children, Youth and Families Department,” the governor said.</p>
<p>The state Legislature has approved $450,000 that will be initially used for the loan repayment program. The governor noted that she asked for $1 million, “but there’s always next year,” she told those seated for the bill signing ceremony, many of them caseworkers.</p>
<p>“This is an important step toward reducing the high turnover among CYFD caseworkers because we know you all work very long hours, make many sacrifices and often find yourselves in dangerous situations,” she told them.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>CYFD Secretary Monique Jacobson explained that her department will be working with the Higher Education Department to set the rules for the loan repayment program, which in turn will determine how many caseworkers will qualify and how much money in loan repayment they may get.</p>
<p>House Bill 341, sponsored by Rep. Jimmie Hall, R-Albuquerque, and Doreen Gallegos, D-Las Cruces, specifies that “an award for each public service worker shall not exceed twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000) or the loan indebtedness of the worker, whichever is less.” However, the award amounts “may be modified based on available funding or other special circumstances.”</p>
<p>On Tuesday, Martinez signed three pieces of legislation designed to protect children and provide an added stream of revenue for the New Mexico Crime Victims Reparation Commission.</p>
<p />
<p /> | 3,209 |
|
<p />
<p>Executives at a pipeline company say their goal is to restart the line as early as this weekend after an explosion and fire shut down gasoline shipments to millions across the South.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The deadly explosion sparked a geyser of fire Monday and closed off the vital pipeline, raising fears of another round of gas shortages and price increases. It's Colonial Pipeline's second accident and shutdown in two months.</p>
<p>Continuing fires in the drought-stricken area of central Alabama hampered officials' efforts to fully assess the damage Tuesday afternoon, and firefighters built an earthen berm to contain the burning fuel.</p>
<p>The Georgia-based company says the accident happened when a dirt-moving track hoe struck the pipeline, ignited gasoline and sparked a blast, killing one worker and injuring five others.</p> | Company aims to restart pipeline as early as this weekend | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/11/02/company-aims-to-restart-pipeline-as-early-as-this-weekend.html | 2016-11-02 | 0right
| Company aims to restart pipeline as early as this weekend
<p />
<p>Executives at a pipeline company say their goal is to restart the line as early as this weekend after an explosion and fire shut down gasoline shipments to millions across the South.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The deadly explosion sparked a geyser of fire Monday and closed off the vital pipeline, raising fears of another round of gas shortages and price increases. It's Colonial Pipeline's second accident and shutdown in two months.</p>
<p>Continuing fires in the drought-stricken area of central Alabama hampered officials' efforts to fully assess the damage Tuesday afternoon, and firefighters built an earthen berm to contain the burning fuel.</p>
<p>The Georgia-based company says the accident happened when a dirt-moving track hoe struck the pipeline, ignited gasoline and sparked a blast, killing one worker and injuring five others.</p> | 3,210 |
<p>Most Americans have one eye on the nation’s financial crises and the other on the presidential election. And they are asking themselves, “Is McCain or Obama, the Democrats or the Republicans, better for the economic health of the country, as well as for my own financial well-being?” That is the defining question of this election.</p>
<p>A businessman who voted for Bush twice and Clinton in 1996, told me, “Barack Obama sounds really impressive and I have to admit that the goals of his social programs — particularly health care, education and the environment — seem good. But I’m worried the Democrats can’t manage the economy as well and they’ll get into my wallet.”</p>
<p>Many voters agree, and a recent poll shows that an overwhelming majority cites the economy as their top concern. For years the pollsters have found that most voters believe the Republicans do better with the economy. I’ve heard the businessman’s basic point — that the Democrats have better social policies but the Republicans are better managers of the economy — more often than I’ve heard Judy Garland sing “Over the Rainbow.” But is it true? Don’t count on this question being examined and answered in a full, open and honest debate.</p>
<p>Twenty-eight years ago — with the election of Ronald Reagan — we entered an entirely new phase of presidential politics. The focus since then has been on who can raise the most money and package the best media image, rather than who demonstrates the most competence and capacity to govern. Our country’s political, economic and social life has been reduced to a battle of 15-second sound bites and 30-second commercials, with results reported like a football score. TV news has turned democracy into “duhmocracy.”</p>
<p />
<p>Fortunately, we don’t have to depend on campaign slogans or advertising bucks to frame the debate. We can look to the record. Here’s the Economic Sweepstakes Quiz. The rules are simple. Guess which president since World War II did best on these eight most generally accepted measures of good management of the nation’s economy. You can choose among six Republicans: Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bushes I and II; and five Democrats: Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter and Clinton. (No peeking.)</p>
<p>Which president produced:</p>
<p>1. The highest growth in the gross domestic product? 2. The highest growth in jobs? 3. The biggest increase in personal disposable income after taxes? 4. The highest growth in industrial production? 5. The highest growth in hourly wages? 6. The lowest Misery Index (inflation plus unemployment)? 7. The lowest inflation? 8. The largest reduction in the deficit?</p>
<p>The answers: 1. Harry Truman, 2. Bill Clinton, 3. Lyndon Johnson, 4. John F. Kennedy, 5. Johnson, 6. Truman, 7. Truman, 8. Clinton. In the Economic Sweepstakes, Democratic presidents trounce Republicans eight times out of eight!</p>
<p>If this isn’t enough to destroy the myth that the economy has performed better under Republicans, the stock market has also done better under the Democrats. The Dow Jones Industrial Average during the 20th century has risen 7.3 percent on average per year under Republican presidents. Under Democrats, it rose 10.3 percent – which means investors gained a whopping 41 percent more. And the stock market declined further during George W’s two terms. Moreover, since World War II, Democratic presidents have increased the national debt by an average of 3.7 percent per year and Republican presidents have increased it an average of 10.1 percent. During the same time period, Democratic presidents produced, on average, an unemployment rate of 4.8 percent; Republicans, 6.3 percent. That’s the historical record.</p>
<p>What about economic policies over the past 15 years? The Clinton-Gore administration presided over the longest peacetime economic expansion in our history. The national debt was reduced dramatically, the industrial sector boomed, wages grew and more Americans found jobs.</p>
<p>How has the Bush-Cheney team fared? In the past seven years, we have experienced the weakest post-recession job creation cycle since the Great Depression, record deficits, record household debt, a record bankruptcy rate and a substantial increase in poverty. We have gone from being the nation with the biggest budget surplus in history to becoming the nation with the largest deficit in history.</p>
<p>What is downright frightening is that Bush and John McCain seem to still believe an unregulated free market will solve America’s economic problems. Barack Obama, on the other hand, maintains that government has the responsibility to keep our economy on the right track. Obama says he will work toward reducing the debt and deficit. He pledges to help the middle class and the working poor by maintaining benefit levels and eligibility for the Earned Income Tax Credit. He will hold the line on our tax progressivity and fairness by rolling back the Bush tax giveaways to taxpayers earning over $250,000 annually. And Obama wants to target health care, education, affordable housing, alternative energy and the environment with critical investments.</p>
<p>McCain wants to privatize Social Security and probably Medicare, although he gets dangerously vague about this at election time. To finance government spending in the wake of his tax cuts for the wealthy, Bush has borrowed heavily from the Social Security Trust Fund. At the same time, the United States owes huge amounts to foreign investors. McCain and George W. are mired in the failed economic policies of Republican predecessors. In 1980, Bush I called supply-side policies “voodoo economics.” But he embraced these “trickle-down” policies in order to become vice president and then president. Reagan and both Bushes’ royalist economic policies of the 1980s and the past seven years were failures — a fool’s paradise built on the sands of borrowed time and borrowed money. The consequences were staggering debt, industrial decline, shrinking wages, four painful recessions, increased poverty and structural unemployment. The reckless Reagan-Bush-Bush spending and borrowing has brought us to the brink of social catastrophe and economic depression. Claims of being a maverick aside, McCain has emerged as nothing more than a supply-sider in the mold of George W. and Reagan. Since George W. took office, corporate profits have soared, while workers’ wages and benefits have been flat. That shows just who is the object of Bush’s conservative compassion. The Bush administration, supported by Republicans on Capitol Hill, pushed through a sweeping tax cut in 2001, under which the wealthiest one percent of Americans reaped 43 percent of the gain. In less than a year and a half, the federal government’s 10-year projected budget surplus of $1.6 trillion had vanished. In 2000, we had a surplus of $236 billion. In 2004, we had a deficit of $413 billion. This dramatic reversal is the direct consequence of Bush’s tax cuts. Since then, the Bush/McCain answer for the nation’s economic woes has been deregulation and more tax cuts for wealthy individuals and corporations, who by no coincidence contribute heavily to the McCain campaign. It’s “trickle-down” economics with a vengeance.</p>
<p>Since the conventions, McCain and his surrogates have been pounding away at the Democrats, labeling them as the “tax and spend” party. Yet recent research has shown that more than 70% of our national debt was created by just three Republican presidents. There’s an old expression in Las Vegas: “Figures don’t lie but liars figure.” Moreover, according to research from professor Larry Bartels of Princeton, real middle-class wage growth is double when a Democrat is president, contrasted to a Republican president.</p>
<p>So, while McCain and Sarah Palin compose hymns to patriotism, rugged individualism, “trickle-down” economics, “staying the course” on Bush’s tax cuts and family values, they are also embracing the very economic policies that undermine both the middle class and subvert the security of American family life.</p>
<p>American families need less pious rhetoric, and more policies geared toward a healthy economy, secure jobs, decent health care, affordable housing, quality public education, renewable energy and a sustainable environment. McCain seems unable, or unwilling, to grasp that the government has an important leadership role in this. In fact, providing tax giveaways for the rich and for corporate America is the only policy that seems to energize McCain and the Republicans in Congress, while Obama has pledged to repeal those very same giveaways. And, contrary to the GOP rhetoric, 90 percent of Americans — people making under $112,000 a year in individual income — would pay less taxes under Obama’s plan.</p>
<p>With four more years of McCain practicing Bushonomics, we could very well wake up one morning on the “economic endangered nations” list. Deficits and debt could strangle our economy for the next generation and all but the wealthy will have a tough time making ends meet.</p>
<p>Barack Obama has demonstrated a willingness to confront these painful realities. On overall economic policy, he offers qualities indispensable to genuine leadership for America — patience, fairness, candor and vision. We need an administration that understands and believes in coherent, comprehensive and equitable policies that promote sustainable economic growth — and, on that count, Democrats have a winning record.</p>
<p>Arthur Blaustein was chairman of the President’s National Advisory Council on Economic Opportunity during the Carter administration and was appointed to the board of the National Endowment for the Humanities by Bill Clinton. He is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where he teaches public policy and economic development. His most recent books are “Make a Difference” and “The American Promise.”</p> | Republican Economic Policies Don't Add Up | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/republican-economic-policies-dont-add-up/ | 2008-10-07 | 4left
| Republican Economic Policies Don't Add Up
<p>Most Americans have one eye on the nation’s financial crises and the other on the presidential election. And they are asking themselves, “Is McCain or Obama, the Democrats or the Republicans, better for the economic health of the country, as well as for my own financial well-being?” That is the defining question of this election.</p>
<p>A businessman who voted for Bush twice and Clinton in 1996, told me, “Barack Obama sounds really impressive and I have to admit that the goals of his social programs — particularly health care, education and the environment — seem good. But I’m worried the Democrats can’t manage the economy as well and they’ll get into my wallet.”</p>
<p>Many voters agree, and a recent poll shows that an overwhelming majority cites the economy as their top concern. For years the pollsters have found that most voters believe the Republicans do better with the economy. I’ve heard the businessman’s basic point — that the Democrats have better social policies but the Republicans are better managers of the economy — more often than I’ve heard Judy Garland sing “Over the Rainbow.” But is it true? Don’t count on this question being examined and answered in a full, open and honest debate.</p>
<p>Twenty-eight years ago — with the election of Ronald Reagan — we entered an entirely new phase of presidential politics. The focus since then has been on who can raise the most money and package the best media image, rather than who demonstrates the most competence and capacity to govern. Our country’s political, economic and social life has been reduced to a battle of 15-second sound bites and 30-second commercials, with results reported like a football score. TV news has turned democracy into “duhmocracy.”</p>
<p />
<p>Fortunately, we don’t have to depend on campaign slogans or advertising bucks to frame the debate. We can look to the record. Here’s the Economic Sweepstakes Quiz. The rules are simple. Guess which president since World War II did best on these eight most generally accepted measures of good management of the nation’s economy. You can choose among six Republicans: Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bushes I and II; and five Democrats: Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter and Clinton. (No peeking.)</p>
<p>Which president produced:</p>
<p>1. The highest growth in the gross domestic product? 2. The highest growth in jobs? 3. The biggest increase in personal disposable income after taxes? 4. The highest growth in industrial production? 5. The highest growth in hourly wages? 6. The lowest Misery Index (inflation plus unemployment)? 7. The lowest inflation? 8. The largest reduction in the deficit?</p>
<p>The answers: 1. Harry Truman, 2. Bill Clinton, 3. Lyndon Johnson, 4. John F. Kennedy, 5. Johnson, 6. Truman, 7. Truman, 8. Clinton. In the Economic Sweepstakes, Democratic presidents trounce Republicans eight times out of eight!</p>
<p>If this isn’t enough to destroy the myth that the economy has performed better under Republicans, the stock market has also done better under the Democrats. The Dow Jones Industrial Average during the 20th century has risen 7.3 percent on average per year under Republican presidents. Under Democrats, it rose 10.3 percent – which means investors gained a whopping 41 percent more. And the stock market declined further during George W’s two terms. Moreover, since World War II, Democratic presidents have increased the national debt by an average of 3.7 percent per year and Republican presidents have increased it an average of 10.1 percent. During the same time period, Democratic presidents produced, on average, an unemployment rate of 4.8 percent; Republicans, 6.3 percent. That’s the historical record.</p>
<p>What about economic policies over the past 15 years? The Clinton-Gore administration presided over the longest peacetime economic expansion in our history. The national debt was reduced dramatically, the industrial sector boomed, wages grew and more Americans found jobs.</p>
<p>How has the Bush-Cheney team fared? In the past seven years, we have experienced the weakest post-recession job creation cycle since the Great Depression, record deficits, record household debt, a record bankruptcy rate and a substantial increase in poverty. We have gone from being the nation with the biggest budget surplus in history to becoming the nation with the largest deficit in history.</p>
<p>What is downright frightening is that Bush and John McCain seem to still believe an unregulated free market will solve America’s economic problems. Barack Obama, on the other hand, maintains that government has the responsibility to keep our economy on the right track. Obama says he will work toward reducing the debt and deficit. He pledges to help the middle class and the working poor by maintaining benefit levels and eligibility for the Earned Income Tax Credit. He will hold the line on our tax progressivity and fairness by rolling back the Bush tax giveaways to taxpayers earning over $250,000 annually. And Obama wants to target health care, education, affordable housing, alternative energy and the environment with critical investments.</p>
<p>McCain wants to privatize Social Security and probably Medicare, although he gets dangerously vague about this at election time. To finance government spending in the wake of his tax cuts for the wealthy, Bush has borrowed heavily from the Social Security Trust Fund. At the same time, the United States owes huge amounts to foreign investors. McCain and George W. are mired in the failed economic policies of Republican predecessors. In 1980, Bush I called supply-side policies “voodoo economics.” But he embraced these “trickle-down” policies in order to become vice president and then president. Reagan and both Bushes’ royalist economic policies of the 1980s and the past seven years were failures — a fool’s paradise built on the sands of borrowed time and borrowed money. The consequences were staggering debt, industrial decline, shrinking wages, four painful recessions, increased poverty and structural unemployment. The reckless Reagan-Bush-Bush spending and borrowing has brought us to the brink of social catastrophe and economic depression. Claims of being a maverick aside, McCain has emerged as nothing more than a supply-sider in the mold of George W. and Reagan. Since George W. took office, corporate profits have soared, while workers’ wages and benefits have been flat. That shows just who is the object of Bush’s conservative compassion. The Bush administration, supported by Republicans on Capitol Hill, pushed through a sweeping tax cut in 2001, under which the wealthiest one percent of Americans reaped 43 percent of the gain. In less than a year and a half, the federal government’s 10-year projected budget surplus of $1.6 trillion had vanished. In 2000, we had a surplus of $236 billion. In 2004, we had a deficit of $413 billion. This dramatic reversal is the direct consequence of Bush’s tax cuts. Since then, the Bush/McCain answer for the nation’s economic woes has been deregulation and more tax cuts for wealthy individuals and corporations, who by no coincidence contribute heavily to the McCain campaign. It’s “trickle-down” economics with a vengeance.</p>
<p>Since the conventions, McCain and his surrogates have been pounding away at the Democrats, labeling them as the “tax and spend” party. Yet recent research has shown that more than 70% of our national debt was created by just three Republican presidents. There’s an old expression in Las Vegas: “Figures don’t lie but liars figure.” Moreover, according to research from professor Larry Bartels of Princeton, real middle-class wage growth is double when a Democrat is president, contrasted to a Republican president.</p>
<p>So, while McCain and Sarah Palin compose hymns to patriotism, rugged individualism, “trickle-down” economics, “staying the course” on Bush’s tax cuts and family values, they are also embracing the very economic policies that undermine both the middle class and subvert the security of American family life.</p>
<p>American families need less pious rhetoric, and more policies geared toward a healthy economy, secure jobs, decent health care, affordable housing, quality public education, renewable energy and a sustainable environment. McCain seems unable, or unwilling, to grasp that the government has an important leadership role in this. In fact, providing tax giveaways for the rich and for corporate America is the only policy that seems to energize McCain and the Republicans in Congress, while Obama has pledged to repeal those very same giveaways. And, contrary to the GOP rhetoric, 90 percent of Americans — people making under $112,000 a year in individual income — would pay less taxes under Obama’s plan.</p>
<p>With four more years of McCain practicing Bushonomics, we could very well wake up one morning on the “economic endangered nations” list. Deficits and debt could strangle our economy for the next generation and all but the wealthy will have a tough time making ends meet.</p>
<p>Barack Obama has demonstrated a willingness to confront these painful realities. On overall economic policy, he offers qualities indispensable to genuine leadership for America — patience, fairness, candor and vision. We need an administration that understands and believes in coherent, comprehensive and equitable policies that promote sustainable economic growth — and, on that count, Democrats have a winning record.</p>
<p>Arthur Blaustein was chairman of the President’s National Advisory Council on Economic Opportunity during the Carter administration and was appointed to the board of the National Endowment for the Humanities by Bill Clinton. He is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where he teaches public policy and economic development. His most recent books are “Make a Difference” and “The American Promise.”</p> | 3,211 |
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<p>Tenzin Digkhang has been ordered by his homeowners association to remove the Tibetan Buddhist prayer flags he has put up on the front porch of his south Santa Fe home. (Eddie Moore/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>The homeowners association at the Centex-built Colores del Sol subdivision in south Santa Fe is learning a little bit about diversity and civil rights, we hope.</p>
<p>Tibetan Buddhist Tenzin Digkhang has received repeated notices from the HOA that he has to remove the strings of Tibetan prayer flags hanging on his front porch on the grounds that flags like his violate the subdivision's bylaws.</p>
<p>The prayer flags aren't really flags - they're pieces of handkerchief-sized cloth in different bright colors printed with mantras, prayers and images, intended to bring blessings to everybody around them.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>They're seen on many houses around Santa Fe in neighborhoods of all demographics, testament to the City Different's significant Tibetan population. Even for those who know nothing about Tibetan Buddhism, the colorful cloths flapping in the breeze do in fact seem to accomplish what Digkhang says they do - "uplift the environment they are in and bring joy to those that see them."</p>
<p>Making him take down the prayer flags is like ordering a Christian to remove a cross from a wall or pull down Christmas lights, Digkhang says.</p>
<p>The homeowners association didn't seem to get it. After Digkhang responded to an initial fine notice (and potential threat of litigation), a manager wrote back that she hadn't known about the religious significance of the prayer flags, but still referred him to the HOA "flag guidelines."</p>
<p>His appeal produced no action and, just recently, he even received a second violation notice, bumping up the fine. After the Journal made inquiries, the HOA promised a decision on Digkhang's appeal this week and told him that, if he's granted a variance, any fines would be waived "at once."</p>
<p>We hope the HOA does the right thing and allows Digkhang's prayer flags to freely fly. He said he hadn't noticed any flag references in the HOA rules, but the HOA covenants available online do say flags can be displayed "using a bracket or other approved device" as long as the flag is no larger than "a standard United States flag - as determined in the (HOA) Board's discretion."</p>
<p>In this case - where Digkhang's 12 prayer flags stitched together might amount to "standard" U.S. flag dimensions - no waiver even seems necessary. The HOA should leave Digkhang and his religious symbols alone.</p>
<p>Tenzin Digkhang has been ordered by his homeowners association to remove the Tibetan Buddhist prayer flags he has put up on the front porch of his south Santa Fe home.</p>
<p />
<p /> | Editorial: A lesson in diversity for a Santa Fe subdivision | false | https://abqjournal.com/404858/a-lesson-in-diversity-for-a-santa-fe-subdivision.html | 2least
| Editorial: A lesson in diversity for a Santa Fe subdivision
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<p>Tenzin Digkhang has been ordered by his homeowners association to remove the Tibetan Buddhist prayer flags he has put up on the front porch of his south Santa Fe home. (Eddie Moore/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>The homeowners association at the Centex-built Colores del Sol subdivision in south Santa Fe is learning a little bit about diversity and civil rights, we hope.</p>
<p>Tibetan Buddhist Tenzin Digkhang has received repeated notices from the HOA that he has to remove the strings of Tibetan prayer flags hanging on his front porch on the grounds that flags like his violate the subdivision's bylaws.</p>
<p>The prayer flags aren't really flags - they're pieces of handkerchief-sized cloth in different bright colors printed with mantras, prayers and images, intended to bring blessings to everybody around them.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>They're seen on many houses around Santa Fe in neighborhoods of all demographics, testament to the City Different's significant Tibetan population. Even for those who know nothing about Tibetan Buddhism, the colorful cloths flapping in the breeze do in fact seem to accomplish what Digkhang says they do - "uplift the environment they are in and bring joy to those that see them."</p>
<p>Making him take down the prayer flags is like ordering a Christian to remove a cross from a wall or pull down Christmas lights, Digkhang says.</p>
<p>The homeowners association didn't seem to get it. After Digkhang responded to an initial fine notice (and potential threat of litigation), a manager wrote back that she hadn't known about the religious significance of the prayer flags, but still referred him to the HOA "flag guidelines."</p>
<p>His appeal produced no action and, just recently, he even received a second violation notice, bumping up the fine. After the Journal made inquiries, the HOA promised a decision on Digkhang's appeal this week and told him that, if he's granted a variance, any fines would be waived "at once."</p>
<p>We hope the HOA does the right thing and allows Digkhang's prayer flags to freely fly. He said he hadn't noticed any flag references in the HOA rules, but the HOA covenants available online do say flags can be displayed "using a bracket or other approved device" as long as the flag is no larger than "a standard United States flag - as determined in the (HOA) Board's discretion."</p>
<p>In this case - where Digkhang's 12 prayer flags stitched together might amount to "standard" U.S. flag dimensions - no waiver even seems necessary. The HOA should leave Digkhang and his religious symbols alone.</p>
<p>Tenzin Digkhang has been ordered by his homeowners association to remove the Tibetan Buddhist prayer flags he has put up on the front porch of his south Santa Fe home.</p>
<p />
<p /> | 3,212 |
|
<p>Perhaps it's because I'm over 40 and remember the days before personal computers, but I still feel in awe of what's available on the Internet (whereas my kids just take it for granted). An example was yesterday, when I needed to order something from <a href="http://www.amazon.de" type="external">Amazon.de</a>, the German division of Amazon.com. Since I don't speak or read German (a junior-high German teacher tried but failed), you'd think it would have been a challenge for me to get through placing the order. It was easy. I simply used Google to find&#160;a <a href="http://translation2.paralink.com/" type="external">free translation service</a> and used it to understand the language on the Amazon.de forms. The translations were good enough to get me through the process without a hitch. Wow.</p> | Hail to the Internet | false | https://poynter.org/news/hail-internet | 2003-12-18 | 2least
| Hail to the Internet
<p>Perhaps it's because I'm over 40 and remember the days before personal computers, but I still feel in awe of what's available on the Internet (whereas my kids just take it for granted). An example was yesterday, when I needed to order something from <a href="http://www.amazon.de" type="external">Amazon.de</a>, the German division of Amazon.com. Since I don't speak or read German (a junior-high German teacher tried but failed), you'd think it would have been a challenge for me to get through placing the order. It was easy. I simply used Google to find&#160;a <a href="http://translation2.paralink.com/" type="external">free translation service</a> and used it to understand the language on the Amazon.de forms. The translations were good enough to get me through the process without a hitch. Wow.</p> | 3,213 |
<p>It looks like the ruptured oil well in the Gulf of Mexico is officially dead. The procedure to seal the well — or in oil industry terms, to “kill” it — has been pronounced a success, providing an unceremonious end to the spilling of millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf.</p>
<p>But they’re not dancing on the decks of the shrimp boats just yet. The environmental disaster inflicted by the massive spill will haunt the fragile Gulf ecosystem for years to come. –JCL</p>
<p>The BBC:</p>
<p>The ruptured well that has spewed millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico has finally been sealed, US officials say.</p>
<p />
<p>A pressure test showed a cement plug put in place by BP to permanently “kill” the well was holding.</p>
<p>President Obama hailed the news, vowing to continue to help those affected.</p>
<p>The worst offshore oil spill in US history began after the Deepwater Horizon rig blew up on 20 April, killing 11 workers and later sinking.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/11365122" type="external">Read more</a></p> | R.I.P. Gulf Oil Well | true | http://truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/rip_gulf_oil_well_20100919/ | 2010-09-19 | 4left
| R.I.P. Gulf Oil Well
<p>It looks like the ruptured oil well in the Gulf of Mexico is officially dead. The procedure to seal the well — or in oil industry terms, to “kill” it — has been pronounced a success, providing an unceremonious end to the spilling of millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf.</p>
<p>But they’re not dancing on the decks of the shrimp boats just yet. The environmental disaster inflicted by the massive spill will haunt the fragile Gulf ecosystem for years to come. –JCL</p>
<p>The BBC:</p>
<p>The ruptured well that has spewed millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico has finally been sealed, US officials say.</p>
<p />
<p>A pressure test showed a cement plug put in place by BP to permanently “kill” the well was holding.</p>
<p>President Obama hailed the news, vowing to continue to help those affected.</p>
<p>The worst offshore oil spill in US history began after the Deepwater Horizon rig blew up on 20 April, killing 11 workers and later sinking.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/11365122" type="external">Read more</a></p> | 3,214 |
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<p>Two investigators walk up stairs toward an apartment where brothers Christopher Jaramillo and Cory Blankenship committed suicide early Sunday morning. (Robert Browman/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>Copyright © 2015 Albuquerque Journal</p>
<p>Last Sunday, during an all-night drinking session with his brother, 31-year-old Christopher Jaramillo started talking about how horrible his life had become. He grabbed a gun and shot himself in the head.</p>
<p>His brother, Cory Blankenship, picked up the phone, dialed 911, and let police know that Jaramillo had killed himself. He told them he was going to do the same thing.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>And he did.</p>
<p>Jaramillo was transported to the University of New Mexico Hospital, where he later died.</p>
<p>Blankenship was pronounced dead at the scene. It was his 19th birthday.</p>
<p>BLANKENSHIP: Always close to older brother</p>
<p>JARAMILLO: Death ruled a suicide</p>
<p>A Bernalillo County Sheriff’s detective detailed what investigators learned about the Jan. 11 shootings in a search warrant filed in 2nd Judicial District Court.</p>
<p>A woman told police that she was drinking with the brothers inside Blankenship’s apartment at the Retreat at Candelaria complex on Jane Place NE, according to the warrant. She said two children, ages 2 and 4, were asleep when the shootings took place.</p>
<p>When medical workers moved Jaramillo’s body at the scene, they found a gun beneath him. Police found another firearm on a table in the apartment, the detective wrote in the search warrant.</p>
<p>Police have ruled the deaths suicides.</p>
<p>Chelsea Engel, who lives in the apartment beneath Blankenship, said a loud noise woke her up around 2:45 a.m. Sunday.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“I woke up, and immediately got up to call the cops, and as I was on the phone, I heard a lot of yelling from a guy,” she said. “While I was on the phone, the yelling stopped and I didn’t really hear anything else. But as soon as I got off the phone I heard a woman start screaming hysterically.”</p>
<p>Three days later, when Dezirae Price heard that Jaramillo – the father of her child – had killed himself, she started screaming too.</p>
<p>“I cried the hardest I have ever cried in my life,” she said. “I don’t want to believe he committed suicide. I’m not accepting that in my heart.”</p>
<p>Price, who now lives in Nevada, said she hadn’t talked to Jaramillo that week, but when she woke up Sunday morning, she saw that she missed several calls from Blankenship’s phone overnight. She called back that day but couldn’t reach either brother.</p>
<p>Price said Jaramillo had many close friends.</p>
<p>“Everybody loved him. He called everybody brother or sister,” she said.</p>
<p>Price said she met Jaramillo in Los Lunas in October 2012 and their relationship moved at lightning speed. They moved to Albuquerque in January, and shortly afterward Price discovered she was pregnant. Their family became Jaramillo’s whole world, she said.</p>
<p>Price lost her job, and in October she moved to Nevada to be with her mother, taking their then 1-year-old son with her.</p>
<p>“Chris would ask if he could come and visit his son,” Price said. And she said she wanted him to.</p>
<p>“I know he wanted to move up here,” she said. “He said things weren’t working out for him job-wise, and he wanted to start over.”</p>
<p>This obituary was published in Thursday’s Albuquerque Journal.</p>
<p>Jaramillo never got a job. And he never made it out to see her.</p>
<p>An obituary in Thursday’s Journal said both Jaramillo and Blankenship had two children each. It said both men were “loved beyond belief by their grandparents, several aunts, uncles and cousins, as well as many other friends and relatives.”</p>
<p>In an interview Friday, Santino Segura, the brothers’ cousin, said Blankenship told him he was going to pick him up Saturday evening, but he never arrived.</p>
<p>The next morning, Segura learned about the shootings.</p>
<p>“Cory was going through a hard time,” Segura said, but he didn’t show any warning signs. “Chris on the other hand (what I saw from Facebook) is he was depressed and angry.”</p>
<p>Even with more than a decade age gap between the brothers, Blankenship and Jaramillo were always very close, he said.</p>
<p>“Cory looked up to Chris so much,” Segura said. “Just the look my cousin would give him, even when Chris would just speak, he loved him.”</p>
<p>Price said she knew Jaramillo had been depressed but never imagined that either brother would commit suicide.</p>
<p>“I guess to see your older brother laying there – shot – that’s terrifying. That’s devastating. That’s everything in the book awful,” she said. “Maybe he didn’t know what to do, maybe he was just scared and didn’t know what to do.”</p>
<p />
<p /> | Brother follows brother in death | false | https://abqjournal.com/527585/brother-follows-brother-in-death.html | 2least
| Brother follows brother in death
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>Two investigators walk up stairs toward an apartment where brothers Christopher Jaramillo and Cory Blankenship committed suicide early Sunday morning. (Robert Browman/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>Copyright © 2015 Albuquerque Journal</p>
<p>Last Sunday, during an all-night drinking session with his brother, 31-year-old Christopher Jaramillo started talking about how horrible his life had become. He grabbed a gun and shot himself in the head.</p>
<p>His brother, Cory Blankenship, picked up the phone, dialed 911, and let police know that Jaramillo had killed himself. He told them he was going to do the same thing.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>And he did.</p>
<p>Jaramillo was transported to the University of New Mexico Hospital, where he later died.</p>
<p>Blankenship was pronounced dead at the scene. It was his 19th birthday.</p>
<p>BLANKENSHIP: Always close to older brother</p>
<p>JARAMILLO: Death ruled a suicide</p>
<p>A Bernalillo County Sheriff’s detective detailed what investigators learned about the Jan. 11 shootings in a search warrant filed in 2nd Judicial District Court.</p>
<p>A woman told police that she was drinking with the brothers inside Blankenship’s apartment at the Retreat at Candelaria complex on Jane Place NE, according to the warrant. She said two children, ages 2 and 4, were asleep when the shootings took place.</p>
<p>When medical workers moved Jaramillo’s body at the scene, they found a gun beneath him. Police found another firearm on a table in the apartment, the detective wrote in the search warrant.</p>
<p>Police have ruled the deaths suicides.</p>
<p>Chelsea Engel, who lives in the apartment beneath Blankenship, said a loud noise woke her up around 2:45 a.m. Sunday.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“I woke up, and immediately got up to call the cops, and as I was on the phone, I heard a lot of yelling from a guy,” she said. “While I was on the phone, the yelling stopped and I didn’t really hear anything else. But as soon as I got off the phone I heard a woman start screaming hysterically.”</p>
<p>Three days later, when Dezirae Price heard that Jaramillo – the father of her child – had killed himself, she started screaming too.</p>
<p>“I cried the hardest I have ever cried in my life,” she said. “I don’t want to believe he committed suicide. I’m not accepting that in my heart.”</p>
<p>Price, who now lives in Nevada, said she hadn’t talked to Jaramillo that week, but when she woke up Sunday morning, she saw that she missed several calls from Blankenship’s phone overnight. She called back that day but couldn’t reach either brother.</p>
<p>Price said Jaramillo had many close friends.</p>
<p>“Everybody loved him. He called everybody brother or sister,” she said.</p>
<p>Price said she met Jaramillo in Los Lunas in October 2012 and their relationship moved at lightning speed. They moved to Albuquerque in January, and shortly afterward Price discovered she was pregnant. Their family became Jaramillo’s whole world, she said.</p>
<p>Price lost her job, and in October she moved to Nevada to be with her mother, taking their then 1-year-old son with her.</p>
<p>“Chris would ask if he could come and visit his son,” Price said. And she said she wanted him to.</p>
<p>“I know he wanted to move up here,” she said. “He said things weren’t working out for him job-wise, and he wanted to start over.”</p>
<p>This obituary was published in Thursday’s Albuquerque Journal.</p>
<p>Jaramillo never got a job. And he never made it out to see her.</p>
<p>An obituary in Thursday’s Journal said both Jaramillo and Blankenship had two children each. It said both men were “loved beyond belief by their grandparents, several aunts, uncles and cousins, as well as many other friends and relatives.”</p>
<p>In an interview Friday, Santino Segura, the brothers’ cousin, said Blankenship told him he was going to pick him up Saturday evening, but he never arrived.</p>
<p>The next morning, Segura learned about the shootings.</p>
<p>“Cory was going through a hard time,” Segura said, but he didn’t show any warning signs. “Chris on the other hand (what I saw from Facebook) is he was depressed and angry.”</p>
<p>Even with more than a decade age gap between the brothers, Blankenship and Jaramillo were always very close, he said.</p>
<p>“Cory looked up to Chris so much,” Segura said. “Just the look my cousin would give him, even when Chris would just speak, he loved him.”</p>
<p>Price said she knew Jaramillo had been depressed but never imagined that either brother would commit suicide.</p>
<p>“I guess to see your older brother laying there – shot – that’s terrifying. That’s devastating. That’s everything in the book awful,” she said. “Maybe he didn’t know what to do, maybe he was just scared and didn’t know what to do.”</p>
<p />
<p /> | 3,215 |
|
<p>OBAMA AGENDA: Another response to another mass shooting</p>
<p>“In a pattern that has become achingly familiar to him and the nation, Mr. Obama on Thursday entered the White House briefing room to issue a statement of mourning and grief as he called on the country to unify in the face of tragedy,” <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/us/politics/obama-charleston-shooting.html?nlid=69761871" type="external">the New York Times writes.</a></p>
<p><a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/7a7af1429f124ef1b3c9904ca1f37521/peril-promise-obamas-end-game-trade-health-more" type="external">Per the AP</a>: “It turns out the politics of Washington limit the president's options on all sorts of issues, not just guns, at this stage in his presidency. But on the big issues already in play — trade and an Iran nuclear deal, in particular — Obama still is very much in the game.”</p>
<p>The Obama administration will propose new standards for 18-wheelers and big hauling trucks aimed at cutting fuel costs and reducing carbon emissions, <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/obama-administration-to-propose-new-standards-for-big-trucks-1434667579" type="external">the Wall Street Journal reports.</a></p>
<p>The president will address the U.S. Conference of Mayors in San Francisco today.</p>
<p>OFF TO THE RACES: Hillary’s murky answer on trade</p>
<p>The Koch brothers gave each presidential candidate a four-page questionnaire asking them to detail how they would promote economic growth, reform entitlements and their foreign policy views, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2015/06/18/scoop-25-questions-the-koch-brothers-want-every-2016-candidate-to-answer/?postshare=7471434662225732" type="external">the Washington Post reports.</a></p>
<p>CHRISTIE: The New Jersey governor told New Hampshire voters that Jeb Bush is “copying” his plan for four percent annual economic growth, the <a href="http://www.unionleader.com/article/20150618/NEWS0605/150618936/1010/news06" type="external">New Hampshire Union Leader reports.</a></p>
<p>CLINTON: <a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/2016-elections/hillary-clinton-inches-toward-a-no-on-fast-track-20150618" type="external">She said in an interview</a> on Thursday that she “probably” would not vote for Trade Promotion Authority if she was in the Senate.</p>
<p>“But Wednesday night, Bill Clinton muddied his wife’s message and deflated the hopes of some on the left by touting the benefits of trade deals in an appearance on ‘The Daily Show,’” <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/clintons-cover-both-sides-on-trade-deals-119189.html#ixzz3dVdyRTHH" type="external">Politico</a> adds.</p>
<p>CRUZ: The Texas senator stole the show at the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference on Thursday, <a href="" type="internal">one of us wrote.</a>More GOP candidates will address the group of evangelical activists today.</p>
<p>KASICH: The Ohio governor is out to convince the donors and king makers there is still room for him in the race, <a href="http://replace" type="external">Politico reports.</a></p>
<p>PAUL: A pro-Paul super PAC will be the first to use Snapchat for a presidential ad, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/06/19/today-in-politics-charleston-shooting-leads-to-a-campaign-pause/#post-mb-7" type="external">the New York Times writes.</a></p>
<p>RUBIO: “Rubio, the U.S. Senator from Florida, was expected to appear at the fundraiser but his local supporters had trouble lining up enough high-dollar donors to make the visit worthwhile for the candidate,” <a href="http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20150618/article/150619635" type="external">the Sarasota Herald Tribune reports.</a></p>
<p>And being a first-term senator has operatives in the early states worried that he may have an Obama problem, <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/marco-rubio-2016-obama-experience-problem-politico-caucus-119193.html#ixzz3dVMQcZkh" type="external">Politico writes.</a></p>
<p>SANDERS: “Ready for Warren is launching a new initiative Friday called Ready to Fight that will back Sanders,” <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/the-draft-warren-movement-winds-down" type="external">MSNBC’s Alex Seitz-Wald reports.</a></p>
<p>TRUMP: <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-trump-candidacy-gop-strategists-see-a-wild-card-1434669847" type="external">The Wall Street Journal reports</a> that some in the GOP are worried Donald Trump’s rhetoric may be hurting the party.</p>
<p>CONGRESS: It’s ALLIIIIVE…</p>
<p>“Lawmakers in the House narrowly passed legislation aimed at shoring up President Barack Obama's ability to negotiate a massive 12-nation trade pact on Thursday,” <a href="" type="internal">NBC’s Alex Moe reports.</a></p>
<p>Over in the Senate, Democrats blocked consideration of “a key defense spending bill, making good on their promise that they would stand in the way of any spending bills put forward until Republicans budge on spending caps set on non-defense programs,” <a href="" type="internal">NBC’s Frank Thorp writes.</a></p>
<p>PROGRAMMING NOTES. *** Friday’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” line-up: NBC’s Craig Melvin fills in for NBC’s Andrea Mitchell and will report live from Charleston, SC. He will interview South Carolina State Senator John Scott, Rev. Nelson Rivers, Fmr. NAACP Pres. Ben Jealous and we’ll air Craig’s interview with Sen. Lindsey Graham at Thursday’s vigil.</p> | First Read Morning Clips: Another response to another mass shooting | false | http://nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/first-read-morning-clips-another-response-another-mass-shooting-n378371 | 2015-06-19 | 3left-center
| First Read Morning Clips: Another response to another mass shooting
<p>OBAMA AGENDA: Another response to another mass shooting</p>
<p>“In a pattern that has become achingly familiar to him and the nation, Mr. Obama on Thursday entered the White House briefing room to issue a statement of mourning and grief as he called on the country to unify in the face of tragedy,” <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/us/politics/obama-charleston-shooting.html?nlid=69761871" type="external">the New York Times writes.</a></p>
<p><a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/7a7af1429f124ef1b3c9904ca1f37521/peril-promise-obamas-end-game-trade-health-more" type="external">Per the AP</a>: “It turns out the politics of Washington limit the president's options on all sorts of issues, not just guns, at this stage in his presidency. But on the big issues already in play — trade and an Iran nuclear deal, in particular — Obama still is very much in the game.”</p>
<p>The Obama administration will propose new standards for 18-wheelers and big hauling trucks aimed at cutting fuel costs and reducing carbon emissions, <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/obama-administration-to-propose-new-standards-for-big-trucks-1434667579" type="external">the Wall Street Journal reports.</a></p>
<p>The president will address the U.S. Conference of Mayors in San Francisco today.</p>
<p>OFF TO THE RACES: Hillary’s murky answer on trade</p>
<p>The Koch brothers gave each presidential candidate a four-page questionnaire asking them to detail how they would promote economic growth, reform entitlements and their foreign policy views, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2015/06/18/scoop-25-questions-the-koch-brothers-want-every-2016-candidate-to-answer/?postshare=7471434662225732" type="external">the Washington Post reports.</a></p>
<p>CHRISTIE: The New Jersey governor told New Hampshire voters that Jeb Bush is “copying” his plan for four percent annual economic growth, the <a href="http://www.unionleader.com/article/20150618/NEWS0605/150618936/1010/news06" type="external">New Hampshire Union Leader reports.</a></p>
<p>CLINTON: <a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/2016-elections/hillary-clinton-inches-toward-a-no-on-fast-track-20150618" type="external">She said in an interview</a> on Thursday that she “probably” would not vote for Trade Promotion Authority if she was in the Senate.</p>
<p>“But Wednesday night, Bill Clinton muddied his wife’s message and deflated the hopes of some on the left by touting the benefits of trade deals in an appearance on ‘The Daily Show,’” <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/clintons-cover-both-sides-on-trade-deals-119189.html#ixzz3dVdyRTHH" type="external">Politico</a> adds.</p>
<p>CRUZ: The Texas senator stole the show at the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference on Thursday, <a href="" type="internal">one of us wrote.</a>More GOP candidates will address the group of evangelical activists today.</p>
<p>KASICH: The Ohio governor is out to convince the donors and king makers there is still room for him in the race, <a href="http://replace" type="external">Politico reports.</a></p>
<p>PAUL: A pro-Paul super PAC will be the first to use Snapchat for a presidential ad, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/06/19/today-in-politics-charleston-shooting-leads-to-a-campaign-pause/#post-mb-7" type="external">the New York Times writes.</a></p>
<p>RUBIO: “Rubio, the U.S. Senator from Florida, was expected to appear at the fundraiser but his local supporters had trouble lining up enough high-dollar donors to make the visit worthwhile for the candidate,” <a href="http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20150618/article/150619635" type="external">the Sarasota Herald Tribune reports.</a></p>
<p>And being a first-term senator has operatives in the early states worried that he may have an Obama problem, <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/marco-rubio-2016-obama-experience-problem-politico-caucus-119193.html#ixzz3dVMQcZkh" type="external">Politico writes.</a></p>
<p>SANDERS: “Ready for Warren is launching a new initiative Friday called Ready to Fight that will back Sanders,” <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/the-draft-warren-movement-winds-down" type="external">MSNBC’s Alex Seitz-Wald reports.</a></p>
<p>TRUMP: <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-trump-candidacy-gop-strategists-see-a-wild-card-1434669847" type="external">The Wall Street Journal reports</a> that some in the GOP are worried Donald Trump’s rhetoric may be hurting the party.</p>
<p>CONGRESS: It’s ALLIIIIVE…</p>
<p>“Lawmakers in the House narrowly passed legislation aimed at shoring up President Barack Obama's ability to negotiate a massive 12-nation trade pact on Thursday,” <a href="" type="internal">NBC’s Alex Moe reports.</a></p>
<p>Over in the Senate, Democrats blocked consideration of “a key defense spending bill, making good on their promise that they would stand in the way of any spending bills put forward until Republicans budge on spending caps set on non-defense programs,” <a href="" type="internal">NBC’s Frank Thorp writes.</a></p>
<p>PROGRAMMING NOTES. *** Friday’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” line-up: NBC’s Craig Melvin fills in for NBC’s Andrea Mitchell and will report live from Charleston, SC. He will interview South Carolina State Senator John Scott, Rev. Nelson Rivers, Fmr. NAACP Pres. Ben Jealous and we’ll air Craig’s interview with Sen. Lindsey Graham at Thursday’s vigil.</p> | 3,216 |
<p>Counseling and treatment to quit smoking should also be integrated into all HIV patients’ treatment programs. (Photo by Edinaldo E. Santo; courtesy Wikimedia Commons)</p>
<p>Smoking is killing our community. Every year, tobacco-related diseases take more than 30,000 LGBT lives. In Washington, D.C., smoking is responsible for approximately 800 deaths every year, with a disproportionate number of those deaths coming from the LGBT community. Nearly 25 percent of LGBT adults in the United States smoke, compared to only about 17 percent of straight adults.</p>
<p>Among those living with HIV/AIDS, tobacco use is even more prevalent. It is estimated that as many as 70 percent of people with HIV use tobacco and are two- to three-times more likely to smoke cigarettes than people without HIV.</p>
<p>Because HIV hinders the body’s ability to fight off infection or disease, smokers with HIV are more prone to both HIV-related infections (such as Thrush, white mouth sores, and pneumonia) and fatal tobacco-related illnesses (such as COPD, heart disease and stroke, and cancer). In fact, the life expectancy of a 35-year-old smoker with HIV is cut by nearly eight years because of smoking.</p>
<p>Smoking also negatively impacts anti-retroviral therapy (ART) for HIV patients. According to a study published in&#160;AIDS, smoking doubles the risk of death for someone with HIV on ART.</p>
<p>Higher rates of smoking in the LGBT community can be attributed to a wide range of factors, including coping with the added stress of societal prejudices. Unfortunately, many of the places meant to be safe havens for LGBT individuals and those with HIV are actually the main battlegrounds for fighting smoking. The tobacco industry has targeted LGBT individuals and people with HIV for 25 years, advertising at LGBT community events, including Pride, and even giving money to both national and local LGBT and HIV/AIDS organizations.</p>
<p>Surveys have found that two-thirds of smokers with HIV want to quit, but they need more resources to do so long-term. With the highest rates of HIV in the country, the District should take heed.</p>
<p>This year, the D.C. Tobacco Free Coalition, the D.C. Department of Health, and more than 40 community organizations are coming together to battle smoking as part of <a href="http://www.dctfc.org/dc-calls-it-quits-2016/" type="external">D.C. Calls It Quits Week</a>, Sept. 19-25. But more help is needed to help D.C. smokers quit and save LGBT lives from tobacco-related diseases.</p>
<p>First, policymakers and providers should make every effort to reach out to the LGBT community to work with them to raise awareness about the connection between HIV and smoking. Better education for the LGBT community on the specific dangers of smoking while being HIV positive would help discourage tobacco use among patients.</p>
<p>Counseling and treatment to quit smoking should also be integrated into all HIV patients’ treatment programs, including both physical and mental health. We know that smokers with HIV who receive counseling and treatment to quit smoking, in conjunction with ART or mental health treatment, are more likely to successfully quit smoking than when attempting to quit on their own.</p>
<p>Finally, access to resources to quit smoking must be made available for every D.C. resident with HIV. If you are a smoker in D.C., call 1-800-Quit-Now (784-8669).</p>
<p />
<p>David Mariner is executive director of the D.C. LGBT Community Center.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">AIDS</a> <a href="" type="internal">anti-retroviral therapy</a> <a href="" type="internal">Art</a> <a href="" type="internal">D.C. Department of Health</a> <a href="" type="internal">D.C. Tobacco Free Coalition</a> <a href="" type="internal">HIV</a> <a href="" type="internal">HIV/AIDS</a> <a href="" type="internal">LGBT</a> <a href="" type="internal">nicotine</a> <a href="" type="internal">smoking</a> <a href="" type="internal">tobacco</a></p> | Tobacco kills more HIV-positive D.C. residents than AIDS | false | http://washingtonblade.com/2016/09/23/tobacco-kills-hiv-positive-d-c-residents-aids/ | 3left-center
| Tobacco kills more HIV-positive D.C. residents than AIDS
<p>Counseling and treatment to quit smoking should also be integrated into all HIV patients’ treatment programs. (Photo by Edinaldo E. Santo; courtesy Wikimedia Commons)</p>
<p>Smoking is killing our community. Every year, tobacco-related diseases take more than 30,000 LGBT lives. In Washington, D.C., smoking is responsible for approximately 800 deaths every year, with a disproportionate number of those deaths coming from the LGBT community. Nearly 25 percent of LGBT adults in the United States smoke, compared to only about 17 percent of straight adults.</p>
<p>Among those living with HIV/AIDS, tobacco use is even more prevalent. It is estimated that as many as 70 percent of people with HIV use tobacco and are two- to three-times more likely to smoke cigarettes than people without HIV.</p>
<p>Because HIV hinders the body’s ability to fight off infection or disease, smokers with HIV are more prone to both HIV-related infections (such as Thrush, white mouth sores, and pneumonia) and fatal tobacco-related illnesses (such as COPD, heart disease and stroke, and cancer). In fact, the life expectancy of a 35-year-old smoker with HIV is cut by nearly eight years because of smoking.</p>
<p>Smoking also negatively impacts anti-retroviral therapy (ART) for HIV patients. According to a study published in&#160;AIDS, smoking doubles the risk of death for someone with HIV on ART.</p>
<p>Higher rates of smoking in the LGBT community can be attributed to a wide range of factors, including coping with the added stress of societal prejudices. Unfortunately, many of the places meant to be safe havens for LGBT individuals and those with HIV are actually the main battlegrounds for fighting smoking. The tobacco industry has targeted LGBT individuals and people with HIV for 25 years, advertising at LGBT community events, including Pride, and even giving money to both national and local LGBT and HIV/AIDS organizations.</p>
<p>Surveys have found that two-thirds of smokers with HIV want to quit, but they need more resources to do so long-term. With the highest rates of HIV in the country, the District should take heed.</p>
<p>This year, the D.C. Tobacco Free Coalition, the D.C. Department of Health, and more than 40 community organizations are coming together to battle smoking as part of <a href="http://www.dctfc.org/dc-calls-it-quits-2016/" type="external">D.C. Calls It Quits Week</a>, Sept. 19-25. But more help is needed to help D.C. smokers quit and save LGBT lives from tobacco-related diseases.</p>
<p>First, policymakers and providers should make every effort to reach out to the LGBT community to work with them to raise awareness about the connection between HIV and smoking. Better education for the LGBT community on the specific dangers of smoking while being HIV positive would help discourage tobacco use among patients.</p>
<p>Counseling and treatment to quit smoking should also be integrated into all HIV patients’ treatment programs, including both physical and mental health. We know that smokers with HIV who receive counseling and treatment to quit smoking, in conjunction with ART or mental health treatment, are more likely to successfully quit smoking than when attempting to quit on their own.</p>
<p>Finally, access to resources to quit smoking must be made available for every D.C. resident with HIV. If you are a smoker in D.C., call 1-800-Quit-Now (784-8669).</p>
<p />
<p>David Mariner is executive director of the D.C. LGBT Community Center.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">AIDS</a> <a href="" type="internal">anti-retroviral therapy</a> <a href="" type="internal">Art</a> <a href="" type="internal">D.C. Department of Health</a> <a href="" type="internal">D.C. Tobacco Free Coalition</a> <a href="" type="internal">HIV</a> <a href="" type="internal">HIV/AIDS</a> <a href="" type="internal">LGBT</a> <a href="" type="internal">nicotine</a> <a href="" type="internal">smoking</a> <a href="" type="internal">tobacco</a></p> | 3,217 |
|
<p>FOX Business: Capitalism Lives Here</p>
<p>Shedding heavy losses from earlier in the day, Wall Street climbed Thursday as traders shrugged off worse-than-expected retail sales data.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Today's Markets</p>
<p>As 11:13 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 5.7 points, or 0.04%, to 15969, the S&amp;P 500 advanced 2 points, or 0.11%, to 1821 and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 14.7 points, or 0.35%, to 4216.</p>
<p>The S&amp;P 500 snapped a four-day winning streak Wednesday, and the negative sentiment appeared to mount on Thursday until it shifted in mid-morning trade.</p>
<p>Every sector besides financials and industrials were in the green, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 hit a multi-year high.</p>
<p>Still, Peter Boockvar, chief market analyst at The Lindsey Group, said a mixture of concerns about how emerging-market central banks will deal with the end of the Federal Reserve's bond-buying program, coupled with a string of earnings misses from major European firms was adding to the gloom.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Mirroring those concerns, Michael Block, chief strategist at Rhino Trading Partners, said traders were concerned over weaker guidance from networking giant Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) and earnings misses from European players Nestle and BNP Paribas.</p>
<p>On the economic front, the Commerce Department said retail sales in January fell 0.4% from the month prior, compared to estimates the gauge would hold steady. Excluding the auto segment, sales were unchanged for the month. Weather has had an outsize impact on economic data recently, and many analysts said that might have impacted these data as well.</p>
<p>"Simply put, January’s retail sales report was not good at all," Dan Greenhaus, chief global strategist at BTIG wrote in an email. "Taking into consideration revisions to the prior month’s data, this report is even worse."</p>
<p>Still, he noted the "underlying, non-weather influenced trend of the economy is better."</p>
<p>The Labor Department reported The number of Americans filing for first-time jobless benefits rose last week to 339,000 from 331,000 the week prior. Wall Street was looking for the number of claims to fall to 330,000.</p>
<p>Elsewhere on the corporate front,&#160;Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) said it will buy Time Warner Cable (NYSE:TWC) in an all-stock merger valued at $45.2 billion. Insurance giant American International Group (NYSE:AIG) is set to post its quarterly results after the closing bell.</p>
<p>In commodities, U.S. crude oil futures fell 55 cents, or 0.55%, to $99.82 a barrel. Wholesale New York Harbor gasoline dipped 0.88% to $2.839 a gallon. Gold slumped $3.10, or 0.24%, to $1,292 a troy ounce.</p> | Stocks Shed Heavy Losses, Turn Higher | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2014/02/13/wall-street-sinks-amid-economic-corporate-woes.html | 2016-03-06 | 0right
| Stocks Shed Heavy Losses, Turn Higher
<p>FOX Business: Capitalism Lives Here</p>
<p>Shedding heavy losses from earlier in the day, Wall Street climbed Thursday as traders shrugged off worse-than-expected retail sales data.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Today's Markets</p>
<p>As 11:13 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 5.7 points, or 0.04%, to 15969, the S&amp;P 500 advanced 2 points, or 0.11%, to 1821 and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 14.7 points, or 0.35%, to 4216.</p>
<p>The S&amp;P 500 snapped a four-day winning streak Wednesday, and the negative sentiment appeared to mount on Thursday until it shifted in mid-morning trade.</p>
<p>Every sector besides financials and industrials were in the green, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 hit a multi-year high.</p>
<p>Still, Peter Boockvar, chief market analyst at The Lindsey Group, said a mixture of concerns about how emerging-market central banks will deal with the end of the Federal Reserve's bond-buying program, coupled with a string of earnings misses from major European firms was adding to the gloom.</p>
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<p>Mirroring those concerns, Michael Block, chief strategist at Rhino Trading Partners, said traders were concerned over weaker guidance from networking giant Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) and earnings misses from European players Nestle and BNP Paribas.</p>
<p>On the economic front, the Commerce Department said retail sales in January fell 0.4% from the month prior, compared to estimates the gauge would hold steady. Excluding the auto segment, sales were unchanged for the month. Weather has had an outsize impact on economic data recently, and many analysts said that might have impacted these data as well.</p>
<p>"Simply put, January’s retail sales report was not good at all," Dan Greenhaus, chief global strategist at BTIG wrote in an email. "Taking into consideration revisions to the prior month’s data, this report is even worse."</p>
<p>Still, he noted the "underlying, non-weather influenced trend of the economy is better."</p>
<p>The Labor Department reported The number of Americans filing for first-time jobless benefits rose last week to 339,000 from 331,000 the week prior. Wall Street was looking for the number of claims to fall to 330,000.</p>
<p>Elsewhere on the corporate front,&#160;Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) said it will buy Time Warner Cable (NYSE:TWC) in an all-stock merger valued at $45.2 billion. Insurance giant American International Group (NYSE:AIG) is set to post its quarterly results after the closing bell.</p>
<p>In commodities, U.S. crude oil futures fell 55 cents, or 0.55%, to $99.82 a barrel. Wholesale New York Harbor gasoline dipped 0.88% to $2.839 a gallon. Gold slumped $3.10, or 0.24%, to $1,292 a troy ounce.</p> | 3,218 |
<p>Jan. 17 (UPI) — The first delivery of a combat-functional helicopter retrofit for France was announced this week by Airbus Helicopters.</p>
<p>The aviation company said the first conversion of a Tiger helicopter from its original HAP version, with combat support capability, to HAD, or multirole combat use, has been delivered to the French military.</p>
<p>The French Ministry of Defense has ordered 36 retrofits of its helicopters from HAP to HAD.</p>
<p>“We are pleased to have achieved this first delivery in accordance with the specifications of our customer,” Alexandra Cros, head of governmental affairs France at Airbus Helicopters, said in a press release.</p>
<p>The conversion involves more than 100 airframe modifications, and the installation of over 1,500 new parts and 250 electrical cables, the company said.</p>
<p>The result is a military helicopter with two enhanced engines, a roof-mounted laser sight system allowing the launch of Hellfire II air-to-ground missiles and a greater maximum take-off weight.</p>
<p>“This Tiger retrofit program will give the French Army Aviation the additional capabilities they require in order to perform their most demanding operational missions,” Cros said.</p>
<p>The Tiger helicopter has also been sold to the armed forces of Germany, Spain and Australia since it was developed in 2014.</p> | Airbus delivers first upgraded Tiger helicopter to French armed forces | false | https://newsline.com/airbus-delivers-first-upgraded-tiger-helicopter-to-french-armed-forces/ | 2018-01-18 | 1right-center
| Airbus delivers first upgraded Tiger helicopter to French armed forces
<p>Jan. 17 (UPI) — The first delivery of a combat-functional helicopter retrofit for France was announced this week by Airbus Helicopters.</p>
<p>The aviation company said the first conversion of a Tiger helicopter from its original HAP version, with combat support capability, to HAD, or multirole combat use, has been delivered to the French military.</p>
<p>The French Ministry of Defense has ordered 36 retrofits of its helicopters from HAP to HAD.</p>
<p>“We are pleased to have achieved this first delivery in accordance with the specifications of our customer,” Alexandra Cros, head of governmental affairs France at Airbus Helicopters, said in a press release.</p>
<p>The conversion involves more than 100 airframe modifications, and the installation of over 1,500 new parts and 250 electrical cables, the company said.</p>
<p>The result is a military helicopter with two enhanced engines, a roof-mounted laser sight system allowing the launch of Hellfire II air-to-ground missiles and a greater maximum take-off weight.</p>
<p>“This Tiger retrofit program will give the French Army Aviation the additional capabilities they require in order to perform their most demanding operational missions,” Cros said.</p>
<p>The Tiger helicopter has also been sold to the armed forces of Germany, Spain and Australia since it was developed in 2014.</p> | 3,219 |
<p>In the chaos of the 2016 campaign, would a vice president for life, or at least for a third term, be a fixture of stability for the United States?</p>
<p>Decades ago the vice president was little more than a ceremonial position, cut out from discussions in the Oval Office, and a dead-end political appointment.&#160;As Vice President Joe Biden famously told Steven Colbert, "there is no inherent power in the vice presidency."&#160;</p>
<p>People should make jokes about the office, said Biden, who has had nice cameos alongside Amy Poehler in "Parks and Recreation:" and Julia Louis Dreyfus in her "Veep" role.</p>
<p>Then things started to change. Vice presidents ran for the highest office in the land. Dick Cheney cultivated the position into a shadow presidency, wielding far more power than his predecessors. People started listening to what they had to say, including the president.</p>
<p>In his seven-plus years serving President Barack Obama, Biden has gained more than a few fans for his honesty and candor. He's told reporters he's having a good time, so some are asking, why not stick around?&#160;</p>
<p>Following his decision not to run for president this election cycle, some&#160;Biden backers are calling&#160;for the vice president to consider another option — an unprecedented third term as VP. His foreign policy experience might be a strong plus if the Democrats pick someone like Bernie Sanders, who hasn't made that a priority.</p>
<p>And ... be still your heart ... there is no constitutional amendment that prevents a vice president from serving more than two terms.</p>
<p>Ronald Feinman&#160;is among those calling for another term for Biden. Feinman,&#160;author of " <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Assassinations-Threats-American-Presidency-Jackson/dp/1442231211" type="external">Assassinations, Threats and the American Presidency: From Andrew Jackson to Barack Obama</a>," says Biden is a natural candidate for the job,&#160;again.</p>
<p>"He has loads of experience. He's in his 44th year in government now," says Feinman, a Florida Atlantic University historian&#160;who is leading a small "Draft Biden" movement.</p>
<p>And?&#160;</p>
<p>"There's almost nobody better at campaigning than Joe Biden," Feinman says. "And his foreign policy ideas make a lot of sense."</p> | A third term for Joe Biden? | false | https://pri.org/stories/2016-02-05/third-term-joe-biden | 2016-02-05 | 3left-center
| A third term for Joe Biden?
<p>In the chaos of the 2016 campaign, would a vice president for life, or at least for a third term, be a fixture of stability for the United States?</p>
<p>Decades ago the vice president was little more than a ceremonial position, cut out from discussions in the Oval Office, and a dead-end political appointment.&#160;As Vice President Joe Biden famously told Steven Colbert, "there is no inherent power in the vice presidency."&#160;</p>
<p>People should make jokes about the office, said Biden, who has had nice cameos alongside Amy Poehler in "Parks and Recreation:" and Julia Louis Dreyfus in her "Veep" role.</p>
<p>Then things started to change. Vice presidents ran for the highest office in the land. Dick Cheney cultivated the position into a shadow presidency, wielding far more power than his predecessors. People started listening to what they had to say, including the president.</p>
<p>In his seven-plus years serving President Barack Obama, Biden has gained more than a few fans for his honesty and candor. He's told reporters he's having a good time, so some are asking, why not stick around?&#160;</p>
<p>Following his decision not to run for president this election cycle, some&#160;Biden backers are calling&#160;for the vice president to consider another option — an unprecedented third term as VP. His foreign policy experience might be a strong plus if the Democrats pick someone like Bernie Sanders, who hasn't made that a priority.</p>
<p>And ... be still your heart ... there is no constitutional amendment that prevents a vice president from serving more than two terms.</p>
<p>Ronald Feinman&#160;is among those calling for another term for Biden. Feinman,&#160;author of " <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Assassinations-Threats-American-Presidency-Jackson/dp/1442231211" type="external">Assassinations, Threats and the American Presidency: From Andrew Jackson to Barack Obama</a>," says Biden is a natural candidate for the job,&#160;again.</p>
<p>"He has loads of experience. He's in his 44th year in government now," says Feinman, a Florida Atlantic University historian&#160;who is leading a small "Draft Biden" movement.</p>
<p>And?&#160;</p>
<p>"There's almost nobody better at campaigning than Joe Biden," Feinman says. "And his foreign policy ideas make a lot of sense."</p> | 3,220 |
<p>By <a href="#terry" type="external">Terry Mattingly</a>Palm Beach Atlantic UniversityLou Grant had a problem.Actually, the city editor of the classic TV comedy had two problems.First of all, the fictional Los Angeles Tribune had lost its religion editor and no self-respecting journalist wanted the job. Second, Grant needed to ditch a lazy, often drunk, no-good reporter named Mal Cavanaugh.Finally, Grant saw the light. He told Cavanaugh he was the new religion editor.“That stinks! Before you stick me with a lousy job like that, I’d quit,” said the reporter, before storming out of the room.Grant’s staff beamed. The religion beat was still vacant, but who cared?&#160; <a href="/content/resource_popup_view.asp?id=16226" type="external">Download the PDF</a></p> | Religion Coverage: Past as Prologue? | false | https://poynter.org/news/religion-coverage-past-prologue | 2003-05-06 | 2least
| Religion Coverage: Past as Prologue?
<p>By <a href="#terry" type="external">Terry Mattingly</a>Palm Beach Atlantic UniversityLou Grant had a problem.Actually, the city editor of the classic TV comedy had two problems.First of all, the fictional Los Angeles Tribune had lost its religion editor and no self-respecting journalist wanted the job. Second, Grant needed to ditch a lazy, often drunk, no-good reporter named Mal Cavanaugh.Finally, Grant saw the light. He told Cavanaugh he was the new religion editor.“That stinks! Before you stick me with a lousy job like that, I’d quit,” said the reporter, before storming out of the room.Grant’s staff beamed. The religion beat was still vacant, but who cared?&#160; <a href="/content/resource_popup_view.asp?id=16226" type="external">Download the PDF</a></p> | 3,221 |
<p>Rep. Elijah Cummings got his facts wrong when he said “96 percent” of fatal police shootings were “white officers killing African Americans.” His office told us he misspoke.</p>
<p>The Maryland Democrat was referring to an Aug. 15, 2014, <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/14/police-killings-data/14060357/" type="external">USA Today article</a> that said over a seven-year period ending in 2012 there were “at least 400 police killings each year” and 96 of those yearly fatal shootings — or about 24 percent — involved a white police officer who killed a black person. The paper based its story on the number of justifiable homicides reported to the FBI, but it also noted that the FBI data “has been long considered flawed and largely incomplete.”</p>
<p>Cummings spoke about police shootings on CBS’ “ <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/face-the-nation-transcripts-january-4-2014-schumer-coons-cummings/" type="external">Face the Nation</a>.” He said blacks being killed by white police officers is “a national problem.”</p>
<p>Cummings, Jan. 4: One survey said that the 400 or so deaths from police officers with guns, that 96 percent of them were white officers killing African Americans. That’s a problem.</p>
<p>We asked his office about the 96 percent figure and sent a link to the USA Today article that said on average there were 96 incidents of blacks being killed by white police officers each year — nearly two a week. Here is the top of that article:</p>
<p>USA Today, Aug. 15, 2014: Nearly two times a week in the United States, a white police officer killed a black person during a seven-year period ending in 2012, according to the most recent accounts of justifiable homicide reported to the FBI. On average, there were 96 such incidents among at least 400 police killings each year that were reported to the FBI by local police.</p>
<p>His office acknowledged that the congressman misspoke, and it <a href="http://democrats.oversight.house.gov/news/press-releases/cummings-appears-on-face-the-nation" type="external">posted a correction</a> to a press release about his appearance on “Face the Nation.”</p>
<p>“He was in fact referring to the USA Today article that you referenced below, but he misspoke,” Cummings spokeswoman Jennifer Hoffman said. “He stated inadvertently that African Americans made up 96 percent of victims in a recent case study of at least 400 police killings instead of 96 individuals.”</p>
<p>The FBI collects crime data from local law enforcement agencies, including the number of cases labeled “ <a href="http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_14_justifiable_homicide_by_weapon_law_enforcement_2008-2012.xls" type="external">justifiable homicides</a>” committed by law enforcement officers. The data is flawed, as the article goes on to say, because reporting is voluntary and self-reported. “About 750 agencies contribute to the database, a fraction of the 17,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States,” USA Today wrote.</p>
<p>Another source of data on fatal police shootings is the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The center maintains <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/fatal_help/faq.html#Where" type="external">a national mortality database based on death certificates</a> as recorded by attending physicians, medical examiners and coroners.</p>
<p>The CDC database contains deaths as a result of “legal intervention,” which is <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/wisqars/fatal/help/definitions.htm" type="external">defined</a> as “injuries inflicted by the police or other law-enforcing agents, including military on duty, in the course of arresting or attempting to arrest lawbreakers, suppressing disturbances, maintaining order, and other legal actions.”</p>
<p><a href="http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_us.html" type="external">We searched the CDC database</a> for fatal firearm shootings that occurred during legal interventions. The database provides the race of the deceased, but not the race of the law enforcement officer who fired the fatal shot or shots. Still, the CDC information is useful.</p>
<p>From 1999 through 2012, there were 4,819 such shooting deaths. Most of those killed — 69 percent — were white. However, the white population in the U.S. is far greater than the population of blacks, so the data also show blacks were fatally shot at more than twice the rate of whites.</p>
<p>During that 14-year period, there were 3,333 white people shot and killed during legal interventions, 1,270 blacks, 111 Asians and 105 native American Indians. Based on the population during that time, the CDC database shows 1 white person was shot and killed during legal intervention per million. The rate for blacks was 2.3 people for every 1 million.</p>
<p>— Eugene Kiely</p> | Cummings Misuses Police Shooting Stat | false | https://factcheck.org/2015/01/cummings-misuses-police-shooting-stat/ | 2015-01-05 | 2least
| Cummings Misuses Police Shooting Stat
<p>Rep. Elijah Cummings got his facts wrong when he said “96 percent” of fatal police shootings were “white officers killing African Americans.” His office told us he misspoke.</p>
<p>The Maryland Democrat was referring to an Aug. 15, 2014, <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/14/police-killings-data/14060357/" type="external">USA Today article</a> that said over a seven-year period ending in 2012 there were “at least 400 police killings each year” and 96 of those yearly fatal shootings — or about 24 percent — involved a white police officer who killed a black person. The paper based its story on the number of justifiable homicides reported to the FBI, but it also noted that the FBI data “has been long considered flawed and largely incomplete.”</p>
<p>Cummings spoke about police shootings on CBS’ “ <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/face-the-nation-transcripts-january-4-2014-schumer-coons-cummings/" type="external">Face the Nation</a>.” He said blacks being killed by white police officers is “a national problem.”</p>
<p>Cummings, Jan. 4: One survey said that the 400 or so deaths from police officers with guns, that 96 percent of them were white officers killing African Americans. That’s a problem.</p>
<p>We asked his office about the 96 percent figure and sent a link to the USA Today article that said on average there were 96 incidents of blacks being killed by white police officers each year — nearly two a week. Here is the top of that article:</p>
<p>USA Today, Aug. 15, 2014: Nearly two times a week in the United States, a white police officer killed a black person during a seven-year period ending in 2012, according to the most recent accounts of justifiable homicide reported to the FBI. On average, there were 96 such incidents among at least 400 police killings each year that were reported to the FBI by local police.</p>
<p>His office acknowledged that the congressman misspoke, and it <a href="http://democrats.oversight.house.gov/news/press-releases/cummings-appears-on-face-the-nation" type="external">posted a correction</a> to a press release about his appearance on “Face the Nation.”</p>
<p>“He was in fact referring to the USA Today article that you referenced below, but he misspoke,” Cummings spokeswoman Jennifer Hoffman said. “He stated inadvertently that African Americans made up 96 percent of victims in a recent case study of at least 400 police killings instead of 96 individuals.”</p>
<p>The FBI collects crime data from local law enforcement agencies, including the number of cases labeled “ <a href="http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_14_justifiable_homicide_by_weapon_law_enforcement_2008-2012.xls" type="external">justifiable homicides</a>” committed by law enforcement officers. The data is flawed, as the article goes on to say, because reporting is voluntary and self-reported. “About 750 agencies contribute to the database, a fraction of the 17,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States,” USA Today wrote.</p>
<p>Another source of data on fatal police shootings is the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The center maintains <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/fatal_help/faq.html#Where" type="external">a national mortality database based on death certificates</a> as recorded by attending physicians, medical examiners and coroners.</p>
<p>The CDC database contains deaths as a result of “legal intervention,” which is <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/wisqars/fatal/help/definitions.htm" type="external">defined</a> as “injuries inflicted by the police or other law-enforcing agents, including military on duty, in the course of arresting or attempting to arrest lawbreakers, suppressing disturbances, maintaining order, and other legal actions.”</p>
<p><a href="http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_us.html" type="external">We searched the CDC database</a> for fatal firearm shootings that occurred during legal interventions. The database provides the race of the deceased, but not the race of the law enforcement officer who fired the fatal shot or shots. Still, the CDC information is useful.</p>
<p>From 1999 through 2012, there were 4,819 such shooting deaths. Most of those killed — 69 percent — were white. However, the white population in the U.S. is far greater than the population of blacks, so the data also show blacks were fatally shot at more than twice the rate of whites.</p>
<p>During that 14-year period, there were 3,333 white people shot and killed during legal interventions, 1,270 blacks, 111 Asians and 105 native American Indians. Based on the population during that time, the CDC database shows 1 white person was shot and killed during legal intervention per million. The rate for blacks was 2.3 people for every 1 million.</p>
<p>— Eugene Kiely</p> | 3,222 |
<p>(the Refounded Communist Party) of Italy “We Defeated Berlusconi”</p>
<p>By RIFUNDAZIONE</p>
<p>A very important step has been made: we defeated Berlusconi. Now we intend to rule Italy towards a change and to help the rise of a new political subject of the alternative left in Italy, which is now stronger after this election outcome and commits us to building an Italian EL section.</p>
<p>The result of our party is excellent: Rifondazione has increased its votes everywhere, both in percentage and in absolute votes: from 5% achieved at the 2001 election to 5.8% at the Chamber of Deputies or lower house (from 1,867,712 votes to 2,229,604) and 7.4% at the Senate, the upper house (from 1,707,175 to 2,518,624). 41 MPs will represent our party at the lower house (instead of 11) and 27 senators at the Senate (instead of 3). This is the largest parliamentary representation ever achieved by Rifondazione. We are moreover the second-largest party at the lower house and the third-largest one at the Senate within the Union coalition.</p>
<p>On last 9 and 10 April elections for the lower house and the upper house (for voters over 25) took place with about 47 million Italians eligible to vote.</p>
<p>Under new election rules introduced in December, at the lower house each party is able to elect a certain number of MPs depending on the amount of votes it takes according to proportional representation (PR). But the new system favours party coalitions, so that parties belonging to a coalition have to get more at least 2% of the vote to be represented at the parliament. Moreover, the winning coalition is automatically granted a so-called “majority award”, that is a minimum 340 of the 630 seats for a commanding majority. For the Senate the new rules are still a PR system, but the number of senators (for a total amount equal to 315) allocated to parties depends on the vote reported in each single Italian region and a regional “majority award”.</p>
<p>Furthermore, for the first time Italians residing abroad (about 1 million) had the possibility to cast their ballot in Italian consulates, representing six Senate seats and twelve deputies for the lower house. Polls and a large majority of people predicted that the centre-left coalition, L’Unione (the Union), led by Romano Prodi, was due to win easily over Berlusconi’s ruling right coalition, Casa delle Libertà or House of Freedoms. After a long counting night, where the vote seemed to contradict what polls had predicted, there came a very close victory: the Union won over the centre-right coalition in the Senate thanks to the votes cast by the Italians abroad (4 senators for the Union, 1 for the right coalition, one independent, who has declared he will support the winning coalition). So, in spite of a majority of votes for the right coalition, the Union is granted a Senate’s majority of 159 to 156 seats allocated to the House of Freedom.</p>
<p>The situation at the lower house has been clearer and favourable for the Union, although the centre-left won for 49,8 to 49,7 by a very small margin equal to 25,000 votes. However, the Union now has a majority of 340 enabling it to rule the country, according to the programme the coalition parties wrote together.</p>
<p>During the next few weeks the MPs’ agenda will include the installation of the new parliament which is to elect a new president of the republic, and finally, the new government has to be formed.</p>
<p>We will support a government with Romano Prodi as a prime minister and our party will take part in it.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p /> | “We Defeated Berlusconi” | true | https://counterpunch.org/2006/04/19/we-defeated-berlusconi-2/ | 2006-04-19 | 4left
| “We Defeated Berlusconi”
<p>(the Refounded Communist Party) of Italy “We Defeated Berlusconi”</p>
<p>By RIFUNDAZIONE</p>
<p>A very important step has been made: we defeated Berlusconi. Now we intend to rule Italy towards a change and to help the rise of a new political subject of the alternative left in Italy, which is now stronger after this election outcome and commits us to building an Italian EL section.</p>
<p>The result of our party is excellent: Rifondazione has increased its votes everywhere, both in percentage and in absolute votes: from 5% achieved at the 2001 election to 5.8% at the Chamber of Deputies or lower house (from 1,867,712 votes to 2,229,604) and 7.4% at the Senate, the upper house (from 1,707,175 to 2,518,624). 41 MPs will represent our party at the lower house (instead of 11) and 27 senators at the Senate (instead of 3). This is the largest parliamentary representation ever achieved by Rifondazione. We are moreover the second-largest party at the lower house and the third-largest one at the Senate within the Union coalition.</p>
<p>On last 9 and 10 April elections for the lower house and the upper house (for voters over 25) took place with about 47 million Italians eligible to vote.</p>
<p>Under new election rules introduced in December, at the lower house each party is able to elect a certain number of MPs depending on the amount of votes it takes according to proportional representation (PR). But the new system favours party coalitions, so that parties belonging to a coalition have to get more at least 2% of the vote to be represented at the parliament. Moreover, the winning coalition is automatically granted a so-called “majority award”, that is a minimum 340 of the 630 seats for a commanding majority. For the Senate the new rules are still a PR system, but the number of senators (for a total amount equal to 315) allocated to parties depends on the vote reported in each single Italian region and a regional “majority award”.</p>
<p>Furthermore, for the first time Italians residing abroad (about 1 million) had the possibility to cast their ballot in Italian consulates, representing six Senate seats and twelve deputies for the lower house. Polls and a large majority of people predicted that the centre-left coalition, L’Unione (the Union), led by Romano Prodi, was due to win easily over Berlusconi’s ruling right coalition, Casa delle Libertà or House of Freedoms. After a long counting night, where the vote seemed to contradict what polls had predicted, there came a very close victory: the Union won over the centre-right coalition in the Senate thanks to the votes cast by the Italians abroad (4 senators for the Union, 1 for the right coalition, one independent, who has declared he will support the winning coalition). So, in spite of a majority of votes for the right coalition, the Union is granted a Senate’s majority of 159 to 156 seats allocated to the House of Freedom.</p>
<p>The situation at the lower house has been clearer and favourable for the Union, although the centre-left won for 49,8 to 49,7 by a very small margin equal to 25,000 votes. However, the Union now has a majority of 340 enabling it to rule the country, according to the programme the coalition parties wrote together.</p>
<p>During the next few weeks the MPs’ agenda will include the installation of the new parliament which is to elect a new president of the republic, and finally, the new government has to be formed.</p>
<p>We will support a government with Romano Prodi as a prime minister and our party will take part in it.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p /> | 3,223 |
<p>At BNR, we’ve written at great length about the insidious and intractable anti-Hillary narratives on issues such as&#160; <a href="" type="internal">trust</a>, <a href="" type="internal">likability</a>, and <a href="" type="internal">enthusiasm</a>. These <a href="" type="internal">pervasive media frames</a>&#160;infect the public discourse and create a distorted prism through which voters view Hillary’s candidacy. Our friend&#160;T.R. Ramachandran <a href="https://www.kanvz.com/electionado/canvas/1460241645049" type="external">uncovers fascinating data</a> on Elizabeth Warren, a&#160;progressive hero, that provides much-needed context on perceptions of Hillary.&#160;</p>
<p><a href="https://www.kanvz.com/electionado/canvas/1460241645049" type="external">T.R. RAMACHANDRAN</a>&#160;(with his permission):</p>
<p>At the time of the Nov 2012 election in Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren did have a <a href="http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/results/state/MA/senate/" type="external">net positive favorability rating</a> of +13% but trailed her GOP opponent Scott Brown who had a rating of +22%. Moreover, ~33% of voters felt that being “honest and trustworthy” was the most important quality they were looking for — and of these Warren lost to Brown by <a href="http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/results/state/MA/senate/" type="external">a 12-point margin</a>.</p>
<p>I find that significant because:</p>
<p>Despite those factors, Warren got tarnished quickly when it came to the topic of “honesty”. Here’s an example of a <a href="http://www.umass.edu/poll/polls/20121002.html" type="external">U-Mass poll from Oct 2012</a> — notice some of the remarkable similarities to the kind of language commonly reported by the media in descriptions of Clinton:</p>
<p>Brown is also viewed as more likeable than Warren, but he is also seen as running a more negative campaign than Warren, the poll says. Brown performed better on a variety of personal traits compared to Warren. Voters thought Brown was more honest (38 to 30 percent), more experienced (47 to 22 percent) and more likeable (41 to 28 percent).&#160;The candidates were nearly tied when it came to who was more knowledgeable (35 percent for Brown, 32 percent for Warren). Brown is perceived as having run the more negative campaign with 45 percent of voters saying Brown was running the more negative campaign so far compared to just 26 percent who thought it was Warren’s campaign that was more negative. “Even though voters perceive Brown to be running a more negative campaign, he continues to win the personality battle against Warren,” Nteta says. “Brown’s attacks on Warren’s Native American ancestry and her relative lack of experience have been effective in leading voters to question Warren’s trustworthiness and her preparedness for the office without adversely affecting his popularity in the state.” “When asked for one word to describe Warren, the word ‘liar’ appears more frequently than any other word, which was not even mentioned in the previous UMass Amherst poll nearly one year ago,” La Raja says. “The next most common word is ‘smart’. For Brown, the words ‘moderate’ and ‘honest’ remain the top two choices of respondents as they did one year ago.”</p>
<p>Let’s reflect a bit on that last highlighted passage.</p>
<p>When asked for one word to describe Warren, the word ‘liar’ appears more frequently than any other word, which was not even mentioned in the previous UMass Amherst poll nearly one year ago.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.hillarymen.com/latest/new-report-proves-q-liar-poll-was-false-and-slanderous" type="external">incredible similarity of that sentence to misleading statements reported about Clinton</a>&#160;is noteworthy. Yet, Clinton has been attacked and defined negatively for decades. In the case of Warren it just took one year! &#160;She was <a href="http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/rep-patrick-mchenry-calls-elizabeth-warren-" type="external">directly called a liar</a> by a GOP Congressman and the campaign was rough and the <a href="http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/06/14979130-in-costliest-ever-senate-race-warren-beats-brown-for-massachusetts-seat?lite" type="external">most expensive Senate race in Massachusetts</a>.</p>
<p>In conclusion, while we have only data from one election in MA, the data is eye-opening and indicates that even a woman considered by the liberal base of the Democratic party to be popular, principled, charismatic, likable and honest could – within a space of a year – be painted dishonest and not as likable as her GOP opponent in a deep blue state, let alone the national stage. This, in my mind, suggests we need to be very aware of <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2257402" type="external">the</a>&#160; <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajps.12158/full" type="external">challenges</a>&#160; <a href="http://www.barbaraleefoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/BLFF-Likeability-Memo-FINAL.pdf" type="external">faced</a> <a href="https://annieslist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/WhyDontWomenRun.pdf" type="external">by women</a> seeking higher office – and how susceptible they are to being portrayed negatively in public.</p>
<p>(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)</p> | DEJA VU: In Mass. Race, Warren Faced Nearly Identical Likability and Honesty Challenges as Hillary | true | http://bluenationreview.com/warren-faced-nearly-identical-likability-and-honesty-challenges-as-hillary/ | 2016-04-09 | 4left
| DEJA VU: In Mass. Race, Warren Faced Nearly Identical Likability and Honesty Challenges as Hillary
<p>At BNR, we’ve written at great length about the insidious and intractable anti-Hillary narratives on issues such as&#160; <a href="" type="internal">trust</a>, <a href="" type="internal">likability</a>, and <a href="" type="internal">enthusiasm</a>. These <a href="" type="internal">pervasive media frames</a>&#160;infect the public discourse and create a distorted prism through which voters view Hillary’s candidacy. Our friend&#160;T.R. Ramachandran <a href="https://www.kanvz.com/electionado/canvas/1460241645049" type="external">uncovers fascinating data</a> on Elizabeth Warren, a&#160;progressive hero, that provides much-needed context on perceptions of Hillary.&#160;</p>
<p><a href="https://www.kanvz.com/electionado/canvas/1460241645049" type="external">T.R. RAMACHANDRAN</a>&#160;(with his permission):</p>
<p>At the time of the Nov 2012 election in Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren did have a <a href="http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/results/state/MA/senate/" type="external">net positive favorability rating</a> of +13% but trailed her GOP opponent Scott Brown who had a rating of +22%. Moreover, ~33% of voters felt that being “honest and trustworthy” was the most important quality they were looking for — and of these Warren lost to Brown by <a href="http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/results/state/MA/senate/" type="external">a 12-point margin</a>.</p>
<p>I find that significant because:</p>
<p>Despite those factors, Warren got tarnished quickly when it came to the topic of “honesty”. Here’s an example of a <a href="http://www.umass.edu/poll/polls/20121002.html" type="external">U-Mass poll from Oct 2012</a> — notice some of the remarkable similarities to the kind of language commonly reported by the media in descriptions of Clinton:</p>
<p>Brown is also viewed as more likeable than Warren, but he is also seen as running a more negative campaign than Warren, the poll says. Brown performed better on a variety of personal traits compared to Warren. Voters thought Brown was more honest (38 to 30 percent), more experienced (47 to 22 percent) and more likeable (41 to 28 percent).&#160;The candidates were nearly tied when it came to who was more knowledgeable (35 percent for Brown, 32 percent for Warren). Brown is perceived as having run the more negative campaign with 45 percent of voters saying Brown was running the more negative campaign so far compared to just 26 percent who thought it was Warren’s campaign that was more negative. “Even though voters perceive Brown to be running a more negative campaign, he continues to win the personality battle against Warren,” Nteta says. “Brown’s attacks on Warren’s Native American ancestry and her relative lack of experience have been effective in leading voters to question Warren’s trustworthiness and her preparedness for the office without adversely affecting his popularity in the state.” “When asked for one word to describe Warren, the word ‘liar’ appears more frequently than any other word, which was not even mentioned in the previous UMass Amherst poll nearly one year ago,” La Raja says. “The next most common word is ‘smart’. For Brown, the words ‘moderate’ and ‘honest’ remain the top two choices of respondents as they did one year ago.”</p>
<p>Let’s reflect a bit on that last highlighted passage.</p>
<p>When asked for one word to describe Warren, the word ‘liar’ appears more frequently than any other word, which was not even mentioned in the previous UMass Amherst poll nearly one year ago.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.hillarymen.com/latest/new-report-proves-q-liar-poll-was-false-and-slanderous" type="external">incredible similarity of that sentence to misleading statements reported about Clinton</a>&#160;is noteworthy. Yet, Clinton has been attacked and defined negatively for decades. In the case of Warren it just took one year! &#160;She was <a href="http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/rep-patrick-mchenry-calls-elizabeth-warren-" type="external">directly called a liar</a> by a GOP Congressman and the campaign was rough and the <a href="http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/06/14979130-in-costliest-ever-senate-race-warren-beats-brown-for-massachusetts-seat?lite" type="external">most expensive Senate race in Massachusetts</a>.</p>
<p>In conclusion, while we have only data from one election in MA, the data is eye-opening and indicates that even a woman considered by the liberal base of the Democratic party to be popular, principled, charismatic, likable and honest could – within a space of a year – be painted dishonest and not as likable as her GOP opponent in a deep blue state, let alone the national stage. This, in my mind, suggests we need to be very aware of <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2257402" type="external">the</a>&#160; <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajps.12158/full" type="external">challenges</a>&#160; <a href="http://www.barbaraleefoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/BLFF-Likeability-Memo-FINAL.pdf" type="external">faced</a> <a href="https://annieslist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/WhyDontWomenRun.pdf" type="external">by women</a> seeking higher office – and how susceptible they are to being portrayed negatively in public.</p>
<p>(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)</p> | 3,224 |
<p>The face of weakness? | White House photo/ <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/4331443972/" type="external">Pete Souza</a> ( <a href="http://www.usa.gov/copyright.shtml" type="external">Government Work</a>).On Thursday night, before members of Congress left town for a week-long recess, the Senate <a href="http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/senate-confirms-27-obama-nominees/?partner=rss&amp;emc=rss" type="external">confirmed</a> 29 of President Barack Obama’s nominees for administration positions. At the beginning of the week, over 60 nominees were waiting for Senate confirmation. More than 30 nominations remain stalled, but Obama has promised not to use his “recess appointment” privilege to appoint them while the Senate is in on vacation. The 29 nominations that were approved are considered noncontroversial; they were approved by unanimous consent after Obama threatened to use the recess appointment power to push them through.</p>
<p>Democrats are trying to paint this as a win—Politico <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/32874.html" type="external">crowed</a> about Obama’s “forceful gesturing” at the Cabinet room table in a piece about the “showdown” with Sen.&#160;Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader—but if it’s a win, it’s really small potatoes. Remember, these nominees were uncontroversial—even the most right-wing Republicans hadn’t come up with reasons to oppose them. Still, in exchange for their confirmation, Obama&#160; promised not to use his recess appointment over the coming week. The whole exercise reeks of weakness. As Matt Yglesias <a href="http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2010/02/27-nominees-confirmed.php?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+matthewyglesias+%28Matthew+Yglesias%29&amp;utm_content=Google+Reader" type="external">points out</a>, the President could push through all his nominees using recess appointments if he wanted—”the authority to do that is right there in the constitution.” Dems don’t want to do that because they whined about President Bush’s use of recess appointments when he was in office, and they’re worried the Republicans will accuse them of hypocrisy.</p>
<p>Worrying about what the GOP is going to say about them always seems to get in the way of the Democrats actually getting things done. But it’s still unclear to me why Democrats worry so much about that. Aren’t Democrats in politics to get their agenda enacted? Matt Yglesias <a href="http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2010/02/how-many-votes-to-change-the-senates-rules.php?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+matthewyglesias+%28Matthew+Yglesias%29&amp;utm_content=Google+Reader" type="external">says no</a>:</p>
<p>Republicans, to their credit, tend to prioritize their vision of the national interests over issues of process and ego. Democrats, by contrast, seem to have mostly gotten into politics in order to bolster their own sense of self-righteousness and aren’t especially concerned with whether or not their conduct in office is efficacious.</p>
<p>This is particularly sad because 59 Senators, 250+ Representatives, and a president all from the same party can do just about anything if they have the political will and party unity to do it. (Democrats, is seems, don’t.) Obama could fill almost all federal vacancies using recess appointments. Democratic Senators could invoke the “ <a href="http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2010/02/how-many-votes-to-change-the-senates-rules.php?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+matthewyglesias+%28Matthew+Yglesias%29&amp;utm_content=Google+Reader" type="external">nuclear option</a>” and kill the filibuster tomorrow if they could get 50 votes to do it.</p>
<p>Where there’s the political will, there’s almost always a way. That’s why Ezra Klein is wrong to <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/02/a_deal_on_nominations_that_eve.html" type="external">argue</a> that since Obama has described recess appointments as a “rare”&#160;but “not unprecendented” step, the White House will have trouble using recess appointments in the future. But all Obama’s statement does is open him up to attack from Republicans. It doesn’t preclude him from using his recess appointment power—as long as he’s willing to take the heat. And that’s all it would be: sound and fury. Does anyone really think that recess appointments are going to be a crucial issue at the polls in 2012? Of course not.&#160;But the mere threat of GOP criticism seems to be enough to stop the Democrats in their tracks. Whatever happened to “ <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/01/strong_and_wrong_vs_weak_and_r.html" type="external">strong and wrong</a>” being better than “weak and right”?</p> | The Dems’ Biggest Problem | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2010/02/whats-stopping-democrats/ | 2010-02-12 | 4left
| The Dems’ Biggest Problem
<p>The face of weakness? | White House photo/ <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/4331443972/" type="external">Pete Souza</a> ( <a href="http://www.usa.gov/copyright.shtml" type="external">Government Work</a>).On Thursday night, before members of Congress left town for a week-long recess, the Senate <a href="http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/senate-confirms-27-obama-nominees/?partner=rss&amp;emc=rss" type="external">confirmed</a> 29 of President Barack Obama’s nominees for administration positions. At the beginning of the week, over 60 nominees were waiting for Senate confirmation. More than 30 nominations remain stalled, but Obama has promised not to use his “recess appointment” privilege to appoint them while the Senate is in on vacation. The 29 nominations that were approved are considered noncontroversial; they were approved by unanimous consent after Obama threatened to use the recess appointment power to push them through.</p>
<p>Democrats are trying to paint this as a win—Politico <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/32874.html" type="external">crowed</a> about Obama’s “forceful gesturing” at the Cabinet room table in a piece about the “showdown” with Sen.&#160;Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader—but if it’s a win, it’s really small potatoes. Remember, these nominees were uncontroversial—even the most right-wing Republicans hadn’t come up with reasons to oppose them. Still, in exchange for their confirmation, Obama&#160; promised not to use his recess appointment over the coming week. The whole exercise reeks of weakness. As Matt Yglesias <a href="http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2010/02/27-nominees-confirmed.php?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+matthewyglesias+%28Matthew+Yglesias%29&amp;utm_content=Google+Reader" type="external">points out</a>, the President could push through all his nominees using recess appointments if he wanted—”the authority to do that is right there in the constitution.” Dems don’t want to do that because they whined about President Bush’s use of recess appointments when he was in office, and they’re worried the Republicans will accuse them of hypocrisy.</p>
<p>Worrying about what the GOP is going to say about them always seems to get in the way of the Democrats actually getting things done. But it’s still unclear to me why Democrats worry so much about that. Aren’t Democrats in politics to get their agenda enacted? Matt Yglesias <a href="http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2010/02/how-many-votes-to-change-the-senates-rules.php?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+matthewyglesias+%28Matthew+Yglesias%29&amp;utm_content=Google+Reader" type="external">says no</a>:</p>
<p>Republicans, to their credit, tend to prioritize their vision of the national interests over issues of process and ego. Democrats, by contrast, seem to have mostly gotten into politics in order to bolster their own sense of self-righteousness and aren’t especially concerned with whether or not their conduct in office is efficacious.</p>
<p>This is particularly sad because 59 Senators, 250+ Representatives, and a president all from the same party can do just about anything if they have the political will and party unity to do it. (Democrats, is seems, don’t.) Obama could fill almost all federal vacancies using recess appointments. Democratic Senators could invoke the “ <a href="http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2010/02/how-many-votes-to-change-the-senates-rules.php?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+matthewyglesias+%28Matthew+Yglesias%29&amp;utm_content=Google+Reader" type="external">nuclear option</a>” and kill the filibuster tomorrow if they could get 50 votes to do it.</p>
<p>Where there’s the political will, there’s almost always a way. That’s why Ezra Klein is wrong to <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/02/a_deal_on_nominations_that_eve.html" type="external">argue</a> that since Obama has described recess appointments as a “rare”&#160;but “not unprecendented” step, the White House will have trouble using recess appointments in the future. But all Obama’s statement does is open him up to attack from Republicans. It doesn’t preclude him from using his recess appointment power—as long as he’s willing to take the heat. And that’s all it would be: sound and fury. Does anyone really think that recess appointments are going to be a crucial issue at the polls in 2012? Of course not.&#160;But the mere threat of GOP criticism seems to be enough to stop the Democrats in their tracks. Whatever happened to “ <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/01/strong_and_wrong_vs_weak_and_r.html" type="external">strong and wrong</a>” being better than “weak and right”?</p> | 3,225 |
<p>HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania's House Majority Leader Dave Reed says he's considering running for Congress to succeed U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster, who announced last week that he won't seek another term in the southwestern Pennsylvania seat.</p>
<p>Reed, an Indiana County Republican, said Wednesday he'll decide soon whether to run. Meanwhile, Republican state Sen. John Eichelberger of Blair County is declaring his candidacy for the office.</p>
<p>Reed's been in office since 2003 and has been majority leader for three years. Eichelberger has been in office since 2007.</p>
<p>Also running for the Republican nomination are Art Halvorson and Travis Schooley, both of whom Shuster beat in 2016.</p>
<p>The 9th District is heavily Republican and includes all or parts of 12 counties, and includes Altoona, Chambersburg and Uniontown.</p>
<p>Shuster's held the seat since 2001.</p>
<p>HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania's House Majority Leader Dave Reed says he's considering running for Congress to succeed U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster, who announced last week that he won't seek another term in the southwestern Pennsylvania seat.</p>
<p>Reed, an Indiana County Republican, said Wednesday he'll decide soon whether to run. Meanwhile, Republican state Sen. John Eichelberger of Blair County is declaring his candidacy for the office.</p>
<p>Reed's been in office since 2003 and has been majority leader for three years. Eichelberger has been in office since 2007.</p>
<p>Also running for the Republican nomination are Art Halvorson and Travis Schooley, both of whom Shuster beat in 2016.</p>
<p>The 9th District is heavily Republican and includes all or parts of 12 counties, and includes Altoona, Chambersburg and Uniontown.</p>
<p>Shuster's held the seat since 2001.</p> | Top Pennsylvania House Republican eyes run for Congress | false | https://apnews.com/amp/110c4876762e48b884f97a6a4832ef71 | 2018-01-11 | 2least
| Top Pennsylvania House Republican eyes run for Congress
<p>HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania's House Majority Leader Dave Reed says he's considering running for Congress to succeed U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster, who announced last week that he won't seek another term in the southwestern Pennsylvania seat.</p>
<p>Reed, an Indiana County Republican, said Wednesday he'll decide soon whether to run. Meanwhile, Republican state Sen. John Eichelberger of Blair County is declaring his candidacy for the office.</p>
<p>Reed's been in office since 2003 and has been majority leader for three years. Eichelberger has been in office since 2007.</p>
<p>Also running for the Republican nomination are Art Halvorson and Travis Schooley, both of whom Shuster beat in 2016.</p>
<p>The 9th District is heavily Republican and includes all or parts of 12 counties, and includes Altoona, Chambersburg and Uniontown.</p>
<p>Shuster's held the seat since 2001.</p>
<p>HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania's House Majority Leader Dave Reed says he's considering running for Congress to succeed U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster, who announced last week that he won't seek another term in the southwestern Pennsylvania seat.</p>
<p>Reed, an Indiana County Republican, said Wednesday he'll decide soon whether to run. Meanwhile, Republican state Sen. John Eichelberger of Blair County is declaring his candidacy for the office.</p>
<p>Reed's been in office since 2003 and has been majority leader for three years. Eichelberger has been in office since 2007.</p>
<p>Also running for the Republican nomination are Art Halvorson and Travis Schooley, both of whom Shuster beat in 2016.</p>
<p>The 9th District is heavily Republican and includes all or parts of 12 counties, and includes Altoona, Chambersburg and Uniontown.</p>
<p>Shuster's held the seat since 2001.</p> | 3,226 |
<p>A 6-year-old Washington state girl is safe thanks to her street smarts — and her mother's sound advice — when two men tried to kidnap her in broad daylight from her own neighborhood.</p>
<p>Savanna Norman of Parkland, south of Tacoma, used the skills her mother taught her when a pair of men tried to grab her Wednesday afternoon as she crossed the street in front of her home.</p>
<p>"I looked both ways, and there was no one coming but … then I went halfway across the street, two guys came out of nowhere," Savanna <a href="http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Run--kick--punch-Little-girl-thwarts-abduction-attempt-253906881.html?tab=video&amp;c=y" type="external">told KOMO-TV</a>, which first reported the attempted abduction. “They grabbed me.”</p>
<p>Savanna said she screamed, ran, kicked and punched — just as her mother instructed for such a scary situation.</p>
<p>Mom Amy Norman said she saw the attempted kidnapping from her front window, and dashed out the door to help her daughter.</p>
<p>Norman was shaken up by the incident but remains proud of her girl. “I’m bearing with it as normal, but it was very scary for all of us,” she told KOMO-TV.</p>
<p>Police ended up catching the suspect, local resident Jakeel Rashon Mason. He was booked into the Pierce County Jail for investigation of unlawful imprisonment, and is being held on $150,000 bail.</p>
<p>His first hearing is scheduled for May 8.</p> | 6-Year-Old Uses Smarts to Foil Kidnapping Attempt from Outside Home | false | http://nbcnews.com/news/us-news/6-year-old-uses-smarts-foil-kidnapping-attempt-outside-home-n72781 | 2014-04-05 | 3left-center
| 6-Year-Old Uses Smarts to Foil Kidnapping Attempt from Outside Home
<p>A 6-year-old Washington state girl is safe thanks to her street smarts — and her mother's sound advice — when two men tried to kidnap her in broad daylight from her own neighborhood.</p>
<p>Savanna Norman of Parkland, south of Tacoma, used the skills her mother taught her when a pair of men tried to grab her Wednesday afternoon as she crossed the street in front of her home.</p>
<p>"I looked both ways, and there was no one coming but … then I went halfway across the street, two guys came out of nowhere," Savanna <a href="http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Run--kick--punch-Little-girl-thwarts-abduction-attempt-253906881.html?tab=video&amp;c=y" type="external">told KOMO-TV</a>, which first reported the attempted abduction. “They grabbed me.”</p>
<p>Savanna said she screamed, ran, kicked and punched — just as her mother instructed for such a scary situation.</p>
<p>Mom Amy Norman said she saw the attempted kidnapping from her front window, and dashed out the door to help her daughter.</p>
<p>Norman was shaken up by the incident but remains proud of her girl. “I’m bearing with it as normal, but it was very scary for all of us,” she told KOMO-TV.</p>
<p>Police ended up catching the suspect, local resident Jakeel Rashon Mason. He was booked into the Pierce County Jail for investigation of unlawful imprisonment, and is being held on $150,000 bail.</p>
<p>His first hearing is scheduled for May 8.</p> | 3,227 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>UNM athletic director Paul Krebs, shown at 2011 news conference, received a new four-year contract this week. (Pat Vasquez-Cunningham/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>Paul Krebs, a proud graduate of the Bowling Green School of Business, has decided he would like to stick around.</p>
<p>And the folks at UNM are happy to accommodate him, handing him a new four-year contract last week.</p>
<p>Since he landed on University of New Mexico soil in 2006, Krebs has reshaped the landscape of Lobo athletics.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>He brought a commitment to academics, creating a student center flush with tutors, computers and professionals trained to guide young minds through the pitfalls of college athletics.</p>
<p>He hired coaches such as Steve Alford, Joe Franklin, Jeff Nelson and Ray Birmingham. <a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>He oversaw the redesign of the Pit, transforming its outside appearance from a shabby warehouse look to a shining city on Lobo Hill.</p>
<p>He's not the humble athletic director he was when hired. By 2009, UNM had deemed him vice president in charge of athletics, the big man on South campus, and is paying him a base salary of $319,261.80.</p>
<p>An athletic director (or vice president in charge of athletics) has two major obligations - hire good coaches and balance the budget.</p>
<p>So it came to pass, after a disappointing 2008 football season, that Krebs introduced us to Mike Locksley. Krebs, normally a man who likes to hold his cards close to his chest, was practically giddy.</p>
<p>But when the football coach allegedly attacked one of his assistants, trouble spiraled.</p>
<p>Krebs thought a verbal reprimand was sufficient. He caught some grief, and he decided to issue a written reprimand.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>When the outcry grew, the university was forced to take the incident's investigation out of Krebs' hands and conduct its own. Eventually, Locksley was given a 10-day suspension without pay.</p>
<p>"We've dug a big hole for ourselves," Krebs told the Journal at the time. "There's absolutely no question about it. The leadership of coach Locksley has been called into question. - My leadership has been called into question, and we've got to win back our fans. We've got to have a concerted effort, a plan to win back the trust of our fan base."</p>
<p>When Locksley's problems blended into the football team's performance, Krebs watched in dismay as fans shunned the games.</p>
<p>Locksley had to go and Krebs knew it.</p>
<p>But the damage was done. Without football pulling its weight, Krebs found it almost impossible to balance his budgets.</p>
<p>He turned to Bob Davie, a coach with a name, confident enough to take the challenge. He also came at a discount price, having been away from the sidelines for 10 years.</p>
<p>Similarly, Krebs was fortunate Alford was available. Iowa was unhappy with the coach and it appeared his time there was waning. UNM provided a perfect landing spot.</p>
<p>And, except for those nagging NCAA Tournament losses, it worked.</p>
<p>Until UCLA called.</p>
<p>Then Krebs had to explain the messy buyout procedure in Alford's contract.</p>
<p>UNM paid Locksley to leave. Then it had to pay Alford, even as he worked for another school. And that doesn't count the money Rocky Long pocketed after he resigned.</p>
<p>Krebs was so desperate for cash he had to shake down UNM students, convincing the school to raise their fees to help him out.</p>
<p>The Pit renovation cost $60 million-plus, but the thought was UNM could lure the NCAA Tournament. Alas, so far it has only attracted a couple of wise guys selling pizza pies.</p>
<p>Budgets? The university doesn't seem too bothered, so why worry?</p>
<p>Besides, the nonrevenue sports teams have had good and occasionally great performances. Krebs gets applause for hiring and retaining quality coaches who also care about academics.</p>
<p>So the vice president in charge of athletics, armed with a new four-year deal, can tell his critics to stuff it.</p>
<p>Still, everyone knows the harsh reality of college athletics is that football and men's basketball rule the roost and sway the budget.</p>
<p>Krebs has always preferred hiring coaches with head coaching experience. He went outside his comfort zone, employing unproven assistants Locksley and Craig Neal. He took a different sort of gamble on Davie.</p>
<p>Davie has forgotten more football than most of us know. But is he the guy to rescue the football program from the hole Krebs helped dig?</p>
<p>Neal knows more about basketball than the rest of us, maybe more than the guy he replaced. But does he have the temperament to guide a major college basketball program?</p>
<p>Paul Krebs is keeping his front-row seat. From there he can join the rest of us as we await the answers to those two questions.</p>
<p />
<p /> | Commentary: Krebs still has questions to answer | false | https://abqjournal.com/607319/krebs-still-has-questions-to-answer.html | 2least
| Commentary: Krebs still has questions to answer
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<p>UNM athletic director Paul Krebs, shown at 2011 news conference, received a new four-year contract this week. (Pat Vasquez-Cunningham/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>Paul Krebs, a proud graduate of the Bowling Green School of Business, has decided he would like to stick around.</p>
<p>And the folks at UNM are happy to accommodate him, handing him a new four-year contract last week.</p>
<p>Since he landed on University of New Mexico soil in 2006, Krebs has reshaped the landscape of Lobo athletics.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>He brought a commitment to academics, creating a student center flush with tutors, computers and professionals trained to guide young minds through the pitfalls of college athletics.</p>
<p>He hired coaches such as Steve Alford, Joe Franklin, Jeff Nelson and Ray Birmingham. <a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>He oversaw the redesign of the Pit, transforming its outside appearance from a shabby warehouse look to a shining city on Lobo Hill.</p>
<p>He's not the humble athletic director he was when hired. By 2009, UNM had deemed him vice president in charge of athletics, the big man on South campus, and is paying him a base salary of $319,261.80.</p>
<p>An athletic director (or vice president in charge of athletics) has two major obligations - hire good coaches and balance the budget.</p>
<p>So it came to pass, after a disappointing 2008 football season, that Krebs introduced us to Mike Locksley. Krebs, normally a man who likes to hold his cards close to his chest, was practically giddy.</p>
<p>But when the football coach allegedly attacked one of his assistants, trouble spiraled.</p>
<p>Krebs thought a verbal reprimand was sufficient. He caught some grief, and he decided to issue a written reprimand.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>When the outcry grew, the university was forced to take the incident's investigation out of Krebs' hands and conduct its own. Eventually, Locksley was given a 10-day suspension without pay.</p>
<p>"We've dug a big hole for ourselves," Krebs told the Journal at the time. "There's absolutely no question about it. The leadership of coach Locksley has been called into question. - My leadership has been called into question, and we've got to win back our fans. We've got to have a concerted effort, a plan to win back the trust of our fan base."</p>
<p>When Locksley's problems blended into the football team's performance, Krebs watched in dismay as fans shunned the games.</p>
<p>Locksley had to go and Krebs knew it.</p>
<p>But the damage was done. Without football pulling its weight, Krebs found it almost impossible to balance his budgets.</p>
<p>He turned to Bob Davie, a coach with a name, confident enough to take the challenge. He also came at a discount price, having been away from the sidelines for 10 years.</p>
<p>Similarly, Krebs was fortunate Alford was available. Iowa was unhappy with the coach and it appeared his time there was waning. UNM provided a perfect landing spot.</p>
<p>And, except for those nagging NCAA Tournament losses, it worked.</p>
<p>Until UCLA called.</p>
<p>Then Krebs had to explain the messy buyout procedure in Alford's contract.</p>
<p>UNM paid Locksley to leave. Then it had to pay Alford, even as he worked for another school. And that doesn't count the money Rocky Long pocketed after he resigned.</p>
<p>Krebs was so desperate for cash he had to shake down UNM students, convincing the school to raise their fees to help him out.</p>
<p>The Pit renovation cost $60 million-plus, but the thought was UNM could lure the NCAA Tournament. Alas, so far it has only attracted a couple of wise guys selling pizza pies.</p>
<p>Budgets? The university doesn't seem too bothered, so why worry?</p>
<p>Besides, the nonrevenue sports teams have had good and occasionally great performances. Krebs gets applause for hiring and retaining quality coaches who also care about academics.</p>
<p>So the vice president in charge of athletics, armed with a new four-year deal, can tell his critics to stuff it.</p>
<p>Still, everyone knows the harsh reality of college athletics is that football and men's basketball rule the roost and sway the budget.</p>
<p>Krebs has always preferred hiring coaches with head coaching experience. He went outside his comfort zone, employing unproven assistants Locksley and Craig Neal. He took a different sort of gamble on Davie.</p>
<p>Davie has forgotten more football than most of us know. But is he the guy to rescue the football program from the hole Krebs helped dig?</p>
<p>Neal knows more about basketball than the rest of us, maybe more than the guy he replaced. But does he have the temperament to guide a major college basketball program?</p>
<p>Paul Krebs is keeping his front-row seat. From there he can join the rest of us as we await the answers to those two questions.</p>
<p />
<p /> | 3,228 |
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<p />
<p>While that much-hyped “run and stun” style of play — full-court pressure, lots of 3-pointers and wearing out opponents — the UNM Lobos basketball team vowed would be its identity under first-year head coach Paul Weir has looked rather pedestrian the past two games, it’s not going away.</p>
<p>Nor does the UNM coaching staff or players believe it should. It’s how they’ve recruited players — both for the current and future rosters — and it’s pretty much all they’ve practiced so far. It’s what they believe in.</p>
<p>It is, for better or worse, this team’s identity.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>But is it physically sustainable? After all, to play that style every night, not just once in a while like the opponents face, Lobo practices often look more like a cross between football with all the physicality and track with all the running.</p>
<p>It can take its toll on the Lobos every bit as much as it is intended to take its toll on the opposition.</p>
<p>“Our energy was pretty bad the past two games,” junior guard Chris McNeal said after Tuesday’s 104-96 home loss to Tennessee Tech.</p>
<p>Asked if the poor Tuesday performance had anything to do with a lingering effect of last week’s bad rivalry loss at New Mexico State, McNeal, who had 29 points and played a game-high 34 minutes on Tuesday, doubled down on the energy issue.</p>
<p>“I don’t know if it’s lingering,” McNeal said, “but I do know this is the second game in a row where we didn’t have enough energy to play the way we wanted to play. … If we had energy the past two games, we’d be 4-0.”</p>
<p>That said, McNeal insisted the practices should continue to be intense, and several other Lobos agreed.</p>
<p>Weir has maintained that the past two games might have been mentally taxing, but not physically so.</p>
<p>But with just 11 scholarship players available and one of those (senior Connor MacDougall) out with an injury, it puts pressure on the team to stay healthy and avoid foul trouble. Two Lobos fouled out Tuesday, one had four fouls and one player was benched for a half.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Weir says he would have tried a similar high-paced, physically demanding approach a season ago in Las Cruces as NMSU’s coach, but decided early on he just didn’t have the bodies.</p>
<p>“Last year at New Mexico State, if we didn’t have all those injuries, I think it would have been a very similar style of play,” Weir said last week. “Unfortunately, it was just a team that got smashed with injuries, and season-ending ones to a lot of guys … that would have supplied the team with the depth we needed to play that way.”</p>
<p>The style is geared at wearing teams down late in games.</p>
<p>In two wins, UNM outscored opponents Northern New Mexico and Omaha by a combined 78-32 in the “fourth quarter,” or final 10 minutes of the game.</p>
<p>In its two losses at NMSU and vs. Tennessee Tech, UNM was outscored in the final 10 minutes by a combined 65-41.</p>
<p>TURNOVERS: Both teams UNM beat had turnover rates (turnovers divided by total of offensive possessions) higher than 30 percent (32.7 percent for NNMC, 30.6 percent for Omaha). Both teams UNM lost to had turnover percentages under 21 percent (20.3 percent for NMSU, 19.8 percent for TTU).</p>
<p>As for the Lobos, Tuesday’s 10 second-half turnovers, many on lazy or just bad passes, bothered Weir as much as anything so far this season.</p>
<p>“That’s on me as a coach,” Weir said. “We haven’t spent enough time obviously on their individual skill development. It was awful. It looks like we don’t coach and it was embarrassing, to be honest with you. So that’s something we’re going to have to make drastic changes to.”</p>
<p>Friday</p>
<p>New Mexico vs. TCU</p>
<p>5 p.m., Emerald Coast Classic, Niceville, Fla., CBSSN, 610 AM</p> | Is ‘run and stun’ wearing out the Lobos? | false | https://abqjournal.com/1096690/is-run-and-stun-wearing-out-the-lobos.html | 2least
| Is ‘run and stun’ wearing out the Lobos?
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>While that much-hyped “run and stun” style of play — full-court pressure, lots of 3-pointers and wearing out opponents — the UNM Lobos basketball team vowed would be its identity under first-year head coach Paul Weir has looked rather pedestrian the past two games, it’s not going away.</p>
<p>Nor does the UNM coaching staff or players believe it should. It’s how they’ve recruited players — both for the current and future rosters — and it’s pretty much all they’ve practiced so far. It’s what they believe in.</p>
<p>It is, for better or worse, this team’s identity.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>But is it physically sustainable? After all, to play that style every night, not just once in a while like the opponents face, Lobo practices often look more like a cross between football with all the physicality and track with all the running.</p>
<p>It can take its toll on the Lobos every bit as much as it is intended to take its toll on the opposition.</p>
<p>“Our energy was pretty bad the past two games,” junior guard Chris McNeal said after Tuesday’s 104-96 home loss to Tennessee Tech.</p>
<p>Asked if the poor Tuesday performance had anything to do with a lingering effect of last week’s bad rivalry loss at New Mexico State, McNeal, who had 29 points and played a game-high 34 minutes on Tuesday, doubled down on the energy issue.</p>
<p>“I don’t know if it’s lingering,” McNeal said, “but I do know this is the second game in a row where we didn’t have enough energy to play the way we wanted to play. … If we had energy the past two games, we’d be 4-0.”</p>
<p>That said, McNeal insisted the practices should continue to be intense, and several other Lobos agreed.</p>
<p>Weir has maintained that the past two games might have been mentally taxing, but not physically so.</p>
<p>But with just 11 scholarship players available and one of those (senior Connor MacDougall) out with an injury, it puts pressure on the team to stay healthy and avoid foul trouble. Two Lobos fouled out Tuesday, one had four fouls and one player was benched for a half.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Weir says he would have tried a similar high-paced, physically demanding approach a season ago in Las Cruces as NMSU’s coach, but decided early on he just didn’t have the bodies.</p>
<p>“Last year at New Mexico State, if we didn’t have all those injuries, I think it would have been a very similar style of play,” Weir said last week. “Unfortunately, it was just a team that got smashed with injuries, and season-ending ones to a lot of guys … that would have supplied the team with the depth we needed to play that way.”</p>
<p>The style is geared at wearing teams down late in games.</p>
<p>In two wins, UNM outscored opponents Northern New Mexico and Omaha by a combined 78-32 in the “fourth quarter,” or final 10 minutes of the game.</p>
<p>In its two losses at NMSU and vs. Tennessee Tech, UNM was outscored in the final 10 minutes by a combined 65-41.</p>
<p>TURNOVERS: Both teams UNM beat had turnover rates (turnovers divided by total of offensive possessions) higher than 30 percent (32.7 percent for NNMC, 30.6 percent for Omaha). Both teams UNM lost to had turnover percentages under 21 percent (20.3 percent for NMSU, 19.8 percent for TTU).</p>
<p>As for the Lobos, Tuesday’s 10 second-half turnovers, many on lazy or just bad passes, bothered Weir as much as anything so far this season.</p>
<p>“That’s on me as a coach,” Weir said. “We haven’t spent enough time obviously on their individual skill development. It was awful. It looks like we don’t coach and it was embarrassing, to be honest with you. So that’s something we’re going to have to make drastic changes to.”</p>
<p>Friday</p>
<p>New Mexico vs. TCU</p>
<p>5 p.m., Emerald Coast Classic, Niceville, Fla., CBSSN, 610 AM</p> | 3,229 |
|
<p>WATCH| Tupac Shakur is considered one of the greatest rappers of all-time.&#160;</p>
<p>Tupac Shakur, one of hip-hop's brightest stars, was born on this day in 1971.&#160;</p>
<p>Forty-six years later, the rap legend's continue to celebrate his lasting impact on the industry.</p>
<p>Some artists are taking to social media to share their thoughts on the rapper the "All Eyez On Me" movie on his life in theaters today.</p>
<p>The Smithsonian tweeted about Tupac's music accomplishments on this #TupacDay.</p>
<p>Uncle Snoop Dogg gave the new Tupac movie a thumbs up on his Twitter page.</p>
<p>Jada Pinkett Smith, one of Pac's best friends when he was alive, shares her thoughts on the film.</p>
<p>The actress, now married to actor Will Smith, called the movie "hurtful."</p>
<p /> | Happy Birthday Tupac Shakur. The 'All Eyez On Me' rapper would have been 46 today. | false | https://circa.com/story/2017/06/16/music/happy-birthday-tupac-shakur-the-all-eyez-on-me-rapper-would-have-been-46-today | 2017-06-16 | 1right-center
| Happy Birthday Tupac Shakur. The 'All Eyez On Me' rapper would have been 46 today.
<p>WATCH| Tupac Shakur is considered one of the greatest rappers of all-time.&#160;</p>
<p>Tupac Shakur, one of hip-hop's brightest stars, was born on this day in 1971.&#160;</p>
<p>Forty-six years later, the rap legend's continue to celebrate his lasting impact on the industry.</p>
<p>Some artists are taking to social media to share their thoughts on the rapper the "All Eyez On Me" movie on his life in theaters today.</p>
<p>The Smithsonian tweeted about Tupac's music accomplishments on this #TupacDay.</p>
<p>Uncle Snoop Dogg gave the new Tupac movie a thumbs up on his Twitter page.</p>
<p>Jada Pinkett Smith, one of Pac's best friends when he was alive, shares her thoughts on the film.</p>
<p>The actress, now married to actor Will Smith, called the movie "hurtful."</p>
<p /> | 3,230 |
<p>Nov. 7 (UPI) — More people have signed up for the Affordable Care Act in the first few days of this month, the first open enrollment period under President <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Donald_Trump/" type="external">Donald Trump</a>, than they did last year at this time.</p>
<p>The enrollment period began Nov. 1, and saw more than 200,000 Americans buying health coverage that day — more than double the number that signed up on the first day of enrollment last year, <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/359011-obamacare-signups-surge-in-early-days-to-set-new-record" type="external">The Hill reported</a> Tuesday.</p>
<p>About 1 million people visited the Healthcare.gov website on the first day of signups, a 33 percent increase from last year, the report said. The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/11/06/aca-signups-spike-at-open-enrollments-start/" type="external">also reported a spike</a> in ACA enrollments.</p>
<p>The exact figures could possibly be larger, because more than a dozen states run their own programs apart from the federal website.</p>
<p>A spokesperson for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said the first few days of open enrollment for the Federal Health Insurance Exchange have gone “smoothly.”</p>
<p>It is unclear how the final sign-up numbers will compare — particularly because this year’s enrollment window is half as long as last year’s.</p>
<p>Democrats had feared the signup numbers would fall this year, as <a href="https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2017/11/01/First-ACA-enrollment-under-Trump-begins-amid-many-changes/4401509405488/" type="external">Trump has cut back</a> on outreach and advertising by 90 percent — and has led repeated attempts to repeal former President <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Barack_Obama/" type="external">Barack Obama</a>‘s signature healthcare law.</p>
<p>Though no longer in office, Obama has encouraged Americans to sign up for coverage — even releasing a video urging people to buy ACA plans.</p>
<p>The enrollment period is scheduled to run through Dec. 15.</p> | First ACA signups under Trump exceeding last year's pace: reports | false | https://newsline.com/first-aca-signups-under-trump-exceeding-last-year039s-pace-reports/ | 2017-11-07 | 1right-center
| First ACA signups under Trump exceeding last year's pace: reports
<p>Nov. 7 (UPI) — More people have signed up for the Affordable Care Act in the first few days of this month, the first open enrollment period under President <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Donald_Trump/" type="external">Donald Trump</a>, than they did last year at this time.</p>
<p>The enrollment period began Nov. 1, and saw more than 200,000 Americans buying health coverage that day — more than double the number that signed up on the first day of enrollment last year, <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/359011-obamacare-signups-surge-in-early-days-to-set-new-record" type="external">The Hill reported</a> Tuesday.</p>
<p>About 1 million people visited the Healthcare.gov website on the first day of signups, a 33 percent increase from last year, the report said. The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/11/06/aca-signups-spike-at-open-enrollments-start/" type="external">also reported a spike</a> in ACA enrollments.</p>
<p>The exact figures could possibly be larger, because more than a dozen states run their own programs apart from the federal website.</p>
<p>A spokesperson for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said the first few days of open enrollment for the Federal Health Insurance Exchange have gone “smoothly.”</p>
<p>It is unclear how the final sign-up numbers will compare — particularly because this year’s enrollment window is half as long as last year’s.</p>
<p>Democrats had feared the signup numbers would fall this year, as <a href="https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2017/11/01/First-ACA-enrollment-under-Trump-begins-amid-many-changes/4401509405488/" type="external">Trump has cut back</a> on outreach and advertising by 90 percent — and has led repeated attempts to repeal former President <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Barack_Obama/" type="external">Barack Obama</a>‘s signature healthcare law.</p>
<p>Though no longer in office, Obama has encouraged Americans to sign up for coverage — even releasing a video urging people to buy ACA plans.</p>
<p>The enrollment period is scheduled to run through Dec. 15.</p> | 3,231 |
<p>Amsterdam.</p>
<p>I’d like to start by thanking my Higher Ground co-host, friend and colleague Larry Gabriel for his fine column on hemp farming last week. As it happens, I’m staying this week at a splendid guest apartment above the Hash Marihuana and Hemp Museum in Amsterdam’s Green Row on the Achterburgwal Canal as the guest of Sensi Seeds and its progenitor, Ben Dronkers, who’s also responsible for establishing the booming hemp industry in the Netherlands.</p>
<p>Ben’s a very sweet cat and what they used to call a “mild and unassuming” character — someone who probably wouldn’t want to hear me sing his praises too loudly — but he was a leader in the Rotterdam branch of the original movement that succeeded in eliminating criminalization as a public approach to marijuana use in Holland in the early 1970s.</p>
<p>Ben Dronkers established the Sensi Coffeeshop in Rotterdam as one of the first public cannabis outlets, then starting in 1985 built Sensi Seeds as a major developer and distributor of top-grade marijuana seeds for the burgeoning growing industry in Holland. He opened Sensi Seed Bank in Amsterdam and founded the Hash Marihuana and Hemp Museum next door as a means of educating the public about the wonders of hemp and its products, both smokable and industrial.</p>
<p>In 1993, Ben began his intensive venture into hemp production and product development with a company called HempFlex. He developed and manufactured specialized hemp harvesting machinery and started growing hemp in a big way — now covering about 6,000 acres — to supply hemp fiber to major manufacturers such as BMW, market hemp products like HempFlax animal bedding, and harness oils and other agricultural products.</p>
<p>Dronkers started the industrial hemp revolution in the Netherlands, and geared his entire operation from growing to distribution toward maximum ecological and social benefit. At the same time, he’s continued to grow the Sensi Seed Bank as one of the primary sources of first-quality seeds for growers all over the world.</p>
<p>I met Ben on my first visit to Amsterdam when I was honored as the High Priest of the Cannabis Cup in 1998. In fact, I smoked my first joint in a coffeeshop at the Sensi outlet in Rotterdam on my initial visit to Holland earlier that year, and in the early 2000s spent a lot of time hanging out with all the characters at the late, lamented Sensi Museum Coffeeshop on the Damstraat.</p>
<p>The more I learned about Ben Dronkers, the more I liked him. He created important pioneering businesses based on his principles and his love for cannabis, helped open up a vast new industry for cannabis entrepreneurs, and made a lot of money himself. At the same time, he paid close attention to the civic component and devoted considerable resources to furthering the cause of cultivation, hemp production and the mental health of the marijuana smoking population through the establishment of the Hash Marihuana and Hemp Museum.</p>
<p>The museum has grown into a significant institution and has recently taken on the support and administration of the Cannabis College, a storefront academy next door to the museum that boasts Holland’s only legal cannabis growing operation in its basement.</p>
<p>The Sensi empire is well-integrated and arrayed along the Achterburgwal, ranging from the Sensi Seed Shop (formerly the Museum Coffeeshop) at the Damstraat corner and, going up the canal, the Sensi Seed Bank, the museum, and the Cannabis College. Across the canal, they’re also currently ensconced in the Flying Dutchman building, following the retirement of its former owner, himself the major patron of the Cannabis College for most of its existence.</p>
<p>These are my kind of people. Like so many Dutch citizens, they didn’t change with the times when the ’70s rolled over into the dreaded Reagan era and the rising right-wing culture. They remained engaged with the social process and made serious changes in their social order.</p>
<p>And, in terms of our central concern with this column, they established the individual’s right to smoke marijuana, in sickness and in health, in one’s home or at the coffeeshop of one’s choosing, and the ancillary right to purchase, over the counter, enough marijuana or hashish to get high on and stay high on as long as one may like.</p>
<p>For 80 percent of the Dutch population, this means nothing, but for the 20 percent here who are smokers, it’s the next thing to living in a world of one’s own design. Not only does this system take perfect care of the toker, but it provides work opportunities in the cannabis industry for thousands of adults of all ages, from growers and harvesters and distributors to coffeeshop employees, trimmers, tenders, professional joint rollers and bicycle stash delivery persons.</p>
<p>And that’s before you get to the hemp industry pioneered by Ben Dronkers and his people. It’s big business now, generating employment and income and tax revenues on a large scale by producing hemp fibers for industry and hemp products for the marketplace. Yet it retains a strong sense of social responsibility and dedicates significant proceeds to educational and public information activities — like placing ads for the Hemp Museum and its teachings on the electronic informational devices adorning the public transportation.</p>
<p>Over the years, I’ve spent quite a bit of time with Ben Dronkers and his sons Alan and Ravi, and now I’m a guest in the apartment above the museum they keep for visiting dignitaries. Through Ravi I met my current partners in crime, Sidney Daniels and Joeri Pfeiffer, who sponsor and maintain my websites, created and registered with the state the JOHN SINCLAIR Foundation to support my projects, developed a brand of JOHN SINCLAIR seeds to create revenue for the foundation, and underwrite and support my Radio Free Amsterdam Internet radio project, which is also manifested in the Motor City by means of Detroit Life Radio (detroitlife313.com).</p>
<p>Sidney went to work with his friend Ravi Dronkers in the Sensi Seeds operation in 1996, and teamed up with Joeri after opening up a stand called the Hempshopper to vend hemp products in the Nieuwmarkt. Over the years, they opened two Hempshoppers in the Centruum and developed a close relationship with a hemp products manufacturer and distributor in Germany as a major customer. Recently, they assumed ownership of his company, Hemperium, and are developing a line of hemp consumer products from lollipops and essential oils to clothing items.</p>
<p>Not only do I benefit from their enterprise and social commitment, but it’s rewarding to see a new generation of citizens in their 20s and 30s take the up old-school principles that have guided me for so long and made Holland such a distinctive place in the 21st century.</p>
<p>In light of Mayor Dave Bing’s recent call for new ideas to revitalize business and employment in the D, it would make perfect sense for the city of Detroit to take the next step forward and commit to the municipal growing of hemp as a potentially massive income source for the city, using its vast acreage of vacant land, abandoned factories, schools and police stations to grow marijuana for distribution and sale to the medical marijuana community of patients, caregivers and — potentially — dispensaries.</p>
<p>I’ll take up this topic later, but Larry Gabriel really rang my bell when he quoted former state Rep. LaMar Lemmons Jr. saying, “Hemp farming can create thousands of jobs … [and] with the large amount of vacant land in Detroit, we could do some of the agriculture right here.” Amen, brother, amen.</p>
<p>JOHN SINCLAIR, founder of the White Panthers, is a poet. His latest book is <a href="" type="internal">It’s All Good</a>.</p>
<p>This article originally ran in the <a href="http://metrotimes.com/" type="external">Metro Times</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p />
<p /> | Higher Ground | true | https://counterpunch.org/2011/02/18/higher-ground/ | 2011-02-18 | 4left
| Higher Ground
<p>Amsterdam.</p>
<p>I’d like to start by thanking my Higher Ground co-host, friend and colleague Larry Gabriel for his fine column on hemp farming last week. As it happens, I’m staying this week at a splendid guest apartment above the Hash Marihuana and Hemp Museum in Amsterdam’s Green Row on the Achterburgwal Canal as the guest of Sensi Seeds and its progenitor, Ben Dronkers, who’s also responsible for establishing the booming hemp industry in the Netherlands.</p>
<p>Ben’s a very sweet cat and what they used to call a “mild and unassuming” character — someone who probably wouldn’t want to hear me sing his praises too loudly — but he was a leader in the Rotterdam branch of the original movement that succeeded in eliminating criminalization as a public approach to marijuana use in Holland in the early 1970s.</p>
<p>Ben Dronkers established the Sensi Coffeeshop in Rotterdam as one of the first public cannabis outlets, then starting in 1985 built Sensi Seeds as a major developer and distributor of top-grade marijuana seeds for the burgeoning growing industry in Holland. He opened Sensi Seed Bank in Amsterdam and founded the Hash Marihuana and Hemp Museum next door as a means of educating the public about the wonders of hemp and its products, both smokable and industrial.</p>
<p>In 1993, Ben began his intensive venture into hemp production and product development with a company called HempFlex. He developed and manufactured specialized hemp harvesting machinery and started growing hemp in a big way — now covering about 6,000 acres — to supply hemp fiber to major manufacturers such as BMW, market hemp products like HempFlax animal bedding, and harness oils and other agricultural products.</p>
<p>Dronkers started the industrial hemp revolution in the Netherlands, and geared his entire operation from growing to distribution toward maximum ecological and social benefit. At the same time, he’s continued to grow the Sensi Seed Bank as one of the primary sources of first-quality seeds for growers all over the world.</p>
<p>I met Ben on my first visit to Amsterdam when I was honored as the High Priest of the Cannabis Cup in 1998. In fact, I smoked my first joint in a coffeeshop at the Sensi outlet in Rotterdam on my initial visit to Holland earlier that year, and in the early 2000s spent a lot of time hanging out with all the characters at the late, lamented Sensi Museum Coffeeshop on the Damstraat.</p>
<p>The more I learned about Ben Dronkers, the more I liked him. He created important pioneering businesses based on his principles and his love for cannabis, helped open up a vast new industry for cannabis entrepreneurs, and made a lot of money himself. At the same time, he paid close attention to the civic component and devoted considerable resources to furthering the cause of cultivation, hemp production and the mental health of the marijuana smoking population through the establishment of the Hash Marihuana and Hemp Museum.</p>
<p>The museum has grown into a significant institution and has recently taken on the support and administration of the Cannabis College, a storefront academy next door to the museum that boasts Holland’s only legal cannabis growing operation in its basement.</p>
<p>The Sensi empire is well-integrated and arrayed along the Achterburgwal, ranging from the Sensi Seed Shop (formerly the Museum Coffeeshop) at the Damstraat corner and, going up the canal, the Sensi Seed Bank, the museum, and the Cannabis College. Across the canal, they’re also currently ensconced in the Flying Dutchman building, following the retirement of its former owner, himself the major patron of the Cannabis College for most of its existence.</p>
<p>These are my kind of people. Like so many Dutch citizens, they didn’t change with the times when the ’70s rolled over into the dreaded Reagan era and the rising right-wing culture. They remained engaged with the social process and made serious changes in their social order.</p>
<p>And, in terms of our central concern with this column, they established the individual’s right to smoke marijuana, in sickness and in health, in one’s home or at the coffeeshop of one’s choosing, and the ancillary right to purchase, over the counter, enough marijuana or hashish to get high on and stay high on as long as one may like.</p>
<p>For 80 percent of the Dutch population, this means nothing, but for the 20 percent here who are smokers, it’s the next thing to living in a world of one’s own design. Not only does this system take perfect care of the toker, but it provides work opportunities in the cannabis industry for thousands of adults of all ages, from growers and harvesters and distributors to coffeeshop employees, trimmers, tenders, professional joint rollers and bicycle stash delivery persons.</p>
<p>And that’s before you get to the hemp industry pioneered by Ben Dronkers and his people. It’s big business now, generating employment and income and tax revenues on a large scale by producing hemp fibers for industry and hemp products for the marketplace. Yet it retains a strong sense of social responsibility and dedicates significant proceeds to educational and public information activities — like placing ads for the Hemp Museum and its teachings on the electronic informational devices adorning the public transportation.</p>
<p>Over the years, I’ve spent quite a bit of time with Ben Dronkers and his sons Alan and Ravi, and now I’m a guest in the apartment above the museum they keep for visiting dignitaries. Through Ravi I met my current partners in crime, Sidney Daniels and Joeri Pfeiffer, who sponsor and maintain my websites, created and registered with the state the JOHN SINCLAIR Foundation to support my projects, developed a brand of JOHN SINCLAIR seeds to create revenue for the foundation, and underwrite and support my Radio Free Amsterdam Internet radio project, which is also manifested in the Motor City by means of Detroit Life Radio (detroitlife313.com).</p>
<p>Sidney went to work with his friend Ravi Dronkers in the Sensi Seeds operation in 1996, and teamed up with Joeri after opening up a stand called the Hempshopper to vend hemp products in the Nieuwmarkt. Over the years, they opened two Hempshoppers in the Centruum and developed a close relationship with a hemp products manufacturer and distributor in Germany as a major customer. Recently, they assumed ownership of his company, Hemperium, and are developing a line of hemp consumer products from lollipops and essential oils to clothing items.</p>
<p>Not only do I benefit from their enterprise and social commitment, but it’s rewarding to see a new generation of citizens in their 20s and 30s take the up old-school principles that have guided me for so long and made Holland such a distinctive place in the 21st century.</p>
<p>In light of Mayor Dave Bing’s recent call for new ideas to revitalize business and employment in the D, it would make perfect sense for the city of Detroit to take the next step forward and commit to the municipal growing of hemp as a potentially massive income source for the city, using its vast acreage of vacant land, abandoned factories, schools and police stations to grow marijuana for distribution and sale to the medical marijuana community of patients, caregivers and — potentially — dispensaries.</p>
<p>I’ll take up this topic later, but Larry Gabriel really rang my bell when he quoted former state Rep. LaMar Lemmons Jr. saying, “Hemp farming can create thousands of jobs … [and] with the large amount of vacant land in Detroit, we could do some of the agriculture right here.” Amen, brother, amen.</p>
<p>JOHN SINCLAIR, founder of the White Panthers, is a poet. His latest book is <a href="" type="internal">It’s All Good</a>.</p>
<p>This article originally ran in the <a href="http://metrotimes.com/" type="external">Metro Times</a>.</p>
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<p>&lt;msonormal$3&gt;In both circumstances, the studies should not be led or staffed by anyone with a vested interest in the status quo or in defending the lax attitudes of the recent past – particularly in regard to sexual misconduct, heterosexual or homosexual. The study of seminaries should be run by bishops who have demonstrated an ability to reform seminaries in their pre-episcopal careers and to attract and nurture vocations by their episcopal ministry. Happily, there are a good number of such men among the younger members of the hierarchy.The study of novitiates should be run by bishops who have nurtured vocations to the consecrated life in their dioceses and who have a clear-eyed view of the current corruptions in too many religious houses of formation.</p>
<p>&lt;msonormal$3&gt;Beyond this, the bishops must do something to make unmistakably clear that they accept responsibility for the discipline of the clergy, that they are deeply sorry for the episcopal misgovernance that turned serious scandal into Church-wide crisis, and that they fully intend to pursue remedies down to the roots of the crisis in the culture of dissent.</p>
<p>&lt;msonormal$3&gt;A communal, public act of penance has been suggested. That would be no bad thing, especially if it helped drive home the point that the Dallas meeting is only the beginning of a long and difficult process of fixing what has manifestly been broken in the Church.</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> | What Must Be Done In Dallas | false | https://eppc.org/publications/what-must-be-done-in-dallas/ | 1right-center
| What Must Be Done In Dallas
<p />
<p>&#160;</p>
<p />
<p>&lt;msonormal$3&gt;In both circumstances, the studies should not be led or staffed by anyone with a vested interest in the status quo or in defending the lax attitudes of the recent past – particularly in regard to sexual misconduct, heterosexual or homosexual. The study of seminaries should be run by bishops who have demonstrated an ability to reform seminaries in their pre-episcopal careers and to attract and nurture vocations by their episcopal ministry. Happily, there are a good number of such men among the younger members of the hierarchy.The study of novitiates should be run by bishops who have nurtured vocations to the consecrated life in their dioceses and who have a clear-eyed view of the current corruptions in too many religious houses of formation.</p>
<p>&lt;msonormal$3&gt;Beyond this, the bishops must do something to make unmistakably clear that they accept responsibility for the discipline of the clergy, that they are deeply sorry for the episcopal misgovernance that turned serious scandal into Church-wide crisis, and that they fully intend to pursue remedies down to the roots of the crisis in the culture of dissent.</p>
<p>&lt;msonormal$3&gt;A communal, public act of penance has been suggested. That would be no bad thing, especially if it helped drive home the point that the Dallas meeting is only the beginning of a long and difficult process of fixing what has manifestly been broken in the Church.</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> | 3,233 |
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<p>Image source: Globant.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Shares ofGlobant SA (NYSE: GLOB), the Luxembourg-based digital servicescompany, got hammered today after the company reported third-quarter earnings that missed analyst earnings estimates. As of 11:30 a.m. EST, the stock is down more than 15%.</p>
<p>For the third quarter ended Sept. 30, Globant SA reported sales of $82.4 million,up 23% year over year, and earnings of $10.5 million, up 15% over Q3 2015.On a per-share basis, Globant reported earnings of $0.30, which, though up from $0.26 a year ago, were slightly below analysts estimates. As a result, the stock is now selling.</p>
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<p>Management still seems happy with its growth and future growth prospects. According to CFOAlejandro Scannapieco,"I am delighted with our financial performance for this quarter. Both our revenue growth and our gross, operating and net income margins continue to be very healthy. Growth is evenly spread among our customer base, with top 10 accounts increasing over 25% year over year, and not top 10 accounts growing above 20%."The company announced this week that it has acquired L4, a digital services company that Globant says will "strengthen its lead position in the digital services space."</p>
<p>For full-year 2016, Globant maintained its guidance for revenue of $320 million to $332 million and earnings per share in the range of $1.12 to $1.15. The high end of that guidance would represent 30% and 17% growth year over year, respectively.</p>
<p>Globant SA has not been a cheap stock, trading at over 40 times earnings for most of the last few quarters. That optimism seemed to get a little ahead of a company that does still look to have growth ahead of it, as forward estimates for next year's earnings place the stock at just 26 times those expected earnings.Now at a cheaper price after this sell-off today, and with what looks to be plenty of growth ahead, the stock certainly looks more attractive as a potential buy.</p>
<p>Forget the 2016 Election: 10 stocks we like better than Globant Donald Trump was just elected president, and volatility is up. But here's why you should ignore the election:</p>
<p>Investing geniuses Tom and David Gardner have spent a long time beating the market no matter who's in the White House. In fact, 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%2Fecap-foolcom-bbn-election%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0000468%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6454%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=5affeb68-c88b-430e-9b9b-fec493240111&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">ten best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and Globant 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%2Fecap-foolcom-bbn-election%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0000468%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6454%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=5affeb68-c88b-430e-9b9b-fec493240111&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Click here Opens a New Window.</a> to learn about these picks!</p>
<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of November 7, 2016</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/BSMcNew/info.aspx" type="external">Seth McNew Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=isiedilnk018048&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> | Why Shares of Globant SA Are Getting Crushed Today | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/11/15/why-shares-globant-sa-are-getting-crushed-today.html | 2016-11-15 | 0right
| Why Shares of Globant SA Are Getting Crushed Today
<p />
<p>Image source: Globant.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Shares ofGlobant SA (NYSE: GLOB), the Luxembourg-based digital servicescompany, got hammered today after the company reported third-quarter earnings that missed analyst earnings estimates. As of 11:30 a.m. EST, the stock is down more than 15%.</p>
<p>For the third quarter ended Sept. 30, Globant SA reported sales of $82.4 million,up 23% year over year, and earnings of $10.5 million, up 15% over Q3 2015.On a per-share basis, Globant reported earnings of $0.30, which, though up from $0.26 a year ago, were slightly below analysts estimates. As a result, the stock is now selling.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Management still seems happy with its growth and future growth prospects. According to CFOAlejandro Scannapieco,"I am delighted with our financial performance for this quarter. Both our revenue growth and our gross, operating and net income margins continue to be very healthy. Growth is evenly spread among our customer base, with top 10 accounts increasing over 25% year over year, and not top 10 accounts growing above 20%."The company announced this week that it has acquired L4, a digital services company that Globant says will "strengthen its lead position in the digital services space."</p>
<p>For full-year 2016, Globant maintained its guidance for revenue of $320 million to $332 million and earnings per share in the range of $1.12 to $1.15. The high end of that guidance would represent 30% and 17% growth year over year, respectively.</p>
<p>Globant SA has not been a cheap stock, trading at over 40 times earnings for most of the last few quarters. That optimism seemed to get a little ahead of a company that does still look to have growth ahead of it, as forward estimates for next year's earnings place the stock at just 26 times those expected earnings.Now at a cheaper price after this sell-off today, and with what looks to be plenty of growth ahead, the stock certainly looks more attractive as a potential buy.</p>
<p>Forget the 2016 Election: 10 stocks we like better than Globant Donald Trump was just elected president, and volatility is up. But here's why you should ignore the election:</p>
<p>Investing geniuses Tom and David Gardner have spent a long time beating the market no matter who's in the White House. In fact, 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%2Fecap-foolcom-bbn-election%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0000468%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6454%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=5affeb68-c88b-430e-9b9b-fec493240111&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">ten best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and Globant 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%2Fecap-foolcom-bbn-election%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0000468%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6454%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=5affeb68-c88b-430e-9b9b-fec493240111&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Click here Opens a New Window.</a> to learn about these picks!</p>
<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of November 7, 2016</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/BSMcNew/info.aspx" type="external">Seth McNew Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=isiedilnk018048&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> | 3,234 |
<p>The news: More than 49 million people didn’t have enough food in 2008, an increase of 13 million people to reach a record high, according to a new survey by the U.S. Department of Agriculture using U.S. Census data.</p>
<p>Behind the news: Many people in Illinois qualify for food stamps and don’t get them.</p>
<p>An estimated $85 million in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits went unclaimed in Chicago in 2007, according to a September report released by the Food Research and Action Center, a Washington, D.C.-based food policy group.</p>
<p>An estimated 141,843 people in Chicago qualified for food stamps in 2007 but didn’t get them, according to the same report. Some experts think they know why.</p>
<p>“The [Illinois Department of Human Services] offices are understaffed at the same time that the number of households who are seeking help has skyrocketed,” said Diane Doherty, executive director of the Illinois Hunger Coalition.</p>
<p>“People are frustrated because they have to come back to apply and wait to get an interview, which is a requirement for food stamps,” she said.</p>
<p>In addition, more people are applying, including the newly unemployed and those re-enrolling for another benefit cycle.</p>
<p>“I think it’s pretty clear the need has gone up,” said Evelyn Brodkin, a political science professor at the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration. It’s unclear if the food stamp system can handle the increased case-load, Brodkin said.</p>
<p>On top of that, the food policy group’s report shows more people need food. Nationwide, 20 percent of all people sampled said they worried they’d run out of food before getting more money. The response is reflected in the number of visits to area food pantries–” which increased by 26 percent from July through September, said Bob Dolgan, a spokesman for the Greater Chicago Food Depository.</p> | More struggling with hunger | false | http://chicagoreporter.com/more-struggling-hunger/ | 2010-01-01 | 3left-center
| More struggling with hunger
<p>The news: More than 49 million people didn’t have enough food in 2008, an increase of 13 million people to reach a record high, according to a new survey by the U.S. Department of Agriculture using U.S. Census data.</p>
<p>Behind the news: Many people in Illinois qualify for food stamps and don’t get them.</p>
<p>An estimated $85 million in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits went unclaimed in Chicago in 2007, according to a September report released by the Food Research and Action Center, a Washington, D.C.-based food policy group.</p>
<p>An estimated 141,843 people in Chicago qualified for food stamps in 2007 but didn’t get them, according to the same report. Some experts think they know why.</p>
<p>“The [Illinois Department of Human Services] offices are understaffed at the same time that the number of households who are seeking help has skyrocketed,” said Diane Doherty, executive director of the Illinois Hunger Coalition.</p>
<p>“People are frustrated because they have to come back to apply and wait to get an interview, which is a requirement for food stamps,” she said.</p>
<p>In addition, more people are applying, including the newly unemployed and those re-enrolling for another benefit cycle.</p>
<p>“I think it’s pretty clear the need has gone up,” said Evelyn Brodkin, a political science professor at the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration. It’s unclear if the food stamp system can handle the increased case-load, Brodkin said.</p>
<p>On top of that, the food policy group’s report shows more people need food. Nationwide, 20 percent of all people sampled said they worried they’d run out of food before getting more money. The response is reflected in the number of visits to area food pantries–” which increased by 26 percent from July through September, said Bob Dolgan, a spokesman for the Greater Chicago Food Depository.</p> | 3,235 |
<p>San Diego has mastered the art of urban farming, and as San Diego’s fourth largest industry, agriculture in San Diego is a year-round phenomena. Fresh produce is available everyday at any given location around the city, with over 25 farmers markets in San Diego alone. With a unique surrounding and diverse selection of food, the North Park farmers market has earned its way to the top of my list of farmers markets in San Diego for these 4 reasons:</p>
<p>1. Fresh produce: Although this is somewhat of a given, the selection of fresh fruit, vegetables, garlic, herbs, and bread is reason enough to spend the extra money on buying local produce. The farmers market may seem small compared to other San Diego locations, but in terms of fresh produce, it’s huge.</p>
<p>2.&#160;Home to Bitchin’ Sauce: This applies to all farmers markets in San Diego. An alternative to hummas, Bitchin’ sause is a&#160;vegan, gluten-free, almond-based, savory sauce that can be used for cooking or as a spread.&#160;If you haven’t tried it already, I suggest the Chipotle.</p>
<p>3. Honey:&#160;Ranked as the <a href="http://www.sandiego.org/articles/shopping/san-diego-farmers-markets.aspx" type="external">third</a> largest honey producer in the nation, any San Diego farmers market would not be complete without an excessive amount of honey. The North Park farmers market is no exception.</p>
<p>4. Friendly, diverse atmosphere: The people at the North Park farmers market were talkative, giving this market a particularly friendly feel.&#160;While this farmers market is not as eclectic as the Ocean Beach farmers market, which hosts a blow up jumpy castle and llama feeding, and is not as conveniently located as the UTC farmers market located behind a well-established mall, it’s got a lot to offer. It proves that you don’t need all that glitz and glam to provide a community with fresh food. From the wide variety of produce, to the tasty dips, to the beautiful array of floral arrangements, this market brings color to the neighborhood it surrounds.</p>
<p>You can visit this farmers market every Thursday afternoon, from 3pm – 7pm.</p> | 4 Reasons to Visit North Park Farmers Market | false | https://ivn.us/2012/10/02/4-reasons-to-visit-north-park-farmers-market/ | 2012-10-02 | 2least
| 4 Reasons to Visit North Park Farmers Market
<p>San Diego has mastered the art of urban farming, and as San Diego’s fourth largest industry, agriculture in San Diego is a year-round phenomena. Fresh produce is available everyday at any given location around the city, with over 25 farmers markets in San Diego alone. With a unique surrounding and diverse selection of food, the North Park farmers market has earned its way to the top of my list of farmers markets in San Diego for these 4 reasons:</p>
<p>1. Fresh produce: Although this is somewhat of a given, the selection of fresh fruit, vegetables, garlic, herbs, and bread is reason enough to spend the extra money on buying local produce. The farmers market may seem small compared to other San Diego locations, but in terms of fresh produce, it’s huge.</p>
<p>2.&#160;Home to Bitchin’ Sauce: This applies to all farmers markets in San Diego. An alternative to hummas, Bitchin’ sause is a&#160;vegan, gluten-free, almond-based, savory sauce that can be used for cooking or as a spread.&#160;If you haven’t tried it already, I suggest the Chipotle.</p>
<p>3. Honey:&#160;Ranked as the <a href="http://www.sandiego.org/articles/shopping/san-diego-farmers-markets.aspx" type="external">third</a> largest honey producer in the nation, any San Diego farmers market would not be complete without an excessive amount of honey. The North Park farmers market is no exception.</p>
<p>4. Friendly, diverse atmosphere: The people at the North Park farmers market were talkative, giving this market a particularly friendly feel.&#160;While this farmers market is not as eclectic as the Ocean Beach farmers market, which hosts a blow up jumpy castle and llama feeding, and is not as conveniently located as the UTC farmers market located behind a well-established mall, it’s got a lot to offer. It proves that you don’t need all that glitz and glam to provide a community with fresh food. From the wide variety of produce, to the tasty dips, to the beautiful array of floral arrangements, this market brings color to the neighborhood it surrounds.</p>
<p>You can visit this farmers market every Thursday afternoon, from 3pm – 7pm.</p> | 3,236 |
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<p>SANTA FE, N.M. — Santa Fe City Manager Robert Romero said Tuesday he plans to retire from his job on May 31.</p>
<p>It feels like the right time, said Romero, who has served as city manager since January 2010.</p>
<p>“I promised the mayor I would complete the budget, it seems annexation agreements are very close to being completed, and I’m ready to move on to other opportunities,” he said.</p>
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<p>Mayor David Coss said Romero “is about the best city manager the city has ever had and I’ve known a bunch of them, including myself.”</p>
<p>Coss, who himself announced last week that he doesn’t plan to seek a third term as mayor in 2014, said Romero “brought a lot of accountability” to the city and “had a very strong work ethic.”</p>
<p>Romero declined to rate his job performance, saying, “I’ll let somebody else describe that.”</p>
<p>But, he added, “I earned my salary. I worked hard, as hard as I could, and I am satisfied with the effort that I put into the job.” He said the decision to retire is his alone.</p>
<p>Romero, 48, is eligible to draw a public pension. He said he’s considering a new career in the private sector, but declined to give details.</p>
<p>Romero has worked for both the city of Santa Fe and the New Mexico Department of Transportation as an engineer. He was director of Santa Fe’s Engineering Division for four years before becoming Public Works director in 2004.</p>
<p>Coss chose Romero for the city manager position in January 2010; he was officially appointed by the City Council to accolades and a standing ovation from an audience filled with city employees.</p>
<p>But Romero’s tenure hasn’t been without its tensions. He’s faced scrutiny over problems in the city’s Parking Division, including allegations that he knew about possible financial wrongdoing but did nothing about it and that he had his own parking tickets fixed. Romero denied the allegations, and State Police declined to pursue an investigation. A forensic audit released last week found no evidence to support the ticket-fixing allegations.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Romero also took some heat for his decision last year to fire Martin Lujan, the city’s recreation center and interim recreation director. Lujan, a former friend of Romero, claimed his dismissal was retaliation for him raising concerns about special treatment of Romero’s girlfriend, who is also a city employee, and bringing to light other alleged improprieties. Lujan also said he clashed with Romero over Lujan’s support for Councilor Chris Rivera’s successful election campaign last year, when Romero was supporting another candidate.</p>
<p>An administrative hearing officer ruled in March that the city had just cause in terminating Lujan for conspiring with his brother, Larry Lujan, to steal taxpayer money that the city had committed to sponsor a youth wrestling tournament. Lujan has appealed the decision.</p>
<p>Critics in the police department and elsewhere also have leveled other allegations of wrongdoing against Romero, none of which has ever been substantiated. He has also been the subject of “no confidence” votes by the city’s police union.</p>
<p>Coss said Romero “helped us work through many, many problems.”</p>
<p>“He held people accountable and I think he’s been unfairly accused of all kinds of deeds by employees he was holding accountable,” Coss said.</p>
<p>Several city councilors offered the departing city manager praise.</p>
<p>“I have to say I’m really sad to see Robert retire from the city. I’ve admired his work for a long time,” Councilor Patti Bushee said. “He is leaving some big shoes. I don’t know anyone with as much energy as Robert Romero. He gets things done.”</p>
<p>Councilor Bill Dimas said Romero is quick to answer phone calls and has been responsive to problems faced by the councilor and his constituents.</p>
<p>Councilor Ron Trujillo said Romero “has done an outstanding job for the city.”</p>
<p>The city manager serves at the discretion of the mayor and City Council. Coss declined to say who he’s considering for Romero’s replacement but said it’ll be a current city employee. Coss said he hopes to have someone on board by June. Romero earns $130,568 a year.</p> | Romero to retire as city manager | false | https://abqjournal.com/196812/romero-to-retire-as-city-manager.html | 2013-05-08 | 2least
| Romero to retire as city manager
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<p />
<p>SANTA FE, N.M. — Santa Fe City Manager Robert Romero said Tuesday he plans to retire from his job on May 31.</p>
<p>It feels like the right time, said Romero, who has served as city manager since January 2010.</p>
<p>“I promised the mayor I would complete the budget, it seems annexation agreements are very close to being completed, and I’m ready to move on to other opportunities,” he said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Mayor David Coss said Romero “is about the best city manager the city has ever had and I’ve known a bunch of them, including myself.”</p>
<p>Coss, who himself announced last week that he doesn’t plan to seek a third term as mayor in 2014, said Romero “brought a lot of accountability” to the city and “had a very strong work ethic.”</p>
<p>Romero declined to rate his job performance, saying, “I’ll let somebody else describe that.”</p>
<p>But, he added, “I earned my salary. I worked hard, as hard as I could, and I am satisfied with the effort that I put into the job.” He said the decision to retire is his alone.</p>
<p>Romero, 48, is eligible to draw a public pension. He said he’s considering a new career in the private sector, but declined to give details.</p>
<p>Romero has worked for both the city of Santa Fe and the New Mexico Department of Transportation as an engineer. He was director of Santa Fe’s Engineering Division for four years before becoming Public Works director in 2004.</p>
<p>Coss chose Romero for the city manager position in January 2010; he was officially appointed by the City Council to accolades and a standing ovation from an audience filled with city employees.</p>
<p>But Romero’s tenure hasn’t been without its tensions. He’s faced scrutiny over problems in the city’s Parking Division, including allegations that he knew about possible financial wrongdoing but did nothing about it and that he had his own parking tickets fixed. Romero denied the allegations, and State Police declined to pursue an investigation. A forensic audit released last week found no evidence to support the ticket-fixing allegations.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Romero also took some heat for his decision last year to fire Martin Lujan, the city’s recreation center and interim recreation director. Lujan, a former friend of Romero, claimed his dismissal was retaliation for him raising concerns about special treatment of Romero’s girlfriend, who is also a city employee, and bringing to light other alleged improprieties. Lujan also said he clashed with Romero over Lujan’s support for Councilor Chris Rivera’s successful election campaign last year, when Romero was supporting another candidate.</p>
<p>An administrative hearing officer ruled in March that the city had just cause in terminating Lujan for conspiring with his brother, Larry Lujan, to steal taxpayer money that the city had committed to sponsor a youth wrestling tournament. Lujan has appealed the decision.</p>
<p>Critics in the police department and elsewhere also have leveled other allegations of wrongdoing against Romero, none of which has ever been substantiated. He has also been the subject of “no confidence” votes by the city’s police union.</p>
<p>Coss said Romero “helped us work through many, many problems.”</p>
<p>“He held people accountable and I think he’s been unfairly accused of all kinds of deeds by employees he was holding accountable,” Coss said.</p>
<p>Several city councilors offered the departing city manager praise.</p>
<p>“I have to say I’m really sad to see Robert retire from the city. I’ve admired his work for a long time,” Councilor Patti Bushee said. “He is leaving some big shoes. I don’t know anyone with as much energy as Robert Romero. He gets things done.”</p>
<p>Councilor Bill Dimas said Romero is quick to answer phone calls and has been responsive to problems faced by the councilor and his constituents.</p>
<p>Councilor Ron Trujillo said Romero “has done an outstanding job for the city.”</p>
<p>The city manager serves at the discretion of the mayor and City Council. Coss declined to say who he’s considering for Romero’s replacement but said it’ll be a current city employee. Coss said he hopes to have someone on board by June. Romero earns $130,568 a year.</p> | 3,237 |
<p />
<p>A gauge of service-sector activity fell in July but continued to signal growth across key segments of the U.S. economy headed into the second half of 2016.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The Institute for Supply Management on Wednesday said its nonmanufacturing index decreased to 55.5 in July from 56.5 in June. A reading above 50 signals expansion while a reading below 50 indicates contraction. The index has run above the 50 threshold for 78 straight months.</p>
<p>Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected a July reading of 55.8.</p>
<p>The broader U.S. economy posted weak growth in the first half of 2016, with gross domestic product expanding at a modest 1.2% annual rate in the second quarter following a first-quarter growth pace of just 0.8%, according to the Commerce Department.</p>
<p>The manufacturing sector stabilized this spring after months of contraction under pressure from a strong dollar, which makes U.S. exports more expensive for foreign customers, and low oil prices that pinched domestic energy firms. The ISM's index of manufacturing activity was 52.6 in July, down from 53.2 in June but remaining above 50 for the fifth straight month.</p>
<p>The group's nonmanufacturing index covers a wide swath of business activity including retail trade, construction and services including health care. It has signaled continuous expansion since early 2010, though growth has slowed over the past year.</p>
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<p>Write to Ben Leubsdorf at [email protected]</p> | U.S. Service Sector Expands at Slower Rate in July | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/08/03/u-s-service-sector-expands-at-slower-rate-in-july.html | 2016-08-03 | 0right
| U.S. Service Sector Expands at Slower Rate in July
<p />
<p>A gauge of service-sector activity fell in July but continued to signal growth across key segments of the U.S. economy headed into the second half of 2016.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The Institute for Supply Management on Wednesday said its nonmanufacturing index decreased to 55.5 in July from 56.5 in June. A reading above 50 signals expansion while a reading below 50 indicates contraction. The index has run above the 50 threshold for 78 straight months.</p>
<p>Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected a July reading of 55.8.</p>
<p>The broader U.S. economy posted weak growth in the first half of 2016, with gross domestic product expanding at a modest 1.2% annual rate in the second quarter following a first-quarter growth pace of just 0.8%, according to the Commerce Department.</p>
<p>The manufacturing sector stabilized this spring after months of contraction under pressure from a strong dollar, which makes U.S. exports more expensive for foreign customers, and low oil prices that pinched domestic energy firms. The ISM's index of manufacturing activity was 52.6 in July, down from 53.2 in June but remaining above 50 for the fifth straight month.</p>
<p>The group's nonmanufacturing index covers a wide swath of business activity including retail trade, construction and services including health care. It has signaled continuous expansion since early 2010, though growth has slowed over the past year.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Write to Ben Leubsdorf at [email protected]</p> | 3,238 |
<p>An August 14th rally at Meridian Hill Park to protest the fatal shooting by police of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.Alex Brandon/AP Photo</p>
<p />
<p>At least four black men were killed by police in the past&#160; <a href="" type="internal">month</a>, via <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/cops-involved-eric-garner-confrontation-asked-target-illegal-cigarette-sales-bratton-article-1.1901612" type="external">chokehold</a>, <a href="http://www.vvdailypress.com/article/20140813/NEWS/140819920?sect=Top%20Stories&amp;map=12690" type="external">tasing</a>, and shootings, after being confronted for reasons ranging from selling untaxed cigarettes to picking up a BB gun <a href="http://fairborndailyherald.com/news/home_top-news/50257611/Wal-Mart-responds-to-surveillance-request#.U-uyi0i0bRJ" type="external">off a shelf in Wal-Mart</a>.</p>
<p>In at least two of these cases—Dante Parker and Eric Garner—the victims allegedly resisted arrest. Some political leaders, witnesses at the scene, and Internet commenters have placed blame on the&#160;victims for this reason, saying their refusal to go quietly with the cops is what ended their lives.&#160;</p>
<p />
<p>“For FUCKS SAKE stop struggling and resisting like this and deal with it at the precinct!! Resisting arrest, even if the police have the wrong guy, is a TERRIBLE idea!! God why don’t people get this?” <a href="http://gawker.com/hard-working-father-of-five-dies-in-custody-after-mul-1622147958/all" type="external">writes</a> one commenter at Gawker. At a press conference on gun control in Harlem yesterday, New York City Mayor Bill De&#160;Blasio <a href="http://nypost.com/2014/08/13/de-blasio-tells-new-yorkers-dont-resist-arrest/" type="external">said</a> that “once an officer has decided that arrest is necessary, every New Yorker should agree to do what they need to do as a citizen and respect the police officer and follow their guidance. And then there is a thorough due-process system thereafter.”</p>
<p>And how about&#160;in the tasing death of Dante Parker? A San Bernadino county newspaper employee and married father of five with no criminal record, Parker was out riding his bike for exercise on Tuesday when he was approached by sheriff’s deputies as a robbery suspect.&#160;A witness <a href="http://gawker.com/hard-working-father-of-five-dies-in-custody-after-mul-1622147958/all" type="external">relayed</a> what he saw:</p>
<p>He was super strong…it took about two or three guys to get his hands behind him. They went to try to get him to stand up, but he wouldn’t do it…He kept kicking and kicking and kicking. He was very uncooperative.”</p>
<p>So why would someone like Dante Parker or Eric Garner resist arrest? Here are six good reasons:</p>
<p>Asking why a black man with&#160;even the slightest bit of awareness of these facts wouldn’t fully cooperate with the cops is a bit like asking why William Wallace didn’t simply extend a warm welcome to the invading English forces. Here’s a better question: What are law enforcement agencies doing to heal their relationships with the black communities they’re supposed to protect and serve?</p>
<p /> | 6 Good Reasons a Black Person Might Resist Arrest | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2014/08/six-reasons-black-person-might-resist-arrest-michael-brown-dante-parker-eric-garner/ | 2014-08-15 | 4left
| 6 Good Reasons a Black Person Might Resist Arrest
<p>An August 14th rally at Meridian Hill Park to protest the fatal shooting by police of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.Alex Brandon/AP Photo</p>
<p />
<p>At least four black men were killed by police in the past&#160; <a href="" type="internal">month</a>, via <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/cops-involved-eric-garner-confrontation-asked-target-illegal-cigarette-sales-bratton-article-1.1901612" type="external">chokehold</a>, <a href="http://www.vvdailypress.com/article/20140813/NEWS/140819920?sect=Top%20Stories&amp;map=12690" type="external">tasing</a>, and shootings, after being confronted for reasons ranging from selling untaxed cigarettes to picking up a BB gun <a href="http://fairborndailyherald.com/news/home_top-news/50257611/Wal-Mart-responds-to-surveillance-request#.U-uyi0i0bRJ" type="external">off a shelf in Wal-Mart</a>.</p>
<p>In at least two of these cases—Dante Parker and Eric Garner—the victims allegedly resisted arrest. Some political leaders, witnesses at the scene, and Internet commenters have placed blame on the&#160;victims for this reason, saying their refusal to go quietly with the cops is what ended their lives.&#160;</p>
<p />
<p>“For FUCKS SAKE stop struggling and resisting like this and deal with it at the precinct!! Resisting arrest, even if the police have the wrong guy, is a TERRIBLE idea!! God why don’t people get this?” <a href="http://gawker.com/hard-working-father-of-five-dies-in-custody-after-mul-1622147958/all" type="external">writes</a> one commenter at Gawker. At a press conference on gun control in Harlem yesterday, New York City Mayor Bill De&#160;Blasio <a href="http://nypost.com/2014/08/13/de-blasio-tells-new-yorkers-dont-resist-arrest/" type="external">said</a> that “once an officer has decided that arrest is necessary, every New Yorker should agree to do what they need to do as a citizen and respect the police officer and follow their guidance. And then there is a thorough due-process system thereafter.”</p>
<p>And how about&#160;in the tasing death of Dante Parker? A San Bernadino county newspaper employee and married father of five with no criminal record, Parker was out riding his bike for exercise on Tuesday when he was approached by sheriff’s deputies as a robbery suspect.&#160;A witness <a href="http://gawker.com/hard-working-father-of-five-dies-in-custody-after-mul-1622147958/all" type="external">relayed</a> what he saw:</p>
<p>He was super strong…it took about two or three guys to get his hands behind him. They went to try to get him to stand up, but he wouldn’t do it…He kept kicking and kicking and kicking. He was very uncooperative.”</p>
<p>So why would someone like Dante Parker or Eric Garner resist arrest? Here are six good reasons:</p>
<p>Asking why a black man with&#160;even the slightest bit of awareness of these facts wouldn’t fully cooperate with the cops is a bit like asking why William Wallace didn’t simply extend a warm welcome to the invading English forces. Here’s a better question: What are law enforcement agencies doing to heal their relationships with the black communities they’re supposed to protect and serve?</p>
<p /> | 3,239 |
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<p />
<p>Wednesday, the Santa Fe Area Home Builders Association held a luncheon meeting on that topic and heard advice from two advocates on what to do if immigration enforcement agents show up at a building site or a business office.</p>
<p>“We really do believe that workplace raids will be a big part of this (Trump’s) administration,” said Marcela Diaz, head of Somos Un Pueblo Unido.</p>
<p>Kim Shanahan, executive officer of the Home Builders Association, is an outspoken supporter of Santa Fe’s sanctuary city policies against helping federal authorities enforce immigration law. He estimated that 80 percent of workers in the local home-building industry are immigrants. Trump has said he wants to deport millions of undocumented immigrants and cut off federal funding for sanctuary cities.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“Hopefully, common sense will prevail after the inauguration, but local businesses need to be prepared and know their rights no matter what,” Shanahan said in an announcement for Wednesday’s gathering, which was attended by about 25 people.</p>
<p>Attorney Allegra Love, director of the Santa Fe Dreamers Project, told the builders to plan ahead for raids by having a lawyer’s phone number handy and talking to employees ahead of time. For the workers, Love said, “running is never a good idea,” providing grounds for an arrest. She also said, “Never lie to law enforcement,” but added that immigrants and employers have the right to remain silent.</p>
<p>“The one place they feel vulnerable is the workplace,” Diaz said. Love said that while President Barack Obama has been “a paper raider,” using audits to find undocumented immigrants, workplace raids could increase as a way to round up big numbers of people quickly. Diaz said some raids could be made for “propagandistic” purposes.</p>
<p>Immigration attorney Allegra Love addresses a meeting of the Santa Fe Area Home Builders Association on Wednesday. (Mark Oswald/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>Wednesday, the Santa Fe Area Home Builders Association held a luncheon meeting on that topic and heard advice from two advocates on what to do if immigration enforcement agents show up at a building site or a business office.</p>
<p>“We really do believe that workplace raids will be a big part of this (Trump’s) administration,” said Marcela Diaz, head of Somos Un Pueblo Unido.</p>
<p>Kim Shanahan, executive officer of the Home Builders Association, is an outspoken supporter of Santa Fe’s sanctuary city policies against helping federal authorities enforce immigration law. He estimated that 80 percent of workers in the local home”HopefullyImmigration Love stressed that no one has to allow agents on a premises without a warrant. But “that can be extraordinarily difficult to do – you need practice,” said Love, as officers are adept at talking themselves inside or onto a site. “They rarely show up with warrants,” said Diaz. “They rely on permission.”</p>
<p>Love and Diaz said it can be difficult for immigration agents to find people at home. For undocumented immigrantsLove and Diaz recalled raids in Santa Fe in 2007 that drove immigrants off the streets and away from jobs, schools and stores. Love, then a teacher, said only three of her students at Agua Fria Elementary showed up the week of the raids. A building supplier chimed in that her contractor customers stopped coming in. Diaz said the raids showed that immigration enforcement is an issue for all of Santa Fe, not just immigrants.</p>
<p />
<p /> | Santa Fe home builders told workplace raids likely | false | https://abqjournal.com/926011/santa-fe-home-builders-discuss-protecting-sanctuary-job-sites.html | 2017-01-11 | 2least
| Santa Fe home builders told workplace raids likely
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>Wednesday, the Santa Fe Area Home Builders Association held a luncheon meeting on that topic and heard advice from two advocates on what to do if immigration enforcement agents show up at a building site or a business office.</p>
<p>“We really do believe that workplace raids will be a big part of this (Trump’s) administration,” said Marcela Diaz, head of Somos Un Pueblo Unido.</p>
<p>Kim Shanahan, executive officer of the Home Builders Association, is an outspoken supporter of Santa Fe’s sanctuary city policies against helping federal authorities enforce immigration law. He estimated that 80 percent of workers in the local home-building industry are immigrants. Trump has said he wants to deport millions of undocumented immigrants and cut off federal funding for sanctuary cities.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“Hopefully, common sense will prevail after the inauguration, but local businesses need to be prepared and know their rights no matter what,” Shanahan said in an announcement for Wednesday’s gathering, which was attended by about 25 people.</p>
<p>Attorney Allegra Love, director of the Santa Fe Dreamers Project, told the builders to plan ahead for raids by having a lawyer’s phone number handy and talking to employees ahead of time. For the workers, Love said, “running is never a good idea,” providing grounds for an arrest. She also said, “Never lie to law enforcement,” but added that immigrants and employers have the right to remain silent.</p>
<p>“The one place they feel vulnerable is the workplace,” Diaz said. Love said that while President Barack Obama has been “a paper raider,” using audits to find undocumented immigrants, workplace raids could increase as a way to round up big numbers of people quickly. Diaz said some raids could be made for “propagandistic” purposes.</p>
<p>Immigration attorney Allegra Love addresses a meeting of the Santa Fe Area Home Builders Association on Wednesday. (Mark Oswald/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>Wednesday, the Santa Fe Area Home Builders Association held a luncheon meeting on that topic and heard advice from two advocates on what to do if immigration enforcement agents show up at a building site or a business office.</p>
<p>“We really do believe that workplace raids will be a big part of this (Trump’s) administration,” said Marcela Diaz, head of Somos Un Pueblo Unido.</p>
<p>Kim Shanahan, executive officer of the Home Builders Association, is an outspoken supporter of Santa Fe’s sanctuary city policies against helping federal authorities enforce immigration law. He estimated that 80 percent of workers in the local home”HopefullyImmigration Love stressed that no one has to allow agents on a premises without a warrant. But “that can be extraordinarily difficult to do – you need practice,” said Love, as officers are adept at talking themselves inside or onto a site. “They rarely show up with warrants,” said Diaz. “They rely on permission.”</p>
<p>Love and Diaz said it can be difficult for immigration agents to find people at home. For undocumented immigrantsLove and Diaz recalled raids in Santa Fe in 2007 that drove immigrants off the streets and away from jobs, schools and stores. Love, then a teacher, said only three of her students at Agua Fria Elementary showed up the week of the raids. A building supplier chimed in that her contractor customers stopped coming in. Diaz said the raids showed that immigration enforcement is an issue for all of Santa Fe, not just immigrants.</p>
<p />
<p /> | 3,240 |
<p>Jan. 3 (UPI) — The F-type main-sequence star KIC 8462852, also called Tabby’s Star or Boyajian’s Star, has been described as the “most mysterious star in the universe,” due to its inexplicable brightening and dimming.</p>
<p>Though astronomers aren’t yet sure what explains the star’s unusual light patterns, new research has ruled out the possibility of an alien megastructure.</p>
<p>Tabby’s Star is 50 percent larger than the sun and roughly 1,000 degrees hotter. It is located 1,275 light years away in the constellation Cygnus.</p>
<p>With the help of funding from a Kickstarter campaign, astronomers used a global network of telescopes to observe the unusual star from March 2016 to December 2017. Astronomers compared possible explanations for the brightening and dimming phenomena with the data collected during the survey.</p>
<p>“We were hoping that once we finally caught a dip happening in real time we could see if the dips were the same depth at all wavelengths,” <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Jason_Wright/" type="external">Jason Wright</a>, an assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State University, <a href="http://science.psu.edu/news-and-events/2018-news/alien-megastructure-not-the-cause-of-dimming-of-the-most-mysterious-star-in-the-universe" type="external">said in a news release</a>. “If they were nearly the same, this would suggest that the cause was something opaque, like an orbiting disk, planet, or star, or even large structures in space.”</p>
<p>The data — published this week <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1801.00732" type="external">online by Astrophysical Journal Letters</a> — showed the star dimmed at certain wavelengths more than others.</p>
<p>“Dust is most likely the reason why the star’s light appears to dim and brighten,” said lead researcher Tabetha Boyajian, an astronomer at Louisiana State University. “The new data shows that different colors of light are being blocked at different intensities. Therefore, whatever is passing between us and the star is not opaque, as would be expected from a planet or alien megastructure.”</p>
<p>The dimming pattern of Tabby’s Star was so unusual it didn’t get flagged by the algorithms that sift through the data collected by NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler satellite. It wasn’t a strong candidate as a host for exoplanets.</p>
<p>But its peculiarity was spotted by citizen scientists, groups of online volunteers who regularly scan astronomical data for anomalies missed by the computers and the pros.</p>
<p>“If it wasn’t for people with an unbiased look on our universe, this unusual star would have been overlooked,” Boyajian said. “Again, without the public support for this dedicated observing run, we would not have this large amount of data.”</p>
<p>While dust is now the most logical explanation for the dimming pattern, researchers need to investigate further to understand the details of the phenomenon.</p>
<p>“This latest research rules out alien megastructures, but it raises the plausibility of other phenomena being behind the dimming,” Wright said. “There are models involving circumstellar material — like exocomets, which were Boyajian’s team’s original hypothesis — which seem to be consistent with the data we have.”</p>
<p>It’s also possible the star is simply getting dimmer and brighter on its own — that nothing is actually blocking the star’s light.</p> | Mysterious dimming of Tabby’s Star not caused by alien megastructure, study shows | false | https://newsline.com/mysterious-dimming-of-tabbys-star-not-caused-by-alien-megastructure-study-shows/ | 2018-01-04 | 1right-center
| Mysterious dimming of Tabby’s Star not caused by alien megastructure, study shows
<p>Jan. 3 (UPI) — The F-type main-sequence star KIC 8462852, also called Tabby’s Star or Boyajian’s Star, has been described as the “most mysterious star in the universe,” due to its inexplicable brightening and dimming.</p>
<p>Though astronomers aren’t yet sure what explains the star’s unusual light patterns, new research has ruled out the possibility of an alien megastructure.</p>
<p>Tabby’s Star is 50 percent larger than the sun and roughly 1,000 degrees hotter. It is located 1,275 light years away in the constellation Cygnus.</p>
<p>With the help of funding from a Kickstarter campaign, astronomers used a global network of telescopes to observe the unusual star from March 2016 to December 2017. Astronomers compared possible explanations for the brightening and dimming phenomena with the data collected during the survey.</p>
<p>“We were hoping that once we finally caught a dip happening in real time we could see if the dips were the same depth at all wavelengths,” <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Jason_Wright/" type="external">Jason Wright</a>, an assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State University, <a href="http://science.psu.edu/news-and-events/2018-news/alien-megastructure-not-the-cause-of-dimming-of-the-most-mysterious-star-in-the-universe" type="external">said in a news release</a>. “If they were nearly the same, this would suggest that the cause was something opaque, like an orbiting disk, planet, or star, or even large structures in space.”</p>
<p>The data — published this week <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1801.00732" type="external">online by Astrophysical Journal Letters</a> — showed the star dimmed at certain wavelengths more than others.</p>
<p>“Dust is most likely the reason why the star’s light appears to dim and brighten,” said lead researcher Tabetha Boyajian, an astronomer at Louisiana State University. “The new data shows that different colors of light are being blocked at different intensities. Therefore, whatever is passing between us and the star is not opaque, as would be expected from a planet or alien megastructure.”</p>
<p>The dimming pattern of Tabby’s Star was so unusual it didn’t get flagged by the algorithms that sift through the data collected by NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler satellite. It wasn’t a strong candidate as a host for exoplanets.</p>
<p>But its peculiarity was spotted by citizen scientists, groups of online volunteers who regularly scan astronomical data for anomalies missed by the computers and the pros.</p>
<p>“If it wasn’t for people with an unbiased look on our universe, this unusual star would have been overlooked,” Boyajian said. “Again, without the public support for this dedicated observing run, we would not have this large amount of data.”</p>
<p>While dust is now the most logical explanation for the dimming pattern, researchers need to investigate further to understand the details of the phenomenon.</p>
<p>“This latest research rules out alien megastructures, but it raises the plausibility of other phenomena being behind the dimming,” Wright said. “There are models involving circumstellar material — like exocomets, which were Boyajian’s team’s original hypothesis — which seem to be consistent with the data we have.”</p>
<p>It’s also possible the star is simply getting dimmer and brighter on its own — that nothing is actually blocking the star’s light.</p> | 3,241 |
<p>Donald Trump (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)</p>
<p>On July 23, <a href="http://twitter.com/JeffFlake/status/756654936599859200" type="external">Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ)</a> tweeted a response to Hillary Clinton’s choice for Vice President: “Trying to count the ways I hate @timkaine. Drawing a blank. Congrats to a good man and a good friend.”</p>
<p>Alas, Flake’s graciousness is not representative of his party. He was rebuked by fellow Republicans on July 20 for responding to the <a href="http://twitter.com/JeffFlake/status/755617805249056768" type="external">“Lock her up!”</a> chant at the Republican National Convention, “.@HillaryClinton now belongs in prison? C’mon. We can make the case that she shouldn’t be elected without jumping the shark.”</p>
<p>Moderation is unwelcome in Flake’s caucus. Lyndon Johnson (D-TX) and Everett Dirksen (R-IL), who could <a href="https://youtu.be/qbEPI_9Ju0k" type="external">cross party lines</a> to work together in the 1960s, are long gone. Republicans have obstructed President Obama from day one even when he embraced their ideas. The madness to which they will stoop to gain power was on jaw-dropping display in Cleveland.</p>
<p>The right-wing gathering was as entertaining as a car wreck. Trump could make a new fortune selling tours of the dystopian American hellscape described by speaker after speaker, resembling the post-apocalyptic world of the movie <a href="https://youtu.be/YaR5wVL9x2I" type="external">Blade Runner</a>. (Ivanka Trump did use Twitter to hawk <a href="https://twitter.com/IvankaTrump/status/756492146484580352" type="external">replicas of the dress</a> she wore to introduce her dad.)</p>
<p>The Cavalcade of Crazy went from <a href="https://youtu.be/g7ZQ035cpLQ" type="external">Rudy Giuliani’s</a> ranting to <a href="https://youtu.be/dH5bwvsIB30" type="external">Chris Christie’s</a> lynch-mob prosecution of Clinton, <a href="http://video.rollingstone.com/previews/ZoWHABrR-necgKPaX" type="external">Laura Ingraham’s</a> Nazi salute, and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000004538452/comparing-melania-and-michelles-speech.html" type="external">Melania Trump’s</a> plagiarism of Michelle Obama. A <a href="https://youtu.be/GIA1OAC8SVQ" type="external">preacher screamed</a> “All Lives Matter!” <a href="https://youtu.be/Xh8LOdq66lU" type="external">Ben Carson</a> bizarrely accused Clinton of ties to Satanism. <a href="https://youtu.be/Yiq1Kw3-TGc" type="external">Ted Cruz</a> provoked outrage by saying, “Vote your conscience.”</p>
<p>PayPal founder <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/21/12253584/peter-thiel-donald-trump-endorsement-speech-rnc" type="external">Peter Thiel’s</a> speech added to the incongruity. His statement that he was proud to be gay contrasted with the <a href="" type="internal">party platform</a>, which not only urges repeal of marriage equality but continues the transphobic bathroom trolling and endorses conversion therapy quackery. Openly gay D.C. delegate Rachel Hoff tried in vain to soften the document’s bigotry. Putting icing on the cake was a <a href="http://nypost.com/2016/07/21/male-escorts-are-making-crazy-money-at-the-rnc/" type="external">New York Post</a> headline, “Male escorts are making crazy money at the RNC.”</p>
<p>The day after Trump shouted an <a href="https://youtu.be/Fs0pZ_GrTy8" type="external">acceptance speech</a> that evoked a fascist rally, Clinton announced her running mate was Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), a former governor, mayor, and DNC chair. <a href="http://gnnliberia.com/2016/07/24/american-elections-whos-part-iii-b-profile-tim-kaine-hillary-clinton-running-mate-2016-presidential-elections/" type="external">Kaine has perfect scores</a> from Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America, a 90 percent score from the <a href="http://hrc-assets.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com//files/assets/resources/113thCongressionalScorecard_web_REV.pdf" type="external">Human Rights Campaign</a>, a 91 percent lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters, and has demanded greater presidential consultation of Congress on major military deployments. He earned zero percent scores from the American Conservative Union and Heritage Action, and an F grade from the NRA. As a young attorney he fought racial redlining. He wowed a Miami rally audience on July 23 with a tough and engaging speech.</p>
<p>Progressives know they will face a friendlier climate with a Democratic White House and Senate. Anti-war activists have their work cut out with the hawkish Clinton, but they will be far better off with an experienced diplomat than with an intellectually lazy man who admires dictators, promises indiscriminate bombing in the Mideast, and thinks our defense alliances are charity unrelated to American interests.</p>
<p>Trump only knows self-interest. Reports by <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-putin-yes-it-s-really-a-thing" type="external">Talking Points Memo</a> and <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/07/vladimir_putin_has_a_plan_for_destroying_the_west_and_it_looks_a_lot_like.html" type="external">Slate</a> paint a disturbing picture of Trump’s business dealings with Russia, his dependence on Russian capital, and his embrace of foreign policy positions friendly to Vladimir Putin. <a href="http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2016/07/how-putin-weaponized-wikileaks-influence-election-american-president/130163/" type="external">Defense One</a> reports on the DNC emails, “Considerable evidence shows that the Wikileaks dump was an orchestrated act by the Russian government, working through proxies, to undermine Hillary Clinton’s Presidential campaign.” The DNC server hack aside, Trump and campaign chair <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/04/paul_manafort_isn_t_a_gop_retread_he_s_made_a_career_of_reinventing_tyrants.html" type="external">Paul Manafort</a> are caught in what is at best a reckless association with an American adversary.</p>
<p>The choice in this election is illustrated by the stark contrast between running mates: the religious bullying of Mike Pence, who signed a law requiring <a href="http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2016/07/trumps-vp-pick-passed-law-requiring-funerals-aborted-fetuses" type="external">funerals for aborted fetuses</a> (I am not making that up), versus the humble faith that drove the young Tim Kaine to teach carpentry and welding as a <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2016/0722/Clinton-picks-Tim-Kaine-devout-Catholic-and-bridge-builder-video" type="external">missionary in Honduras</a>.</p>
<p>Elections can be clarifying. A hint of what Republicans have done with their descent into ignorance, intolerance, and fanaticism may be found in the book Trump waves at rallies but shows no sign of reading: “He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind.” (Proverbs 11:29)</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Richard J. Rosendall is a writer and activist. He can be reached at [email protected].</p>
<p>Copyright © 2016 by Richard J. Rosendall. All rights reserved.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Ben Carson</a> <a href="" type="internal">Chris Christie</a> <a href="" type="internal">Donald Trump</a> <a href="" type="internal">Hillary Clinton</a> <a href="" type="internal">Human Rights Campaign</a> <a href="" type="internal">Ivanka Trump</a> <a href="" type="internal">Jeff Flake</a> <a href="" type="internal">Laura Ingraham</a> <a href="" type="internal">Melania Trump</a> <a href="" type="internal">Michelle Obama</a> <a href="" type="internal">Mike Pence</a> <a href="" type="internal">NARAL</a> <a href="" type="internal">NRA</a> <a href="" type="internal">Paul Manafort</a> <a href="" type="internal">Peter Thiel</a> <a href="" type="internal">Planned Parenthood</a> <a href="" type="internal">President Obama</a> <a href="" type="internal">Republican National Convention</a> <a href="" type="internal">Rudy Giuliani</a> <a href="" type="internal">Ted Cruz</a> <a href="" type="internal">Tim Kaine</a> <a href="" type="internal">Vladimir Putin</a></p> | Trump’s GOP Inherits the Wind | false | http://washingtonblade.com/2016/07/25/trumps-gop-inherits-the-wind/ | 3left-center
| Trump’s GOP Inherits the Wind
<p>Donald Trump (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)</p>
<p>On July 23, <a href="http://twitter.com/JeffFlake/status/756654936599859200" type="external">Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ)</a> tweeted a response to Hillary Clinton’s choice for Vice President: “Trying to count the ways I hate @timkaine. Drawing a blank. Congrats to a good man and a good friend.”</p>
<p>Alas, Flake’s graciousness is not representative of his party. He was rebuked by fellow Republicans on July 20 for responding to the <a href="http://twitter.com/JeffFlake/status/755617805249056768" type="external">“Lock her up!”</a> chant at the Republican National Convention, “.@HillaryClinton now belongs in prison? C’mon. We can make the case that she shouldn’t be elected without jumping the shark.”</p>
<p>Moderation is unwelcome in Flake’s caucus. Lyndon Johnson (D-TX) and Everett Dirksen (R-IL), who could <a href="https://youtu.be/qbEPI_9Ju0k" type="external">cross party lines</a> to work together in the 1960s, are long gone. Republicans have obstructed President Obama from day one even when he embraced their ideas. The madness to which they will stoop to gain power was on jaw-dropping display in Cleveland.</p>
<p>The right-wing gathering was as entertaining as a car wreck. Trump could make a new fortune selling tours of the dystopian American hellscape described by speaker after speaker, resembling the post-apocalyptic world of the movie <a href="https://youtu.be/YaR5wVL9x2I" type="external">Blade Runner</a>. (Ivanka Trump did use Twitter to hawk <a href="https://twitter.com/IvankaTrump/status/756492146484580352" type="external">replicas of the dress</a> she wore to introduce her dad.)</p>
<p>The Cavalcade of Crazy went from <a href="https://youtu.be/g7ZQ035cpLQ" type="external">Rudy Giuliani’s</a> ranting to <a href="https://youtu.be/dH5bwvsIB30" type="external">Chris Christie’s</a> lynch-mob prosecution of Clinton, <a href="http://video.rollingstone.com/previews/ZoWHABrR-necgKPaX" type="external">Laura Ingraham’s</a> Nazi salute, and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000004538452/comparing-melania-and-michelles-speech.html" type="external">Melania Trump’s</a> plagiarism of Michelle Obama. A <a href="https://youtu.be/GIA1OAC8SVQ" type="external">preacher screamed</a> “All Lives Matter!” <a href="https://youtu.be/Xh8LOdq66lU" type="external">Ben Carson</a> bizarrely accused Clinton of ties to Satanism. <a href="https://youtu.be/Yiq1Kw3-TGc" type="external">Ted Cruz</a> provoked outrage by saying, “Vote your conscience.”</p>
<p>PayPal founder <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/21/12253584/peter-thiel-donald-trump-endorsement-speech-rnc" type="external">Peter Thiel’s</a> speech added to the incongruity. His statement that he was proud to be gay contrasted with the <a href="" type="internal">party platform</a>, which not only urges repeal of marriage equality but continues the transphobic bathroom trolling and endorses conversion therapy quackery. Openly gay D.C. delegate Rachel Hoff tried in vain to soften the document’s bigotry. Putting icing on the cake was a <a href="http://nypost.com/2016/07/21/male-escorts-are-making-crazy-money-at-the-rnc/" type="external">New York Post</a> headline, “Male escorts are making crazy money at the RNC.”</p>
<p>The day after Trump shouted an <a href="https://youtu.be/Fs0pZ_GrTy8" type="external">acceptance speech</a> that evoked a fascist rally, Clinton announced her running mate was Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), a former governor, mayor, and DNC chair. <a href="http://gnnliberia.com/2016/07/24/american-elections-whos-part-iii-b-profile-tim-kaine-hillary-clinton-running-mate-2016-presidential-elections/" type="external">Kaine has perfect scores</a> from Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America, a 90 percent score from the <a href="http://hrc-assets.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com//files/assets/resources/113thCongressionalScorecard_web_REV.pdf" type="external">Human Rights Campaign</a>, a 91 percent lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters, and has demanded greater presidential consultation of Congress on major military deployments. He earned zero percent scores from the American Conservative Union and Heritage Action, and an F grade from the NRA. As a young attorney he fought racial redlining. He wowed a Miami rally audience on July 23 with a tough and engaging speech.</p>
<p>Progressives know they will face a friendlier climate with a Democratic White House and Senate. Anti-war activists have their work cut out with the hawkish Clinton, but they will be far better off with an experienced diplomat than with an intellectually lazy man who admires dictators, promises indiscriminate bombing in the Mideast, and thinks our defense alliances are charity unrelated to American interests.</p>
<p>Trump only knows self-interest. Reports by <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-putin-yes-it-s-really-a-thing" type="external">Talking Points Memo</a> and <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/07/vladimir_putin_has_a_plan_for_destroying_the_west_and_it_looks_a_lot_like.html" type="external">Slate</a> paint a disturbing picture of Trump’s business dealings with Russia, his dependence on Russian capital, and his embrace of foreign policy positions friendly to Vladimir Putin. <a href="http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2016/07/how-putin-weaponized-wikileaks-influence-election-american-president/130163/" type="external">Defense One</a> reports on the DNC emails, “Considerable evidence shows that the Wikileaks dump was an orchestrated act by the Russian government, working through proxies, to undermine Hillary Clinton’s Presidential campaign.” The DNC server hack aside, Trump and campaign chair <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/04/paul_manafort_isn_t_a_gop_retread_he_s_made_a_career_of_reinventing_tyrants.html" type="external">Paul Manafort</a> are caught in what is at best a reckless association with an American adversary.</p>
<p>The choice in this election is illustrated by the stark contrast between running mates: the religious bullying of Mike Pence, who signed a law requiring <a href="http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2016/07/trumps-vp-pick-passed-law-requiring-funerals-aborted-fetuses" type="external">funerals for aborted fetuses</a> (I am not making that up), versus the humble faith that drove the young Tim Kaine to teach carpentry and welding as a <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2016/0722/Clinton-picks-Tim-Kaine-devout-Catholic-and-bridge-builder-video" type="external">missionary in Honduras</a>.</p>
<p>Elections can be clarifying. A hint of what Republicans have done with their descent into ignorance, intolerance, and fanaticism may be found in the book Trump waves at rallies but shows no sign of reading: “He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind.” (Proverbs 11:29)</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Richard J. Rosendall is a writer and activist. He can be reached at [email protected].</p>
<p>Copyright © 2016 by Richard J. Rosendall. All rights reserved.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Ben Carson</a> <a href="" type="internal">Chris Christie</a> <a href="" type="internal">Donald Trump</a> <a href="" type="internal">Hillary Clinton</a> <a href="" type="internal">Human Rights Campaign</a> <a href="" type="internal">Ivanka Trump</a> <a href="" type="internal">Jeff Flake</a> <a href="" type="internal">Laura Ingraham</a> <a href="" type="internal">Melania Trump</a> <a href="" type="internal">Michelle Obama</a> <a href="" type="internal">Mike Pence</a> <a href="" type="internal">NARAL</a> <a href="" type="internal">NRA</a> <a href="" type="internal">Paul Manafort</a> <a href="" type="internal">Peter Thiel</a> <a href="" type="internal">Planned Parenthood</a> <a href="" type="internal">President Obama</a> <a href="" type="internal">Republican National Convention</a> <a href="" type="internal">Rudy Giuliani</a> <a href="" type="internal">Ted Cruz</a> <a href="" type="internal">Tim Kaine</a> <a href="" type="internal">Vladimir Putin</a></p> | 3,242 |
|
<p />
<p>When retired General Wesley Clark entered the race for the Democratic presidential nomination two months ago, he immediately became the favorite candidate for scores of centrist Democrats. Clark, the Democratic Leadership Council crowd reasoned, could deflate Howard Dean’s lead in the primary race and give the Clintonian centrists another shot at the White House.</p>
<p>Instead, Dean has surged in the polls. While Clark isn’t doing poorly, he certainly hasn’t mounted the sort of rigorous challenge to Dean that was expected — leaving media pundits and politicos wondering if a comeback is even possible.</p>
<p>The former NATO commander entered the campaign with the intent of positioning himself as a more moderate, foreign policy minded alternative to Dean. And it worked, at first. Generally viewed as the only Democratic candidate that could humble Bush on national security issues, Clark immediately took a <a href="/news/dailymojo/2003/09/we_522_02a.html" type="external">healthy lead</a> in the polls — as we noted right here just a few months ago.</p>
<p />
<p>“Give Wesley Clark his due: he looks great on paper. First in his class at Westpoint, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, victor in Kosovo, architect of Dayton, Rhodes Scholar. Not bad. What’s more, less than a week after declaring for president, Clark is running stronger than anyone could have predicted…The Democratic party is making nice with Clark, reinforcing the notion that the general, unlike the lightweight Dean, can beat Bush on national security.”</p>
<p>But that lead has quickly dribbled away, allowing Dean to reemerge as the Democratic frontrunner. <a href="http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=755" type="external">Recent polls</a> show Dean now receives 15% from 558 likely Democratic primary voters nationwide, and Clark has slipped to 10%. While Clark’s expertise on foreign policy was supposed to be his keynote issue; ironically, it was his position (or lack thereof) on the war in Iraq that got him in trouble. When he fumbled over questions of whether he would have voted for the war or not (given the opportunity), he left voters wondering whether he had the decisive qualities looked-for in presidential candidates. CK Rairden of</p>
<p>The Washington Dispatch writes of his <a href="http://www.washingtondispatch.com/article_7053.shtml" type="external">foibles</a>, which have led to an inability to catch up to Dean:</p>
<p />
<p>“Clark entered the race with the handprints of the Clintons and the DLC all over him in September for one reason. Shut down Howard Dean’s momentum. So far, he has failed. Clark claimed to be a straight-talker, but quickly turned out to be a four-star fibber. His fabrications seem to now be strengthening Dean while turning a once respected military General into a sad joke.”</p>
<p>Clark recently bowed out of participation in the Iowa caucus, which is often viewed as a crucial campaign ground. Instead, he claimed he wanted to focus on New Hampshire, and although he said Thursday that he would miss the debates there to attend a fundraising event, he is still expected to campaign hard in N.H.</p>
<p>Some critics say Clark’s current lull in the polls certainly doesn’t mean the end for him, and his decision to skip Iowa will ultimately work out in his favor. William Safire suggests in The New York Times that Clark is taking one from Clinton strategists; he’ll let Gephardt do the heavy lifting in Iowa, to pave the way for him to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/12/opinion/12SAFI.html" type="external">take on Dean in New Hampshire</a>:</p>
<p />
<p>“The Clinton political strategy was, as usual, astute: let Dick Gephardt slow Dean down in Iowa, then push Clark hard enough to upset Dean in New Hampshire…”</p>
<p>The Clark vs. Dean issue is far from resolved; and some say it will ultimately come down to a battle between the centrist General and the lefty Vermont governor for the prize spot as the Dem nominee. Clark’s recent announcement that he would accept matching federal funds was expected, considering his late entry into the race (meaning less time to campaign)—but its still unclear whether this will be an advantage or not to Kerry and Dean, both of whom declined funds. Clark has recently been waxing eloquent about his plans for ending the war in Iraq, dealing with terrorist threats, and other pressing foreign policy issues. Matthew Rothschild from The Progressive speculates on the potential for a <a href="http://www.progressive.org/webex03/wx1113a03.html" type="external">Dean/Clark match-up</a>:</p>
<p />
<p>“Dean, strengthened by the support of AFSCME and SEIU, will knock Gephardt out in Iowa. Then Dean will trounce Kerry in New Hampshire, which will end his hapless campaign. (Both Gephardt and Kerry crippled themselves by voting for Bush’s Iraq blunder.) With Dean riding high, the Democratic Party establishment will prevail upon Joe Lieberman and John Edwards to bow out so that there will be no one remaining in the field to Dean’s right except Clark. (On the left, Kucinich, Sharpton, and Moseley Braun will nip at Dean’s heels, which is great, according to the anyone-but-Dean crowd.)</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>Then there will be a battle royal. On the one side will be the grassroots, anti-war, liberal insurgency that has backed Dean to the hilt. On the other, the powerbrokers, the Clintonites, and the pundits, who say Clark is the most electable. They all will try to browbeat voters to be good little boys and girls and vote for the general.”</p>
<p /> | Where’s Wesley? | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2003/11/wheres-wesley/ | 2003-11-17 | 4left
| Where’s Wesley?
<p />
<p>When retired General Wesley Clark entered the race for the Democratic presidential nomination two months ago, he immediately became the favorite candidate for scores of centrist Democrats. Clark, the Democratic Leadership Council crowd reasoned, could deflate Howard Dean’s lead in the primary race and give the Clintonian centrists another shot at the White House.</p>
<p>Instead, Dean has surged in the polls. While Clark isn’t doing poorly, he certainly hasn’t mounted the sort of rigorous challenge to Dean that was expected — leaving media pundits and politicos wondering if a comeback is even possible.</p>
<p>The former NATO commander entered the campaign with the intent of positioning himself as a more moderate, foreign policy minded alternative to Dean. And it worked, at first. Generally viewed as the only Democratic candidate that could humble Bush on national security issues, Clark immediately took a <a href="/news/dailymojo/2003/09/we_522_02a.html" type="external">healthy lead</a> in the polls — as we noted right here just a few months ago.</p>
<p />
<p>“Give Wesley Clark his due: he looks great on paper. First in his class at Westpoint, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, victor in Kosovo, architect of Dayton, Rhodes Scholar. Not bad. What’s more, less than a week after declaring for president, Clark is running stronger than anyone could have predicted…The Democratic party is making nice with Clark, reinforcing the notion that the general, unlike the lightweight Dean, can beat Bush on national security.”</p>
<p>But that lead has quickly dribbled away, allowing Dean to reemerge as the Democratic frontrunner. <a href="http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=755" type="external">Recent polls</a> show Dean now receives 15% from 558 likely Democratic primary voters nationwide, and Clark has slipped to 10%. While Clark’s expertise on foreign policy was supposed to be his keynote issue; ironically, it was his position (or lack thereof) on the war in Iraq that got him in trouble. When he fumbled over questions of whether he would have voted for the war or not (given the opportunity), he left voters wondering whether he had the decisive qualities looked-for in presidential candidates. CK Rairden of</p>
<p>The Washington Dispatch writes of his <a href="http://www.washingtondispatch.com/article_7053.shtml" type="external">foibles</a>, which have led to an inability to catch up to Dean:</p>
<p />
<p>“Clark entered the race with the handprints of the Clintons and the DLC all over him in September for one reason. Shut down Howard Dean’s momentum. So far, he has failed. Clark claimed to be a straight-talker, but quickly turned out to be a four-star fibber. His fabrications seem to now be strengthening Dean while turning a once respected military General into a sad joke.”</p>
<p>Clark recently bowed out of participation in the Iowa caucus, which is often viewed as a crucial campaign ground. Instead, he claimed he wanted to focus on New Hampshire, and although he said Thursday that he would miss the debates there to attend a fundraising event, he is still expected to campaign hard in N.H.</p>
<p>Some critics say Clark’s current lull in the polls certainly doesn’t mean the end for him, and his decision to skip Iowa will ultimately work out in his favor. William Safire suggests in The New York Times that Clark is taking one from Clinton strategists; he’ll let Gephardt do the heavy lifting in Iowa, to pave the way for him to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/12/opinion/12SAFI.html" type="external">take on Dean in New Hampshire</a>:</p>
<p />
<p>“The Clinton political strategy was, as usual, astute: let Dick Gephardt slow Dean down in Iowa, then push Clark hard enough to upset Dean in New Hampshire…”</p>
<p>The Clark vs. Dean issue is far from resolved; and some say it will ultimately come down to a battle between the centrist General and the lefty Vermont governor for the prize spot as the Dem nominee. Clark’s recent announcement that he would accept matching federal funds was expected, considering his late entry into the race (meaning less time to campaign)—but its still unclear whether this will be an advantage or not to Kerry and Dean, both of whom declined funds. Clark has recently been waxing eloquent about his plans for ending the war in Iraq, dealing with terrorist threats, and other pressing foreign policy issues. Matthew Rothschild from The Progressive speculates on the potential for a <a href="http://www.progressive.org/webex03/wx1113a03.html" type="external">Dean/Clark match-up</a>:</p>
<p />
<p>“Dean, strengthened by the support of AFSCME and SEIU, will knock Gephardt out in Iowa. Then Dean will trounce Kerry in New Hampshire, which will end his hapless campaign. (Both Gephardt and Kerry crippled themselves by voting for Bush’s Iraq blunder.) With Dean riding high, the Democratic Party establishment will prevail upon Joe Lieberman and John Edwards to bow out so that there will be no one remaining in the field to Dean’s right except Clark. (On the left, Kucinich, Sharpton, and Moseley Braun will nip at Dean’s heels, which is great, according to the anyone-but-Dean crowd.)</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>Then there will be a battle royal. On the one side will be the grassroots, anti-war, liberal insurgency that has backed Dean to the hilt. On the other, the powerbrokers, the Clintonites, and the pundits, who say Clark is the most electable. They all will try to browbeat voters to be good little boys and girls and vote for the general.”</p>
<p /> | 3,243 |
<p>In this&#160; <a href="https://www.fool.com/podcasts/rule-breaker-investing?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=72e693b6-adde-11e7-a503-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Rule Breaker Investing Opens a New Window.</a> podcast, David Gardner is highly pleased to interview Dr. Anders Ericsson, one of the world's foremost experts on expertise. His work has been cited in multiple best sellers, including Moonwalking with Einstein, Outliers, and How Children Succeed. It also was the basis for an idea that Malcolm Gladwell popularized -- the "10,000 Hour Rule," which posits that it takes that much practice to reach mastery of a skill. Of course, as Ericsson has oft repeated since then, there's a lot more to mastery than that.</p>
<p>In this segment, they talk about the three types of practice, and why doing the right kind matters so much more than the amount of time spent.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>A full transcript follows the video.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than&#160;Wal-MartWhen investing geniuses David and Tom&#160;Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they&#160;have run for over a decade, the Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*</p>
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<p>David Gardner: Now we have to talk some about practice. There's practice. There's purposeful practice. There's deliberate practice. These three terms, while a lot of us may not have association with them, are really technical terms and they're very important to Dr. Ericsson's work. Glibly, I asked, earlier, does practice make perfect? One of our podcast personalities here at The Motley Fool, Mac Greer, said that he had a junior high band director who used to say, "Practice perfect makes perfect." Let me ask you, Dr. Ericsson. Could you lay out these three types of practice?</p>
<p>Anders Ericsson: Just taking an example of a tennis player who's playing doubles tennis. You basically start up, and then maybe after six months or a year, you're able to play. You keep the ball so you can actually have a game with your friends. Now, just engaging in that kind of play, some people might refer to as practice. And some people, when they're just doing their job, they would think of that as being practice. Well, we refer to that as "naive practice." You're just reacting to the situations you're in and doing your best. You're really not trying to change what you're doing.</p>
<p>I would argue that what we call "purposeful practice" is that when you actually look at what you're doing, you're pinpointing out something that you want to change. This is now something that you would spend extra special time engaging in. So if you want to practice your serve, you could actually do that by yourself. Do one serve after the other. You could see where they're landing, and you would try to improve the power and control that you have over the serve.</p>
<p>We refer to that as purposeful practice, because you have identified, now, something that you can change, and you're now focusing in on training that would actually allow you to change and improve that particular aspect. One of the problems is that if you're just trying to improve something like your serve, it becomes even harder if you want to improve your backhand. When you're figuring out things that you can do by yourself to improve, this is purposeful practice.</p>
<p>Now, when you seek out a teacher and that teacher can take a look at your game and say, "Hmm, you would really be able to improve your game if you worked on your backhand volley," now the coach can help you get the fundamental strokes right when you're standing there by the net, and then you would be forced to run up to the net, perhaps, and finally integrate it into the game. The argument is that with a coach, you will actually be able to improve your backhand so much more than if you were just playing the game and occasionally running into an opportunity for a backhand volley that you may not be able to control.</p>
<p>Gardner: So from naive practice -- the phrase I should have led off with -- naive practice to purposeful practice to "deliberate practice." And you use a term called "homeostasis," which I think is one of the key concepts that I want my listeners to hear about. Could you define homeostasis and its role within better and better practice?</p>
<p>Ericsson: Right. Maybe running is a good example. If you just run the same route at the same speed day after day...</p>
<p>Gardner: Guilty as charged, although I wish I did do it day after day. I'd be a much better human being. But keep going.</p>
<p>Ericsson: Well, the thing is that after a while you will adapt to that, and if you see how fast you can run races, you're not going to see an improvement. The argument is that if you want to change something, you need to do something that will get your body out of this comfort state of doing an activity that you're used to be doing, so you actually have to push it. And one of the more effective ways to improve your speed for running, say, 10Ks, is "interval running," where you actually are running as fast as you can for maybe 10 or 15 seconds and then you walk until you recover, and then you push yourself again.</p>
<p>That kind of pushing will now push you outside this comfort zone, and the biochemicals that are generated will stimulate genes to start to be activated. That will lead to more capillaries and all sorts of physiological adaptations in your body, which, in turn, will actually allow you to run faster.</p>
<p>Gardner: So it is that process of getting outside of what I might call and you call, quotes, "good enough," and pushing ourselves outside of that if we want to get better at something. And I think it's worth putting in a quick note here, for those lazy bums among us -- and I include myself for most -- that homeostasis being good enough for a lot of areas of life is just fine.</p>
<p>Ericsson: Exactly, and if you tried to be world class in any of a hundred different activities, I would be very surprised if you were able to get even close.</p>
<p>The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=72e693b6-adde-11e7-a503-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | The Expertise Expert Explains the 3 Kinds of Practice | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/10/12/expertise-expert-explains-3-kinds-practice.html | 2017-10-12 | 0right
| The Expertise Expert Explains the 3 Kinds of Practice
<p>In this&#160; <a href="https://www.fool.com/podcasts/rule-breaker-investing?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=72e693b6-adde-11e7-a503-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Rule Breaker Investing Opens a New Window.</a> podcast, David Gardner is highly pleased to interview Dr. Anders Ericsson, one of the world's foremost experts on expertise. His work has been cited in multiple best sellers, including Moonwalking with Einstein, Outliers, and How Children Succeed. It also was the basis for an idea that Malcolm Gladwell popularized -- the "10,000 Hour Rule," which posits that it takes that much practice to reach mastery of a skill. Of course, as Ericsson has oft repeated since then, there's a lot more to mastery than that.</p>
<p>In this segment, they talk about the three types of practice, and why doing the right kind matters so much more than the amount of time spent.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>A full transcript follows the video.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than&#160;Wal-MartWhen investing geniuses David and Tom&#160;Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they&#160;have run for over a decade, the Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*</p>
<p>David and Tom&#160;just revealed what they believe are the&#160; <a href="https://www.fool.com/mms/mark/e-sa-bbn-eg?aid=8867&amp;source=isaeditxt0000476&amp;ftm_cam=sa-bbn-evergreen&amp;ftm_pit=6627&amp;ftm_veh=article_pitch&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=72e693b6-adde-11e7-a503-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">ten best stocks Opens a New Window.</a>&#160;for investors to buy right now... and Wal-Mart wasn't one of them! That's right -- they&#160;think these 10 stocks are even better buys.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.fool.com/mms/mark/e-sa-bbn-eg?aid=8867&amp;source=isaeditxt0000476&amp;ftm_cam=sa-bbn-evergreen&amp;ftm_pit=6627&amp;ftm_veh=article_pitch&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=72e693b6-adde-11e7-a503-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Click here Opens a New Window.</a>&#160;to learn about these picks!</p>
<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of&#160;October 9, 2017The author(s) may have a position in any stocks mentioned.</p>
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<p>This video was recorded on Oct. 4, 2017.</p>
<p>David Gardner: Now we have to talk some about practice. There's practice. There's purposeful practice. There's deliberate practice. These three terms, while a lot of us may not have association with them, are really technical terms and they're very important to Dr. Ericsson's work. Glibly, I asked, earlier, does practice make perfect? One of our podcast personalities here at The Motley Fool, Mac Greer, said that he had a junior high band director who used to say, "Practice perfect makes perfect." Let me ask you, Dr. Ericsson. Could you lay out these three types of practice?</p>
<p>Anders Ericsson: Just taking an example of a tennis player who's playing doubles tennis. You basically start up, and then maybe after six months or a year, you're able to play. You keep the ball so you can actually have a game with your friends. Now, just engaging in that kind of play, some people might refer to as practice. And some people, when they're just doing their job, they would think of that as being practice. Well, we refer to that as "naive practice." You're just reacting to the situations you're in and doing your best. You're really not trying to change what you're doing.</p>
<p>I would argue that what we call "purposeful practice" is that when you actually look at what you're doing, you're pinpointing out something that you want to change. This is now something that you would spend extra special time engaging in. So if you want to practice your serve, you could actually do that by yourself. Do one serve after the other. You could see where they're landing, and you would try to improve the power and control that you have over the serve.</p>
<p>We refer to that as purposeful practice, because you have identified, now, something that you can change, and you're now focusing in on training that would actually allow you to change and improve that particular aspect. One of the problems is that if you're just trying to improve something like your serve, it becomes even harder if you want to improve your backhand. When you're figuring out things that you can do by yourself to improve, this is purposeful practice.</p>
<p>Now, when you seek out a teacher and that teacher can take a look at your game and say, "Hmm, you would really be able to improve your game if you worked on your backhand volley," now the coach can help you get the fundamental strokes right when you're standing there by the net, and then you would be forced to run up to the net, perhaps, and finally integrate it into the game. The argument is that with a coach, you will actually be able to improve your backhand so much more than if you were just playing the game and occasionally running into an opportunity for a backhand volley that you may not be able to control.</p>
<p>Gardner: So from naive practice -- the phrase I should have led off with -- naive practice to purposeful practice to "deliberate practice." And you use a term called "homeostasis," which I think is one of the key concepts that I want my listeners to hear about. Could you define homeostasis and its role within better and better practice?</p>
<p>Ericsson: Right. Maybe running is a good example. If you just run the same route at the same speed day after day...</p>
<p>Gardner: Guilty as charged, although I wish I did do it day after day. I'd be a much better human being. But keep going.</p>
<p>Ericsson: Well, the thing is that after a while you will adapt to that, and if you see how fast you can run races, you're not going to see an improvement. The argument is that if you want to change something, you need to do something that will get your body out of this comfort state of doing an activity that you're used to be doing, so you actually have to push it. And one of the more effective ways to improve your speed for running, say, 10Ks, is "interval running," where you actually are running as fast as you can for maybe 10 or 15 seconds and then you walk until you recover, and then you push yourself again.</p>
<p>That kind of pushing will now push you outside this comfort zone, and the biochemicals that are generated will stimulate genes to start to be activated. That will lead to more capillaries and all sorts of physiological adaptations in your body, which, in turn, will actually allow you to run faster.</p>
<p>Gardner: So it is that process of getting outside of what I might call and you call, quotes, "good enough," and pushing ourselves outside of that if we want to get better at something. And I think it's worth putting in a quick note here, for those lazy bums among us -- and I include myself for most -- that homeostasis being good enough for a lot of areas of life is just fine.</p>
<p>Ericsson: Exactly, and if you tried to be world class in any of a hundred different activities, I would be very surprised if you were able to get even close.</p>
<p>The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=72e693b6-adde-11e7-a503-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | 3,244 |
<p><a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674286047" type="external">Patrick Iber</a> and <a href="" type="internal">Mike Konczal</a> have an essay at <a href="https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/karl-polanyi-explainer-great-transformation-bernie-sanders" type="external">Dissent</a> in which they use the Bernie Sanders phenomenon as an opportunity to explain the theories of Karl Polanyi, and what they mean for the future of progressive politics.</p>
<p>Polanyi was a Hungarian emigré to Vienna and later England and the United States, a veteran of the interwar period that gave us the Great Depression and the rise of fascism.</p>
<p>His most famous work, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=xHy8oKa4RikC" type="external">The Great Transformation</a>, was written in the 1930s and 1940s. In it, he attempted to diagnose the failures of the free-market capitalism of his time, which in his view had given rise to the reaction and war he lived through.</p>
<p>His central point, and the one which has been most influential on contemporary liberals, is that there has never been any such thing as an unfettered or natural free market.</p>
<p>Rather, all really existing social formations involve complex ties between people based on a variety of norms and traditions. As Iber and Konczal put it, “the economy is ’embedded’ in society — part of social relations — not apart from them.”</p>
<p>For this reason, the attempt to establish unfettered and unregulated markets is doomed: a pure free-market society is a utopian project, and impossible to realize, because people will resist the process of being turned into commodities.</p>
<p>This is an important insight, and to this point there’s not much about it that I can disagree with. The problem arises when one tries to derive a complete political strategy from this analysis. This is where I part ways with the Polanyian analysis that Iber and Konczal offer.</p>
<p>They suggest that the vision of “socialism” offered by Polanyi, and also by <a href="" type="internal">Bernie Sanders</a>, ultimately just involves subjecting capitalism to some humane and democratic limits. They quote a passage in which Polanyi defines socialism as “the tendency inherent in an industrial civilization to transcend the self-regulating market by consciously subordinating it to a democratic society.”</p>
<p>Polanyi does not seem to think that markets or capitalist property relations could be superseded (although the later parts of&#160;The Great Transformation&#160;introduce some ambiguity on this point). Capitalism will only be humanized and controlled. Iber and Konczal attribute something like this idea to Bernie Sanders: “people use democracy to change the rules governing our national political economy.”</p>
<p>There is a long tradition, especially associated with Leninism, that rejects this program on the grounds of “reformism.” According to this view, the Polanyi perspective is inadequate because it embraces reforms that ameliorate capitalism.</p>
<p>This is taken to be a distraction from the need to build a revolutionary force that can seize state power, overthrow the ruling class, and reconstruct property relations. This is a perspective that Iber and Konczal quickly dismiss: a traditionally Marxist idea of having the state seize the means of production which, they say, has been abandoned even by most who identify as socialists.</p>
<p>I consider myself a socialist and a Marxist, although a questionably “traditional” one. My objection to the Polanyian analysis is somewhat different, however, from the one Iber and Konczal adduce.</p>
<p>I am very much a “reformist” in the sense that my day-to-day politics involves working for things like universal health care or stronger unions or a less corrupt local government. (This, it should be noted, was also true of many historical communist militants, even if they looked forward to the seizure of power as their horizon.) Where I part company with the Polanyian left — and in some ways, also the traditional Marxist left — is in where I think such struggles ultimately lead.</p>
<p>Some time ago, I <a href="http://www.peterfrase.com/2014/12/beyond-the-welfare-state/" type="external">wrote a bit</a> about the way Polanyian ideas influence advocates and defenders of the welfare state. In response to sociologist <a href="http://www.polity.co.uk/book.asp?ref=9781509501762" type="external">Daniel Zamora’s attack</a> on the theory of Michel Foucault, I noted that for many left critics of neoliberal capitalism, the project of the Left is conceived in Polanyian terms, and is therefore limited to the struggle to cushion workers from the vagaries of the market, while leaving the basic institutions of private property and wage labor in place.</p>
<p>Thus there can be nothing beyond a welfare state that protects the working class from the workings of an unfettered market.</p>
<p>There are two distinct objections that I would raise against this project. One is basically normative: a world of somewhat humanized wage labor isn’t the one I want to live in, even if it would be better than the one we live in now.</p>
<p>This is rooted in the <a href="" type="internal">anti-work socialist tradition</a>, which insists that the ultimate goal of socialist politics isn’t to make wage labor nicer, but to abolish it altogether. Since I’ve written extensively about that elsewhere, I won’t repeat those arguments here.</p>
<p>The second objection has to do with the long-term viability of Polanyian welfare capitalism as an equilibrium within capitalism. The fundamental distinction I would make, between Marxist and Polanyian social democracy, does not have to do with debates over reform or revolution.</p>
<p>In other words, I accept the proposition that in the near term, the socialist project unfolds through incremental struggles that win material gains for workers, within the context of capitalism.</p>
<p>But the end point of Polanyi’s socialism is really the regime that the theorist of the welfare state, <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/4558.html" type="external">Gøsta Esping-Andersen</a>, called welfare capitalism.</p>
<p>That is, it is still a society in which the means of production are privately controlled by a small elite, and most people must sell their labor to survive. It differs from unfettered capitalism because of the presence of things like unions, regulations, and social safety-net programs, which partially — but never totally — <a href="http://www.peterfrase.com/2011/06/de-commodification-in-everyday-life/" type="external">decommodify</a> labor.</p>
<p>It is at this point that we discover the divide between the Polanyian perspective and the Marxist alternative I’m proposing. It all turns on the question of whether this regime is viable.</p>
<p>What is viability? A concise definition comes from the sociologist <a href="" type="internal">Erik Olin Wright</a> — who comes from a Marxist background, but whose work has strong Polanyian overtones.</p>
<p>He has worked extensively on defining “ <a href="https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~wright/Published%20writing/Presidential%20address%20--%20uncorrected%20page%20proofs%20--%202012.pdf" type="external">real utopias</a>” that could be offered as alternatives to the present system. He argues that any such utopias must satisfy three criteria: desirability, achievability, and viability. The first two are what they sound like: is this where we want to go, and can we get there?</p>
<p>As noted above, I think the Polanyian vision is somewhat lacking in terms of desirability. But it would still be a step forward.</p>
<p>And on the question of achievability, I have no real quibbles: I support reformist struggles for the welfare state because I view them as achievable, compared to the alternative strategies of building an insurrectionary communist party, or writing sectarian polemics and waiting for capitalism to collapse on its own.</p>
<p>Viability is where all the problems arise. Wright defines the viability question as follows: If we could create this alternative, would we be able to stay there or would it have such unintended consequences and self-destructive dynamics that it would not be sustainable?</p>
<p>Recall the definition of Polanyian socialism as the situation in which people use democracy to change the rules governing our national political economy.</p>
<p>Is that a stable equilibrium, acceptable to both capitalists and workers? Or is it an inherently unstable situation, <a href="" type="internal">one which must break</a> toward either the expropriation of the capitalist class, or the restoration of ruling-class power?</p>
<p>Unlike the Polanyians, I think the welfare state is, in Wright’s terms, not viable. Unlike Wright, however, I do not think that this invalidates it as a goal. Rather, I think that socialist politics is inevitably a task of building the crisis.</p>
<p>And the great tragedy of postwar socialism was the <a href="" type="internal">perverse division</a> of political labor it gave rise to, between revolutionaries who refused to engage with reformist politics, and reformists who were unable or unwilling to deal with the crisis that their victories inevitably produced.</p>
<p>So, what makes social democracy non-viable as a stable system? For this, we need to turn to the Polish economist Michal Kalecki, and his famous 1943 <a href="http://gesd.free.fr/kalecki43.pdf" type="external">essay</a> “Political Aspects of Full Employment.”</p>
<p>The core insight of that essay is that economic struggles between workers and bosses are ultimately not about the size of the wage, or the stability of employment, or the generosity of benefits. They are about power.</p>
<p>It is possible to construct arguments showing that putting unemployed workers back to work would be good for capitalists too, in the sense that it would lead to faster growth and more profits.</p>
<p>But as Chris Maisano explains in his <a href="https://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/maisano080610p.html" type="external">exegesis</a> of Kalecki, the biggest barriers to the maintenance of full employment are primarily political in nature, not economic.</p>
<p>This is because in a situation of low unemployment, workers are less afraid of what Kalecki called the “power of the sack.” As they become less afraid of the boss, they begin to demand more and more of the capitalists.</p>
<p>Unions and social-democratic parties strengthen; wildcat strikes <a href="http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6768/when_workers_fought_back_1970s_rebel_rank_and_file" type="external">proliferate</a>. Eventually this dynamic calls into question not just profits, but the underlying property relations of capitalism itself.</p>
<p>Welfare capitalism thus reaches what we could call the “Kalecki point,” where its viability has been fatally undermined.</p>
<p>In that situation, employers become willing to take drastic action to get workers back into line, even at the expense of short-term profitability.</p>
<p>This takes many forms, including state-led <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/03/opinion/reagan-vs-patco-the-strike-that-busted-unions.html" type="external">attacks</a> on unions and the refusal of capitalists to invest, a “ <a href="http://www.peterfrase.com/2011/09/the-rights-favorite-strike/" type="external">capital strike</a>” in which money is moved overseas or simply left in the bank, as a way of breaking the power of the working class.</p>
<p>David Harvey, in his <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=CKUiKpWUv0YC" type="external">Brief History of Neoliberalism</a>, essentially portrays the right-wing turn of the 1980s as a reactionary resolution of this crisis: a move away from the Kalecki point that entailed a restoration of capitalist class power rather than a leap into socialism.</p>
<p>Jonah Birch provides a useful <a href="" type="internal">case study</a> of France’s Mitterrand government during this period, which pushed the boundaries of the social-democratic compromise and was finally forced back by the power of capital.</p>
<p>The failure of the <a href="" type="internal">Rehn-Meidner plan</a>, which was essentially a gradualist scheme to socialize the means of production in Sweden, provides a similar example.</p>
<p>So far I’ve argued that the social-democratic class compromise is inherently non-viable, and tends toward conflict and crisis. But another way to look at it is that welfare capitalism can be made viable, but only in a way that subverts its socialist promise.</p>
<p>This is because the “power of the sack” can be reconfigured into other kinds of disciplinary power, depending on the nature of the particular welfare-capitalist regime we’re talking about.</p>
<p>Recently, I discovered (via <a href="http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/" type="external">Mariame Kaba</a>), the work of <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674737235" type="external">Elizabeth Hinton</a>. Hinton’s work focuses on Lyndon Johnson’s 1960s “Great Society” expansion of the welfare state, and its connection to the construction of the carceral state — the rise of mass incarceration and militarized policing.</p>
<p>She shows that while the Great Society was expanding access to things like income support and health care, a simultaneous “War on Crime” was subjecting the poor, and especially the black poor, to increased surveillance and state repression.</p>
<p>Her analysis indicates that this was not an accidental juxtaposition, but part of a cohesive reconstruction of the relationship between the state and the working class.</p>
<p>This is easily comprehensible in terms of the contradictory nature of the welfare state and the problem of the Kalecki point. Without the welfare state, workers are disciplined by the power of the sack — or, in situations where workers are sufficiently organized and cohesive to resist the boss anyway, by <a href="http://www.wvculture.org/history/labor/matewan04.html" type="external">private militias</a>.</p>
<p>In the era of the welfare state, however, the partial decommodification of labor creates a great danger to capital, because it enhances the autonomy of workers, whether employed or not, to make demands on capital and the state.</p>
<p>It was just this recognition that drove organizers like <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/weight-poor-strategy-end-poverty/" type="external">Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward</a> to organize welfare recipients in the late 1960s.</p>
<p>Police violence, drug wars, mass incarceration, onerous requirements on benefit recipients: these are all ways of disciplining the worker in the era of the welfare state, in the absence of the power of the sack.</p>
<p>This also means that struggles against <a href="" type="internal">police oppression</a> and incarceration are not parallel or ancillary to class struggle and the movement for socialism, but are fundamental to it: they attack the disciplinary regime that maintains the stability of our particular regime of capital accumulation.</p>
<p>For the the more Polanyi-ish, and Pollyana-ish, it’s possible for us all to get along in a world where workers have comfortable lives and the bosses still make money. That’s the vision that seems to animate Iber and Konczal’s explainer.</p>
<p>The alternative Marxist argument is that capitalism is defined by the power struggle <a href="" type="internal">between workers and capital</a>, and the Polanyian version of socialism attempts to elide that contradiction in favor of a vision of harmonious coexistence.</p>
<p>Where this vision fails is not in the short term but in the long run. It leaves the Left ill-equipped to address the inevitable crises that a successful reformist program generates, and I would argue that the belief in the possibility of permanent class compromise contributed to the defeat of the Left and the victory of neoliberalism.</p>
<p>So the problem isn’t that we can’t win reformist victories for workers. History has shown that we can. The problem is what comes after victory, and we need a theory of socialism and social democracy that prepares our movements for that phase.</p> | Social Democracy’s Breaking Point | true | https://jacobinmag.com/2016/06/social-democracy-polanyi-great-transformation-welfare-state/ | 2018-10-06 | 4left
| Social Democracy’s Breaking Point
<p><a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674286047" type="external">Patrick Iber</a> and <a href="" type="internal">Mike Konczal</a> have an essay at <a href="https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/karl-polanyi-explainer-great-transformation-bernie-sanders" type="external">Dissent</a> in which they use the Bernie Sanders phenomenon as an opportunity to explain the theories of Karl Polanyi, and what they mean for the future of progressive politics.</p>
<p>Polanyi was a Hungarian emigré to Vienna and later England and the United States, a veteran of the interwar period that gave us the Great Depression and the rise of fascism.</p>
<p>His most famous work, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=xHy8oKa4RikC" type="external">The Great Transformation</a>, was written in the 1930s and 1940s. In it, he attempted to diagnose the failures of the free-market capitalism of his time, which in his view had given rise to the reaction and war he lived through.</p>
<p>His central point, and the one which has been most influential on contemporary liberals, is that there has never been any such thing as an unfettered or natural free market.</p>
<p>Rather, all really existing social formations involve complex ties between people based on a variety of norms and traditions. As Iber and Konczal put it, “the economy is ’embedded’ in society — part of social relations — not apart from them.”</p>
<p>For this reason, the attempt to establish unfettered and unregulated markets is doomed: a pure free-market society is a utopian project, and impossible to realize, because people will resist the process of being turned into commodities.</p>
<p>This is an important insight, and to this point there’s not much about it that I can disagree with. The problem arises when one tries to derive a complete political strategy from this analysis. This is where I part ways with the Polanyian analysis that Iber and Konczal offer.</p>
<p>They suggest that the vision of “socialism” offered by Polanyi, and also by <a href="" type="internal">Bernie Sanders</a>, ultimately just involves subjecting capitalism to some humane and democratic limits. They quote a passage in which Polanyi defines socialism as “the tendency inherent in an industrial civilization to transcend the self-regulating market by consciously subordinating it to a democratic society.”</p>
<p>Polanyi does not seem to think that markets or capitalist property relations could be superseded (although the later parts of&#160;The Great Transformation&#160;introduce some ambiguity on this point). Capitalism will only be humanized and controlled. Iber and Konczal attribute something like this idea to Bernie Sanders: “people use democracy to change the rules governing our national political economy.”</p>
<p>There is a long tradition, especially associated with Leninism, that rejects this program on the grounds of “reformism.” According to this view, the Polanyi perspective is inadequate because it embraces reforms that ameliorate capitalism.</p>
<p>This is taken to be a distraction from the need to build a revolutionary force that can seize state power, overthrow the ruling class, and reconstruct property relations. This is a perspective that Iber and Konczal quickly dismiss: a traditionally Marxist idea of having the state seize the means of production which, they say, has been abandoned even by most who identify as socialists.</p>
<p>I consider myself a socialist and a Marxist, although a questionably “traditional” one. My objection to the Polanyian analysis is somewhat different, however, from the one Iber and Konczal adduce.</p>
<p>I am very much a “reformist” in the sense that my day-to-day politics involves working for things like universal health care or stronger unions or a less corrupt local government. (This, it should be noted, was also true of many historical communist militants, even if they looked forward to the seizure of power as their horizon.) Where I part company with the Polanyian left — and in some ways, also the traditional Marxist left — is in where I think such struggles ultimately lead.</p>
<p>Some time ago, I <a href="http://www.peterfrase.com/2014/12/beyond-the-welfare-state/" type="external">wrote a bit</a> about the way Polanyian ideas influence advocates and defenders of the welfare state. In response to sociologist <a href="http://www.polity.co.uk/book.asp?ref=9781509501762" type="external">Daniel Zamora’s attack</a> on the theory of Michel Foucault, I noted that for many left critics of neoliberal capitalism, the project of the Left is conceived in Polanyian terms, and is therefore limited to the struggle to cushion workers from the vagaries of the market, while leaving the basic institutions of private property and wage labor in place.</p>
<p>Thus there can be nothing beyond a welfare state that protects the working class from the workings of an unfettered market.</p>
<p>There are two distinct objections that I would raise against this project. One is basically normative: a world of somewhat humanized wage labor isn’t the one I want to live in, even if it would be better than the one we live in now.</p>
<p>This is rooted in the <a href="" type="internal">anti-work socialist tradition</a>, which insists that the ultimate goal of socialist politics isn’t to make wage labor nicer, but to abolish it altogether. Since I’ve written extensively about that elsewhere, I won’t repeat those arguments here.</p>
<p>The second objection has to do with the long-term viability of Polanyian welfare capitalism as an equilibrium within capitalism. The fundamental distinction I would make, between Marxist and Polanyian social democracy, does not have to do with debates over reform or revolution.</p>
<p>In other words, I accept the proposition that in the near term, the socialist project unfolds through incremental struggles that win material gains for workers, within the context of capitalism.</p>
<p>But the end point of Polanyi’s socialism is really the regime that the theorist of the welfare state, <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/4558.html" type="external">Gøsta Esping-Andersen</a>, called welfare capitalism.</p>
<p>That is, it is still a society in which the means of production are privately controlled by a small elite, and most people must sell their labor to survive. It differs from unfettered capitalism because of the presence of things like unions, regulations, and social safety-net programs, which partially — but never totally — <a href="http://www.peterfrase.com/2011/06/de-commodification-in-everyday-life/" type="external">decommodify</a> labor.</p>
<p>It is at this point that we discover the divide between the Polanyian perspective and the Marxist alternative I’m proposing. It all turns on the question of whether this regime is viable.</p>
<p>What is viability? A concise definition comes from the sociologist <a href="" type="internal">Erik Olin Wright</a> — who comes from a Marxist background, but whose work has strong Polanyian overtones.</p>
<p>He has worked extensively on defining “ <a href="https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~wright/Published%20writing/Presidential%20address%20--%20uncorrected%20page%20proofs%20--%202012.pdf" type="external">real utopias</a>” that could be offered as alternatives to the present system. He argues that any such utopias must satisfy three criteria: desirability, achievability, and viability. The first two are what they sound like: is this where we want to go, and can we get there?</p>
<p>As noted above, I think the Polanyian vision is somewhat lacking in terms of desirability. But it would still be a step forward.</p>
<p>And on the question of achievability, I have no real quibbles: I support reformist struggles for the welfare state because I view them as achievable, compared to the alternative strategies of building an insurrectionary communist party, or writing sectarian polemics and waiting for capitalism to collapse on its own.</p>
<p>Viability is where all the problems arise. Wright defines the viability question as follows: If we could create this alternative, would we be able to stay there or would it have such unintended consequences and self-destructive dynamics that it would not be sustainable?</p>
<p>Recall the definition of Polanyian socialism as the situation in which people use democracy to change the rules governing our national political economy.</p>
<p>Is that a stable equilibrium, acceptable to both capitalists and workers? Or is it an inherently unstable situation, <a href="" type="internal">one which must break</a> toward either the expropriation of the capitalist class, or the restoration of ruling-class power?</p>
<p>Unlike the Polanyians, I think the welfare state is, in Wright’s terms, not viable. Unlike Wright, however, I do not think that this invalidates it as a goal. Rather, I think that socialist politics is inevitably a task of building the crisis.</p>
<p>And the great tragedy of postwar socialism was the <a href="" type="internal">perverse division</a> of political labor it gave rise to, between revolutionaries who refused to engage with reformist politics, and reformists who were unable or unwilling to deal with the crisis that their victories inevitably produced.</p>
<p>So, what makes social democracy non-viable as a stable system? For this, we need to turn to the Polish economist Michal Kalecki, and his famous 1943 <a href="http://gesd.free.fr/kalecki43.pdf" type="external">essay</a> “Political Aspects of Full Employment.”</p>
<p>The core insight of that essay is that economic struggles between workers and bosses are ultimately not about the size of the wage, or the stability of employment, or the generosity of benefits. They are about power.</p>
<p>It is possible to construct arguments showing that putting unemployed workers back to work would be good for capitalists too, in the sense that it would lead to faster growth and more profits.</p>
<p>But as Chris Maisano explains in his <a href="https://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/maisano080610p.html" type="external">exegesis</a> of Kalecki, the biggest barriers to the maintenance of full employment are primarily political in nature, not economic.</p>
<p>This is because in a situation of low unemployment, workers are less afraid of what Kalecki called the “power of the sack.” As they become less afraid of the boss, they begin to demand more and more of the capitalists.</p>
<p>Unions and social-democratic parties strengthen; wildcat strikes <a href="http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6768/when_workers_fought_back_1970s_rebel_rank_and_file" type="external">proliferate</a>. Eventually this dynamic calls into question not just profits, but the underlying property relations of capitalism itself.</p>
<p>Welfare capitalism thus reaches what we could call the “Kalecki point,” where its viability has been fatally undermined.</p>
<p>In that situation, employers become willing to take drastic action to get workers back into line, even at the expense of short-term profitability.</p>
<p>This takes many forms, including state-led <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/03/opinion/reagan-vs-patco-the-strike-that-busted-unions.html" type="external">attacks</a> on unions and the refusal of capitalists to invest, a “ <a href="http://www.peterfrase.com/2011/09/the-rights-favorite-strike/" type="external">capital strike</a>” in which money is moved overseas or simply left in the bank, as a way of breaking the power of the working class.</p>
<p>David Harvey, in his <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=CKUiKpWUv0YC" type="external">Brief History of Neoliberalism</a>, essentially portrays the right-wing turn of the 1980s as a reactionary resolution of this crisis: a move away from the Kalecki point that entailed a restoration of capitalist class power rather than a leap into socialism.</p>
<p>Jonah Birch provides a useful <a href="" type="internal">case study</a> of France’s Mitterrand government during this period, which pushed the boundaries of the social-democratic compromise and was finally forced back by the power of capital.</p>
<p>The failure of the <a href="" type="internal">Rehn-Meidner plan</a>, which was essentially a gradualist scheme to socialize the means of production in Sweden, provides a similar example.</p>
<p>So far I’ve argued that the social-democratic class compromise is inherently non-viable, and tends toward conflict and crisis. But another way to look at it is that welfare capitalism can be made viable, but only in a way that subverts its socialist promise.</p>
<p>This is because the “power of the sack” can be reconfigured into other kinds of disciplinary power, depending on the nature of the particular welfare-capitalist regime we’re talking about.</p>
<p>Recently, I discovered (via <a href="http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/" type="external">Mariame Kaba</a>), the work of <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674737235" type="external">Elizabeth Hinton</a>. Hinton’s work focuses on Lyndon Johnson’s 1960s “Great Society” expansion of the welfare state, and its connection to the construction of the carceral state — the rise of mass incarceration and militarized policing.</p>
<p>She shows that while the Great Society was expanding access to things like income support and health care, a simultaneous “War on Crime” was subjecting the poor, and especially the black poor, to increased surveillance and state repression.</p>
<p>Her analysis indicates that this was not an accidental juxtaposition, but part of a cohesive reconstruction of the relationship between the state and the working class.</p>
<p>This is easily comprehensible in terms of the contradictory nature of the welfare state and the problem of the Kalecki point. Without the welfare state, workers are disciplined by the power of the sack — or, in situations where workers are sufficiently organized and cohesive to resist the boss anyway, by <a href="http://www.wvculture.org/history/labor/matewan04.html" type="external">private militias</a>.</p>
<p>In the era of the welfare state, however, the partial decommodification of labor creates a great danger to capital, because it enhances the autonomy of workers, whether employed or not, to make demands on capital and the state.</p>
<p>It was just this recognition that drove organizers like <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/weight-poor-strategy-end-poverty/" type="external">Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward</a> to organize welfare recipients in the late 1960s.</p>
<p>Police violence, drug wars, mass incarceration, onerous requirements on benefit recipients: these are all ways of disciplining the worker in the era of the welfare state, in the absence of the power of the sack.</p>
<p>This also means that struggles against <a href="" type="internal">police oppression</a> and incarceration are not parallel or ancillary to class struggle and the movement for socialism, but are fundamental to it: they attack the disciplinary regime that maintains the stability of our particular regime of capital accumulation.</p>
<p>For the the more Polanyi-ish, and Pollyana-ish, it’s possible for us all to get along in a world where workers have comfortable lives and the bosses still make money. That’s the vision that seems to animate Iber and Konczal’s explainer.</p>
<p>The alternative Marxist argument is that capitalism is defined by the power struggle <a href="" type="internal">between workers and capital</a>, and the Polanyian version of socialism attempts to elide that contradiction in favor of a vision of harmonious coexistence.</p>
<p>Where this vision fails is not in the short term but in the long run. It leaves the Left ill-equipped to address the inevitable crises that a successful reformist program generates, and I would argue that the belief in the possibility of permanent class compromise contributed to the defeat of the Left and the victory of neoliberalism.</p>
<p>So the problem isn’t that we can’t win reformist victories for workers. History has shown that we can. The problem is what comes after victory, and we need a theory of socialism and social democracy that prepares our movements for that phase.</p> | 3,245 |
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<p>The man known as Dread Pirate Roberts – 29-year-old Ross William Ulbricht – was on his personal laptop Tuesday afternoon, authorities said, talking about the vast black market bazaar that is believed to have brokered more than $1 billion in transactions for illegal drugs and services.</p>
<p>When a half-dozen FBI agents burst into the library in a quiet, blue-collar neighborhood, they abruptly ended Ulbricht’s conversation with a cooperating witness, pinned the Austin native to a floor-to-ceiling window and then took him off to jail, law enforcement and library spokeswomen said.</p>
<p>Ulbricht was later charged in criminal complaints in federal courts in New York and Maryland. He’s accused of making millions of dollars operating the secret Silk Road website and of a failed murder-for-hire scheme, all while living anonymously with two roommates whom he paid $1,000 to rent a room in a modest neighborhood.</p>
<p>Federal authorities shut down the website.</p>
<p>Ulbricht has not entered pleas to any of his charges. His federal public defender in San Francisco declined to comment Wednesday. Ulbricht is due back in San Francisco federal court Friday morning to discuss bail and his transfer to New York, where the bulk of the charges have been filed.</p>
<p>He is charged in New York with being the mastermind of Silk Road, where users could browse anonymously through nearly 13,000 listings under categories like “Cannabis,” “Psychedelics” and “Stimulants.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Ulbricht also is charged in Maryland with ordering first the torture, and then the murder, of an employee from an undercover agent. He feared the employee would expose his alias as Dread Pirate Roberts, a fictional character. Court records say he wired the agent $80,000 after he was shown staged photos of the employee’s faked torture.</p>
<p>His arrest culminated a two-year-investigation that painstakingly followed a small trail of computer crumbs Ulbricht carelessly left for the FBI to find, according to court documents.</p>
<p>Ulbricht first came to the attention of federal agents in 2011 when they figured out he was “altoid,” someone who they say was marketing Silk Road on other drug-related websites the FBI was watching. In October 2011, “altoid” posted an advertisement for a computer expert with experience in Bitcoin, an electronic currency, and gave an email address.</p>
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<p /> | Suspect charged in black market drug scheme | false | https://abqjournal.com/275055/suspect-charged-in-black-market-drug-scheme.html | 2013-10-04 | 2least
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<p>The man known as Dread Pirate Roberts – 29-year-old Ross William Ulbricht – was on his personal laptop Tuesday afternoon, authorities said, talking about the vast black market bazaar that is believed to have brokered more than $1 billion in transactions for illegal drugs and services.</p>
<p>When a half-dozen FBI agents burst into the library in a quiet, blue-collar neighborhood, they abruptly ended Ulbricht’s conversation with a cooperating witness, pinned the Austin native to a floor-to-ceiling window and then took him off to jail, law enforcement and library spokeswomen said.</p>
<p>Ulbricht was later charged in criminal complaints in federal courts in New York and Maryland. He’s accused of making millions of dollars operating the secret Silk Road website and of a failed murder-for-hire scheme, all while living anonymously with two roommates whom he paid $1,000 to rent a room in a modest neighborhood.</p>
<p>Federal authorities shut down the website.</p>
<p>Ulbricht has not entered pleas to any of his charges. His federal public defender in San Francisco declined to comment Wednesday. Ulbricht is due back in San Francisco federal court Friday morning to discuss bail and his transfer to New York, where the bulk of the charges have been filed.</p>
<p>He is charged in New York with being the mastermind of Silk Road, where users could browse anonymously through nearly 13,000 listings under categories like “Cannabis,” “Psychedelics” and “Stimulants.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Ulbricht also is charged in Maryland with ordering first the torture, and then the murder, of an employee from an undercover agent. He feared the employee would expose his alias as Dread Pirate Roberts, a fictional character. Court records say he wired the agent $80,000 after he was shown staged photos of the employee’s faked torture.</p>
<p>His arrest culminated a two-year-investigation that painstakingly followed a small trail of computer crumbs Ulbricht carelessly left for the FBI to find, according to court documents.</p>
<p>Ulbricht first came to the attention of federal agents in 2011 when they figured out he was “altoid,” someone who they say was marketing Silk Road on other drug-related websites the FBI was watching. In October 2011, “altoid” posted an advertisement for a computer expert with experience in Bitcoin, an electronic currency, and gave an email address.</p>
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<p>Victor Matzir, a sushi chef at Shohko Cafe, makes a sashimi combination of yellowfin tuna and salmon during lunchtime. (Eddie Moore/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>Japanese food is simple food, compounded of a very few basic ingredients that combine for different, but subtly related, flavors.</p>
<p>There is none of the baroque exuberance of Thai food, or even the regional variations that lend so much variety to Chinese cuisine. Like its famous gardens and interiors, Japan’s food is restrained.</p>
<p>Still, I do get hungry for it. And, to assuage that craving, Shohko Cafe is an ideal place to go. And lunch might be the ideal meal here if the Thursday we tried it is any indication. It was uncrowded, unhurried and serene.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>I ordered one of my favorites, a bento box – the Japanese version of a cafeteria tray, I guess you might say, with raw fish sashimi ($21). I was disappointed only that it didn’t arrive in an actual bento box, but rather on a giant plate, with various little plates containing the goodies nestled on top.</p>
<p>I chose tuna as my fish, and three large and succulent pink slices arrived atop a tangle of daikon radish threads. Alongside were just-wilted spinach, a seaweed salad and a heap of crisply fried vegetable tempura. It was a nice mix of textures and flavors.</p>
<p>The spinach, heated just past raw, was draped in a tahini dressing that was a nutty complement to what otherwise could be the blandest of dishes. The seaweed salad – by far my favorite – was slightly crunchy and dressed only lightly with a rice-wine vinaigrette.</p>
<p>I should have mentioned that soup – a minimalist bonito broth with miso (fermented soybean paste) and a scattering of tofu – came first. It, too, was tasty and best savored by sipping from the bowl.</p>
<p>As a sort of bonus, my sashimi came with a heap of vegetable tempura, at which Shohko excels. The batter was lighter than light and perfectly crisp. I tasted sweet potatoes – a tempura favorite.</p>
<p>Also a strip of sweet pepper, a couple of onion rings and a wedge of summer squash. And a lone shrimp (I could have added more at $1.50 apiece).</p>
<p>All were excellent, and accompanied by a broth-like and comparatively bland dipping sauce, as well as bright green (and very spicy-hot) wasabi horseradish and plain soy sauce.</p>
<p>My companion asked for a complete order of seafood tempura ($18) and was equally pleased. Calamari, scallops, shrimp, fish and crab were coated with the same light batter and hauled piping hot from the deep-fryer to the plate.</p>
<p>Alongside were more wasabi and soy sauce for dipping. We were impressed not just by the crispy and fresh coating, but also by the ingredients – my guest pounced on the calamari bits and the scallops, leaving the shrimp and fish to wait until round two of sampling.</p>
<p>Shohko has been open for 35 years, making it a veritable institution among Santa Fe restaurants. Yet, here we are, in another age altogether, and the intrigue remains.</p>
<p /> | Japanese restaurant Shohko Cafe intriguing, even after 35 years | false | https://abqjournal.com/862168/taming-the-craving.html | 2least
| Japanese restaurant Shohko Cafe intriguing, even after 35 years
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<p>Victor Matzir, a sushi chef at Shohko Cafe, makes a sashimi combination of yellowfin tuna and salmon during lunchtime. (Eddie Moore/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>Japanese food is simple food, compounded of a very few basic ingredients that combine for different, but subtly related, flavors.</p>
<p>There is none of the baroque exuberance of Thai food, or even the regional variations that lend so much variety to Chinese cuisine. Like its famous gardens and interiors, Japan’s food is restrained.</p>
<p>Still, I do get hungry for it. And, to assuage that craving, Shohko Cafe is an ideal place to go. And lunch might be the ideal meal here if the Thursday we tried it is any indication. It was uncrowded, unhurried and serene.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>I ordered one of my favorites, a bento box – the Japanese version of a cafeteria tray, I guess you might say, with raw fish sashimi ($21). I was disappointed only that it didn’t arrive in an actual bento box, but rather on a giant plate, with various little plates containing the goodies nestled on top.</p>
<p>I chose tuna as my fish, and three large and succulent pink slices arrived atop a tangle of daikon radish threads. Alongside were just-wilted spinach, a seaweed salad and a heap of crisply fried vegetable tempura. It was a nice mix of textures and flavors.</p>
<p>The spinach, heated just past raw, was draped in a tahini dressing that was a nutty complement to what otherwise could be the blandest of dishes. The seaweed salad – by far my favorite – was slightly crunchy and dressed only lightly with a rice-wine vinaigrette.</p>
<p>I should have mentioned that soup – a minimalist bonito broth with miso (fermented soybean paste) and a scattering of tofu – came first. It, too, was tasty and best savored by sipping from the bowl.</p>
<p>As a sort of bonus, my sashimi came with a heap of vegetable tempura, at which Shohko excels. The batter was lighter than light and perfectly crisp. I tasted sweet potatoes – a tempura favorite.</p>
<p>Also a strip of sweet pepper, a couple of onion rings and a wedge of summer squash. And a lone shrimp (I could have added more at $1.50 apiece).</p>
<p>All were excellent, and accompanied by a broth-like and comparatively bland dipping sauce, as well as bright green (and very spicy-hot) wasabi horseradish and plain soy sauce.</p>
<p>My companion asked for a complete order of seafood tempura ($18) and was equally pleased. Calamari, scallops, shrimp, fish and crab were coated with the same light batter and hauled piping hot from the deep-fryer to the plate.</p>
<p>Alongside were more wasabi and soy sauce for dipping. We were impressed not just by the crispy and fresh coating, but also by the ingredients – my guest pounced on the calamari bits and the scallops, leaving the shrimp and fish to wait until round two of sampling.</p>
<p>Shohko has been open for 35 years, making it a veritable institution among Santa Fe restaurants. Yet, here we are, in another age altogether, and the intrigue remains.</p>
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<p>So the Princeton-bound senior, seeded first in the 3A 3,200-meter run, is giving up her shot at back-to-back sweeps and instead is hoping to help her teammates break Cloudcroft's 7-year-old record in the medley relay.</p>
<p>"I'm running the medley with my team, so that will be fun," Bacon said. "I had the triple last year, and I don't like the 3,200 that much, and we finally have a team, a full team of girls, and I think we can do really well. I think we have a pretty good chance, but we'll see how it all falls out."</p>
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<p>Wildcats coach Terry Passalacqua said Bacon likes the idea of spreading the wealth with her teammates.</p>
<p>"She wants to take a shot at the state record; the kids want to take a shot at the state record in the medley," he said. "I think it's a pretty tough state record. But they have a pretty good shot at it. When four kids stand on the podium for the gold medal, if that's what happens, I think Taylor thinks that's a lot better than her winning another gold."</p>
<p>Besides, Passalacqua added, who knows how much difference three additional points may make.</p>
<p>"We think we can gain a few more points," he said. "If we're fighting for the state championship, obviously the relay is 10 points and her 3,200 would be seven. So we think we can gain a few points."</p>
<p>The team qualified as the top seed in 4 minutes, 44.16 seconds, despite using just two of the runners who will be in today's championship heat. Cloudcroft's record is 4:20.42.</p>
<p>"Three of the four girls that are going to be running the medley in the finals are going to be seniors and we're having the best year all of us have had so far, so we kind of want to take advantage of it and do the best we can with it," said fellow senior Tori Heath.</p>
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<p>But Bacon is the team's anchor.</p>
<p>"We rely a lot on Taylor," Heath said. "She is the most consistent person on our whole track team, and we try to do our best for her because we know even when we are far behind we know we can rely on her in really important times."</p>
<p>Also, Santa Fe Waldorf freshman Beatrice Lowe won the school's first-ever state title in any sport with a long jump of 16 feet, 2.5 inches.</p>
<p>"I'm happy about it, but I was not happy about my distance," she said. "Last year I took third, and I said then that I was going to win it this year. But I really wanted to get a (personal record) and I didn't get it."</p>
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<p />
<p>So the Princeton-bound senior, seeded first in the 3A 3,200-meter run, is giving up her shot at back-to-back sweeps and instead is hoping to help her teammates break Cloudcroft's 7-year-old record in the medley relay.</p>
<p>"I'm running the medley with my team, so that will be fun," Bacon said. "I had the triple last year, and I don't like the 3,200 that much, and we finally have a team, a full team of girls, and I think we can do really well. I think we have a pretty good chance, but we'll see how it all falls out."</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Wildcats coach Terry Passalacqua said Bacon likes the idea of spreading the wealth with her teammates.</p>
<p>"She wants to take a shot at the state record; the kids want to take a shot at the state record in the medley," he said. "I think it's a pretty tough state record. But they have a pretty good shot at it. When four kids stand on the podium for the gold medal, if that's what happens, I think Taylor thinks that's a lot better than her winning another gold."</p>
<p>Besides, Passalacqua added, who knows how much difference three additional points may make.</p>
<p>"We think we can gain a few more points," he said. "If we're fighting for the state championship, obviously the relay is 10 points and her 3,200 would be seven. So we think we can gain a few points."</p>
<p>The team qualified as the top seed in 4 minutes, 44.16 seconds, despite using just two of the runners who will be in today's championship heat. Cloudcroft's record is 4:20.42.</p>
<p>"Three of the four girls that are going to be running the medley in the finals are going to be seniors and we're having the best year all of us have had so far, so we kind of want to take advantage of it and do the best we can with it," said fellow senior Tori Heath.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>But Bacon is the team's anchor.</p>
<p>"We rely a lot on Taylor," Heath said. "She is the most consistent person on our whole track team, and we try to do our best for her because we know even when we are far behind we know we can rely on her in really important times."</p>
<p>Also, Santa Fe Waldorf freshman Beatrice Lowe won the school's first-ever state title in any sport with a long jump of 16 feet, 2.5 inches.</p>
<p>"I'm happy about it, but I was not happy about my distance," she said. "Last year I took third, and I said then that I was going to win it this year. But I really wanted to get a (personal record) and I didn't get it."</p>
<p />
<p /> | 3,248 |
|
<p>LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission says chronic wasting disease has been confirmed in three more counties in the state.</p>
<p>The commission said Tuesday that four deer taken by hunters in Benton, Sebastian and Washington counties tested positive for the disease that is deadly for animals such as deer, elk and moose.</p>
<p>Researchers have found no evidence the disease poses a serious risk to humans.</p>
<p>The disease has now been found in 10 counties in Arkansas since February 2016, with previous cases in north-central Arkansas. The new cases are in northwestern and west-central Arkansas.</p>
<p>The game and fish commission has asked hunters in various areas of the state to provide samples from their deer for testing.</p>
<p>LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission says chronic wasting disease has been confirmed in three more counties in the state.</p>
<p>The commission said Tuesday that four deer taken by hunters in Benton, Sebastian and Washington counties tested positive for the disease that is deadly for animals such as deer, elk and moose.</p>
<p>Researchers have found no evidence the disease poses a serious risk to humans.</p>
<p>The disease has now been found in 10 counties in Arkansas since February 2016, with previous cases in north-central Arkansas. The new cases are in northwestern and west-central Arkansas.</p>
<p>The game and fish commission has asked hunters in various areas of the state to provide samples from their deer for testing.</p> | Chronic wasting disease found in 3 more Arkansas counties | false | https://apnews.com/1333dc0d15314891a56fd3d5f5c78542 | 2018-01-09 | 2least
| Chronic wasting disease found in 3 more Arkansas counties
<p>LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission says chronic wasting disease has been confirmed in three more counties in the state.</p>
<p>The commission said Tuesday that four deer taken by hunters in Benton, Sebastian and Washington counties tested positive for the disease that is deadly for animals such as deer, elk and moose.</p>
<p>Researchers have found no evidence the disease poses a serious risk to humans.</p>
<p>The disease has now been found in 10 counties in Arkansas since February 2016, with previous cases in north-central Arkansas. The new cases are in northwestern and west-central Arkansas.</p>
<p>The game and fish commission has asked hunters in various areas of the state to provide samples from their deer for testing.</p>
<p>LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission says chronic wasting disease has been confirmed in three more counties in the state.</p>
<p>The commission said Tuesday that four deer taken by hunters in Benton, Sebastian and Washington counties tested positive for the disease that is deadly for animals such as deer, elk and moose.</p>
<p>Researchers have found no evidence the disease poses a serious risk to humans.</p>
<p>The disease has now been found in 10 counties in Arkansas since February 2016, with previous cases in north-central Arkansas. The new cases are in northwestern and west-central Arkansas.</p>
<p>The game and fish commission has asked hunters in various areas of the state to provide samples from their deer for testing.</p> | 3,249 |
<p>For those of us who were until recently more sympathetic to <a href="http://www.antarsya.gr/" type="external">Antarsya</a>, the “other” coalition on Greece’s radical left, it is salutary to reflect on how well Syriza has done in the last month, and how poorly Antarsya has done by comparison.</p>
<p>The justification for Antarsya’s separate existence goes something like the following: Antarsya, unlike Syriza, is a coalition of the parties that believe Greece can only be saved by a revolutionary transformation of the state. Syriza, unlike Antarsya, equivocates on this issue, and on the connected questions of whether the Greek government should remain in Europe or whether it should agree to pay any of the debt to its international creditors.</p>
<p>Those who vote for Antarsya are voting for a revolutionary alternative to capitalism and, in so doing, they keep alive the possibility of a revolutionary politics. Syriza, by contrast, is merely reformist, and likely to be every bit&#160;as&#160; <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/26/greece-claims-of-far-left-victory-are-nonsense" type="external">shabby</a>&#160;in government as Pasok and other social-democratic parties.</p>
<p>In the last election, Antarsya’s vote total was squeezed to just 0.6%&#160;since&#160;it&#160;became a referendum on the possibility of a left-wing government (which most politicized workers want), but by standing Antarsya has kept pressure on Syriza from the left. Its stance outside Syriza has all the benefits of being associated with a rising movement (the sales of&#160;Workers’ Solidarity, the newspaper of one of Antarsya’s affiliates, have apparently never been&#160; <a href="http://socialistworker.co.uk/art/39788/Left+gains+in+Greece+as+rulers+fail+to+panic+voters" type="external">so high</a>), but none of the disadvantages of being associated with Syriza’s defeat,&#160;when&#160;that disappointment inevitably comes.</p>
<p>Where&#160;this justification of Antarsya begins to fall down is with the assumption that the best alternative to a program of reform is to offer a rival program of greater reforms. In this revolutionaries are different from reformists principally in that they ask for more. So Syriza offered Greek nationality to the children of all migrants; and, like a poker player, Antarsya “raised” them by offering to&#160; <a href="http://antarsya-uk.co.uk/2015/01/20/in-the-greek-elections-of-the-25th-january-we-support-and-vote-for-antarsya-mars/" type="external">legalize</a> all immigrants in Greece.&#160;Syriza said that it would stop all the planned&#160;privatizations; Antarsya’s reply was to say it would undo every privatization in Greek history.</p>
<p>But using elections to make revolutionaries is not about outbidding your rival. It involves an&#160;explanation both of how&#160;any government under capitalism has only limited power, and how those limits can be overcome (only through a direct&#160;conflict with the international capitalist class).</p>
<p>It is at this point that Syriza comes across&#160;as politically more sophisticated than Antarsya, because it had an&#160; <a href="" type="internal">analysis</a>&#160;of its own limits as a reforming government (the European powers will not allow us to write off more than&#160;a small portion of our debt), and an idea of how to get beyond that limit (on the basis of agitation from outside parliament keeping pressure on the government, and on the basis of support from the Left outside Greece).</p>
<p>Insofar as they have a political strategy to deal with the problem of Syriza, Antarysa’s most articulate supporters are hoarding every example of Syriza’s betrayal, and counterposing to them the potential virtues of protest. The openings for a left-wing government in Greece are said to operate solely in relationship to the success of social&#160;movements. The reason why the Greeks&#160;have Syriza,&#160;it follows, while the British left has no mass left alternative to the Labour Party, is that we only had the public sector pension battle while they&#160;have had&#160;thirty-two&#160; <a href="http://socialistworker.co.uk/art/39884/Syriza+and+the+state" type="external">general strikes</a>.</p>
<p>But where is the mass movement supposed to come from that will rise in such a direct and continuous fashion that it will be powerful enough to overcome the state? Syriza’s fault is said to be that it, like other reformist governments, is&#160;continually conspiring to demobilize the mass movements by telling the workers to vote when they should&#160;be protesting.</p>
<p>Yet all of us who are watching Greece can see for ourselves — admittedly only in its first two weeks, and so far during a honeymoon period — that Syriza has not been demobilizing the movements, but instead opening new possibilities for them to emerge: by taking down the barriers outside parliament, with the&#160; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtX2C8U76zY" type="external">demonstrations</a>&#160;in support of their&#160;attempts to renegotiate the debt, and by the propaganda of sending ministers around Europe and demanding that the debt be renegotiated.</p>
<p>It’s the parliamentary version&#160;of the trade union official you always wanted to have, the one who actually enjoyed a fight with the bosses and did not back down at the first sign of trouble. And people respond to a fighter: so far, the Syriza&#160;government is giving further confidence to the social movements.</p>
<p>Subject to the iron law that the global capitalist class has not simply renounced its hegemony in the face of a localized threat, neither will it, and therefore the big battles all lie ahead — Antarsya’s global supporters were&#160; <a href="http://www.isj.org.uk/?id=953" type="external">wrong</a>, and Syriza’s international admirers were&#160; <a href="https://edrooksby.wordpress.com/2015/01/05/a-rejoinder-to-paul-blackledge-on-left-reformism/" type="external">right</a>&#160;to challenge them when the former predicted that Syriza would respond to power only by becoming increasingly moderate.</p>
<p>The final assumption that underpins Antarsya’s supporters is that the working class in Greece has an infinite set of opportunities and that if it should miss this one, that would not matter, since at another stage in the future another party would doubtless emerge on the Left, which would be based on different people from different traditions, and would therefore be well placed to carry on the previously absent revolutionary war against the state.</p>
<p>Should Syriza fail, it will not be simply politics as usual.&#160;The police and&#160;Golden Dawn will be jubilant,&#160;and their revenge on the movements will be no more tolerant than the counter-revolution now at work in Egypt. This is an outcome that no socialist should find acceptable.</p> | Change the World by Taking Power | true | https://jacobinmag.com/2015/02/antarsya-syriza-greek-left/ | 2018-10-07 | 4left
| Change the World by Taking Power
<p>For those of us who were until recently more sympathetic to <a href="http://www.antarsya.gr/" type="external">Antarsya</a>, the “other” coalition on Greece’s radical left, it is salutary to reflect on how well Syriza has done in the last month, and how poorly Antarsya has done by comparison.</p>
<p>The justification for Antarsya’s separate existence goes something like the following: Antarsya, unlike Syriza, is a coalition of the parties that believe Greece can only be saved by a revolutionary transformation of the state. Syriza, unlike Antarsya, equivocates on this issue, and on the connected questions of whether the Greek government should remain in Europe or whether it should agree to pay any of the debt to its international creditors.</p>
<p>Those who vote for Antarsya are voting for a revolutionary alternative to capitalism and, in so doing, they keep alive the possibility of a revolutionary politics. Syriza, by contrast, is merely reformist, and likely to be every bit&#160;as&#160; <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/26/greece-claims-of-far-left-victory-are-nonsense" type="external">shabby</a>&#160;in government as Pasok and other social-democratic parties.</p>
<p>In the last election, Antarsya’s vote total was squeezed to just 0.6%&#160;since&#160;it&#160;became a referendum on the possibility of a left-wing government (which most politicized workers want), but by standing Antarsya has kept pressure on Syriza from the left. Its stance outside Syriza has all the benefits of being associated with a rising movement (the sales of&#160;Workers’ Solidarity, the newspaper of one of Antarsya’s affiliates, have apparently never been&#160; <a href="http://socialistworker.co.uk/art/39788/Left+gains+in+Greece+as+rulers+fail+to+panic+voters" type="external">so high</a>), but none of the disadvantages of being associated with Syriza’s defeat,&#160;when&#160;that disappointment inevitably comes.</p>
<p>Where&#160;this justification of Antarsya begins to fall down is with the assumption that the best alternative to a program of reform is to offer a rival program of greater reforms. In this revolutionaries are different from reformists principally in that they ask for more. So Syriza offered Greek nationality to the children of all migrants; and, like a poker player, Antarsya “raised” them by offering to&#160; <a href="http://antarsya-uk.co.uk/2015/01/20/in-the-greek-elections-of-the-25th-january-we-support-and-vote-for-antarsya-mars/" type="external">legalize</a> all immigrants in Greece.&#160;Syriza said that it would stop all the planned&#160;privatizations; Antarsya’s reply was to say it would undo every privatization in Greek history.</p>
<p>But using elections to make revolutionaries is not about outbidding your rival. It involves an&#160;explanation both of how&#160;any government under capitalism has only limited power, and how those limits can be overcome (only through a direct&#160;conflict with the international capitalist class).</p>
<p>It is at this point that Syriza comes across&#160;as politically more sophisticated than Antarsya, because it had an&#160; <a href="" type="internal">analysis</a>&#160;of its own limits as a reforming government (the European powers will not allow us to write off more than&#160;a small portion of our debt), and an idea of how to get beyond that limit (on the basis of agitation from outside parliament keeping pressure on the government, and on the basis of support from the Left outside Greece).</p>
<p>Insofar as they have a political strategy to deal with the problem of Syriza, Antarysa’s most articulate supporters are hoarding every example of Syriza’s betrayal, and counterposing to them the potential virtues of protest. The openings for a left-wing government in Greece are said to operate solely in relationship to the success of social&#160;movements. The reason why the Greeks&#160;have Syriza,&#160;it follows, while the British left has no mass left alternative to the Labour Party, is that we only had the public sector pension battle while they&#160;have had&#160;thirty-two&#160; <a href="http://socialistworker.co.uk/art/39884/Syriza+and+the+state" type="external">general strikes</a>.</p>
<p>But where is the mass movement supposed to come from that will rise in such a direct and continuous fashion that it will be powerful enough to overcome the state? Syriza’s fault is said to be that it, like other reformist governments, is&#160;continually conspiring to demobilize the mass movements by telling the workers to vote when they should&#160;be protesting.</p>
<p>Yet all of us who are watching Greece can see for ourselves — admittedly only in its first two weeks, and so far during a honeymoon period — that Syriza has not been demobilizing the movements, but instead opening new possibilities for them to emerge: by taking down the barriers outside parliament, with the&#160; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtX2C8U76zY" type="external">demonstrations</a>&#160;in support of their&#160;attempts to renegotiate the debt, and by the propaganda of sending ministers around Europe and demanding that the debt be renegotiated.</p>
<p>It’s the parliamentary version&#160;of the trade union official you always wanted to have, the one who actually enjoyed a fight with the bosses and did not back down at the first sign of trouble. And people respond to a fighter: so far, the Syriza&#160;government is giving further confidence to the social movements.</p>
<p>Subject to the iron law that the global capitalist class has not simply renounced its hegemony in the face of a localized threat, neither will it, and therefore the big battles all lie ahead — Antarsya’s global supporters were&#160; <a href="http://www.isj.org.uk/?id=953" type="external">wrong</a>, and Syriza’s international admirers were&#160; <a href="https://edrooksby.wordpress.com/2015/01/05/a-rejoinder-to-paul-blackledge-on-left-reformism/" type="external">right</a>&#160;to challenge them when the former predicted that Syriza would respond to power only by becoming increasingly moderate.</p>
<p>The final assumption that underpins Antarsya’s supporters is that the working class in Greece has an infinite set of opportunities and that if it should miss this one, that would not matter, since at another stage in the future another party would doubtless emerge on the Left, which would be based on different people from different traditions, and would therefore be well placed to carry on the previously absent revolutionary war against the state.</p>
<p>Should Syriza fail, it will not be simply politics as usual.&#160;The police and&#160;Golden Dawn will be jubilant,&#160;and their revenge on the movements will be no more tolerant than the counter-revolution now at work in Egypt. This is an outcome that no socialist should find acceptable.</p> | 3,250 |
<p>An attorney who oversaw Donald Trump’s income tax returns in the mid-1990s said the Republican presidential candidate had little interest in the tax code — contrasting with the billionaire's claim that he understood taxes "better than anyone" who had run for the White House.</p>
<p>“As far as I know, and that only goes through late '96, he didn't understand the code,” said Jack Mitnick, a former tax adviser for Trump, in an interview with NBC's TODAY. "Nor would he have had the time and the patience to learn the provisions. That's a lifetime of experience.”</p>
<p>Mitnick oversaw Trump’s income tax returns in 1995, portions of which were published Saturday by the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-taxes.html?smid=tw-nytimes&amp;smtyp=cur&amp;_r=0" type="external">New York Times</a>. The documents showed a reported loss of nearly $916 million — a deduction tax experts hired by the newspaper said was so large that Trump might have legally avoided paying federal income taxes for up to 18 years.</p>
<p>Trump responded to the report on Twitter: "I know our complex tax laws better than anyone who has ever run for president and am the only one who can fix them” — a stance he has <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/10/03/trump_as_a_beneficiary_of_broken_tax_system_i_am_the_one_that_can_truly_fix_it.html" type="external">repeated</a> on the campaign trail.</p>
<p>Mitnick, however, told the TODAY show Tuesday that Trump was “not at all” involved in the 1995 filing.</p>
<p>“He was interested in the bottom line, not the detail,” Mitnick said. "Staff under my supervision did his returns - he had no involvement in the preparation."</p>
<p>Mitnick, a CPA and attorney who did taxes for Trump from the 1960s to 1996, said that when Trump was married to Ivana, she was the one more likely to ask questions about how the taxes were prepared. Mitnick said that Trump's father Fred was very detail-oriented, while the younger Trump was more of a "concept" man.</p>
<p>"He knew that we would produce the lowest possible tax for him within the law. And he never went into the details," said Mitnick, who said it took him six months to prepare Trump's taxes. "He understood that he had to rely on us to generate the returns, that it was beyond his knowledge."</p>
<p>There is nothing in the Times report to say whether Trump used tax rules to avoid paying any federal income taxes following the 1995 filing.</p>
<p>Mitnick said all of the documents published by the Times appeared authentic, but did not confirm whether Trump used his business losses to offset personal income taxes in 1995 or the years that followed.</p>
<p>“That's a conclusion you have to draw for yourself. I won't comment on that,” he said.</p>
<p>He added: "You're making a false assumption. You're assuming that the loss was generated in '95. Without the detailed schedules from a return, I can't even tell you of my own knowledge, when the loss arose."</p>
<p>He also criticized the Times for "extrapolating" that Trump could have avoided taxes for nearly two decades. "it was impossible for anyone looking at one page out of the '95 tax return to extrapolate forward and say that for 20 years he wouldn't have paid any tax."</p>
<p>Mitnick said that he and his accounting staff acted “in accordance with the law and regulations” to yield the lowest possible taxes for Trump.</p>
<p>“I thought it was wrong from a philosophical standpoint,” said Mitnick. “But it was the law. It’s what Congress enacted. We would be derelict in doing our duty if we didn't use it."</p>
<p>He added: "There are all kinds of provisions in the tax code that favor one group or another. And, by definition, they're unfair to all the others."</p>
<p>The Trump campaign said in a statement late Saturday that Trump “has a fiduciary responsibility to his business, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required.”</p>
<p>The campaign added: “Mr. Trump has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes, sales and excise taxes, real estate taxes, city taxes, state taxes, employee taxes and federal taxes.”</p>
<p>Trump supporters Rudy Giuliani and Chris Christie on Sunday said the Times report, and subsequent speculation that the businessman may have used the tax code to not pay federal income taxes for up to 18 years, shows Trump is a “genius” and the best person to implement tax reform.</p>
<p>Yet Democratic rival Hillary Clinton and her supporters have used the report and the fact that Trump has so far refused to release his tax returns as a line of attack, questioning whether the businessman has something to hide.</p>
<p>Clinton’s running mate, Tim Kaine, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kaine-rips-trump-avoiding-taxes_us_57f40440e4b04c71d6f07a8f" type="external">pointed</a> to the issue of tax returns on several occasions to attack Trump in Tuesday’s vice presidential debate.</p>
<p>Trump’s running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, said at the debate that Trump was experiencing a difficult time in his business and “used the tax the way it's supposed to be used.”</p> | Trump Tax Attorney: ‘He Didn’t Understand the Code’ | false | http://nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/trump-tax-attorney-he-didn-t-understand-code-n660111 | 2016-10-05 | 3left-center
| Trump Tax Attorney: ‘He Didn’t Understand the Code’
<p>An attorney who oversaw Donald Trump’s income tax returns in the mid-1990s said the Republican presidential candidate had little interest in the tax code — contrasting with the billionaire's claim that he understood taxes "better than anyone" who had run for the White House.</p>
<p>“As far as I know, and that only goes through late '96, he didn't understand the code,” said Jack Mitnick, a former tax adviser for Trump, in an interview with NBC's TODAY. "Nor would he have had the time and the patience to learn the provisions. That's a lifetime of experience.”</p>
<p>Mitnick oversaw Trump’s income tax returns in 1995, portions of which were published Saturday by the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-taxes.html?smid=tw-nytimes&amp;smtyp=cur&amp;_r=0" type="external">New York Times</a>. The documents showed a reported loss of nearly $916 million — a deduction tax experts hired by the newspaper said was so large that Trump might have legally avoided paying federal income taxes for up to 18 years.</p>
<p>Trump responded to the report on Twitter: "I know our complex tax laws better than anyone who has ever run for president and am the only one who can fix them” — a stance he has <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/10/03/trump_as_a_beneficiary_of_broken_tax_system_i_am_the_one_that_can_truly_fix_it.html" type="external">repeated</a> on the campaign trail.</p>
<p>Mitnick, however, told the TODAY show Tuesday that Trump was “not at all” involved in the 1995 filing.</p>
<p>“He was interested in the bottom line, not the detail,” Mitnick said. "Staff under my supervision did his returns - he had no involvement in the preparation."</p>
<p>Mitnick, a CPA and attorney who did taxes for Trump from the 1960s to 1996, said that when Trump was married to Ivana, she was the one more likely to ask questions about how the taxes were prepared. Mitnick said that Trump's father Fred was very detail-oriented, while the younger Trump was more of a "concept" man.</p>
<p>"He knew that we would produce the lowest possible tax for him within the law. And he never went into the details," said Mitnick, who said it took him six months to prepare Trump's taxes. "He understood that he had to rely on us to generate the returns, that it was beyond his knowledge."</p>
<p>There is nothing in the Times report to say whether Trump used tax rules to avoid paying any federal income taxes following the 1995 filing.</p>
<p>Mitnick said all of the documents published by the Times appeared authentic, but did not confirm whether Trump used his business losses to offset personal income taxes in 1995 or the years that followed.</p>
<p>“That's a conclusion you have to draw for yourself. I won't comment on that,” he said.</p>
<p>He added: "You're making a false assumption. You're assuming that the loss was generated in '95. Without the detailed schedules from a return, I can't even tell you of my own knowledge, when the loss arose."</p>
<p>He also criticized the Times for "extrapolating" that Trump could have avoided taxes for nearly two decades. "it was impossible for anyone looking at one page out of the '95 tax return to extrapolate forward and say that for 20 years he wouldn't have paid any tax."</p>
<p>Mitnick said that he and his accounting staff acted “in accordance with the law and regulations” to yield the lowest possible taxes for Trump.</p>
<p>“I thought it was wrong from a philosophical standpoint,” said Mitnick. “But it was the law. It’s what Congress enacted. We would be derelict in doing our duty if we didn't use it."</p>
<p>He added: "There are all kinds of provisions in the tax code that favor one group or another. And, by definition, they're unfair to all the others."</p>
<p>The Trump campaign said in a statement late Saturday that Trump “has a fiduciary responsibility to his business, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required.”</p>
<p>The campaign added: “Mr. Trump has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes, sales and excise taxes, real estate taxes, city taxes, state taxes, employee taxes and federal taxes.”</p>
<p>Trump supporters Rudy Giuliani and Chris Christie on Sunday said the Times report, and subsequent speculation that the businessman may have used the tax code to not pay federal income taxes for up to 18 years, shows Trump is a “genius” and the best person to implement tax reform.</p>
<p>Yet Democratic rival Hillary Clinton and her supporters have used the report and the fact that Trump has so far refused to release his tax returns as a line of attack, questioning whether the businessman has something to hide.</p>
<p>Clinton’s running mate, Tim Kaine, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kaine-rips-trump-avoiding-taxes_us_57f40440e4b04c71d6f07a8f" type="external">pointed</a> to the issue of tax returns on several occasions to attack Trump in Tuesday’s vice presidential debate.</p>
<p>Trump’s running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, said at the debate that Trump was experiencing a difficult time in his business and “used the tax the way it's supposed to be used.”</p> | 3,251 |
<p>US Marines and Ghananian military during a joint training exercise in Senegal, June 2014. &lt;a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/usarmyafrica/14474319246/"&gt;Donna Davis&lt;/a&gt;/Flickr</p>
<p>This <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175875/" type="external">story</a> first appeared on the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch</a> website.</p>
<p>Juba, South Sudan—Is this country the first hot battlefield in a new cold war? Is the conflict tearing this new nation apart actually a proxy fight between the world’s two top economic and military powers? That’s the way South Sudan’s Information Minister <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&amp;v=ZOz60Kc9gdc" type="external">Michael Makuei Lueth</a> tells it. After “midwifing” South Sudan into existence with billions of dollars in assistance, aid, infrastructure projects, and military support, the US has <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201405161485.html" type="external">watched</a> China emerge as the major beneficiary of South Sudan’s oil reserves. As a result, Makuei claims, <a href="http://nyamile.com/2014/05/16/south-sudan-america-wants-our-oil-support-rebels-makuei/" type="external">the US</a> and other <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201405161485.html" type="external">Western powers</a> have <a href="http://nyamile.com/2014/05/16/south-sudan-america-wants-our-oil-support-rebels-makuei/" type="external">backed</a> former vice president Riek Machar and his rebel forces in an effort to overthrow the country’s president, Salva Kiir. China, for its part, has played a conspicuous double game. Beijing has <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-08/norinco-sells-south-sudan-arms-as-chinese-government-talks-peace.html" type="external">lined up</a> behind Kiir, even as it publicly <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/06/05/uk-southsudan-china-insight-idUKKBN0EG01Z20140605" type="external">pushes</a> both sides to find a diplomatic solution to a simmering civil war. It is sending peacekeepers as part of the U.N. mission even as it also <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201407180950.html" type="external">arms</a> Kiir’s forces with tens of millions of dollars worth of new weapons.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com" type="external" /></p>
<p>While experts dismiss Makuei’s scenario—”farfetched” is how one analyst puts it—there are average South Sudanese who also believe that Washington supports the rebels. The US certainly did press Kiir’s government to make concessions, as his supporters are quick to remind anyone willing to listen, pushing it to <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/30/us-al-southsudan-unrest-usa-idUSBREA0T11D20140130" type="external">release</a> senior political figures detained as coup plotters shortly after fighting broke out in late 2013. &#160;America, they say, cared more about a handful of elites sitting in jail than all the South Sudanese suffering in a civil war that has now <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/south-sudan-peace-talks-reach-apparent-breakthrough-1402473616" type="external">claimed</a> more than 10,000 lives, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-27770340" type="external">resulted</a> in mass rapes, displaced more than <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=3&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0CCYQFjAC&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Fworld-africa-28209014&amp;ei=vKnLU6umLPGu7Aakp4CYBQ&amp;usg=AFQjCNFPRyCIrqblsnH--yQNknMJP9m2yQ&amp;sig2=7UBZRm6djmgsJ76ClBtVnw&amp;bvm=bv.7119" type="external">1.5 million people</a> (around half of them <a href="http://reliefweb.int/report/south-sudan/unicef-south-sudan-humanitarian-situation-report-25-reporting-period-27-may-03" type="external">children</a>), and <a href="http://www.fao.org/emergencies/resources/videos/video-detail/en/c/237054/" type="external">pushed</a> the country to the very brink of <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201406070014.html" type="external">famine</a>. Opponents of Kiir are, however, quick to mention the significant quantities of Chinese weaponry <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201407180950.html" type="external">flooding</a> into the country. They ask why the United States hasn’t put pressure on a president they no longer see as legitimate.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>While <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/01/23/the-usa-v-china-in-south-sudan/" type="external">few</a> outside South Sudan would ascribe to Makuei’s notion of a direct East-West proxy war here, his conspiracy theory should, at least, serve as a reminder that US and Chinese interests are at play in this war-torn nation and across Africa as a whole—and that Africans are taking note. Almost anywhere you look on the continent, you can now find evidence of both the American and the Chinese presence, although they take quite different forms. The Chinese are pursuing a ruthlessly pragmatic economic power-projection strategy with an emphasis on targeted multilateral interventions in African conflicts. &#160;US policy, in contrast, appears both more muddled and more military-centric, with a heavy focus on counterterrorism efforts meant to bolster amorphous strategic interests.&#160;</p>
<p>For the last decade, China has used “soft power”— <a href="http://www.focac.org/eng/zt/1_1/t1154202.htm" type="external">aid</a>, trade, and infrastructure projects—to make major inroads on the continent. In the process, it has set itself up as the dominant foreign player here. The US, on the other hand, increasingly confronts Africa as a “ <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175743/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_africom%27s_gigantic_%22small_footprint%22" type="external">battlefield</a>” or “ <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/15/magazine/can-general-linders-special-operations-forces-stop-the-next-terrorist-threat.html?_r=0" type="external">battleground</a>” or “ <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175830/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_africom_becomes_a_%22war-fighting_combatant_command%22" type="external">war</a>” in the words of the men running its operations. In recent years, there has been a substantial surge in US <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175823/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_america%27s_non-stop_ops_in_africa" type="external">military activities</a> of every sort, including the setting up of <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175743/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_africom%27s_gigantic_%22small_footprint%22" type="external">military outposts</a> and both <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175831/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_the_pentagon%2C_libya%2C_and_tomorrow%27s_blowback_today" type="external">direct</a> and <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175818/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_american_proxy_wars_in_africa" type="external">proxy interventions</a>. These two approaches have produced starkly contrasting results for the powers involved and the rising nations of the continent. Which one triumphs may have profound implications for all parties in the years ahead. The differences are, perhaps, nowhere as stark as in the world’s newest nation, South Sudan. &#160;</p>
<p>A Midwife’s Tale</p>
<p>Starting in the 1980s, the efforts of an eclectic, bipartisan collection of American supporters— <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/07/11/us-south-sudan-midwives-idUSBRE86A0GC20120711" type="external">Washington activists</a>, <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/07/11/us-south-sudan-midwives-idUSBRE86A0GC20120711" type="external">evangelical Christians</a>, influential Congressional representatives, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14050504" type="external">celebrities</a>, a rising <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/07/11/us-south-sudan-midwives-idUSBRE86A0GC20120711" type="external">State Department</a> star, a presidential administration focused on regime change and nation-building, and another that picked up the mantle—helped bring South Sudan into existence. “ <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-obama-is-losing-south-sudan/2014/01/10/4b8a046e-78d7-11e3-af7f-13bf0e9965f6_story.html" type="external">Midwife</a>” was the word then-chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee John Kerry chose to describe the process.</p>
<p>In recent years, no country in Africa has received as much <a href="https://opencrs.com/document/R42774/2012-10-05/download/1005/" type="external">Congressional attention</a>. And on July 9, 2011, South Sudan’s Independence Day, President Barack Obama released a <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/07/09/statement-president-barack-obama-recognition-republic-south-sudan" type="external">stirring statement</a>. “I am confident that the bonds of friendship between South Sudan and the United States will only deepen in the years to come. As Southern Sudanese undertake the hard work of building their new country, the United States pledges our partnership as they seek the security, development, and responsive governance that can fulfill their aspirations and respect their human rights.”</p>
<p>As the new nation broke away from Sudan after decades of bloody civil war, the US <a href="http://www.usaid.gov/news-information/speeches/remarks-usaid-deputy-administrator-donald-k-steinberg-congressional-black" type="external">poured</a> in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/04/us/politics/us-is-facing-hard-choices-in-south-sudan.html?_r=0" type="external">billions</a> of dollars in <a href="http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/171718.htm" type="external">humanitarian aid</a> and <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/03/13/141703/in-south-sudans-violence-us-backed.html" type="external">pumped</a> in hundreds of <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0CCAQFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fas.org%2Fsgp%2Fcrs%2Frow%2FR43344.pdf&amp;ei=EICQU4a2CrLQsQT5_YDoDw&amp;usg=AFQjCNGSn8hE0YiE1-bkK9SRBycrxWGFYA&amp;bvm=bv.68235269,d.cWc" type="external">millions</a> of dollars of military and security assistance. It also <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/06/south-sudan-conflict-us-john-kerry" type="external">invested</a> heavily in governmental institutions, and <a href="http://www.usaid.gov/south-sudan/economic-growth-and-trade" type="external">built</a> infrastructure (constructing or repairing roads and bridges). It sent military instructors to <a href="http://www.gettyimages.no/detail/news-photo/special-forces-soldier-instructs-south-sudanese-commandos-news-photo/480421459" type="external">train</a> the country’s armed forces and advisors to <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303465004579324240269459308" type="external">mentor</a> government officials. It helped to <a href="http://translations.state.gov/st/english/texttrans/2011/12/20111213174634su0.1356121.html" type="external">beef up</a> the education sector, worked to <a href="http://translations.state.gov/st/english/texttrans/2011/12/20111213174634su0.1356121.html" type="external">facilitate</a> economic development and <a href="http://www.opic.gov/press-releases/2013/opic-south-sudan-sign-investment-agreement" type="external">American investment</a>, and <a href="http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE82P0AT20120326?feedType=RSS&amp;feedName=topNews&amp;sp=true" type="external">opened</a> the US market to duty-free South Sudanese imports.</p>
<p>The new nation, it was hoped, would bolster US national security interests by injecting a heavy dose of democracy into the heart of Africa, while promoting political stability and good governance. Specifically, it was to serve as a democratic bulwark against Sudan and its president, Omar al-Bashir, who had once <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303465004579324240269459308" type="external">harbored</a> Osama bin Laden and is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity in that country’s Darfur region.</p>
<p>When South Sudan broke away, it took much of Sudan’s oil wealth with it, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303465004579324240269459308" type="external">becoming</a> sub-Saharan Africa’s third-largest oil producer behind Nigeria and Angola. In taking those resources out of Bashir’s hands, it offered the promise of more energy stability in Africa. It was even expected to serve Washington’s military aims—and soon, the US began <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/kony-2013-us-quietly-intensifies-effort-to-help-african-troops-capture-infamous-warlord/2013/10/28/74db9720-3cb3-11e3-b6a9-da62c264f40e_story.html" type="external">employing</a> South Sudanese troops as proxies in a quest to destroy Joseph Kony and his murderous Lord’s Resistance Army.</p>
<p>That was the dream, at least. But like Washington’s regime change and nation-building projects in Iraq and Afghanistan, things soon started going very, very wrong. Today, South Sudan’s armed forces are little more than a collection of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/01/07/preventing-civil-war-in-south-sudan/south-sudan-needs-a-more-robust-international-commitment" type="external">competing militias</a> that have <a href="http://library.fundforpeace.org/fsi14-southsudan" type="external">fractured</a> along ethnic lines and turned on each other. The country’s <a href="http://www.voanews.com/content/south-sudan-parliament-grinds-to-a-halt/1944847.html" type="external">political institutions</a> and <a href="http://www.catholic.org/news/international/africa/story.php?id=56154" type="external">economy</a> are in shambles, its oil production (which accounts for about 90% of government revenue) is crippled, <a href="http://www.state.gov/e/eb/rls/othr/ics/2013/204855.htm" type="external">corruption</a> goes <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/12/south-sudan-declares-itself-open-business-2013121163038495720.html" type="external">unchecked</a>, towns have been <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/s-sudan-rebels-say-uganda-mercenaries-hurt-peace" type="external">looted</a> and <a href="http://www.voanews.com/content/south-sudan-malakal-deserted-destroyed-fighting-oxfam/1858905.html" type="external">leveled</a> during recent fighting, the nation is mired in a massive humanitarian crisis, famine looms, and inter-ethnic relations may have been irreparably damaged. &#160;</p>
<p>The China Syndrome</p>
<p>During the years when America was helping bring South Sudan into existence, another world power also took an interest in the country—and a very different tack when it came to its development. After having <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-25654155" type="external">invested</a> a reported $20 billion in Sudan—a country long on the US <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/02/us-usa-sudan-sanctions-idUSBRE8A119Q20121102" type="external">sanctions</a> blacklist—China watched as the new nation of South Sudan <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/china-middle-south-sudans-biggest-oil-importer-learns-wield-its-clout-1568133" type="external">claimed</a> about 75% of its oil fields. In 2012, newly inaugurated South Sudanese President Salva Kiir traveled to China where he sipped champagne with then-President <a href="http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjb_663304/zzjg_663340/xybfs_663590/xwlb_663592/t926468.shtml" type="external">Hu Jintao</a> and reportedly <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-25654155" type="external">secured</a> a pledge of $8 billion to build up his country’s infrastructure and support its oil sector. (A top Chinese envoy later dismissed reports of such a sum, but hinted that China was willing to make <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/14/us-china-sudan-south-idUSBRE92D0JD20130314" type="external">even greater investments</a> in the country if it achieved a lasting peace with its northern neighbor.)</p>
<p>Two years later, the China National Petroleum Corporation, with a <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Ur2KZkFrxvMJ:thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/06/15/un_peacekeepers_to_protect_chinas_oil_interests_in_south_sudan+&amp;cd=6&amp;hl=en&amp;ct=clnk&amp;gl=us" type="external">40% stake</a>, <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/china-middle-south-sudans-biggest-oil-importer-learns-wield-its-clout-1568133" type="external">is</a> now the largest shareholder in the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company, the top oil consortium in South Sudan. It also <a href="http://www.trust.org/item/?map=factbox-sudan-and-south-sudan-oil-payment-dispute" type="external">leads</a> another important consortium, the Greater Pioneer Operating Company. During the first 10 months of 2013, China <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-25654155" type="external">imported</a> nearly 14 million barrels of oil from South Sudan. That adds up to about <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/china-middle-south-sudans-biggest-oil-importer-learns-wield-its-clout-1568133" type="external">77%</a> of the country’s crude oil output and twice as much as China <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-25654155" type="external">imports</a> from energy-rich Nigeria. While South Sudanese oil accounts for only about <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/06/05/uk-southsudan-china-insight-idUKKBN0EG01Z20140605" type="external">5%</a> of China’s total petroleum imports, the country has nonetheless provided Beijing with a new African partner. This was especially useful as a US and NATO intervention in Libya in 2011 created chaotic conditions, causing China to <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-25654155" type="external">suffer</a> heavy losses ($20 billion according to Chinese sources) in various energy and other projects in that country.</p>
<p>“At the end of the day, China’s main interest is stability so that they can function on a commercial basis. And to achieve that stability they’ve had to get more involved on the political side,” says Cameron Hudson, director for African affairs on the staff of the National Security Council at the White House from 2005 to 2009. “They have a very large presence in Juba and are doing a lot of business beyond the oil sector.”</p>
<p>In fact, just days before South Sudan plunged into civil war late last year, the deep-pocketed Export-Import Bank of China was reportedly preparing to offer the country $2 billion in loans and credit to build six key roads— <a href="http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-south-sudan-economy-20140220-story.html" type="external">including</a> a 1,500-mile highway to link the capital, Juba, with Sudan’s main port—crucial bridges across the Nile River, schools and hospitals in every county, a hydropower plant, a government conference center, and a <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2014/03/interactive-china-african-spending-spree-2014320121349799136.html" type="external">staple</a> of Chinese construction schemes in Africa, a stadium.</p>
<p>Recently, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/xinhua-news-agency/140701/china-south-sudan-further-reciprocal-cooperation" type="external">promised</a> to expand cooperation with South Sudan in trade, agriculture, construction of infrastructure, and energy. Meanwhile, a separate $158 million deal to repair and <a href="http://www.voanews.com/content/south-sudan-juba-international-airport-renovation-china-corruption/1952556.html" type="external">expand</a> the airport in Juba, financed by China’s Export-Import Bank and carried out by a Chinese firm, was announced. In addition, China has just <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-08/norinco-sells-south-sudan-arms-as-chinese-government-talks-peace.html" type="external">shipped</a> nearly $40 million in arms—millions of rounds of ammunition, thousands of automatic rifles and grenade launchers, and hundreds of machine guns and pistols—to Salva Kiir’s armed forces. &#160;</p>
<p>Continental Competition</p>
<p>China’s interest in South Sudan is indicative of its relations with the continent as a whole. Beijing has long <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=2&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0CCQQFjAB&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brookings.edu%2F~%2Fmedia%2Fresearch%2Ffiles%2Fpapers%2F2014%2F04%2Fafrica-china-policy-sun%2Fafrica-in-china-web_cmg7.pdf&amp;ei=nGWjU8WABcrnsAS5_" type="external">looked</a> to Africa for diplomatic cooperation in the international arena and, with the continent accounting for more than 25% of the votes in the General Assembly of the United Nations, relied on it for political support. More recently, economics has become the paramount factor in the growing relationship between the rising Asian power and the continent.</p>
<p>Hungry for energy reserves, minerals, and other raw materials to fuel its domestic growth, China’s Export-Import Bank and other state-controlled entities regularly offer financing for railroads, highways, and other <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2014/03/interactive-china-african-spending-spree-2014320121349799136.html" type="external">major infrastructure</a> projects, often tied to the use of Chinese companies and workers. In exchange, China expects long-term supplies of needed natural resources. Such relationships have exploded in the new century with its African trade jumping from $10 billion to an estimated $200 billion, which far exceeds that of the United States or any European country. It has now been Africa’s <a href="http://english.mofcom.gov.cn/article/newsrelease/significantnews/201405/20140500578811.shtml" type="external">largest trading partner</a> for the last five years and boasts of having struck $400 billion worth of deals in African construction projects which have already yielded almost 1,400 miles of railroad track and nearly 2,200 miles of highways.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.haymarketbooks.org/bio/Nick-Turse-0?order=title&amp;sort=asc" type="external" />Resources traded for infrastructure are, however, just one facet of China’s expanding economic relationship with Africa. Looking down the road, Beijing increasingly sees the continent as a market for its manufacturing products. While the West <a href="http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/01/30/chapter-2-aging-in-the-u-s-and-other-countries-2010-to-2050/" type="external">ages</a> and <a href="http://www.foxbusiness.com/economy-policy/2014/01/16/china-now-owns-record-1317t-us-government-debt/" type="external">sinks</a> deeper into <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323353204578127374039087636" type="external">debt</a>, Africa is getting younger and growing at an exponential pace. Its population is, according to demographers, poised to double by the middle of the century, jumping to as many as 3.5 billion—larger than China and India combined—with working-age people far outnumbering the elderly and children.</p>
<p>With its ability to produce goods at low prices, China is betting on being a major supplier of a growing African market when it comes to food, clothes, appliances, and other consumer goods. As Howard French, author of <a href="http://www.npr.org/books/titles/316299150/chinas-second-continent-how-a-million-migrants-are-building-a-new-empire-in-afri" type="external">China’s Second Continent</a> notes, “a variety of economic indicators show that the fortunes of large numbers of Africans are improving dramatically and will likely continue to do so over the next decade or two, only faster.” According to the International Monetary Fund, 10 of the 20 economies projected to grow fastest from 2013-2017 are located in sub-Saharan Africa. Last year, the World Bank attributed 60% of Africa’s economic growth to consumer spending. Beijing may even fuel this rise further by <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=2&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0CCQQFjAB&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brookings.edu%2F~%2Fmedia%2Fresearch%2Ffiles%2Fpapers%2F2014%2F04%2Fafrica-china-policy-sun%2Fafrica-in-china-web_cmg7.pdf&amp;ei=nGWjU8WABcrnsAS5_" type="external">relocating</a> low-skilled, labor-intensive jobs to that continent as it develops more skilled manufacturing and high-tech industries at home.</p>
<p>One Chinese export integral to Beijing’s dealings with Africa has, however, largely escaped notice. In the space of a decade, as French points out, one million or more Chinese have emigrated to Africa, buying up land, establishing businesses, plying just about every conceivable trade from medicine to farming to prostitution. These expats are altering the fundamentals of cultural and economic exchange across the continent and creating something wholly new. “For all of China’s denials that its overseas ambitions could be compared to those of Europeans or Americans,” <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/book-review-chinas-second-continent-by-howard-w-french-1402089810" type="external">writes</a> French, “…what I was witnessing in Africa is the higgledy-piggledy cobbling together of a new Chinese realm of interest. Here were the beginnings of a new empire.”</p>
<p>This mass influx of Chinese pioneers has bred resentment in some quarters, as have heavy-handed tactics by Chinese companies that often ignore local labor laws and environmental regulations, freeze out local workers, mistreat them, or pay them exceptionally low wages. This, in turn, has led to instances of violence against Africa’s Chinese, as has Beijing’s support for unpopular and repressive governments on the continent. Such threats to the safety of Chinese citizens and business interests, as well as general political instability and armed conflicts—from Libya to South Sudan—have given China still another reason to build-up its presence.</p>
<p>Traditionally, Beijing has adhered to a <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/04/24/chinas_african_adventure" type="external">non-interference</a>, “ <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/100593398" type="external">no strings attached</a>” foreign policy—meaning no requirements on partner nations in terms of transparency, corruption, environmental protection, human rights, or good governance—and, as opposed to the United States, has <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=2&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0CCQQFjAB&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brookings.edu%2F~%2Fmedia%2Fresearch%2Ffiles%2Fpapers%2F2014%2F04%2Fafrica-china-policy-sun%2Fafrica-in-china-web_cmg7.pdf&amp;ei=nGWjU8WABcrnsAS5_" type="external">avoided</a> overseas military inventions. While it has long contributed to U.N. peacekeeping operations—the only kind of foreign intervention Beijing considers legitimate—China has generally operated far from the front lines. But things are subtly shifting on this score.</p>
<p>In 2011, after the US-backed revolution in Libya <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=2&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0CCQQFjAB&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brookings.edu%2F~%2Fmedia%2Fresearch%2Ffiles%2Fpapers%2F2014%2F04%2Fafrica-china-policy-sun%2Fafrica-in-china-web_cmg7.pdf&amp;ei=nGWjU8WABcrnsAS5_" type="external">imperiled</a> 30,000 Chinese living there, the People’s Liberation Army coordinated air and sea assets in the largest evacuation mission in its history. And as the war in Libya destabilized neighboring Mali and a US-trained officer overthrew that country’s elected president, China sent combat troops—for the first time in its history—to join U.N. forces in a bid to <a href="http://eng.mod.gov.cn/DefenseNews/2014-06/12/content_4515933.htm" type="external">stabilize</a> a nation that the US had spent a decade bolstering through counterterrorism funding.</p>
<p>Then, when US-backed South Sudan slid into civil war late last year—and 300 Chinese workers had to be evacuated—Beijing departed from the hands-off approach it had taken only a few years earlier with Sudan, ramped up <a href="http://www.voanews.com/content/reu-china-sends-envoy-south-sudan-push-peace-talks/1818388.html" type="external">diplomatic efforts</a> and <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/04/24/chinas_african_adventure" type="external">pushed hard</a> for <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/05/us-southsudan-china-insight-idUSKBN0EG00320140605" type="external">peace talks</a>. “This is something new for us,” <a href="http://english.cntv.cn/program/china24/20140308/104483.shtml" type="external">said</a> China’s special envoy to Africa, Zhong Jianhua. This was, he noted, the beginning of a “new chapter” in policies by which China would now “do more [in terms of] peace and security for this continent.”</p>
<p>More recently, Beijing managed to broker an unprecedented arrangement to expand the mandate of the U.N. Mission in South Sudan. In addition to “protection of civilians, monitoring and investigating human rights abuses, and facilitating the delivery of humanitarian assistance,” <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Ur2KZkFrxvMJ:thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/06/15/un_peacekeepers_to_protect_chinas_oil_interests_in_south_sudan+&amp;cd=6&amp;hl=en&amp;ct=clnk&amp;gl=us" type="external">according</a> to Foreign Policy, “Beijing quietly secured a deal that will put the U.N.’s famed blue helmets to work protecting workers in South Sudan’s oil installations, where China has invested billions of dollars.” Although protecting the oil fields is akin to taking the government’s side in a civil war, the US, France, and Great Britain backed the plan to protect <a href="http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2014/sc11414.doc.htm" type="external">oil installations</a> under a U.N. mandate, citing the importance of the energy sector to the future of the country. In return, China will send an 850-man <a href="https://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/23970233/china-to-send-peacekeeping-battalion-to-s-sudan/" type="external">infantry battalion</a> to bolster the U.N. mission, <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Ur2KZkFrxvMJ:thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/06/15/un_peacekeepers_to_protect_chinas_oil_interests_in_south_sudan+&amp;cd=6&amp;hl=en&amp;ct=clnk&amp;gl=us" type="external">adding</a> to the <a href="http://za.china-embassy.org/eng/zgxw/t1114441.htm" type="external">350</a> military <a href="http://eng.mod.gov.cn/Photos/2014-05/04/content_4506665.htm" type="external">personnel</a> it already had on the ground here.</p>
<p>When it comes to protecting their infrastructure, “the Chinese have gotten very good at deploying peacekeeping forces,” <a href="http://global.fundforpeace.org/staff-ptaft" type="external">Patricia Taft</a>, a senior associate with the Fund for Peace, tells TomDispatch. “The Chinese have, in East Africa and also West Africa, inserted themselves as a security presence, mainly to protect their oil interests, their infrastructure, or whatever economic projects they’re deeply invested in.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.stimson.org/experts/yun-sun/" type="external">Yun Sun</a>, a fellow at the Stimson Center and an <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/experts/suny" type="external">expert</a> on China’s relations with Africa, doesn’t see these recent developments as a militarization of China’s mission, but as a symptom of increased investment in the countries of the continent. “China cares more about security issues in Africa… due to its own national interests,” Sun tells TomDispatch. “It means China will contribute more to the peace and security issues of the continent.” And it seems that Beijing is now doing so, in part on America’s dime. &#160;</p>
<p>Winners and Losers</p>
<p>US taxpayers, who fund about 27% percent of the cost of United Nations peacekeeping missions, are now effectively underwriting China’s efforts to protect its oil interests in South Sudan. Washington continues to <a href="http://usun.state.gov/briefing/statements/226572.htm" type="external">pour aid</a> into that country—more than $456 million in humanitarian assistance in fiscal year 2014—while China has <a href="http://reliefweb.int/report/south-sudan-republic/china-donates-200-thousand-us-dollars-aid-south-sudan" type="external">pledged</a> far less in <a href="http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2014-07/02/content_17637890.htm" type="external">humanitarian relief</a>. Meanwhile, Juba has tied itself ever more tightly to Chinese energy interests, with plans to <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-28/south-sudan-borrows-200m-from-oil-companies-as-war-hits-output.html" type="external">borrow</a> more than <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/02/southsudan-budget-idUSL6N0PD42U20140702" type="external">$1 billion</a> from <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303465004579324240269459308" type="external">oil companies</a> to <a href="https://radiotamazuj.org/en/article/s-sudan-owes-256-million-chinese-firm-78m-dutch" type="external">keep</a> the government afloat as it battles the rebels.</p>
<p><a href="http://global.fundforpeace.org/staff-ptaft" type="external">Taft</a> sees these deals with largely Chinese firms as both risky for South Sudan’s future and potentially ineffective as well. “It’s putting a band-aid on a hemorrhaging artery,” she says. David Deng, research director for the South Sudan Law Society, echoes this: “We’re mortgaging our children’s future to fight a pointless war.”</p>
<p>South Sudan seems emblematic of a larger trend in the race between Washington and Beijing in Africa. In 2000, China’s trade there passed $10 billion for the first time and has been growing at a 30% clip annually ever since. Nine years later, China overtook the US to become the continent’s largest trading partner and, by 2012, its trade was nearly double that of the US—$198.5 billion to $99.8 billion. While the United States recently <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/frontiers/2014/07/25/qa-pritzker-and-bloomberg-discuss-the-u-s-africa-business-forum/" type="external">announced</a> that $900 million in unspecified “deals” with Africa will be unveiled at an upcoming US-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, it will nonetheless continue to <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/africa-in-focus/posts/2014/07/24-deeping-trade-commercial-ties" type="external">trail</a> far behind China in terms of trade on the continent.</p>
<p>For the Chinese, Africa is El Dorado, a land of opportunity for one million migrants. For America, it’s a collection of “ <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/15/magazine/can-general-linders-special-operations-forces-stop-the-next-terrorist-threat.html?_r=0" type="external">ungoverned spaces</a>,” “ <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175743/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_africom%27s_gigantic_%22small_footprint%22" type="external">austere locations</a>,” and failing states increasingly dominated by local terror groups poised to become global threats, a danger zone to be militarily managed through special operators and proxy armies. “In Africa, terrorists, criminal organizations, militias, corrupt officials, and pirates continue to exploit ungoverned and under-governed territory on the continent and its surrounding waters,” <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0CB0QFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.defense.gov%2Fpubs%2F2014_Quadrennial_Defense_Review.pdf&amp;ei=hZWlU7vKIYqz8AHW9IDYCQ&amp;usg=AFQjCNHrtY8Qh6470DFh318VlYJfnOAhxQ&amp;bvm=bv.69411363,d.b2k" type="external">reads</a> the Pentagon’s 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). “The potential for rapidly developing threats, particularly in fragile states, including violent public protests and terrorist attacks, could pose acute challenges to US interests.”</p>
<p>“Recent engagements in Somalia and Mali, in which African countries and regional organizations are working together with international partners in Europe and the United States, may provide a model for future partnerships,” adds the QDR. But a look at those poster-child nations for US involvement—one in East and one in West Africa—instead provides evidence of America’s failings on the continent.</p>
<p>In 2006, the Islamic Court Union (ICU), a loose confederation of indigenous Islamist groups seeking to impose <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/04/kenya-westgate-mall-attacks" type="external">order</a> on the failed state of Somalia, <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2006/12/19/seven_questions_war_in_somalia" type="external">defeated</a> the Alliance for Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism, a US-supported militia, and <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/30/us-shabaab-east-africa-idUSBRE84T0NI20120530" type="external">pushed</a> the US-backed warlords out of Mogadishu, the capital. In response, the United States green-lighted a 2007 <a href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-01-07-ethiopia_x.htm" type="external">invasion</a> of the country by Ethiopia’s military and <a href="http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFKBN0F72AA20140702?sp=true" type="external">secretly sent</a> in a small contingent of its own troops (still operating in Somalia to this day). This succeeded only in splintering the ICU, sending its moderates into exile, while its hardliners formed a far more extreme Islamic group, al-Shabab, which became the key Muslim resistance force against al-Shabab, Washington’s Ethiopian proxies.</p>
<p>Al-Shabab experienced a great deal of military success before being <a href="https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/al-shababs-capabilities-post-westgate" type="external">beaten</a> back by the Ethiopians, troops from a <a href="http://www.africom.mil/Newsroom/Transcript/7260/transcript-us-policy-in-somalia--no-direct-support" type="external">US-supported</a> Somali transitional <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/24/AR2009062403495.html" type="external">government</a>, and well-armed <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14094632" type="external">peacekeepers</a> from the <a href="http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/texttrans/2013/05/20130507146938.html" type="external">US-backed</a> African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). These forces were, from 2009 onward, joined by proxies trained and armed by <a href="http://www.wired.com/2011/10/new-somalia-attack/" type="external">US-ally Kenya</a>, whose own army <a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/136670/daniel-branch/why-kenya-invaded-somalia" type="external">invaded</a> the country in 2011. Their <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/11/18/130739/wikileaks-us-warned-kenya-against.html" type="external">forces</a> in Somalia, eventually <a href="http://sabahionline.com/en_GB/articles/hoa/articles/newsbriefs/2012/03/09/newsbrief-02" type="external">folded</a> into the AMISOM mission, are still <a href="http://www.issafrica.org/iss-today/kenyas-dilemma-in-somalia-to-withdraw-or-not-to-withdraw?utm_source=June+25+2014+EN&amp;utm_campaign=7%2F25%2F2014&amp;utm_medium=email" type="external">deployed</a> there. On the run and outgunned, al-Shabab responded by <a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/136670/daniel-branch/why-kenya-invaded-somalia" type="external">threatening</a> to take the war beyond its borders and soon began to do so.</p>
<p>In other words, what started as a local Islamic group achieving, <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0CB0QFjAA&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.chathamhouse.org%2Fsites%2Ffiles%2Fchathamhouse%2Fpublic%2FResearch%2FAfrica%2Fbpsomalia0407.pdf&amp;ei=NCemU_rZIIaqyAThq4LQBg&amp;usg=AFQjCNHhqSu8ge" type="external">according</a> to a Chatham House report, “the unthinkable, uniting Mogadishu for the first time in 16 years, and reestablishing peace and security,” quickly became a transnational terror organization in the wake of the Ethiopian invasion and other acts of intervention. In 2010, al-Shabab carried out a bomb <a href="http://world.time.com/2013/09/21/terror-in-nairobi-behind-al-shabaabs-war-with-kenya/" type="external">attack</a> in Uganda as a punishment for that country’s contribution to the African Union mission in Somalia. In 2011, it <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/kenya-grenade-suspect-im-al-shabab-member-132633695.html" type="external">launched</a> an escalating series of <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/kenya-hotel-attack-suspected-alshabaab-militants-kill-48-people-in-mpeketoni-9539402.html" type="external">shootings</a>, <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/07/20127182456433169.html" type="external">grenade attacks</a>, and bombings in Kenya. The next year, the formerly Somalia-centric outfit further internationalized its efforts as one of its leaders pledged obedience to al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri. In 2013, the group carried out a devastating <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/oct/04/westgate-mall-attacks-kenya-terror" type="external">attack</a> on the Westgate Mall in Kenya that killed 67.</p>
<p>Earlier this year, al-Shabab extended its reach even further with its first-ever <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/27/uk-djibouti-attacks-idUSKBN0E72AA20140527" type="external">suicide attack</a> in Djibouti, the tiny Horn of Africa nation that contributes troops to AMISOM and hosts French troops, a key European <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175818/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_american_proxy_wars_in_africa" type="external">proxy force</a> for Washington on the continent, as well as the only avowed US base in Africa. “The attack was carried out against the French Crusaders for their complicity in the massacres and persecution of our Muslim brothers in the Central African Republic and for their active role in training and equipping the apostate Djiboutian troops in Somalia,” read an al-Shabab statement that also <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175818/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_american_proxy_wars_in_africa" type="external">highlighted</a> a US-backed French military mission in the Central African Republic.</p>
<p>In the months since, the group has <a href="http://www.voanews.com/content/eighteen-killed-in-attacks-in-kenya/1951691.html?utm_source=July+7+2014+EN&amp;utm_campaign=7%2F7%2F2014&amp;utm_medium=email" type="external">repeatedly</a> <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/somalia/index.html" type="external">launched</a> murderous assaults on civilians in Kenya and continues to <a href="http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/Uganda-beefs-up-security-at-all-borders/-/2558/2353824/-/u9lch8/-/index.html?utm_source=June+20+2014+EN&amp;utm_campaign=620%2F2014&amp;utm_medium=email" type="external">threaten</a> Uganda and Burundi, which also contributes troops to AMISOM, with future attacks. It has even gained regional affiliates, like <a href="https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/al-hijra-al-shababs-affiliate-in-kenya" type="external">Al-Hijra</a>, an underground group accused of recruiting for al-Shabab in Kenya.</p>
<p>After 9/11, on the opposite side of the continent, US programs like the Pan-Sahel Initiative and the Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Partnership, pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into training and arming the militaries of Mali, Niger, Chad, Mauritania, Nigeria, Algeria, and Tunisia, again in order to promote regional “stability.” While US Special Operations forces were <a href="http://www.defense.gov/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=27112" type="external">teaching</a> infantry tactics to Malian troops, the Chinese were engaging very differently with that West African nation. Despite Mali’s lack of natural resources, China constructed a key bridge, a hospital, a stadium, a major government building, several factories, miles of highways, and a $230 million waterworks project.</p>
<p>The US wasn’t, however, left totally out in the cold on the construction front. The State Department’s Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), for example, spent $71.6 million to expand the Bamako Airport. The contract, however, went to a Chinese firm—as did many MCC contracts across Africa—because American companies were uninterested in working there despite guaranteed US financing.</p>
<p>What Washington was trying to build in Mali came crashing down, however, after the US helped topple Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, causing that country to collapse into a morass of militia fiefdoms. Nomadic Tuareg fighters looted the weapons stores of the Gaddafi regime they had previously served, crossed the border, routed US-backed Malian forces and seized the northern part of the country. This, in turn, prompted a US-trained officer to stage a military coup in the Malian capital, Bamako, and oust the democratically elected president.</p>
<p>Soon after, the Tuareg rebels were muscled aside by heavily-armed Islamist rebels who began taking over the country. This, in turn, prompted the US to back a 2013 invasion by French and African forces which <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175818/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_american_proxy_wars_in_africa" type="external">arrested</a> the complete collapse of Mali—leaving it in a permanent state of <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/140611/suicide-bomber-kills-four-chadian-un-peacekeepers-mali" type="external">occupation</a> and <a href="http://www.voanews.com/content/reu-french-soldier-dies-in-mali-as-paris-readies-counter-insurgency-plan/1910255.html" type="external">low-level insurgency</a>. Meanwhile, Islamist fighters and <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175714/nick_turse_blowback_central" type="external">Gaddafi’s weapons</a> were <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/nigerian-islamist-militants-return-from-mali-with-weapons-skills/2013/05/31/d377579e-c628-11e2-9cd9-3b9a22a4000a_story.html" type="external">scattered</a> across <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/13/us-nigeria-islamists-insight-idUSBRE94C04Q20130513" type="external">Africa</a>, contributing to greater <a href="http://studies.aljazeera.net/en/reports/2013/09/201398104245877469.htm" type="external">instability</a> in <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/nigerian-islamist-militants-return-from-mali-with-weapons-skills/2013/05/31/d377579e-c628-11e2-9cd9-3b9a22a4000a_story.html" type="external">Nigeria</a> and <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175714/nick_turse_blowback_central" type="external">Libya</a>, as well as <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0CB0QFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Faccelus.thomsonreuters.com%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2FGRC00406.pdf&amp;ei=AjamU8zSHIunyASvv4G4Dw&amp;usg=AFQjCNGQxJr2EoJyugVZW0wIUdpkVVcbUQ&amp;bvm=bv.6941136" type="external">increased</a> threat levels in Chad, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Guinea, Niger, Senegal, and Togo. It evidently also spurred an audacious <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/17/world/meast/algeria-who-is-belmoktar/" type="external">revenge attack</a> in Algeria that left more than <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/algeria-gas-plant-attack/#igImgId_73604" type="external">80 dead</a> and an assault on a French-run uranium mine and a nearby military base in Niger in which at least 25 people were killed. &#160;</p>
<p>Two Systems, One Continent</p>
<p>In 2000, a report prepared under the auspices of the US Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute examined the “African security environment.” While it touched on “internal separatist or rebel movements” in “weak states,” as well as non-state actors like militias and “warlord armies,” there is conspicuously no mention of Islamic extremism or major transnational terrorist threats. Following the 9/11 attacks, a senior Pentagon official claimed that the US invasion of Afghanistan might drive “terrorists” out of that country and into African nations, but when pressed about actual transnational dangers on that continent, he admitted that even hardcore Somali militants “really have not engaged in acts of terrorism outside Somalia.”</p>
<p>Despite this, Washington dispatched personnel to Africa in 2002 and began pouring money into counterterrorism efforts. Since then, the US has steadily increased its military footprint, its troop levels, and its missions on the continent—from night raids in Somalia and kidnap operations in Libya to the construction of a string of bases <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175830/" type="external">devoted</a> to surveillance activities across the northern tier of Africa.</p>
<p>For all the time spent training proxies, all the propaganda efforts, all the black ops missions, all the counterterror funds, the results have been dismal. A glance at the official State Department list of terrorist organizations indicates that these efforts have been mirrored by the growth of radical militant groups, including the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group added in 2004, al-Shabab in 2008, Ansar al-Dine, Boko Haram, Ansaru, and the al-Mulathamun Battalion in 2013, and Libya’s Ansar al-Shari’a in Benghazi, and Ansar al-Shari’a in Darnah, as well as Ansar al-Shari’a in Tunisia, and the Egyptian militant group <a href="http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2014/04/224566.htm" type="external">Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis</a>, all in 2014. And that’s hardly a full list. Not included are various <a href="http://studies.aljazeera.net/en/reports/2013/06/2013624102946689517.htm" type="external">terror organizations</a>, rebel forces, separatist movements, armed groups, and militias <a href="https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/aqims-threat-to-western-interests-in-the-sahel" type="external">like</a> the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa, fighters from the group formerly known as Seleka and their rivals, <a href="http://abujavoice.com/coalition-of-terrorists-neo-colonialist-radicalisation-of-the-african-mind-with-religion-web-of-terror-ii/" type="external">anti-balaka</a> militiamen in the Central African Republic, Taureg separatists of Mali’s <a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/04/10/150343027/foreign-policy-the-mess-in-mali" type="external">National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad</a>, the Congolese Resistance Patriots, Burundi’s <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-24/burundi-rebels-claim-attack-on-army-soldiers-in-congo-kills-nine.html?utm_source=June+25+2014+EN&amp;utm_campaign=7%2F25%2F2014&amp;utm_medium=email" type="external">National Forces of Liberation</a>, and <a href="http://www.jamestown.org/regions/africa/single/?tx_ttnews%5btt_news%5d=41803&amp;tx_ttnews%5bbackPid%5d=55&amp;cHash=2428ae3fb8f80467a048e6acaa6bf6dc#.U6jfRLHLWSo" type="external">others</a>.</p>
<p>Over these years, as the US has chased terror groups and watched them proliferate, China has taken another route, devoting its efforts to building <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/28/opinion/beijing-a-boon-for-africa.html?_r=0" type="external">goodwill</a> through public works and winning over governments through “no strings attached” policies.</p>
<p>“Our goal is not to counter China; our goal is not to contain China,” President Obama <a href="http://thediplomat.com/2014/04/obama-in-philippines-our-goal-is-not-to-contain-china/" type="external">said</a> during a trip to Asia earlier this year. In South Sudan, as in Africa as a whole, America seems increasingly unable to even keep up. “On certain levels, we can’t or won’t compete with China,” says the Fund for Peace’s Patricia Taft. “China will continue to eclipse us in terms of economic interests in Africa.” The US is, however, still preeminent in the political sphere and that influence, she says, will continue to trump anything China can currently offer.</p>
<p>The question is: For how long?</p>
<p>Cameron Hudson, formerly of the National Security Council and now the acting director of the Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the US Holocaust Museum, thinks strengthening partnerships with the Chinese could lead to major dividends for the United States. “They have more skin in the game,” he says of Beijing’s relationship with South Sudan. “They have a growing set of interests there.”</p>
<p>Benediste Hoareau, head of political affairs for the <a href="http://www.easfcom.org/index.php/about-easf/history-and-background" type="external">East African Standby Force</a>—a rapid intervention force in-the-making, consisting of troops from the region’s militaries—expresses similar sentiments. He believes in the often repeated axiom of finding <a href="https://blogs.state.gov/stories/2011/08/31/african-solutions-african-problems" type="external">African solutions to African problems</a> and says that the foreign powers should provide the funds and let African forces do the fighting and peacekeeping in South Sudan.</p>
<p>Hoareau, in fact, sees no need for a contest, new Cold War or otherwise, between the foreign titans here. There are plenty of opportunities for both the United States and China in Africa and in South Sudan, he tells TomDispatch. A rivalry between the two powers can only bring trouble. “They’re elephants,” Hoareau says of China and America, “and you know just who will get trampled.”</p>
<p>Nick Turse is the managing editor of TomDispatch.com and a fellow at the Nation Institute. A 2014 Izzy Award winner, he has reported from the Middle East, Asia, and Africa and his pieces have appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Nation, and <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175844/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_how_%22benghazi%22_birthed_the_new_normal_in_africa/" type="external">regularly</a> at TomDispatch.This story was reported in partnership with the <a href="http://www.theinvestigativefund.org/" type="external">Investigative Fund</a> at the Nation Institute. Additional funding was provided through the generosity of Adelaide Gomer. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com <a href="http://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&amp;id=1e41682ade" type="external">here</a>.</p> | Can the US and China Coexist in Africa? | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2014/07/us-china-rivalry-coexist-africa/ | 2014-07-31 | 4left
| Can the US and China Coexist in Africa?
<p>US Marines and Ghananian military during a joint training exercise in Senegal, June 2014. &lt;a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/usarmyafrica/14474319246/"&gt;Donna Davis&lt;/a&gt;/Flickr</p>
<p>This <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175875/" type="external">story</a> first appeared on the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch</a> website.</p>
<p>Juba, South Sudan—Is this country the first hot battlefield in a new cold war? Is the conflict tearing this new nation apart actually a proxy fight between the world’s two top economic and military powers? That’s the way South Sudan’s Information Minister <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&amp;v=ZOz60Kc9gdc" type="external">Michael Makuei Lueth</a> tells it. After “midwifing” South Sudan into existence with billions of dollars in assistance, aid, infrastructure projects, and military support, the US has <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201405161485.html" type="external">watched</a> China emerge as the major beneficiary of South Sudan’s oil reserves. As a result, Makuei claims, <a href="http://nyamile.com/2014/05/16/south-sudan-america-wants-our-oil-support-rebels-makuei/" type="external">the US</a> and other <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201405161485.html" type="external">Western powers</a> have <a href="http://nyamile.com/2014/05/16/south-sudan-america-wants-our-oil-support-rebels-makuei/" type="external">backed</a> former vice president Riek Machar and his rebel forces in an effort to overthrow the country’s president, Salva Kiir. China, for its part, has played a conspicuous double game. Beijing has <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-08/norinco-sells-south-sudan-arms-as-chinese-government-talks-peace.html" type="external">lined up</a> behind Kiir, even as it publicly <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/06/05/uk-southsudan-china-insight-idUKKBN0EG01Z20140605" type="external">pushes</a> both sides to find a diplomatic solution to a simmering civil war. It is sending peacekeepers as part of the U.N. mission even as it also <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201407180950.html" type="external">arms</a> Kiir’s forces with tens of millions of dollars worth of new weapons.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com" type="external" /></p>
<p>While experts dismiss Makuei’s scenario—”farfetched” is how one analyst puts it—there are average South Sudanese who also believe that Washington supports the rebels. The US certainly did press Kiir’s government to make concessions, as his supporters are quick to remind anyone willing to listen, pushing it to <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/30/us-al-southsudan-unrest-usa-idUSBREA0T11D20140130" type="external">release</a> senior political figures detained as coup plotters shortly after fighting broke out in late 2013. &#160;America, they say, cared more about a handful of elites sitting in jail than all the South Sudanese suffering in a civil war that has now <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/south-sudan-peace-talks-reach-apparent-breakthrough-1402473616" type="external">claimed</a> more than 10,000 lives, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-27770340" type="external">resulted</a> in mass rapes, displaced more than <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=3&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0CCYQFjAC&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Fworld-africa-28209014&amp;ei=vKnLU6umLPGu7Aakp4CYBQ&amp;usg=AFQjCNFPRyCIrqblsnH--yQNknMJP9m2yQ&amp;sig2=7UBZRm6djmgsJ76ClBtVnw&amp;bvm=bv.7119" type="external">1.5 million people</a> (around half of them <a href="http://reliefweb.int/report/south-sudan/unicef-south-sudan-humanitarian-situation-report-25-reporting-period-27-may-03" type="external">children</a>), and <a href="http://www.fao.org/emergencies/resources/videos/video-detail/en/c/237054/" type="external">pushed</a> the country to the very brink of <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201406070014.html" type="external">famine</a>. Opponents of Kiir are, however, quick to mention the significant quantities of Chinese weaponry <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201407180950.html" type="external">flooding</a> into the country. They ask why the United States hasn’t put pressure on a president they no longer see as legitimate.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>While <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/01/23/the-usa-v-china-in-south-sudan/" type="external">few</a> outside South Sudan would ascribe to Makuei’s notion of a direct East-West proxy war here, his conspiracy theory should, at least, serve as a reminder that US and Chinese interests are at play in this war-torn nation and across Africa as a whole—and that Africans are taking note. Almost anywhere you look on the continent, you can now find evidence of both the American and the Chinese presence, although they take quite different forms. The Chinese are pursuing a ruthlessly pragmatic economic power-projection strategy with an emphasis on targeted multilateral interventions in African conflicts. &#160;US policy, in contrast, appears both more muddled and more military-centric, with a heavy focus on counterterrorism efforts meant to bolster amorphous strategic interests.&#160;</p>
<p>For the last decade, China has used “soft power”— <a href="http://www.focac.org/eng/zt/1_1/t1154202.htm" type="external">aid</a>, trade, and infrastructure projects—to make major inroads on the continent. In the process, it has set itself up as the dominant foreign player here. The US, on the other hand, increasingly confronts Africa as a “ <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175743/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_africom%27s_gigantic_%22small_footprint%22" type="external">battlefield</a>” or “ <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/15/magazine/can-general-linders-special-operations-forces-stop-the-next-terrorist-threat.html?_r=0" type="external">battleground</a>” or “ <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175830/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_africom_becomes_a_%22war-fighting_combatant_command%22" type="external">war</a>” in the words of the men running its operations. In recent years, there has been a substantial surge in US <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175823/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_america%27s_non-stop_ops_in_africa" type="external">military activities</a> of every sort, including the setting up of <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175743/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_africom%27s_gigantic_%22small_footprint%22" type="external">military outposts</a> and both <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175831/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_the_pentagon%2C_libya%2C_and_tomorrow%27s_blowback_today" type="external">direct</a> and <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175818/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_american_proxy_wars_in_africa" type="external">proxy interventions</a>. These two approaches have produced starkly contrasting results for the powers involved and the rising nations of the continent. Which one triumphs may have profound implications for all parties in the years ahead. The differences are, perhaps, nowhere as stark as in the world’s newest nation, South Sudan. &#160;</p>
<p>A Midwife’s Tale</p>
<p>Starting in the 1980s, the efforts of an eclectic, bipartisan collection of American supporters— <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/07/11/us-south-sudan-midwives-idUSBRE86A0GC20120711" type="external">Washington activists</a>, <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/07/11/us-south-sudan-midwives-idUSBRE86A0GC20120711" type="external">evangelical Christians</a>, influential Congressional representatives, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14050504" type="external">celebrities</a>, a rising <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/07/11/us-south-sudan-midwives-idUSBRE86A0GC20120711" type="external">State Department</a> star, a presidential administration focused on regime change and nation-building, and another that picked up the mantle—helped bring South Sudan into existence. “ <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-obama-is-losing-south-sudan/2014/01/10/4b8a046e-78d7-11e3-af7f-13bf0e9965f6_story.html" type="external">Midwife</a>” was the word then-chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee John Kerry chose to describe the process.</p>
<p>In recent years, no country in Africa has received as much <a href="https://opencrs.com/document/R42774/2012-10-05/download/1005/" type="external">Congressional attention</a>. And on July 9, 2011, South Sudan’s Independence Day, President Barack Obama released a <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/07/09/statement-president-barack-obama-recognition-republic-south-sudan" type="external">stirring statement</a>. “I am confident that the bonds of friendship between South Sudan and the United States will only deepen in the years to come. As Southern Sudanese undertake the hard work of building their new country, the United States pledges our partnership as they seek the security, development, and responsive governance that can fulfill their aspirations and respect their human rights.”</p>
<p>As the new nation broke away from Sudan after decades of bloody civil war, the US <a href="http://www.usaid.gov/news-information/speeches/remarks-usaid-deputy-administrator-donald-k-steinberg-congressional-black" type="external">poured</a> in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/04/us/politics/us-is-facing-hard-choices-in-south-sudan.html?_r=0" type="external">billions</a> of dollars in <a href="http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/171718.htm" type="external">humanitarian aid</a> and <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/03/13/141703/in-south-sudans-violence-us-backed.html" type="external">pumped</a> in hundreds of <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0CCAQFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fas.org%2Fsgp%2Fcrs%2Frow%2FR43344.pdf&amp;ei=EICQU4a2CrLQsQT5_YDoDw&amp;usg=AFQjCNGSn8hE0YiE1-bkK9SRBycrxWGFYA&amp;bvm=bv.68235269,d.cWc" type="external">millions</a> of dollars of military and security assistance. It also <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/06/south-sudan-conflict-us-john-kerry" type="external">invested</a> heavily in governmental institutions, and <a href="http://www.usaid.gov/south-sudan/economic-growth-and-trade" type="external">built</a> infrastructure (constructing or repairing roads and bridges). It sent military instructors to <a href="http://www.gettyimages.no/detail/news-photo/special-forces-soldier-instructs-south-sudanese-commandos-news-photo/480421459" type="external">train</a> the country’s armed forces and advisors to <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303465004579324240269459308" type="external">mentor</a> government officials. It helped to <a href="http://translations.state.gov/st/english/texttrans/2011/12/20111213174634su0.1356121.html" type="external">beef up</a> the education sector, worked to <a href="http://translations.state.gov/st/english/texttrans/2011/12/20111213174634su0.1356121.html" type="external">facilitate</a> economic development and <a href="http://www.opic.gov/press-releases/2013/opic-south-sudan-sign-investment-agreement" type="external">American investment</a>, and <a href="http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE82P0AT20120326?feedType=RSS&amp;feedName=topNews&amp;sp=true" type="external">opened</a> the US market to duty-free South Sudanese imports.</p>
<p>The new nation, it was hoped, would bolster US national security interests by injecting a heavy dose of democracy into the heart of Africa, while promoting political stability and good governance. Specifically, it was to serve as a democratic bulwark against Sudan and its president, Omar al-Bashir, who had once <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303465004579324240269459308" type="external">harbored</a> Osama bin Laden and is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity in that country’s Darfur region.</p>
<p>When South Sudan broke away, it took much of Sudan’s oil wealth with it, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303465004579324240269459308" type="external">becoming</a> sub-Saharan Africa’s third-largest oil producer behind Nigeria and Angola. In taking those resources out of Bashir’s hands, it offered the promise of more energy stability in Africa. It was even expected to serve Washington’s military aims—and soon, the US began <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/kony-2013-us-quietly-intensifies-effort-to-help-african-troops-capture-infamous-warlord/2013/10/28/74db9720-3cb3-11e3-b6a9-da62c264f40e_story.html" type="external">employing</a> South Sudanese troops as proxies in a quest to destroy Joseph Kony and his murderous Lord’s Resistance Army.</p>
<p>That was the dream, at least. But like Washington’s regime change and nation-building projects in Iraq and Afghanistan, things soon started going very, very wrong. Today, South Sudan’s armed forces are little more than a collection of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/01/07/preventing-civil-war-in-south-sudan/south-sudan-needs-a-more-robust-international-commitment" type="external">competing militias</a> that have <a href="http://library.fundforpeace.org/fsi14-southsudan" type="external">fractured</a> along ethnic lines and turned on each other. The country’s <a href="http://www.voanews.com/content/south-sudan-parliament-grinds-to-a-halt/1944847.html" type="external">political institutions</a> and <a href="http://www.catholic.org/news/international/africa/story.php?id=56154" type="external">economy</a> are in shambles, its oil production (which accounts for about 90% of government revenue) is crippled, <a href="http://www.state.gov/e/eb/rls/othr/ics/2013/204855.htm" type="external">corruption</a> goes <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/12/south-sudan-declares-itself-open-business-2013121163038495720.html" type="external">unchecked</a>, towns have been <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/s-sudan-rebels-say-uganda-mercenaries-hurt-peace" type="external">looted</a> and <a href="http://www.voanews.com/content/south-sudan-malakal-deserted-destroyed-fighting-oxfam/1858905.html" type="external">leveled</a> during recent fighting, the nation is mired in a massive humanitarian crisis, famine looms, and inter-ethnic relations may have been irreparably damaged. &#160;</p>
<p>The China Syndrome</p>
<p>During the years when America was helping bring South Sudan into existence, another world power also took an interest in the country—and a very different tack when it came to its development. After having <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-25654155" type="external">invested</a> a reported $20 billion in Sudan—a country long on the US <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/02/us-usa-sudan-sanctions-idUSBRE8A119Q20121102" type="external">sanctions</a> blacklist—China watched as the new nation of South Sudan <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/china-middle-south-sudans-biggest-oil-importer-learns-wield-its-clout-1568133" type="external">claimed</a> about 75% of its oil fields. In 2012, newly inaugurated South Sudanese President Salva Kiir traveled to China where he sipped champagne with then-President <a href="http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjb_663304/zzjg_663340/xybfs_663590/xwlb_663592/t926468.shtml" type="external">Hu Jintao</a> and reportedly <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-25654155" type="external">secured</a> a pledge of $8 billion to build up his country’s infrastructure and support its oil sector. (A top Chinese envoy later dismissed reports of such a sum, but hinted that China was willing to make <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/14/us-china-sudan-south-idUSBRE92D0JD20130314" type="external">even greater investments</a> in the country if it achieved a lasting peace with its northern neighbor.)</p>
<p>Two years later, the China National Petroleum Corporation, with a <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Ur2KZkFrxvMJ:thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/06/15/un_peacekeepers_to_protect_chinas_oil_interests_in_south_sudan+&amp;cd=6&amp;hl=en&amp;ct=clnk&amp;gl=us" type="external">40% stake</a>, <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/china-middle-south-sudans-biggest-oil-importer-learns-wield-its-clout-1568133" type="external">is</a> now the largest shareholder in the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company, the top oil consortium in South Sudan. It also <a href="http://www.trust.org/item/?map=factbox-sudan-and-south-sudan-oil-payment-dispute" type="external">leads</a> another important consortium, the Greater Pioneer Operating Company. During the first 10 months of 2013, China <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-25654155" type="external">imported</a> nearly 14 million barrels of oil from South Sudan. That adds up to about <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/china-middle-south-sudans-biggest-oil-importer-learns-wield-its-clout-1568133" type="external">77%</a> of the country’s crude oil output and twice as much as China <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-25654155" type="external">imports</a> from energy-rich Nigeria. While South Sudanese oil accounts for only about <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/06/05/uk-southsudan-china-insight-idUKKBN0EG01Z20140605" type="external">5%</a> of China’s total petroleum imports, the country has nonetheless provided Beijing with a new African partner. This was especially useful as a US and NATO intervention in Libya in 2011 created chaotic conditions, causing China to <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-25654155" type="external">suffer</a> heavy losses ($20 billion according to Chinese sources) in various energy and other projects in that country.</p>
<p>“At the end of the day, China’s main interest is stability so that they can function on a commercial basis. And to achieve that stability they’ve had to get more involved on the political side,” says Cameron Hudson, director for African affairs on the staff of the National Security Council at the White House from 2005 to 2009. “They have a very large presence in Juba and are doing a lot of business beyond the oil sector.”</p>
<p>In fact, just days before South Sudan plunged into civil war late last year, the deep-pocketed Export-Import Bank of China was reportedly preparing to offer the country $2 billion in loans and credit to build six key roads— <a href="http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-south-sudan-economy-20140220-story.html" type="external">including</a> a 1,500-mile highway to link the capital, Juba, with Sudan’s main port—crucial bridges across the Nile River, schools and hospitals in every county, a hydropower plant, a government conference center, and a <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2014/03/interactive-china-african-spending-spree-2014320121349799136.html" type="external">staple</a> of Chinese construction schemes in Africa, a stadium.</p>
<p>Recently, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/xinhua-news-agency/140701/china-south-sudan-further-reciprocal-cooperation" type="external">promised</a> to expand cooperation with South Sudan in trade, agriculture, construction of infrastructure, and energy. Meanwhile, a separate $158 million deal to repair and <a href="http://www.voanews.com/content/south-sudan-juba-international-airport-renovation-china-corruption/1952556.html" type="external">expand</a> the airport in Juba, financed by China’s Export-Import Bank and carried out by a Chinese firm, was announced. In addition, China has just <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-08/norinco-sells-south-sudan-arms-as-chinese-government-talks-peace.html" type="external">shipped</a> nearly $40 million in arms—millions of rounds of ammunition, thousands of automatic rifles and grenade launchers, and hundreds of machine guns and pistols—to Salva Kiir’s armed forces. &#160;</p>
<p>Continental Competition</p>
<p>China’s interest in South Sudan is indicative of its relations with the continent as a whole. Beijing has long <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=2&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0CCQQFjAB&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brookings.edu%2F~%2Fmedia%2Fresearch%2Ffiles%2Fpapers%2F2014%2F04%2Fafrica-china-policy-sun%2Fafrica-in-china-web_cmg7.pdf&amp;ei=nGWjU8WABcrnsAS5_" type="external">looked</a> to Africa for diplomatic cooperation in the international arena and, with the continent accounting for more than 25% of the votes in the General Assembly of the United Nations, relied on it for political support. More recently, economics has become the paramount factor in the growing relationship between the rising Asian power and the continent.</p>
<p>Hungry for energy reserves, minerals, and other raw materials to fuel its domestic growth, China’s Export-Import Bank and other state-controlled entities regularly offer financing for railroads, highways, and other <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2014/03/interactive-china-african-spending-spree-2014320121349799136.html" type="external">major infrastructure</a> projects, often tied to the use of Chinese companies and workers. In exchange, China expects long-term supplies of needed natural resources. Such relationships have exploded in the new century with its African trade jumping from $10 billion to an estimated $200 billion, which far exceeds that of the United States or any European country. It has now been Africa’s <a href="http://english.mofcom.gov.cn/article/newsrelease/significantnews/201405/20140500578811.shtml" type="external">largest trading partner</a> for the last five years and boasts of having struck $400 billion worth of deals in African construction projects which have already yielded almost 1,400 miles of railroad track and nearly 2,200 miles of highways.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.haymarketbooks.org/bio/Nick-Turse-0?order=title&amp;sort=asc" type="external" />Resources traded for infrastructure are, however, just one facet of China’s expanding economic relationship with Africa. Looking down the road, Beijing increasingly sees the continent as a market for its manufacturing products. While the West <a href="http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/01/30/chapter-2-aging-in-the-u-s-and-other-countries-2010-to-2050/" type="external">ages</a> and <a href="http://www.foxbusiness.com/economy-policy/2014/01/16/china-now-owns-record-1317t-us-government-debt/" type="external">sinks</a> deeper into <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323353204578127374039087636" type="external">debt</a>, Africa is getting younger and growing at an exponential pace. Its population is, according to demographers, poised to double by the middle of the century, jumping to as many as 3.5 billion—larger than China and India combined—with working-age people far outnumbering the elderly and children.</p>
<p>With its ability to produce goods at low prices, China is betting on being a major supplier of a growing African market when it comes to food, clothes, appliances, and other consumer goods. As Howard French, author of <a href="http://www.npr.org/books/titles/316299150/chinas-second-continent-how-a-million-migrants-are-building-a-new-empire-in-afri" type="external">China’s Second Continent</a> notes, “a variety of economic indicators show that the fortunes of large numbers of Africans are improving dramatically and will likely continue to do so over the next decade or two, only faster.” According to the International Monetary Fund, 10 of the 20 economies projected to grow fastest from 2013-2017 are located in sub-Saharan Africa. Last year, the World Bank attributed 60% of Africa’s economic growth to consumer spending. Beijing may even fuel this rise further by <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=2&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0CCQQFjAB&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brookings.edu%2F~%2Fmedia%2Fresearch%2Ffiles%2Fpapers%2F2014%2F04%2Fafrica-china-policy-sun%2Fafrica-in-china-web_cmg7.pdf&amp;ei=nGWjU8WABcrnsAS5_" type="external">relocating</a> low-skilled, labor-intensive jobs to that continent as it develops more skilled manufacturing and high-tech industries at home.</p>
<p>One Chinese export integral to Beijing’s dealings with Africa has, however, largely escaped notice. In the space of a decade, as French points out, one million or more Chinese have emigrated to Africa, buying up land, establishing businesses, plying just about every conceivable trade from medicine to farming to prostitution. These expats are altering the fundamentals of cultural and economic exchange across the continent and creating something wholly new. “For all of China’s denials that its overseas ambitions could be compared to those of Europeans or Americans,” <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/book-review-chinas-second-continent-by-howard-w-french-1402089810" type="external">writes</a> French, “…what I was witnessing in Africa is the higgledy-piggledy cobbling together of a new Chinese realm of interest. Here were the beginnings of a new empire.”</p>
<p>This mass influx of Chinese pioneers has bred resentment in some quarters, as have heavy-handed tactics by Chinese companies that often ignore local labor laws and environmental regulations, freeze out local workers, mistreat them, or pay them exceptionally low wages. This, in turn, has led to instances of violence against Africa’s Chinese, as has Beijing’s support for unpopular and repressive governments on the continent. Such threats to the safety of Chinese citizens and business interests, as well as general political instability and armed conflicts—from Libya to South Sudan—have given China still another reason to build-up its presence.</p>
<p>Traditionally, Beijing has adhered to a <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/04/24/chinas_african_adventure" type="external">non-interference</a>, “ <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/100593398" type="external">no strings attached</a>” foreign policy—meaning no requirements on partner nations in terms of transparency, corruption, environmental protection, human rights, or good governance—and, as opposed to the United States, has <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=2&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0CCQQFjAB&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brookings.edu%2F~%2Fmedia%2Fresearch%2Ffiles%2Fpapers%2F2014%2F04%2Fafrica-china-policy-sun%2Fafrica-in-china-web_cmg7.pdf&amp;ei=nGWjU8WABcrnsAS5_" type="external">avoided</a> overseas military inventions. While it has long contributed to U.N. peacekeeping operations—the only kind of foreign intervention Beijing considers legitimate—China has generally operated far from the front lines. But things are subtly shifting on this score.</p>
<p>In 2011, after the US-backed revolution in Libya <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=2&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0CCQQFjAB&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brookings.edu%2F~%2Fmedia%2Fresearch%2Ffiles%2Fpapers%2F2014%2F04%2Fafrica-china-policy-sun%2Fafrica-in-china-web_cmg7.pdf&amp;ei=nGWjU8WABcrnsAS5_" type="external">imperiled</a> 30,000 Chinese living there, the People’s Liberation Army coordinated air and sea assets in the largest evacuation mission in its history. And as the war in Libya destabilized neighboring Mali and a US-trained officer overthrew that country’s elected president, China sent combat troops—for the first time in its history—to join U.N. forces in a bid to <a href="http://eng.mod.gov.cn/DefenseNews/2014-06/12/content_4515933.htm" type="external">stabilize</a> a nation that the US had spent a decade bolstering through counterterrorism funding.</p>
<p>Then, when US-backed South Sudan slid into civil war late last year—and 300 Chinese workers had to be evacuated—Beijing departed from the hands-off approach it had taken only a few years earlier with Sudan, ramped up <a href="http://www.voanews.com/content/reu-china-sends-envoy-south-sudan-push-peace-talks/1818388.html" type="external">diplomatic efforts</a> and <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/04/24/chinas_african_adventure" type="external">pushed hard</a> for <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/05/us-southsudan-china-insight-idUSKBN0EG00320140605" type="external">peace talks</a>. “This is something new for us,” <a href="http://english.cntv.cn/program/china24/20140308/104483.shtml" type="external">said</a> China’s special envoy to Africa, Zhong Jianhua. This was, he noted, the beginning of a “new chapter” in policies by which China would now “do more [in terms of] peace and security for this continent.”</p>
<p>More recently, Beijing managed to broker an unprecedented arrangement to expand the mandate of the U.N. Mission in South Sudan. In addition to “protection of civilians, monitoring and investigating human rights abuses, and facilitating the delivery of humanitarian assistance,” <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Ur2KZkFrxvMJ:thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/06/15/un_peacekeepers_to_protect_chinas_oil_interests_in_south_sudan+&amp;cd=6&amp;hl=en&amp;ct=clnk&amp;gl=us" type="external">according</a> to Foreign Policy, “Beijing quietly secured a deal that will put the U.N.’s famed blue helmets to work protecting workers in South Sudan’s oil installations, where China has invested billions of dollars.” Although protecting the oil fields is akin to taking the government’s side in a civil war, the US, France, and Great Britain backed the plan to protect <a href="http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2014/sc11414.doc.htm" type="external">oil installations</a> under a U.N. mandate, citing the importance of the energy sector to the future of the country. In return, China will send an 850-man <a href="https://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/23970233/china-to-send-peacekeeping-battalion-to-s-sudan/" type="external">infantry battalion</a> to bolster the U.N. mission, <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Ur2KZkFrxvMJ:thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/06/15/un_peacekeepers_to_protect_chinas_oil_interests_in_south_sudan+&amp;cd=6&amp;hl=en&amp;ct=clnk&amp;gl=us" type="external">adding</a> to the <a href="http://za.china-embassy.org/eng/zgxw/t1114441.htm" type="external">350</a> military <a href="http://eng.mod.gov.cn/Photos/2014-05/04/content_4506665.htm" type="external">personnel</a> it already had on the ground here.</p>
<p>When it comes to protecting their infrastructure, “the Chinese have gotten very good at deploying peacekeeping forces,” <a href="http://global.fundforpeace.org/staff-ptaft" type="external">Patricia Taft</a>, a senior associate with the Fund for Peace, tells TomDispatch. “The Chinese have, in East Africa and also West Africa, inserted themselves as a security presence, mainly to protect their oil interests, their infrastructure, or whatever economic projects they’re deeply invested in.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.stimson.org/experts/yun-sun/" type="external">Yun Sun</a>, a fellow at the Stimson Center and an <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/experts/suny" type="external">expert</a> on China’s relations with Africa, doesn’t see these recent developments as a militarization of China’s mission, but as a symptom of increased investment in the countries of the continent. “China cares more about security issues in Africa… due to its own national interests,” Sun tells TomDispatch. “It means China will contribute more to the peace and security issues of the continent.” And it seems that Beijing is now doing so, in part on America’s dime. &#160;</p>
<p>Winners and Losers</p>
<p>US taxpayers, who fund about 27% percent of the cost of United Nations peacekeeping missions, are now effectively underwriting China’s efforts to protect its oil interests in South Sudan. Washington continues to <a href="http://usun.state.gov/briefing/statements/226572.htm" type="external">pour aid</a> into that country—more than $456 million in humanitarian assistance in fiscal year 2014—while China has <a href="http://reliefweb.int/report/south-sudan-republic/china-donates-200-thousand-us-dollars-aid-south-sudan" type="external">pledged</a> far less in <a href="http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2014-07/02/content_17637890.htm" type="external">humanitarian relief</a>. Meanwhile, Juba has tied itself ever more tightly to Chinese energy interests, with plans to <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-28/south-sudan-borrows-200m-from-oil-companies-as-war-hits-output.html" type="external">borrow</a> more than <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/02/southsudan-budget-idUSL6N0PD42U20140702" type="external">$1 billion</a> from <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303465004579324240269459308" type="external">oil companies</a> to <a href="https://radiotamazuj.org/en/article/s-sudan-owes-256-million-chinese-firm-78m-dutch" type="external">keep</a> the government afloat as it battles the rebels.</p>
<p><a href="http://global.fundforpeace.org/staff-ptaft" type="external">Taft</a> sees these deals with largely Chinese firms as both risky for South Sudan’s future and potentially ineffective as well. “It’s putting a band-aid on a hemorrhaging artery,” she says. David Deng, research director for the South Sudan Law Society, echoes this: “We’re mortgaging our children’s future to fight a pointless war.”</p>
<p>South Sudan seems emblematic of a larger trend in the race between Washington and Beijing in Africa. In 2000, China’s trade there passed $10 billion for the first time and has been growing at a 30% clip annually ever since. Nine years later, China overtook the US to become the continent’s largest trading partner and, by 2012, its trade was nearly double that of the US—$198.5 billion to $99.8 billion. While the United States recently <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/frontiers/2014/07/25/qa-pritzker-and-bloomberg-discuss-the-u-s-africa-business-forum/" type="external">announced</a> that $900 million in unspecified “deals” with Africa will be unveiled at an upcoming US-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, it will nonetheless continue to <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/africa-in-focus/posts/2014/07/24-deeping-trade-commercial-ties" type="external">trail</a> far behind China in terms of trade on the continent.</p>
<p>For the Chinese, Africa is El Dorado, a land of opportunity for one million migrants. For America, it’s a collection of “ <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/15/magazine/can-general-linders-special-operations-forces-stop-the-next-terrorist-threat.html?_r=0" type="external">ungoverned spaces</a>,” “ <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175743/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_africom%27s_gigantic_%22small_footprint%22" type="external">austere locations</a>,” and failing states increasingly dominated by local terror groups poised to become global threats, a danger zone to be militarily managed through special operators and proxy armies. “In Africa, terrorists, criminal organizations, militias, corrupt officials, and pirates continue to exploit ungoverned and under-governed territory on the continent and its surrounding waters,” <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0CB0QFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.defense.gov%2Fpubs%2F2014_Quadrennial_Defense_Review.pdf&amp;ei=hZWlU7vKIYqz8AHW9IDYCQ&amp;usg=AFQjCNHrtY8Qh6470DFh318VlYJfnOAhxQ&amp;bvm=bv.69411363,d.b2k" type="external">reads</a> the Pentagon’s 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). “The potential for rapidly developing threats, particularly in fragile states, including violent public protests and terrorist attacks, could pose acute challenges to US interests.”</p>
<p>“Recent engagements in Somalia and Mali, in which African countries and regional organizations are working together with international partners in Europe and the United States, may provide a model for future partnerships,” adds the QDR. But a look at those poster-child nations for US involvement—one in East and one in West Africa—instead provides evidence of America’s failings on the continent.</p>
<p>In 2006, the Islamic Court Union (ICU), a loose confederation of indigenous Islamist groups seeking to impose <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/04/kenya-westgate-mall-attacks" type="external">order</a> on the failed state of Somalia, <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2006/12/19/seven_questions_war_in_somalia" type="external">defeated</a> the Alliance for Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism, a US-supported militia, and <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/30/us-shabaab-east-africa-idUSBRE84T0NI20120530" type="external">pushed</a> the US-backed warlords out of Mogadishu, the capital. In response, the United States green-lighted a 2007 <a href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-01-07-ethiopia_x.htm" type="external">invasion</a> of the country by Ethiopia’s military and <a href="http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFKBN0F72AA20140702?sp=true" type="external">secretly sent</a> in a small contingent of its own troops (still operating in Somalia to this day). This succeeded only in splintering the ICU, sending its moderates into exile, while its hardliners formed a far more extreme Islamic group, al-Shabab, which became the key Muslim resistance force against al-Shabab, Washington’s Ethiopian proxies.</p>
<p>Al-Shabab experienced a great deal of military success before being <a href="https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/al-shababs-capabilities-post-westgate" type="external">beaten</a> back by the Ethiopians, troops from a <a href="http://www.africom.mil/Newsroom/Transcript/7260/transcript-us-policy-in-somalia--no-direct-support" type="external">US-supported</a> Somali transitional <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/24/AR2009062403495.html" type="external">government</a>, and well-armed <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14094632" type="external">peacekeepers</a> from the <a href="http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/texttrans/2013/05/20130507146938.html" type="external">US-backed</a> African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). These forces were, from 2009 onward, joined by proxies trained and armed by <a href="http://www.wired.com/2011/10/new-somalia-attack/" type="external">US-ally Kenya</a>, whose own army <a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/136670/daniel-branch/why-kenya-invaded-somalia" type="external">invaded</a> the country in 2011. Their <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/11/18/130739/wikileaks-us-warned-kenya-against.html" type="external">forces</a> in Somalia, eventually <a href="http://sabahionline.com/en_GB/articles/hoa/articles/newsbriefs/2012/03/09/newsbrief-02" type="external">folded</a> into the AMISOM mission, are still <a href="http://www.issafrica.org/iss-today/kenyas-dilemma-in-somalia-to-withdraw-or-not-to-withdraw?utm_source=June+25+2014+EN&amp;utm_campaign=7%2F25%2F2014&amp;utm_medium=email" type="external">deployed</a> there. On the run and outgunned, al-Shabab responded by <a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/136670/daniel-branch/why-kenya-invaded-somalia" type="external">threatening</a> to take the war beyond its borders and soon began to do so.</p>
<p>In other words, what started as a local Islamic group achieving, <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0CB0QFjAA&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.chathamhouse.org%2Fsites%2Ffiles%2Fchathamhouse%2Fpublic%2FResearch%2FAfrica%2Fbpsomalia0407.pdf&amp;ei=NCemU_rZIIaqyAThq4LQBg&amp;usg=AFQjCNHhqSu8ge" type="external">according</a> to a Chatham House report, “the unthinkable, uniting Mogadishu for the first time in 16 years, and reestablishing peace and security,” quickly became a transnational terror organization in the wake of the Ethiopian invasion and other acts of intervention. In 2010, al-Shabab carried out a bomb <a href="http://world.time.com/2013/09/21/terror-in-nairobi-behind-al-shabaabs-war-with-kenya/" type="external">attack</a> in Uganda as a punishment for that country’s contribution to the African Union mission in Somalia. In 2011, it <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/kenya-grenade-suspect-im-al-shabab-member-132633695.html" type="external">launched</a> an escalating series of <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/kenya-hotel-attack-suspected-alshabaab-militants-kill-48-people-in-mpeketoni-9539402.html" type="external">shootings</a>, <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/07/20127182456433169.html" type="external">grenade attacks</a>, and bombings in Kenya. The next year, the formerly Somalia-centric outfit further internationalized its efforts as one of its leaders pledged obedience to al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri. In 2013, the group carried out a devastating <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/oct/04/westgate-mall-attacks-kenya-terror" type="external">attack</a> on the Westgate Mall in Kenya that killed 67.</p>
<p>Earlier this year, al-Shabab extended its reach even further with its first-ever <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/27/uk-djibouti-attacks-idUSKBN0E72AA20140527" type="external">suicide attack</a> in Djibouti, the tiny Horn of Africa nation that contributes troops to AMISOM and hosts French troops, a key European <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175818/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_american_proxy_wars_in_africa" type="external">proxy force</a> for Washington on the continent, as well as the only avowed US base in Africa. “The attack was carried out against the French Crusaders for their complicity in the massacres and persecution of our Muslim brothers in the Central African Republic and for their active role in training and equipping the apostate Djiboutian troops in Somalia,” read an al-Shabab statement that also <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175818/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_american_proxy_wars_in_africa" type="external">highlighted</a> a US-backed French military mission in the Central African Republic.</p>
<p>In the months since, the group has <a href="http://www.voanews.com/content/eighteen-killed-in-attacks-in-kenya/1951691.html?utm_source=July+7+2014+EN&amp;utm_campaign=7%2F7%2F2014&amp;utm_medium=email" type="external">repeatedly</a> <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/somalia/index.html" type="external">launched</a> murderous assaults on civilians in Kenya and continues to <a href="http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/Uganda-beefs-up-security-at-all-borders/-/2558/2353824/-/u9lch8/-/index.html?utm_source=June+20+2014+EN&amp;utm_campaign=620%2F2014&amp;utm_medium=email" type="external">threaten</a> Uganda and Burundi, which also contributes troops to AMISOM, with future attacks. It has even gained regional affiliates, like <a href="https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/al-hijra-al-shababs-affiliate-in-kenya" type="external">Al-Hijra</a>, an underground group accused of recruiting for al-Shabab in Kenya.</p>
<p>After 9/11, on the opposite side of the continent, US programs like the Pan-Sahel Initiative and the Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Partnership, pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into training and arming the militaries of Mali, Niger, Chad, Mauritania, Nigeria, Algeria, and Tunisia, again in order to promote regional “stability.” While US Special Operations forces were <a href="http://www.defense.gov/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=27112" type="external">teaching</a> infantry tactics to Malian troops, the Chinese were engaging very differently with that West African nation. Despite Mali’s lack of natural resources, China constructed a key bridge, a hospital, a stadium, a major government building, several factories, miles of highways, and a $230 million waterworks project.</p>
<p>The US wasn’t, however, left totally out in the cold on the construction front. The State Department’s Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), for example, spent $71.6 million to expand the Bamako Airport. The contract, however, went to a Chinese firm—as did many MCC contracts across Africa—because American companies were uninterested in working there despite guaranteed US financing.</p>
<p>What Washington was trying to build in Mali came crashing down, however, after the US helped topple Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, causing that country to collapse into a morass of militia fiefdoms. Nomadic Tuareg fighters looted the weapons stores of the Gaddafi regime they had previously served, crossed the border, routed US-backed Malian forces and seized the northern part of the country. This, in turn, prompted a US-trained officer to stage a military coup in the Malian capital, Bamako, and oust the democratically elected president.</p>
<p>Soon after, the Tuareg rebels were muscled aside by heavily-armed Islamist rebels who began taking over the country. This, in turn, prompted the US to back a 2013 invasion by French and African forces which <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175818/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_american_proxy_wars_in_africa" type="external">arrested</a> the complete collapse of Mali—leaving it in a permanent state of <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/140611/suicide-bomber-kills-four-chadian-un-peacekeepers-mali" type="external">occupation</a> and <a href="http://www.voanews.com/content/reu-french-soldier-dies-in-mali-as-paris-readies-counter-insurgency-plan/1910255.html" type="external">low-level insurgency</a>. Meanwhile, Islamist fighters and <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175714/nick_turse_blowback_central" type="external">Gaddafi’s weapons</a> were <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/nigerian-islamist-militants-return-from-mali-with-weapons-skills/2013/05/31/d377579e-c628-11e2-9cd9-3b9a22a4000a_story.html" type="external">scattered</a> across <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/13/us-nigeria-islamists-insight-idUSBRE94C04Q20130513" type="external">Africa</a>, contributing to greater <a href="http://studies.aljazeera.net/en/reports/2013/09/201398104245877469.htm" type="external">instability</a> in <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/nigerian-islamist-militants-return-from-mali-with-weapons-skills/2013/05/31/d377579e-c628-11e2-9cd9-3b9a22a4000a_story.html" type="external">Nigeria</a> and <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175714/nick_turse_blowback_central" type="external">Libya</a>, as well as <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0CB0QFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Faccelus.thomsonreuters.com%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2FGRC00406.pdf&amp;ei=AjamU8zSHIunyASvv4G4Dw&amp;usg=AFQjCNGQxJr2EoJyugVZW0wIUdpkVVcbUQ&amp;bvm=bv.6941136" type="external">increased</a> threat levels in Chad, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Guinea, Niger, Senegal, and Togo. It evidently also spurred an audacious <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/17/world/meast/algeria-who-is-belmoktar/" type="external">revenge attack</a> in Algeria that left more than <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/algeria-gas-plant-attack/#igImgId_73604" type="external">80 dead</a> and an assault on a French-run uranium mine and a nearby military base in Niger in which at least 25 people were killed. &#160;</p>
<p>Two Systems, One Continent</p>
<p>In 2000, a report prepared under the auspices of the US Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute examined the “African security environment.” While it touched on “internal separatist or rebel movements” in “weak states,” as well as non-state actors like militias and “warlord armies,” there is conspicuously no mention of Islamic extremism or major transnational terrorist threats. Following the 9/11 attacks, a senior Pentagon official claimed that the US invasion of Afghanistan might drive “terrorists” out of that country and into African nations, but when pressed about actual transnational dangers on that continent, he admitted that even hardcore Somali militants “really have not engaged in acts of terrorism outside Somalia.”</p>
<p>Despite this, Washington dispatched personnel to Africa in 2002 and began pouring money into counterterrorism efforts. Since then, the US has steadily increased its military footprint, its troop levels, and its missions on the continent—from night raids in Somalia and kidnap operations in Libya to the construction of a string of bases <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175830/" type="external">devoted</a> to surveillance activities across the northern tier of Africa.</p>
<p>For all the time spent training proxies, all the propaganda efforts, all the black ops missions, all the counterterror funds, the results have been dismal. A glance at the official State Department list of terrorist organizations indicates that these efforts have been mirrored by the growth of radical militant groups, including the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group added in 2004, al-Shabab in 2008, Ansar al-Dine, Boko Haram, Ansaru, and the al-Mulathamun Battalion in 2013, and Libya’s Ansar al-Shari’a in Benghazi, and Ansar al-Shari’a in Darnah, as well as Ansar al-Shari’a in Tunisia, and the Egyptian militant group <a href="http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2014/04/224566.htm" type="external">Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis</a>, all in 2014. And that’s hardly a full list. Not included are various <a href="http://studies.aljazeera.net/en/reports/2013/06/2013624102946689517.htm" type="external">terror organizations</a>, rebel forces, separatist movements, armed groups, and militias <a href="https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/aqims-threat-to-western-interests-in-the-sahel" type="external">like</a> the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa, fighters from the group formerly known as Seleka and their rivals, <a href="http://abujavoice.com/coalition-of-terrorists-neo-colonialist-radicalisation-of-the-african-mind-with-religion-web-of-terror-ii/" type="external">anti-balaka</a> militiamen in the Central African Republic, Taureg separatists of Mali’s <a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/04/10/150343027/foreign-policy-the-mess-in-mali" type="external">National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad</a>, the Congolese Resistance Patriots, Burundi’s <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-24/burundi-rebels-claim-attack-on-army-soldiers-in-congo-kills-nine.html?utm_source=June+25+2014+EN&amp;utm_campaign=7%2F25%2F2014&amp;utm_medium=email" type="external">National Forces of Liberation</a>, and <a href="http://www.jamestown.org/regions/africa/single/?tx_ttnews%5btt_news%5d=41803&amp;tx_ttnews%5bbackPid%5d=55&amp;cHash=2428ae3fb8f80467a048e6acaa6bf6dc#.U6jfRLHLWSo" type="external">others</a>.</p>
<p>Over these years, as the US has chased terror groups and watched them proliferate, China has taken another route, devoting its efforts to building <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/28/opinion/beijing-a-boon-for-africa.html?_r=0" type="external">goodwill</a> through public works and winning over governments through “no strings attached” policies.</p>
<p>“Our goal is not to counter China; our goal is not to contain China,” President Obama <a href="http://thediplomat.com/2014/04/obama-in-philippines-our-goal-is-not-to-contain-china/" type="external">said</a> during a trip to Asia earlier this year. In South Sudan, as in Africa as a whole, America seems increasingly unable to even keep up. “On certain levels, we can’t or won’t compete with China,” says the Fund for Peace’s Patricia Taft. “China will continue to eclipse us in terms of economic interests in Africa.” The US is, however, still preeminent in the political sphere and that influence, she says, will continue to trump anything China can currently offer.</p>
<p>The question is: For how long?</p>
<p>Cameron Hudson, formerly of the National Security Council and now the acting director of the Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the US Holocaust Museum, thinks strengthening partnerships with the Chinese could lead to major dividends for the United States. “They have more skin in the game,” he says of Beijing’s relationship with South Sudan. “They have a growing set of interests there.”</p>
<p>Benediste Hoareau, head of political affairs for the <a href="http://www.easfcom.org/index.php/about-easf/history-and-background" type="external">East African Standby Force</a>—a rapid intervention force in-the-making, consisting of troops from the region’s militaries—expresses similar sentiments. He believes in the often repeated axiom of finding <a href="https://blogs.state.gov/stories/2011/08/31/african-solutions-african-problems" type="external">African solutions to African problems</a> and says that the foreign powers should provide the funds and let African forces do the fighting and peacekeeping in South Sudan.</p>
<p>Hoareau, in fact, sees no need for a contest, new Cold War or otherwise, between the foreign titans here. There are plenty of opportunities for both the United States and China in Africa and in South Sudan, he tells TomDispatch. A rivalry between the two powers can only bring trouble. “They’re elephants,” Hoareau says of China and America, “and you know just who will get trampled.”</p>
<p>Nick Turse is the managing editor of TomDispatch.com and a fellow at the Nation Institute. A 2014 Izzy Award winner, he has reported from the Middle East, Asia, and Africa and his pieces have appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Nation, and <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175844/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_how_%22benghazi%22_birthed_the_new_normal_in_africa/" type="external">regularly</a> at TomDispatch.This story was reported in partnership with the <a href="http://www.theinvestigativefund.org/" type="external">Investigative Fund</a> at the Nation Institute. Additional funding was provided through the generosity of Adelaide Gomer. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com <a href="http://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&amp;id=1e41682ade" type="external">here</a>.</p> | 3,252 |
<p>If terrorists turn a US nuclear plant into a radioactive holocaust, the House of Representatives wants you to pay for it. But the Senate can still say otherwise.</p>
<p>The House voted November 28 in virtual secret to shield new reactor builders from normal insurance liability, even if they lack safety domes to contain radioactive releases.</p>
<p>Only a handful of Representatives were present for the vote. Led by Texas Republican Joe Barton and Michigan Democrat John Dingell, HR 2983 sailed through under a “suspension of rules,” traditionally used for unanimous resolutions to rename government buildings, proclaim heroes and commemorate holidays. Facing a barrage of grassroots opposition, a very cynical nuke caucus used the loophole to avoid full debate and hide their votes on the free insurance ride for a new generation of reactors.</p>
<p>Barton received more than $131,590 in utility contributions leading up to the 2000 election. Dingell got $109,679. Dingell is also related by marriage to major partners in Detroit Edison, which built the Fermi nuclear plant at Monroe Michigan. Fermi Unit I, a breeder reactor, nearly exploded in 1966.</p>
<p>That near-catastrophe was memorialized in John G. Fuller’s WE ALMOST LOST DETROIT, from the Readers Digest Press. By official 1982 estimates, such an explosion could have killed tens of thousands of US citizens and done $592 billion in damage.</p>
<p>But since 1957, the atomic power industry has been shielded from such consequences. Utility presidents considered the reactors too risky. So a pro-nuke Congress passed the Price-Anderson Act, limiting the industry’s liability. The Act’s current version allows public indemnification only up to roughly $9 billion. Private citizens who lose their health, families or property would have to beg Congress for any more. To this day, all US homeowner insurance policies claim exemption from damage caused by a nuclear accident.</p>
<p>But the public was originally told Price-Anderson was just a “temporary” fix until private insurers gained confidence in reactor safety. The initial exemption was to last just ten years.</p>
<p>That was 44 years ago. A re-re-re-renewed Price-Anderson is now slated to expire in August, 2002. The 103 US reactors now licensed are grandfathered under the law. But the industry wants a new generation of reactors which it says will be perfectly safe, even though some of the heavily subsidized designs are almost entirely untested. Vice President Dick Cheney, among others, has made it clear none will be built without this public-funded insurance safety net.</p>
<p>The renewal’s grassroots opposition has been deeply embittered by the terrorist attacks of September 11. The London Sunday Times has reported that the fourth hijacked jet, which crashed in a Pennsylvania field, may have been headed for a nuke. Regulators and the industry concede that no US reactor containment is designed to withstand the crash of a large fuel-laden airplane. But incredibly enough, the new Pebble Bed design promoted by HR2983 has no containment at all!</p>
<p>Multiple lawsuits filed in New York and elsewhere now demand operating nukes be shut. Reactors over the years have routinely flunked a wide range of “anti-terrorist” tests even though operators in many cases had six months warning and the tests were essentially rigged. Severe operating and structural problems still plague the industry, as at Ohio’s Davis-Besse, now in line for a rare official inspection. And as of today, 2400 central Pennsylvanians who can document harm from radioactive releases at the 1979 Three Mile Island accident still can’t get their cases heard in federal court. Thus the industry’s infamous assertion that “no one died at Three Mile Island,” with which the plaintiffs vehemently disagree, remains untested in a public jury trial. The whole debate is overshadowed by the escalating success of wind power, the world’s fastest growing new source of electricity, now a $5 billion industry leaping ahead at 25% per year. Wind-driven kilowatt costs are plumetting, as are those from solar power and fuel cells. Conservation and efficiency measures are already far cheaper than reactor output. None are subject to terrorist attack. None threaten a radioactive holocaust. None require Congressional insurance immunity.</p>
<p>This latest Price-Anderson renewal must still pass the Senate, where the Bush-Cheney Administration may attach it to its larger pro-nuclear energy bill.</p>
<p>But building new reactors would give future terrorists yet more chances to perpetrate a nuclear holocaust at public expense. And mandating a design without even a simple containment dome raises questions of basic sanity.</p>
<p>After nearly a half-century of atomic failure, the House and the White House seem intent on handing our avowed enemies ever more dangerous versions of the uninsurable ultimate weapon.</p>
<p>What could be more treasonous?</p>
<p>Harvey Wasserman is author of THE LAST ENERGY WAR (Seven Stories Press).</p> | Atomic Treason in the House | true | https://counterpunch.org/2001/12/04/atomic-treason-in-the-house/ | 2001-12-04 | 4left
| Atomic Treason in the House
<p>If terrorists turn a US nuclear plant into a radioactive holocaust, the House of Representatives wants you to pay for it. But the Senate can still say otherwise.</p>
<p>The House voted November 28 in virtual secret to shield new reactor builders from normal insurance liability, even if they lack safety domes to contain radioactive releases.</p>
<p>Only a handful of Representatives were present for the vote. Led by Texas Republican Joe Barton and Michigan Democrat John Dingell, HR 2983 sailed through under a “suspension of rules,” traditionally used for unanimous resolutions to rename government buildings, proclaim heroes and commemorate holidays. Facing a barrage of grassroots opposition, a very cynical nuke caucus used the loophole to avoid full debate and hide their votes on the free insurance ride for a new generation of reactors.</p>
<p>Barton received more than $131,590 in utility contributions leading up to the 2000 election. Dingell got $109,679. Dingell is also related by marriage to major partners in Detroit Edison, which built the Fermi nuclear plant at Monroe Michigan. Fermi Unit I, a breeder reactor, nearly exploded in 1966.</p>
<p>That near-catastrophe was memorialized in John G. Fuller’s WE ALMOST LOST DETROIT, from the Readers Digest Press. By official 1982 estimates, such an explosion could have killed tens of thousands of US citizens and done $592 billion in damage.</p>
<p>But since 1957, the atomic power industry has been shielded from such consequences. Utility presidents considered the reactors too risky. So a pro-nuke Congress passed the Price-Anderson Act, limiting the industry’s liability. The Act’s current version allows public indemnification only up to roughly $9 billion. Private citizens who lose their health, families or property would have to beg Congress for any more. To this day, all US homeowner insurance policies claim exemption from damage caused by a nuclear accident.</p>
<p>But the public was originally told Price-Anderson was just a “temporary” fix until private insurers gained confidence in reactor safety. The initial exemption was to last just ten years.</p>
<p>That was 44 years ago. A re-re-re-renewed Price-Anderson is now slated to expire in August, 2002. The 103 US reactors now licensed are grandfathered under the law. But the industry wants a new generation of reactors which it says will be perfectly safe, even though some of the heavily subsidized designs are almost entirely untested. Vice President Dick Cheney, among others, has made it clear none will be built without this public-funded insurance safety net.</p>
<p>The renewal’s grassroots opposition has been deeply embittered by the terrorist attacks of September 11. The London Sunday Times has reported that the fourth hijacked jet, which crashed in a Pennsylvania field, may have been headed for a nuke. Regulators and the industry concede that no US reactor containment is designed to withstand the crash of a large fuel-laden airplane. But incredibly enough, the new Pebble Bed design promoted by HR2983 has no containment at all!</p>
<p>Multiple lawsuits filed in New York and elsewhere now demand operating nukes be shut. Reactors over the years have routinely flunked a wide range of “anti-terrorist” tests even though operators in many cases had six months warning and the tests were essentially rigged. Severe operating and structural problems still plague the industry, as at Ohio’s Davis-Besse, now in line for a rare official inspection. And as of today, 2400 central Pennsylvanians who can document harm from radioactive releases at the 1979 Three Mile Island accident still can’t get their cases heard in federal court. Thus the industry’s infamous assertion that “no one died at Three Mile Island,” with which the plaintiffs vehemently disagree, remains untested in a public jury trial. The whole debate is overshadowed by the escalating success of wind power, the world’s fastest growing new source of electricity, now a $5 billion industry leaping ahead at 25% per year. Wind-driven kilowatt costs are plumetting, as are those from solar power and fuel cells. Conservation and efficiency measures are already far cheaper than reactor output. None are subject to terrorist attack. None threaten a radioactive holocaust. None require Congressional insurance immunity.</p>
<p>This latest Price-Anderson renewal must still pass the Senate, where the Bush-Cheney Administration may attach it to its larger pro-nuclear energy bill.</p>
<p>But building new reactors would give future terrorists yet more chances to perpetrate a nuclear holocaust at public expense. And mandating a design without even a simple containment dome raises questions of basic sanity.</p>
<p>After nearly a half-century of atomic failure, the House and the White House seem intent on handing our avowed enemies ever more dangerous versions of the uninsurable ultimate weapon.</p>
<p>What could be more treasonous?</p>
<p>Harvey Wasserman is author of THE LAST ENERGY WAR (Seven Stories Press).</p> | 3,253 |
<p>Two-thirds believe Islam is not part of mainstream U.S. society and contend it encourages violence more than other faiths, while 72 percent see a natural conflict between Islam and democracy, according to Pew.</p>
<p>Related story:&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Baptist editor says Muslims don’t deserve religious freedom</a></p>
<p>Related opinion:&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Baptists and Muslims: Learning together | Doug Donley</a></p> | Most white evangelicals don’t believe Muslims belong in U.S. | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/white-evangelicals-dont-believe-muslims-belong-u-s/ | 3left-center
| Most white evangelicals don’t believe Muslims belong in U.S.
<p>Two-thirds believe Islam is not part of mainstream U.S. society and contend it encourages violence more than other faiths, while 72 percent see a natural conflict between Islam and democracy, according to Pew.</p>
<p>Related story:&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Baptist editor says Muslims don’t deserve religious freedom</a></p>
<p>Related opinion:&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Baptists and Muslims: Learning together | Doug Donley</a></p> | 3,254 |
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<p>FILE – In a March 12, 2014 file photo, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer holds a copy of the Medicaid Restoration Plan draft bill at the Capitol in Phoenix. The Arizona Supreme Court on Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2014, allowed a lawsuit challenging Brewer’s Medicaid expansion plan to move forward, a decision that deals a major blow to the outgoing governor’s signature achievement. The high court agreed that 36 Republican lawmakers can sue Brewer over the legality of a hospital assessment that funds the expansion plan. (AP Photo/Matt York, File)</p>
<p>PHOENIX — The Arizona Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed a lawsuit challenging Gov. Jan Brewer’s Medicaid expansion plan to move forward, a decision that deals a major blow to the governor’s signature achievement just days before she leaves office.</p>
<p>The high court agreed that 36 Republican lawmakers can sue Brewer over the legality of a hospital assessment that funds the expansion plan.</p>
<p>The ruling means the outgoing governor’s plan to insure about 300,000 poor Arizonans using a key part of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul could eventually be crippled as she hands over the governor’s office to fellow Republican Doug Ducey.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Brewer, who leaves office on Jan. 5, said in a statement that she was “naturally disappointed” in the ruling but hopeful she will eventually prevail.</p>
<p>“I am abundantly confident that Arizona will ultimately prevail, and that the state will be able to focus on implementing one of the most meaningful and critical health care policies in years – the restoration of crucial, cost-effective care to thousands of Arizonans,” Brewer said.</p>
<p>However, it will be Ducey who must decide whether the state continues to fight the lawsuit challenging the assessment. His spokesman didn’t immediately return calls seeking comment.</p>
<p>The case now returns to a trial court which will be charged with deciding whether the hospital assessment is a tax that requires a two-thirds majority vote. Only a bare majority passed the legislation. The Goldwater Institute, which sued on behalf of lawmakers, plans to ask a judge to halt the funding for the expansion immediately, and Brewer hopes Ducey continues to defend her plan.</p>
<p>Without the assessment, Arizona won’t have the matching funds needed to pay its share of the expansion that is now covering about 255,000 low-income Arizonans.</p>
<p>Brewer put together a coalition of Democrats and some Republicans who supported the expansion, and after a monthslong battle with conservatives of her own party pushed it through the Legislature in a June 2013 special session. She was one of only a handful of Republican governors who embraced Medicaid expansion. In all, 27 states and the District of Columbia are moving ahead with the expansion. Sixteen states have turned down the expansion, and seven others are weighing options, according to the latest tracking by the Kaiser Family Foundation.</p>
<p>Republicans who opposed the expansion joined forces with the Goldwater Institute to sue Brewer. The key question of the legal fight is whether the hospital money — assessed on impatient discharges — is a tax.</p>
<p>The GOP lawmakers say it is a tax, meaning the Medicaid expansion violated the state Constitution because any tax increase in Arizona requires a two-thirds vote in the Legislature. The expansion passed with a simple majority. Brewer’s lawyers argued that the assessment wasn’t a tax and that the Legislature itself voted not to require the supermajority vote.</p>
<p>A Maricopa County Superior Court judge first threw out the lawmakers’ lawsuit, but the state appeals court reversed that decision and allowed the lawsuit challenging the hospital assessment.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed with the appeals court, while noting it was not deciding whether the assessment was indeed a tax.</p>
<p>“Regardless of how the case ultimately comes out, today’s decision means that lawmakers can’t vote to ignore the Constitution,” said Christina Sandefur, the Goldwater Institute attorney who argued the case. “More than 20 years ago, Arizona voters enacted Proposition 108 to curb taxes and government growth. Thanks to today’s decision, the dozens of lawmakers who voted against dramatically transforming Arizona’s Medicaid program, putting the state on the hook for billions of dollars, and ceding the legislature’s taxing power to an unaccountable administrator, will get to defend this important legacy.”</p>
<p>The hospital assessment is expected to collect $256 million in the state’s 2015 budget year to pay the state’s share of expanding Medicaid. The beneficiaries of the expansion include people earning between 100 percent and 138 percent of the federal poverty level and childless adults making less than that who lost optional coverage provided by Arizona during a state budget crisis — people Brewer herself once fought to push off the program.</p>
<p>The federal government pays for most of the expansion costs, but restoring optional coverage that Arizona voters have twice approved required the assessment. Hospitals strongly backed the assessment because they expect to see a much bigger reduction in the cost of treating uninsured patients.</p> | Arizona Supreme Court allows Medicaid plan lawsuit | false | https://abqjournal.com/519621/arizona-supreme-court-allows-medicaid-plan-lawsuit.html | 2least
| Arizona Supreme Court allows Medicaid plan lawsuit
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<p>FILE – In a March 12, 2014 file photo, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer holds a copy of the Medicaid Restoration Plan draft bill at the Capitol in Phoenix. The Arizona Supreme Court on Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2014, allowed a lawsuit challenging Brewer’s Medicaid expansion plan to move forward, a decision that deals a major blow to the outgoing governor’s signature achievement. The high court agreed that 36 Republican lawmakers can sue Brewer over the legality of a hospital assessment that funds the expansion plan. (AP Photo/Matt York, File)</p>
<p>PHOENIX — The Arizona Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed a lawsuit challenging Gov. Jan Brewer’s Medicaid expansion plan to move forward, a decision that deals a major blow to the governor’s signature achievement just days before she leaves office.</p>
<p>The high court agreed that 36 Republican lawmakers can sue Brewer over the legality of a hospital assessment that funds the expansion plan.</p>
<p>The ruling means the outgoing governor’s plan to insure about 300,000 poor Arizonans using a key part of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul could eventually be crippled as she hands over the governor’s office to fellow Republican Doug Ducey.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Brewer, who leaves office on Jan. 5, said in a statement that she was “naturally disappointed” in the ruling but hopeful she will eventually prevail.</p>
<p>“I am abundantly confident that Arizona will ultimately prevail, and that the state will be able to focus on implementing one of the most meaningful and critical health care policies in years – the restoration of crucial, cost-effective care to thousands of Arizonans,” Brewer said.</p>
<p>However, it will be Ducey who must decide whether the state continues to fight the lawsuit challenging the assessment. His spokesman didn’t immediately return calls seeking comment.</p>
<p>The case now returns to a trial court which will be charged with deciding whether the hospital assessment is a tax that requires a two-thirds majority vote. Only a bare majority passed the legislation. The Goldwater Institute, which sued on behalf of lawmakers, plans to ask a judge to halt the funding for the expansion immediately, and Brewer hopes Ducey continues to defend her plan.</p>
<p>Without the assessment, Arizona won’t have the matching funds needed to pay its share of the expansion that is now covering about 255,000 low-income Arizonans.</p>
<p>Brewer put together a coalition of Democrats and some Republicans who supported the expansion, and after a monthslong battle with conservatives of her own party pushed it through the Legislature in a June 2013 special session. She was one of only a handful of Republican governors who embraced Medicaid expansion. In all, 27 states and the District of Columbia are moving ahead with the expansion. Sixteen states have turned down the expansion, and seven others are weighing options, according to the latest tracking by the Kaiser Family Foundation.</p>
<p>Republicans who opposed the expansion joined forces with the Goldwater Institute to sue Brewer. The key question of the legal fight is whether the hospital money — assessed on impatient discharges — is a tax.</p>
<p>The GOP lawmakers say it is a tax, meaning the Medicaid expansion violated the state Constitution because any tax increase in Arizona requires a two-thirds vote in the Legislature. The expansion passed with a simple majority. Brewer’s lawyers argued that the assessment wasn’t a tax and that the Legislature itself voted not to require the supermajority vote.</p>
<p>A Maricopa County Superior Court judge first threw out the lawmakers’ lawsuit, but the state appeals court reversed that decision and allowed the lawsuit challenging the hospital assessment.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed with the appeals court, while noting it was not deciding whether the assessment was indeed a tax.</p>
<p>“Regardless of how the case ultimately comes out, today’s decision means that lawmakers can’t vote to ignore the Constitution,” said Christina Sandefur, the Goldwater Institute attorney who argued the case. “More than 20 years ago, Arizona voters enacted Proposition 108 to curb taxes and government growth. Thanks to today’s decision, the dozens of lawmakers who voted against dramatically transforming Arizona’s Medicaid program, putting the state on the hook for billions of dollars, and ceding the legislature’s taxing power to an unaccountable administrator, will get to defend this important legacy.”</p>
<p>The hospital assessment is expected to collect $256 million in the state’s 2015 budget year to pay the state’s share of expanding Medicaid. The beneficiaries of the expansion include people earning between 100 percent and 138 percent of the federal poverty level and childless adults making less than that who lost optional coverage provided by Arizona during a state budget crisis — people Brewer herself once fought to push off the program.</p>
<p>The federal government pays for most of the expansion costs, but restoring optional coverage that Arizona voters have twice approved required the assessment. Hospitals strongly backed the assessment because they expect to see a much bigger reduction in the cost of treating uninsured patients.</p> | 3,255 |
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<p />
<p>The founders, recognizing the privilege they’d been afforded by the First Amendment to the Constitution, decided they could not stand idly by while colleagues elsewhere were persecuted for speaking truth to power.</p>
<p>For more than three decades, the committee has, primarily, concentrated its efforts on conflict zones and repression abroad.</p>
<p>But last fall, during the rise of now President-elect Donald Trump – after he mocked a disabled New York Times reporter and called journalists “scum” and threatened to take away their rights – the CPJ turned its attention toward home.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>They broke their politics-free tradition and issued a scathing statement calling Trump a “threat to press freedom unknown in modern history” and later wrote a letter to Vice President-elect Mike Pence pleading for reason and less hostility.</p>
<p>These moves were, in many ways, unprecedented, and yet went mostly unnoticed outside the media world.</p>
<p>All that changed Sunday night – because of Meryl Streep.</p>
<p>During an emotional, off-topic speech at the Golden Globes, Streep used her time after receiving the Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award not to address her own successful career, but to scorn Trump.</p>
<p>She did not directly mention his name, but alluded to his hostility toward journalists, then called on the audience to join her in supporting press freedom – at the annual film and TV awards show put on by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.</p>
<p>“We need the principled press to hold power to account, to call them on the carpet for every outrage. That’s why our founders enshrined the press and its freedoms in our Constitution,” Streep said. “So I only ask the famously well-heeled Hollywood foreign press and all of us in our community to join me in supporting the Committee to Protect Journalists, because we’re going to need them going forward, and they’ll need us to safeguard the truth.”</p>
<p>Suddenly, the CPJ had the attention of Hollywood’s most elite stars, who brought with them an audience at home learning about the organization’s work for the first time.</p>
<p>The committee’s full name and Twitter handle, @pressfreedom, appeared in hundreds of thousands of Facebook posts and tweets from journalists, celebrities and average viewers about the Golden Globes and Streep’s speech.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“Dove right into @pressfreedom website after Meryl’s brilliant and important speech,” tweeted one woman from California. “Will be donating tomorrow.”</p>
<p>Another man tweeted about his AmazonSmile account, which donates 0.5 percent of the purchase price of eligible products ordered through Amazon to the user’s charity of choice, and said that Streep’s speech inspired him to change his beneficiary to CPJ.</p>
<p>A Facebook post citing Streep’s shoutout to CPJ by former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather drew more than 100,000 likes and nearly 15,000 shares.</p>
<p>Mia Farrow chimed in, as did journalist Maria Shriver.</p>
<p>Farrow tweeted: Do check out the Committee to Protect Journalists. We will need them. @pressfreedom</p>
<p>Shriver tweeted: We need a principled press to call out what needs to be called out. We need to protect journalists &amp; to safeguard the truth #MerylStreep</p>
<p>Almost immediately after the CPJ mention Sunday night, the organization used social media to thank Streep for her support of press freedom and share the link to its donation page. The organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday morning from The Washington Post.</p>
<p>CPJ tweeted: Thank you Meryl Streep for your support of CPJ and #pressfreedom at the #GoldenGlobes. Donations can be made online https://t.co/xAd0NgiTa7</p>
<p>The committee’s primary role is to advocate and take action when journalists are “censored, harassed, threatened, jailed, kidnapped, or killed for their work, without regard to political ideology,” according to its website. The organization documents cases, tracks safety “hotspots” across the globe and collects data on the numbers of journalists killed, imprisoned or exiled year to year.</p>
<p>In 2016, according to CPJ’s data, 48 journalists were killed and 259 were imprisoned. Since 2008, 456 have been exiled.</p>
<p>Streep’s speech forced the organization’s work into the spotlight in a way only she could, with her high-profile and far-reaching cultural reach, but hers wasn’t the first awards ceremony rallying cry made on behalf of American journalists.</p>
<p>In November, just a few weeks after Trump’s surprise victory, CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour addressed Trump’s hostility toward reporters while accepting the Burton Benjamin Memorial Award from CPJ for her dedication to press freedom.</p>
<p>“I never thought in a million years that I would be standing up here. . . appealing, really, for the freedom and the safety of American journalists at home,” Amanpour said.</p>
<p>She continued, comparing the president-elect’s attitude to those of worrisome foreign leaders:</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>As all the international journalists we honor in this room tonight and every year know only too well:</p>
<p>First the media is accused of inciting, then sympathizing, then associating – until they suddenly find themselves accused of being full-fledged terrorists and subversives.</p>
<p>Then they end up in handcuffs, in cages, in kangaroo courts, in prison – and then who knows?</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>She called for a recommitment to fact-based reporting without fear and challenged reporters not to stand for “being labeled crooked or lying or failing,” all adjectives Trump has used to describe media outlets like the New York Times, The Washington Post, the Huffington Post and Politico.</p>
<p>Trump spent Sunday, the day of the Golden Globes ceremony, sending several tweets disparaging the press, calling the media “fake” and “dishonest.”</p>
<p>Trump tweeted: Kellyanne Conway went to @MeetThePress this morning for an interview with @chucktodd. Dishonest media cut out 9 of her 10 minutes. Terrible!</p>
<p>Trump tweeted: Before I, or anyone, saw the classified and/or highly confidential hacking intelligence report, it was leaked out to @NBCNews. So serious!</p>
<p>Trump tweeted: Dishonest media says Mexico won’t be paying for the wall if they pay a little later so the wall can be built more quickly. Media is fake!</p>
<p>In a brief phone interview with The New York Times after the ceremony, the president-elect dismissed Streep as “a Hillary lover” and said he was “not surprised” that he had been critiqued by “liberal movie people.” Trump told the Times he had not watched the awards ceremony or seen Streep’s speech.</p>
<p>In it, she referenced an incident from the campaign trail, recorded on video, when Trump mocked and imitated a New York Times reporter with a condition called arthrogryposis, which limits joint movement.</p>
<p>He has on numerous occasions denied that he was mocking the reporter, and repeated that argument again in the Times interview late Sunday. He “grew heated,” according to the Times.</p>
<p>Times reporter Patrick Healy described the phone call:</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>“I was never mocking anyone,” Mr. Trump said. “I was calling into question a reporter who had gotten nervous because he had changed his story,” arguing that the reporter had been trying to back away from an article he wrote in September 2001 about the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and elsewhere that month.</p>
<p>“People keep saying I intended to mock the reporter’s disability, as if Meryl Streep and others could read my mind, and I did no such thing,” he said in the interview.</p>
<p>“And remember, Meryl Streep introduced Hillary Clinton at her convention, and a lot of these people supported Hillary,” Mr. Trump said, referring to Ms. Streep’s remarks at the Democratic National Convention last summer on behalf of his opponent, Mrs. Clinton.</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>The president-elect repeated that defense on Twitter early Monday morning, calling Meryl Streep “one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood.”</p>
<p>“She is a Hillary flunky who lost big,” he wrote, and continued his tweet storm to argue he did not, “for the 100th time,” mock a disabled New York Times reporter.</p>
<p>Trump tweeted: Meryl Streep, one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood, doesn’t know me but attacked last night at the Golden Globes. She is a…..</p>
<p>Hillary flunky who lost big. For the 100th time, I never “mocked” a disabled reporter (would never do that) but simply showed him…….</p>
<p>“groveling” when he totally changed a 16 year old story that he had written in order to make me look bad. Just more very dishonest media!</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>Trump did not address Streep’s call to support the Committee to Protect Journalists on Twitter, but again called the media “very dishonest.”</p>
<p>The Golden Globes was the last major awards show before Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20 in Washington, D.C. The president-elect told the Times that – despite the rounds of applause from the star-studded audience during Streep’s speech – he remained confident that his inauguration audience, including celebrities, would be immense.</p>
<p>“We are going to have an unbelievable, perhaps record-setting turnout for the inauguration, and there will be plenty of movie and entertainment stars,” Trump told the Times. “All the dress shops are sold out in Washington. It’s hard to find a great dress for this inauguration.”</p> | Meryl Streep, the Committee to Protect Journalists and its tense relationship with Donald Trump | false | https://abqjournal.com/923637/meryl-streep-the-committee-to-protect-journalists-and-its-tense-relationship-with-donald-trump.html | 2least
| Meryl Streep, the Committee to Protect Journalists and its tense relationship with Donald Trump
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<p />
<p>The founders, recognizing the privilege they’d been afforded by the First Amendment to the Constitution, decided they could not stand idly by while colleagues elsewhere were persecuted for speaking truth to power.</p>
<p>For more than three decades, the committee has, primarily, concentrated its efforts on conflict zones and repression abroad.</p>
<p>But last fall, during the rise of now President-elect Donald Trump – after he mocked a disabled New York Times reporter and called journalists “scum” and threatened to take away their rights – the CPJ turned its attention toward home.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>They broke their politics-free tradition and issued a scathing statement calling Trump a “threat to press freedom unknown in modern history” and later wrote a letter to Vice President-elect Mike Pence pleading for reason and less hostility.</p>
<p>These moves were, in many ways, unprecedented, and yet went mostly unnoticed outside the media world.</p>
<p>All that changed Sunday night – because of Meryl Streep.</p>
<p>During an emotional, off-topic speech at the Golden Globes, Streep used her time after receiving the Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award not to address her own successful career, but to scorn Trump.</p>
<p>She did not directly mention his name, but alluded to his hostility toward journalists, then called on the audience to join her in supporting press freedom – at the annual film and TV awards show put on by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.</p>
<p>“We need the principled press to hold power to account, to call them on the carpet for every outrage. That’s why our founders enshrined the press and its freedoms in our Constitution,” Streep said. “So I only ask the famously well-heeled Hollywood foreign press and all of us in our community to join me in supporting the Committee to Protect Journalists, because we’re going to need them going forward, and they’ll need us to safeguard the truth.”</p>
<p>Suddenly, the CPJ had the attention of Hollywood’s most elite stars, who brought with them an audience at home learning about the organization’s work for the first time.</p>
<p>The committee’s full name and Twitter handle, @pressfreedom, appeared in hundreds of thousands of Facebook posts and tweets from journalists, celebrities and average viewers about the Golden Globes and Streep’s speech.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“Dove right into @pressfreedom website after Meryl’s brilliant and important speech,” tweeted one woman from California. “Will be donating tomorrow.”</p>
<p>Another man tweeted about his AmazonSmile account, which donates 0.5 percent of the purchase price of eligible products ordered through Amazon to the user’s charity of choice, and said that Streep’s speech inspired him to change his beneficiary to CPJ.</p>
<p>A Facebook post citing Streep’s shoutout to CPJ by former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather drew more than 100,000 likes and nearly 15,000 shares.</p>
<p>Mia Farrow chimed in, as did journalist Maria Shriver.</p>
<p>Farrow tweeted: Do check out the Committee to Protect Journalists. We will need them. @pressfreedom</p>
<p>Shriver tweeted: We need a principled press to call out what needs to be called out. We need to protect journalists &amp; to safeguard the truth #MerylStreep</p>
<p>Almost immediately after the CPJ mention Sunday night, the organization used social media to thank Streep for her support of press freedom and share the link to its donation page. The organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday morning from The Washington Post.</p>
<p>CPJ tweeted: Thank you Meryl Streep for your support of CPJ and #pressfreedom at the #GoldenGlobes. Donations can be made online https://t.co/xAd0NgiTa7</p>
<p>The committee’s primary role is to advocate and take action when journalists are “censored, harassed, threatened, jailed, kidnapped, or killed for their work, without regard to political ideology,” according to its website. The organization documents cases, tracks safety “hotspots” across the globe and collects data on the numbers of journalists killed, imprisoned or exiled year to year.</p>
<p>In 2016, according to CPJ’s data, 48 journalists were killed and 259 were imprisoned. Since 2008, 456 have been exiled.</p>
<p>Streep’s speech forced the organization’s work into the spotlight in a way only she could, with her high-profile and far-reaching cultural reach, but hers wasn’t the first awards ceremony rallying cry made on behalf of American journalists.</p>
<p>In November, just a few weeks after Trump’s surprise victory, CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour addressed Trump’s hostility toward reporters while accepting the Burton Benjamin Memorial Award from CPJ for her dedication to press freedom.</p>
<p>“I never thought in a million years that I would be standing up here. . . appealing, really, for the freedom and the safety of American journalists at home,” Amanpour said.</p>
<p>She continued, comparing the president-elect’s attitude to those of worrisome foreign leaders:</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>As all the international journalists we honor in this room tonight and every year know only too well:</p>
<p>First the media is accused of inciting, then sympathizing, then associating – until they suddenly find themselves accused of being full-fledged terrorists and subversives.</p>
<p>Then they end up in handcuffs, in cages, in kangaroo courts, in prison – and then who knows?</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>She called for a recommitment to fact-based reporting without fear and challenged reporters not to stand for “being labeled crooked or lying or failing,” all adjectives Trump has used to describe media outlets like the New York Times, The Washington Post, the Huffington Post and Politico.</p>
<p>Trump spent Sunday, the day of the Golden Globes ceremony, sending several tweets disparaging the press, calling the media “fake” and “dishonest.”</p>
<p>Trump tweeted: Kellyanne Conway went to @MeetThePress this morning for an interview with @chucktodd. Dishonest media cut out 9 of her 10 minutes. Terrible!</p>
<p>Trump tweeted: Before I, or anyone, saw the classified and/or highly confidential hacking intelligence report, it was leaked out to @NBCNews. So serious!</p>
<p>Trump tweeted: Dishonest media says Mexico won’t be paying for the wall if they pay a little later so the wall can be built more quickly. Media is fake!</p>
<p>In a brief phone interview with The New York Times after the ceremony, the president-elect dismissed Streep as “a Hillary lover” and said he was “not surprised” that he had been critiqued by “liberal movie people.” Trump told the Times he had not watched the awards ceremony or seen Streep’s speech.</p>
<p>In it, she referenced an incident from the campaign trail, recorded on video, when Trump mocked and imitated a New York Times reporter with a condition called arthrogryposis, which limits joint movement.</p>
<p>He has on numerous occasions denied that he was mocking the reporter, and repeated that argument again in the Times interview late Sunday. He “grew heated,” according to the Times.</p>
<p>Times reporter Patrick Healy described the phone call:</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>“I was never mocking anyone,” Mr. Trump said. “I was calling into question a reporter who had gotten nervous because he had changed his story,” arguing that the reporter had been trying to back away from an article he wrote in September 2001 about the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and elsewhere that month.</p>
<p>“People keep saying I intended to mock the reporter’s disability, as if Meryl Streep and others could read my mind, and I did no such thing,” he said in the interview.</p>
<p>“And remember, Meryl Streep introduced Hillary Clinton at her convention, and a lot of these people supported Hillary,” Mr. Trump said, referring to Ms. Streep’s remarks at the Democratic National Convention last summer on behalf of his opponent, Mrs. Clinton.</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>The president-elect repeated that defense on Twitter early Monday morning, calling Meryl Streep “one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood.”</p>
<p>“She is a Hillary flunky who lost big,” he wrote, and continued his tweet storm to argue he did not, “for the 100th time,” mock a disabled New York Times reporter.</p>
<p>Trump tweeted: Meryl Streep, one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood, doesn’t know me but attacked last night at the Golden Globes. She is a…..</p>
<p>Hillary flunky who lost big. For the 100th time, I never “mocked” a disabled reporter (would never do that) but simply showed him…….</p>
<p>“groveling” when he totally changed a 16 year old story that he had written in order to make me look bad. Just more very dishonest media!</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>Trump did not address Streep’s call to support the Committee to Protect Journalists on Twitter, but again called the media “very dishonest.”</p>
<p>The Golden Globes was the last major awards show before Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20 in Washington, D.C. The president-elect told the Times that – despite the rounds of applause from the star-studded audience during Streep’s speech – he remained confident that his inauguration audience, including celebrities, would be immense.</p>
<p>“We are going to have an unbelievable, perhaps record-setting turnout for the inauguration, and there will be plenty of movie and entertainment stars,” Trump told the Times. “All the dress shops are sold out in Washington. It’s hard to find a great dress for this inauguration.”</p> | 3,256 |
|
<p>A rare fungal meningitis has sickened 47 people in the USA and has killed 5 in an outbreak that has been linked to steroid injections commonly used to treat back pain.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/health/2012/10/06/steroid-related-meningitis-cases-rise/KPTMVDVxpecmjVyNO3alSM/story.html" type="external">The Boston Globe reports that</a>health officials were scrambling to identify which clinics had received the injection, which was made by a small pharmacy in Massachusetts <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/health/121003/meningitis-cases-the-rise-four-people-die-rare-strain" type="external">called the New England Compounding Center.</a></p>
<p>The drug appears to have been shipped to 75 facilities in Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-10-05/meningitis-outbreak-linked-to-steroid-kills-five-people" type="external">says Businessweek.</a>17,676 doses of the steroid have been recalled.</p>
<p>"?All patients who may have received these medications need to be tracked down immediately,"? <a href="http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/health/2012/10/06/steroid-related-meningitis-cases-rise/KPTMVDVxpecmjVyNO3alSM/story.html" type="external">Dr. Benjamin Park of the CDC told the Boston Globe.</a></p>
<p>"?It is possible that if patients with infection are identified soon and put on appropriate antifungal therapy, lives may be saved,"? he said.</p>
<p>Read more from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/health/121003/meningitis-cases-the-rise-four-people-die-rare-strain" type="external">Meningitis outbreak kills four people</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.cdc.gov/meningitis/fungal.html" type="external">The CDC website states t</a>hat fungal meningitis occurs when a fungus spreads through the bloodstream to elsewhere in the body, reaching the spinal cord.</p>
<p>Common symptoms include a stiff neck, fever, headache, nausea and vomiting, and sensitivity to light, and even an altered mental state. Meningitis can be fatal, and is especially dangerous for people who have comprised immune systems, including the HIV-positive.</p>
<p>Read more from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/120930/meningitis-outbreak-hiv-positive-men-new-york" type="external">Meningitis outbreak in HIV-positive men in New York</a></p>
<p>This fungal meningitis is not contagious, unlike some other types of the spinal cord infection, and appears to only have occurred in people who received an epidural injection (in the spinal cord) for pain, <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/HAI/outbreaks/meningitis.html" type="external">says the CDC.</a></p> | Meningitis cases rise to 47 in US outbreak | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-10-06/meningitis-cases-rise-47-us-outbreak | 2012-10-06 | 3left-center
| Meningitis cases rise to 47 in US outbreak
<p>A rare fungal meningitis has sickened 47 people in the USA and has killed 5 in an outbreak that has been linked to steroid injections commonly used to treat back pain.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/health/2012/10/06/steroid-related-meningitis-cases-rise/KPTMVDVxpecmjVyNO3alSM/story.html" type="external">The Boston Globe reports that</a>health officials were scrambling to identify which clinics had received the injection, which was made by a small pharmacy in Massachusetts <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/health/121003/meningitis-cases-the-rise-four-people-die-rare-strain" type="external">called the New England Compounding Center.</a></p>
<p>The drug appears to have been shipped to 75 facilities in Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-10-05/meningitis-outbreak-linked-to-steroid-kills-five-people" type="external">says Businessweek.</a>17,676 doses of the steroid have been recalled.</p>
<p>"?All patients who may have received these medications need to be tracked down immediately,"? <a href="http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/health/2012/10/06/steroid-related-meningitis-cases-rise/KPTMVDVxpecmjVyNO3alSM/story.html" type="external">Dr. Benjamin Park of the CDC told the Boston Globe.</a></p>
<p>"?It is possible that if patients with infection are identified soon and put on appropriate antifungal therapy, lives may be saved,"? he said.</p>
<p>Read more from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/health/121003/meningitis-cases-the-rise-four-people-die-rare-strain" type="external">Meningitis outbreak kills four people</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.cdc.gov/meningitis/fungal.html" type="external">The CDC website states t</a>hat fungal meningitis occurs when a fungus spreads through the bloodstream to elsewhere in the body, reaching the spinal cord.</p>
<p>Common symptoms include a stiff neck, fever, headache, nausea and vomiting, and sensitivity to light, and even an altered mental state. Meningitis can be fatal, and is especially dangerous for people who have comprised immune systems, including the HIV-positive.</p>
<p>Read more from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/120930/meningitis-outbreak-hiv-positive-men-new-york" type="external">Meningitis outbreak in HIV-positive men in New York</a></p>
<p>This fungal meningitis is not contagious, unlike some other types of the spinal cord infection, and appears to only have occurred in people who received an epidural injection (in the spinal cord) for pain, <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/HAI/outbreaks/meningitis.html" type="external">says the CDC.</a></p> | 3,257 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is no friend of the media. Since an attempted coup against him in July, he has jailed at least 144 journalists and shuttered or seized control of more than 150 media companies, according to Human Rights Watch. Now he is praising U.S. President-elect Donald Trump for his aggressive tone toward American media.</p>
<p>Erdogan commended Trump for putting a CNN reporter “in his place” during a news conference Wednesday. Trump had excoriated CNN’s Jim Acosta, refusing to call on him because “your organization is terrible” and telling the reporter, “I’m not going to give you a question. You are fake news.” Trump was angry that CNN had published a report on alleged Russian efforts to compromise him.</p>
<p>Erdogan also accused “some international organizations” (read: CNN and other Western media outlets) of publishing false information about the 2013 pro-democracy protests in Istanbul’s Gezi Park.</p>
<p>It’s the latest indication that Trump and Erdogan are feeling their way toward friendship. The pair have a rocky past: In June, Erdogan demanded that Trump’s name be removed from Istanbul’s Trump Towers because of his disparaging remarks about Islam, while Trump has appointed advisers who are actively hostile to Turkey. A video released during last summer’s attempted coup showed retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the national security adviser pick, cheering on the generals who tried to seize control of Erdogan’s government. (Flynn has since made nice, penning an Erdogan-friendly op-ed in the Hill.) Trump’s nominee to run the CIA, Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., piled on during the coup attempt, comparing Turkey to Iran and calling it an “Islamist dictatorship.”</p>
<p>Now things are looking up. After the election, Erdogan called protests against Trump’s victory “a disrespect to democracy.” And during a call just days later, Trump reportedly told Erdogan that his daughter Ivanka admired him. For his part, the president-elect praised Erdogan after the coup attempt – “I do give great credit to him for turning it around,” he told reporters – and said that the United States shouldn’t criticize Turkey for its crackdown.</p>
<p>It’s possible that Erdogan is just trying to get into Trump’s good graces to secure what he really wants: the U.S. government’s agreement to extradite Pennsylvania-based cleric Fethullah Gulen. Gulen is a wealthy Turkish preacher with millions of followers. While he was once an ally of Erdogan’s, Gulen is now the Turkish president’s favorite boogeyman. Erdogan accused him of orchestrating the coup attempt, and the Turkish government has used flimsy charges of being a “Gulenist” to purge tens of thousands of people from government jobs, classrooms, the courts and other professions.</p>
<p>Erdogan wants Gulen returned to Turkey to face charges, but U.S. officials have so far refused to arrest the cleric. And even if Erdogan and Trump become close allies, the extradition decision will still be up to U.S. courts.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Amid Turkey’s media crackdown, Erdogan praises Trump for putting CNN reporter ‘in his place’ | false | https://abqjournal.com/926560/amid-turkeys-media-crackdown-erdogan-praises-trump-for-putting-cnn-reporter-in-his-place.html | 2least
| Amid Turkey’s media crackdown, Erdogan praises Trump for putting CNN reporter ‘in his place’
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is no friend of the media. Since an attempted coup against him in July, he has jailed at least 144 journalists and shuttered or seized control of more than 150 media companies, according to Human Rights Watch. Now he is praising U.S. President-elect Donald Trump for his aggressive tone toward American media.</p>
<p>Erdogan commended Trump for putting a CNN reporter “in his place” during a news conference Wednesday. Trump had excoriated CNN’s Jim Acosta, refusing to call on him because “your organization is terrible” and telling the reporter, “I’m not going to give you a question. You are fake news.” Trump was angry that CNN had published a report on alleged Russian efforts to compromise him.</p>
<p>Erdogan also accused “some international organizations” (read: CNN and other Western media outlets) of publishing false information about the 2013 pro-democracy protests in Istanbul’s Gezi Park.</p>
<p>It’s the latest indication that Trump and Erdogan are feeling their way toward friendship. The pair have a rocky past: In June, Erdogan demanded that Trump’s name be removed from Istanbul’s Trump Towers because of his disparaging remarks about Islam, while Trump has appointed advisers who are actively hostile to Turkey. A video released during last summer’s attempted coup showed retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the national security adviser pick, cheering on the generals who tried to seize control of Erdogan’s government. (Flynn has since made nice, penning an Erdogan-friendly op-ed in the Hill.) Trump’s nominee to run the CIA, Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., piled on during the coup attempt, comparing Turkey to Iran and calling it an “Islamist dictatorship.”</p>
<p>Now things are looking up. After the election, Erdogan called protests against Trump’s victory “a disrespect to democracy.” And during a call just days later, Trump reportedly told Erdogan that his daughter Ivanka admired him. For his part, the president-elect praised Erdogan after the coup attempt – “I do give great credit to him for turning it around,” he told reporters – and said that the United States shouldn’t criticize Turkey for its crackdown.</p>
<p>It’s possible that Erdogan is just trying to get into Trump’s good graces to secure what he really wants: the U.S. government’s agreement to extradite Pennsylvania-based cleric Fethullah Gulen. Gulen is a wealthy Turkish preacher with millions of followers. While he was once an ally of Erdogan’s, Gulen is now the Turkish president’s favorite boogeyman. Erdogan accused him of orchestrating the coup attempt, and the Turkish government has used flimsy charges of being a “Gulenist” to purge tens of thousands of people from government jobs, classrooms, the courts and other professions.</p>
<p>Erdogan wants Gulen returned to Turkey to face charges, but U.S. officials have so far refused to arrest the cleric. And even if Erdogan and Trump become close allies, the extradition decision will still be up to U.S. courts.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | 3,258 |
|
<p>LONDON (AP) — A British surgeon who burned his initials into patients’ livers during transplant operations was fined 10,000 pounds ($13,600) on Friday, and ordered to perform community service.</p>
<p>Simon Bramhall pleaded guilty last month to two counts of assault in a case a prosecutor called “without legal precedent in criminal law.”</p>
<p>Bramhall used an argon beam coagulator, which seals bleeding blood vessels with an electric beam, to mark his initials on the organs. The 53-year-old surgeon resigned from Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham in 2014 after another doctor discovered what he’d done.</p>
<p>The hospital said there had been “no impact whatsoever” on the success of the operations.</p>
<p>Passing sentence at Birmingham Crown Court in central England, judge Paul Farrer said Bramhall displayed “professional arrogance of such magnitude that it strayed into criminal behavior.”</p>
<p>The judge accepted that the patients were not physically harmed but said one had suffered “extreme and enduring” psychological stress after learning what had happened.</p>
<p>“What you did was an abuse of power and a betrayal of trust that these patients had invested in you,” the judge said.</p>
<p>LONDON (AP) — A British surgeon who burned his initials into patients’ livers during transplant operations was fined 10,000 pounds ($13,600) on Friday, and ordered to perform community service.</p>
<p>Simon Bramhall pleaded guilty last month to two counts of assault in a case a prosecutor called “without legal precedent in criminal law.”</p>
<p>Bramhall used an argon beam coagulator, which seals bleeding blood vessels with an electric beam, to mark his initials on the organs. The 53-year-old surgeon resigned from Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham in 2014 after another doctor discovered what he’d done.</p>
<p>The hospital said there had been “no impact whatsoever” on the success of the operations.</p>
<p>Passing sentence at Birmingham Crown Court in central England, judge Paul Farrer said Bramhall displayed “professional arrogance of such magnitude that it strayed into criminal behavior.”</p>
<p>The judge accepted that the patients were not physically harmed but said one had suffered “extreme and enduring” psychological stress after learning what had happened.</p>
<p>“What you did was an abuse of power and a betrayal of trust that these patients had invested in you,” the judge said.</p> | ‘Arrogant’ UK surgeon burned initials onto patients’ livers | false | https://apnews.com/b1c1f587ffb6461dad61261aa174142c | 2018-01-12 | 2least
| ‘Arrogant’ UK surgeon burned initials onto patients’ livers
<p>LONDON (AP) — A British surgeon who burned his initials into patients’ livers during transplant operations was fined 10,000 pounds ($13,600) on Friday, and ordered to perform community service.</p>
<p>Simon Bramhall pleaded guilty last month to two counts of assault in a case a prosecutor called “without legal precedent in criminal law.”</p>
<p>Bramhall used an argon beam coagulator, which seals bleeding blood vessels with an electric beam, to mark his initials on the organs. The 53-year-old surgeon resigned from Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham in 2014 after another doctor discovered what he’d done.</p>
<p>The hospital said there had been “no impact whatsoever” on the success of the operations.</p>
<p>Passing sentence at Birmingham Crown Court in central England, judge Paul Farrer said Bramhall displayed “professional arrogance of such magnitude that it strayed into criminal behavior.”</p>
<p>The judge accepted that the patients were not physically harmed but said one had suffered “extreme and enduring” psychological stress after learning what had happened.</p>
<p>“What you did was an abuse of power and a betrayal of trust that these patients had invested in you,” the judge said.</p>
<p>LONDON (AP) — A British surgeon who burned his initials into patients’ livers during transplant operations was fined 10,000 pounds ($13,600) on Friday, and ordered to perform community service.</p>
<p>Simon Bramhall pleaded guilty last month to two counts of assault in a case a prosecutor called “without legal precedent in criminal law.”</p>
<p>Bramhall used an argon beam coagulator, which seals bleeding blood vessels with an electric beam, to mark his initials on the organs. The 53-year-old surgeon resigned from Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham in 2014 after another doctor discovered what he’d done.</p>
<p>The hospital said there had been “no impact whatsoever” on the success of the operations.</p>
<p>Passing sentence at Birmingham Crown Court in central England, judge Paul Farrer said Bramhall displayed “professional arrogance of such magnitude that it strayed into criminal behavior.”</p>
<p>The judge accepted that the patients were not physically harmed but said one had suffered “extreme and enduring” psychological stress after learning what had happened.</p>
<p>“What you did was an abuse of power and a betrayal of trust that these patients had invested in you,” the judge said.</p> | 3,259 |
<p>For aviation nerds, flight geeks, and thrill seekers, mini-drones can be a little, well - boring. Sometimes, smaller drones mean less flying features - but that's definitely not the case with the <a href="" type="internal">Fader Stealth Drone</a>. It includes the best elements of a more miniature drone, without sacrificing any of the excitement or technical sophistication of larger drones.</p>
<p>It's ready to fly right out of the box and features a six-axis gyro module and awesome HD camera. As the name suggests, it's both stealthy and lightweight, with auto-takeoff and land features, altitude hold, and ready-to-fly technology that's great for beginners. But for expert fliers who long for a little more, there's a 3-level adjustable controller that offers advanced sensitive flight options. There's even a flip capability for a little bit of adrenaline-fueled flair, plus LED lights for night flights.</p>
<p>The big takeaway is that the Fader Stealth Drone is easy to use regardless of skill level or ability. You can <a href="" type="internal">get the Fader Stealth Drone for $69.99 right now</a>, which is 45% off the original price.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Scouted</a>&#160;is here to surface products&#160;that you might like.&#160;Please note that if you buy something featured in one of our posts, The Daily Beast may collect a share of sales.</p> | This Mini-Drone Is Packed With Advanced Flight Features | true | https://thedailybeast.com/this-mini-drone-is-packed-with-advanced-flight-features | 2018-10-05 | 4left
| This Mini-Drone Is Packed With Advanced Flight Features
<p>For aviation nerds, flight geeks, and thrill seekers, mini-drones can be a little, well - boring. Sometimes, smaller drones mean less flying features - but that's definitely not the case with the <a href="" type="internal">Fader Stealth Drone</a>. It includes the best elements of a more miniature drone, without sacrificing any of the excitement or technical sophistication of larger drones.</p>
<p>It's ready to fly right out of the box and features a six-axis gyro module and awesome HD camera. As the name suggests, it's both stealthy and lightweight, with auto-takeoff and land features, altitude hold, and ready-to-fly technology that's great for beginners. But for expert fliers who long for a little more, there's a 3-level adjustable controller that offers advanced sensitive flight options. There's even a flip capability for a little bit of adrenaline-fueled flair, plus LED lights for night flights.</p>
<p>The big takeaway is that the Fader Stealth Drone is easy to use regardless of skill level or ability. You can <a href="" type="internal">get the Fader Stealth Drone for $69.99 right now</a>, which is 45% off the original price.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Scouted</a>&#160;is here to surface products&#160;that you might like.&#160;Please note that if you buy something featured in one of our posts, The Daily Beast may collect a share of sales.</p> | 3,260 |
<p>The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games have been referred to as the “People’s Games,” the “High Tech Games” and the “Green Games,” but they could be more aptly described as the Commercial Games.</p>
<p>Commercialism is overrunning the Olympics. It is undermining the professed ideals of the Olympic Games, and subverting the Olympics’ veneration of sport with omnipresent commercial messaging and branding.</p>
<p>The Olympics have auctioned off virtually every aspect of the Games to the highest bidder. In addition to multimillion-dollar sponsorship deals between the International Olympic Committee and international companies, smaller firms are paying for designations from “official home and industrial flooring supplier” to the “frozen dumplings exclusive supplier” of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.</p>
<p>Corporate sponsors are showering money on each tier of the Olympic organizational committees: the International Olympic Committee, the Beijing Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games (BOCOG) and the International Federations governing each individual sport, to each country’s National Organizing Committees. Corporations are sponsoring many Olympic teams and national governing bodies for particular sports — including virtually every national governing body in the United States — and individual athletes themselves.</p>
<p>The scope of commercialism at the Olympics and the consequences of commercialization are detailed in “ <a href="" type="internal">The Commercial Games</a>,” a new report from Multinational Monitor magazine and Commercial Alert (both of which I’m associated with).</p>
<p>To its credit, the Olympics do prohibit advertising in sports stadia or other venues. The Olympics also prohibit advertisements on uniforms (other than uniform maker logos).</p>
<p>Everywhere else, Olympic spectators, viewers and athletes, and the citizens of Beijing should expect to be overwhelmed with Olympics-related advertising.</p>
<p>A record 63 companies have become sponsors or partners of the Beijing Olympics, and Olympics-related advertising in China alone could reach $4 billion to $6 billion this year, according to CSM, a Beijing marketing research firm.</p>
<p>The Olympic Partners (TOP) program, run and managed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) since 1985, includes 12 companies for the Beijing Olympics. These 12 companies — among them, Coca-Cola, GE, Johnson &amp; Johnson, Lenovo, Panasonic and Visa — have paid $866 million to the International Olympic Committee.</p>
<p>The U.S. Olympic system is awash in corporate sponsor money. Well over 100 corporations are sponsoring the U.S. Olympic Committee or U.S. national teams.</p>
<p>Besides celebrating sport, there is an official ideology of the Olympics, called “Olympism.” It aims to promote a pure blend of sport, culture and education.</p>
<p>Sports, of course, remain at the center of the Olympics, but commercialism has overwhelmed whatever other values the Olympics hope to embody. The overwhelming cultural influence at the Olympics is now commercial culture; and the overwhelming informational message is: buy, buy, buy.</p>
<p>Commercial relations interfere with proper functioning of the Olympics. In at least one notable case, commercial entanglements have called into question the integrity of a national sports governing body. A lawsuit and accusations around the activities of USA Swimming and the national team coach — both sponsored by swimwear maker Speedo — charge Speedo, the national team and the coach with antitrust violations. The lawsuit, filed by Tyr, a Speedo competitor, alleges the coach has trumpeted the benefits of LZR Racer, a new, high-profile Speedo suit, because of his financial ties to the company. Tyr says its Tracer Rise swimsuit, introduced weeks before the LZR Racer, is comparable to the Speedo product.</p>
<p>The Olympic race for corporate sponsors has also put the Olympics in unhealthy — and sometimes quite unpleasant — company.</p>
<p>* The International Olympic Committee will not partner with hard liquor companies, but the IOC tolerates sponsorships by beer and wine companies. Anheuser-Busch says it is a sponsor of 25 national Olympic Committees, including those of China, Japan, Great Britain and the United States. A tequila maker, Jose Cuervo, is a sponsor of the U.S. Soccer Federation.</p>
<p>* Notwithstanding the fundamental principles of “Olympism,” which celebrate healthful living, two of the 12 Olympic TOP sponsors run businesses centered around the sales of unhealthy food: Coca-Cola and McDonald’s. Snickers, the candy bar made by Mars, is an official BOCOG supplier. Hershey’s is a sponsor of the USOC. Coca-Cola is a sponsor of FIFA, the international soccer federation. McDonald’s and Sprite are sponsors of USA Basketball. McDonald’s and Sierra Mist are sponsors of the U.S. Soccer Federation. Coca-Cola is a sponsor of USA Softball. Hershey’s is a sponsor of USA Track &amp; Field.</p>
<p>* Many of the sports apparel and equipment makers partnered with the Olympics and official Olympic bodies — among them Adidas, Nike and Speedo — source their products from sweatshop factories. In a very disturbing development just before the start of the Olympics, Adidas reportedly announced it was transferring large amounts of its production out of China because wages set by the government were “too high” (!).</p>
<p>* At least two major Olympic partners, the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and Sinopec, have been linked to gross human rights violations in Sudan. Both companies are sponsors of the Beijing Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that the horse is out of the barn on Olympic sponsorships, and the world is unlikely to see a commercial-free Games anytime soon.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, the most egregious problems with the Olympics’ pervasive sponsorship arrangements can and should be addressed.</p>
<p>The IOC, National Olympic Committees, and international and national sports governing bodies can and should scale back the number of corporate sponsorships.</p>
<p>They can and should develop safeguards to ensure apparel and equipment sponsorships do not compromise sports governing bodies’ decisions. Coaches of national teams should be prohibited from serving as paid spokespeople or consultants for apparel and equipment makers.</p>
<p>They can and should refuse to accept sponsorships from any alcohol company, including beer and wine companies. This recommendation does not reflect a prohibitionist impulse. It merely extends the insight in the present IOC ban on hard liquor sponsorships: promoting more alcohol consumption is unhealthful, and inappropriate for an event with enormous appeal to children.</p>
<p>They can and should end partnerships and sponsorship arrangements with junk food, soda and fast food companies. These companies’ operations are incompatible with Olympic ideals of promoting fitness and healthful living, and the companies use the association with the Olympics to remove some of the tarnish of their unhealthy products.</p>
<p>They can and should insist that official, sponsoring apparel and equipment makers disclose where their products are manufactured, and ensure that their products are manufactured in a fashion that respects core labor standards.</p>
<p>They can and should refuse to enter into sponsorship arrangements with companies connected to gross human rights abuses. This is a simple ethical standard, and one required by the Olympic commitment to demonstrate “respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.”</p>
<p>Will the IOC and other committees move in these directions? They refused to respond to repeated requests for comment. It may be, however, that it will be the corporate sector driving reduced commercialization of the Olympics. The opportunity to project a high-profile in China’s fast-growing market has made the Beijing Olympics uniquely attractive; but already leading sponsors have indicated they do not intend to continue paying for the right to besiege the planet with Olympics-related marketing in connection with future Games.</p>
<p>ROBERT WEISSMAN is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based <a href="http://www.multinationalmonitor.org" type="external">Multinational Monitor</a>, and director of <a href="http://www.essentialaction.org" type="external">Essential Action</a>.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | The Commercial Games | true | https://counterpunch.org/2008/08/06/the-commercial-games/ | 2008-08-06 | 4left
| The Commercial Games
<p>The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games have been referred to as the “People’s Games,” the “High Tech Games” and the “Green Games,” but they could be more aptly described as the Commercial Games.</p>
<p>Commercialism is overrunning the Olympics. It is undermining the professed ideals of the Olympic Games, and subverting the Olympics’ veneration of sport with omnipresent commercial messaging and branding.</p>
<p>The Olympics have auctioned off virtually every aspect of the Games to the highest bidder. In addition to multimillion-dollar sponsorship deals between the International Olympic Committee and international companies, smaller firms are paying for designations from “official home and industrial flooring supplier” to the “frozen dumplings exclusive supplier” of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.</p>
<p>Corporate sponsors are showering money on each tier of the Olympic organizational committees: the International Olympic Committee, the Beijing Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games (BOCOG) and the International Federations governing each individual sport, to each country’s National Organizing Committees. Corporations are sponsoring many Olympic teams and national governing bodies for particular sports — including virtually every national governing body in the United States — and individual athletes themselves.</p>
<p>The scope of commercialism at the Olympics and the consequences of commercialization are detailed in “ <a href="" type="internal">The Commercial Games</a>,” a new report from Multinational Monitor magazine and Commercial Alert (both of which I’m associated with).</p>
<p>To its credit, the Olympics do prohibit advertising in sports stadia or other venues. The Olympics also prohibit advertisements on uniforms (other than uniform maker logos).</p>
<p>Everywhere else, Olympic spectators, viewers and athletes, and the citizens of Beijing should expect to be overwhelmed with Olympics-related advertising.</p>
<p>A record 63 companies have become sponsors or partners of the Beijing Olympics, and Olympics-related advertising in China alone could reach $4 billion to $6 billion this year, according to CSM, a Beijing marketing research firm.</p>
<p>The Olympic Partners (TOP) program, run and managed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) since 1985, includes 12 companies for the Beijing Olympics. These 12 companies — among them, Coca-Cola, GE, Johnson &amp; Johnson, Lenovo, Panasonic and Visa — have paid $866 million to the International Olympic Committee.</p>
<p>The U.S. Olympic system is awash in corporate sponsor money. Well over 100 corporations are sponsoring the U.S. Olympic Committee or U.S. national teams.</p>
<p>Besides celebrating sport, there is an official ideology of the Olympics, called “Olympism.” It aims to promote a pure blend of sport, culture and education.</p>
<p>Sports, of course, remain at the center of the Olympics, but commercialism has overwhelmed whatever other values the Olympics hope to embody. The overwhelming cultural influence at the Olympics is now commercial culture; and the overwhelming informational message is: buy, buy, buy.</p>
<p>Commercial relations interfere with proper functioning of the Olympics. In at least one notable case, commercial entanglements have called into question the integrity of a national sports governing body. A lawsuit and accusations around the activities of USA Swimming and the national team coach — both sponsored by swimwear maker Speedo — charge Speedo, the national team and the coach with antitrust violations. The lawsuit, filed by Tyr, a Speedo competitor, alleges the coach has trumpeted the benefits of LZR Racer, a new, high-profile Speedo suit, because of his financial ties to the company. Tyr says its Tracer Rise swimsuit, introduced weeks before the LZR Racer, is comparable to the Speedo product.</p>
<p>The Olympic race for corporate sponsors has also put the Olympics in unhealthy — and sometimes quite unpleasant — company.</p>
<p>* The International Olympic Committee will not partner with hard liquor companies, but the IOC tolerates sponsorships by beer and wine companies. Anheuser-Busch says it is a sponsor of 25 national Olympic Committees, including those of China, Japan, Great Britain and the United States. A tequila maker, Jose Cuervo, is a sponsor of the U.S. Soccer Federation.</p>
<p>* Notwithstanding the fundamental principles of “Olympism,” which celebrate healthful living, two of the 12 Olympic TOP sponsors run businesses centered around the sales of unhealthy food: Coca-Cola and McDonald’s. Snickers, the candy bar made by Mars, is an official BOCOG supplier. Hershey’s is a sponsor of the USOC. Coca-Cola is a sponsor of FIFA, the international soccer federation. McDonald’s and Sprite are sponsors of USA Basketball. McDonald’s and Sierra Mist are sponsors of the U.S. Soccer Federation. Coca-Cola is a sponsor of USA Softball. Hershey’s is a sponsor of USA Track &amp; Field.</p>
<p>* Many of the sports apparel and equipment makers partnered with the Olympics and official Olympic bodies — among them Adidas, Nike and Speedo — source their products from sweatshop factories. In a very disturbing development just before the start of the Olympics, Adidas reportedly announced it was transferring large amounts of its production out of China because wages set by the government were “too high” (!).</p>
<p>* At least two major Olympic partners, the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and Sinopec, have been linked to gross human rights violations in Sudan. Both companies are sponsors of the Beijing Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that the horse is out of the barn on Olympic sponsorships, and the world is unlikely to see a commercial-free Games anytime soon.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, the most egregious problems with the Olympics’ pervasive sponsorship arrangements can and should be addressed.</p>
<p>The IOC, National Olympic Committees, and international and national sports governing bodies can and should scale back the number of corporate sponsorships.</p>
<p>They can and should develop safeguards to ensure apparel and equipment sponsorships do not compromise sports governing bodies’ decisions. Coaches of national teams should be prohibited from serving as paid spokespeople or consultants for apparel and equipment makers.</p>
<p>They can and should refuse to accept sponsorships from any alcohol company, including beer and wine companies. This recommendation does not reflect a prohibitionist impulse. It merely extends the insight in the present IOC ban on hard liquor sponsorships: promoting more alcohol consumption is unhealthful, and inappropriate for an event with enormous appeal to children.</p>
<p>They can and should end partnerships and sponsorship arrangements with junk food, soda and fast food companies. These companies’ operations are incompatible with Olympic ideals of promoting fitness and healthful living, and the companies use the association with the Olympics to remove some of the tarnish of their unhealthy products.</p>
<p>They can and should insist that official, sponsoring apparel and equipment makers disclose where their products are manufactured, and ensure that their products are manufactured in a fashion that respects core labor standards.</p>
<p>They can and should refuse to enter into sponsorship arrangements with companies connected to gross human rights abuses. This is a simple ethical standard, and one required by the Olympic commitment to demonstrate “respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.”</p>
<p>Will the IOC and other committees move in these directions? They refused to respond to repeated requests for comment. It may be, however, that it will be the corporate sector driving reduced commercialization of the Olympics. The opportunity to project a high-profile in China’s fast-growing market has made the Beijing Olympics uniquely attractive; but already leading sponsors have indicated they do not intend to continue paying for the right to besiege the planet with Olympics-related marketing in connection with future Games.</p>
<p>ROBERT WEISSMAN is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based <a href="http://www.multinationalmonitor.org" type="external">Multinational Monitor</a>, and director of <a href="http://www.essentialaction.org" type="external">Essential Action</a>.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | 3,261 |
<p>ATLANTA (AP) _ The winning numbers in Wednesday evening’s drawing of the Georgia Lottery’s “All or Nothing Night” game were:</p>
<p>07-10-11-13-14-15-16-17-19-22-23-24</p>
<p>(seven, ten, eleven, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four)</p>
<p>ATLANTA (AP) _ The winning numbers in Wednesday evening’s drawing of the Georgia Lottery’s “All or Nothing Night” game were:</p>
<p>07-10-11-13-14-15-16-17-19-22-23-24</p>
<p>(seven, ten, eleven, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four)</p> | Winning numbers drawn in ‘All or Nothing Night’ game | false | https://apnews.com/a519857739b44d1298f0a6970c0e24b9 | 2018-01-11 | 2least
| Winning numbers drawn in ‘All or Nothing Night’ game
<p>ATLANTA (AP) _ The winning numbers in Wednesday evening’s drawing of the Georgia Lottery’s “All or Nothing Night” game were:</p>
<p>07-10-11-13-14-15-16-17-19-22-23-24</p>
<p>(seven, ten, eleven, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four)</p>
<p>ATLANTA (AP) _ The winning numbers in Wednesday evening’s drawing of the Georgia Lottery’s “All or Nothing Night” game were:</p>
<p>07-10-11-13-14-15-16-17-19-22-23-24</p>
<p>(seven, ten, eleven, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four)</p> | 3,262 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — In case you missed it (or ICYMI, as the kids say), I had <a href="" type="internal">a story in Sunday’s Journal</a> about the Abriendo Puertas program. The program is basically a national curriculum, aimed at helping Latino parents set their children up for success in school. The curriculum includes things like nutrition, early brain development, and how to advocate for one’s child in the school system.</p>
<p>The program is administered in Albuquerque’s South Valley by the Partnership for Community Action, and folks are also looking to start using it in Farmington and Las Cruces. The program got on my radar after I saw a national study out of Berkeley, showing that parents who took Abriendo Puertas classes had significant improvements in knowledge from pre-tests to post-tests. Then I made some calls and found out the program was happening here in Albuquerque.</p>
<p>This is the kind of story I love to do, and my colleague Roberto took some great pictures that really told the story.</p>
<p>So the nice thing is that since the story ran yesterday, my inbox has had a steady stream of emails thanking me for writing a positive story and spotlighting the Partnership. As you can imagine, I get a lot of email when people don’t like a story I’ve written, but it’s rare to get this kind of consistent, high-volume email after writing what is essentially a positive feature. Emails have mostly been from Albuquerque’s do-gooder community, and I almost suspect an email campaign along the lines of “Let’s thank Hailey for writing positive community news. Then maybe she’ll do it more.” But whether it’s a coordinated effort or a spontaneous outpouring of appreciation, it’s been really nice.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Nice Story, Nice Emails | false | https://abqjournal.com/145829/nice-story-nice-emails.html | 2least
| Nice Story, Nice Emails
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — In case you missed it (or ICYMI, as the kids say), I had <a href="" type="internal">a story in Sunday’s Journal</a> about the Abriendo Puertas program. The program is basically a national curriculum, aimed at helping Latino parents set their children up for success in school. The curriculum includes things like nutrition, early brain development, and how to advocate for one’s child in the school system.</p>
<p>The program is administered in Albuquerque’s South Valley by the Partnership for Community Action, and folks are also looking to start using it in Farmington and Las Cruces. The program got on my radar after I saw a national study out of Berkeley, showing that parents who took Abriendo Puertas classes had significant improvements in knowledge from pre-tests to post-tests. Then I made some calls and found out the program was happening here in Albuquerque.</p>
<p>This is the kind of story I love to do, and my colleague Roberto took some great pictures that really told the story.</p>
<p>So the nice thing is that since the story ran yesterday, my inbox has had a steady stream of emails thanking me for writing a positive story and spotlighting the Partnership. As you can imagine, I get a lot of email when people don’t like a story I’ve written, but it’s rare to get this kind of consistent, high-volume email after writing what is essentially a positive feature. Emails have mostly been from Albuquerque’s do-gooder community, and I almost suspect an email campaign along the lines of “Let’s thank Hailey for writing positive community news. Then maybe she’ll do it more.” But whether it’s a coordinated effort or a spontaneous outpouring of appreciation, it’s been really nice.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | 3,263 |
|
<p>A study published in the journal Neurology reports that people who are obese in middle age are almost four times more likely than those of normal weight to develop diseases that lead to dementia in later life.</p>
<p>Exactly why obesity leads to an increased likelihood of dementia is not understood, but researchers note that fatty tissue produces more hormones than any other organ in the body, many of which are known to be harmful. –ARK</p>
<p>The Guardian:</p>
<p>The study, published in the journal Neurology, examined data on more than 8,500 people over the age of 65. Of the sample, 350 had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or vascular dementia and a further 114 had possible dementia.</p>
<p />
<p>… Exactly how excess weight can influence the degradation of the brain is not certain, but Xu said there could many possible mechanisms. “Higher body fat is associated with diabetes and vascular diseases, which are related to dementia risk,” she said.</p>
<p>In addition, fatty tissue is the largest hormone-producing organ in the body and it can produce inflammatory molecules which may affect cognitive functioning or the process of neurodegeneration.</p>
<p>Sorensen said that further research was needed to find the links between being overweight and dementia. “One in three people over 65 will die with dementia, yet research into the condition is desperately underfunded.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/may/02/obese-more-likely-to-develop-alzheimers-disease" type="external">Read more</a></p> | Middle-Age Obesity Linked to Dementia Among Elderly | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/middle-age-obesity-linked-to-dementia-among-elderly/ | 2011-05-03 | 4left
| Middle-Age Obesity Linked to Dementia Among Elderly
<p>A study published in the journal Neurology reports that people who are obese in middle age are almost four times more likely than those of normal weight to develop diseases that lead to dementia in later life.</p>
<p>Exactly why obesity leads to an increased likelihood of dementia is not understood, but researchers note that fatty tissue produces more hormones than any other organ in the body, many of which are known to be harmful. –ARK</p>
<p>The Guardian:</p>
<p>The study, published in the journal Neurology, examined data on more than 8,500 people over the age of 65. Of the sample, 350 had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or vascular dementia and a further 114 had possible dementia.</p>
<p />
<p>… Exactly how excess weight can influence the degradation of the brain is not certain, but Xu said there could many possible mechanisms. “Higher body fat is associated with diabetes and vascular diseases, which are related to dementia risk,” she said.</p>
<p>In addition, fatty tissue is the largest hormone-producing organ in the body and it can produce inflammatory molecules which may affect cognitive functioning or the process of neurodegeneration.</p>
<p>Sorensen said that further research was needed to find the links between being overweight and dementia. “One in three people over 65 will die with dementia, yet research into the condition is desperately underfunded.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/may/02/obese-more-likely-to-develop-alzheimers-disease" type="external">Read more</a></p> | 3,264 |
<p>All times are Eastern.</p>
<p>MONDAY, May 11</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>HAMBURG, Germany — Energy ministers from the Group of Seven industrial nations meet.</p>
<p>TUESDAY, May 12</p>
<p>WASHINGTON — Labor Department releases job openings and labor turnover survey for March, 10 a.m.; Treasury releases federal budget for April, 2 p.m.</p>
<p>COPENHAGEN — Danish brewer Carlsberg presents first-quarter results.</p>
<p>CANBERRA — Australian government releases its budget blueprint for the next fiscal year to rein in the deficit as tax income from the mining industry dwindles.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>WEDNESDAY, May 13</p>
<p>WASHINGTON — Commerce Department releases retail sales data for April, 8:30 a.m.; Commerce Department releases business inventories for March, 10 a.m.</p>
<p>BERLIN — Germany's Federal Statistical Office releases first-quarter gross domestic product figure for the country's economy, Europe's biggest.</p>
<p>MUNICH, Germany — Carmaker BMW AG holds annual shareholders meeting in Munich.</p>
<p>COPENHAGEN — Danish shipping and oil group AP Moller-Maersk presents first-quarter results.</p>
<p>TOKYO — Nissan reports earnings.</p>
<p>Macy's Inc. reports quarterly financial results before the market opens.</p>
<p>J.C. Penney Co. reports quarterly financial results after the market closes.</p>
<p>THURSDAY, May 14</p>
<p>WASHINGTON — Labor Department releases weekly jobless claims, 8:30 a.m.; Labor Department releases the Producer Price Index for April, 8:30 a.m.; Freddie Mac, the mortgage company, releases weekly mortgage rates, 10 a.m.</p>
<p>FRIDAY, May 15</p>
<p>WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve releases industrial production for April, 9:15 a.m.; Treasury releases international money flows data for March, 4 p.m.</p> | Business events and economic reports scheduled for the coming week | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2015/05/14/business-events-and-economic-reports-scheduled-for-coming-week.html | 2016-03-09 | 0right
| Business events and economic reports scheduled for the coming week
<p>All times are Eastern.</p>
<p>MONDAY, May 11</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>HAMBURG, Germany — Energy ministers from the Group of Seven industrial nations meet.</p>
<p>TUESDAY, May 12</p>
<p>WASHINGTON — Labor Department releases job openings and labor turnover survey for March, 10 a.m.; Treasury releases federal budget for April, 2 p.m.</p>
<p>COPENHAGEN — Danish brewer Carlsberg presents first-quarter results.</p>
<p>CANBERRA — Australian government releases its budget blueprint for the next fiscal year to rein in the deficit as tax income from the mining industry dwindles.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>WEDNESDAY, May 13</p>
<p>WASHINGTON — Commerce Department releases retail sales data for April, 8:30 a.m.; Commerce Department releases business inventories for March, 10 a.m.</p>
<p>BERLIN — Germany's Federal Statistical Office releases first-quarter gross domestic product figure for the country's economy, Europe's biggest.</p>
<p>MUNICH, Germany — Carmaker BMW AG holds annual shareholders meeting in Munich.</p>
<p>COPENHAGEN — Danish shipping and oil group AP Moller-Maersk presents first-quarter results.</p>
<p>TOKYO — Nissan reports earnings.</p>
<p>Macy's Inc. reports quarterly financial results before the market opens.</p>
<p>J.C. Penney Co. reports quarterly financial results after the market closes.</p>
<p>THURSDAY, May 14</p>
<p>WASHINGTON — Labor Department releases weekly jobless claims, 8:30 a.m.; Labor Department releases the Producer Price Index for April, 8:30 a.m.; Freddie Mac, the mortgage company, releases weekly mortgage rates, 10 a.m.</p>
<p>FRIDAY, May 15</p>
<p>WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve releases industrial production for April, 9:15 a.m.; Treasury releases international money flows data for March, 4 p.m.</p> | 3,265 |
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<p />
<p>On Saturday night, La Cueva stepped in for the second time this season.</p>
<p>And the Bears were running with the Huskies a good portion of the way in the championship game of the Joe Armijo Classic at Albuquerque Academy.</p>
<p>But Hope, with a burst of three 3-pointers midway through the second half, rejected La Cueva’s advances, and the Huskies remained undefeated with a hard-fought 56-47 victory.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“We know how to win,” senior guard Hanna Valencia said. She was named the tournament’s most valuable player — although Academy officials at first announced the MVP was her teammate, Alivia Lewis, leaving Valencia to momentarily ponder how she didn’t even make the all-tournament team.</p>
<p>“I was like, ‘Oh, bummer,’ ” Valencia said with a giggle. “It was a nice surprise (to get MVP).”</p>
<p>Valencia had a game-high 19 points to pace the Huskies (6-0), a team many coaches are touting as not just the best team in Class 4A but possibly the best team in any classification.</p>
<p>“In practice, we’re not the best (in our minds),” Valencia said. “We have to work.”</p>
<p>La Cueva (5-2) fell into a 20-6 hole early in the second quarter but worked its way back into the game.</p>
<p>The Bears were down only seven at halftime, and cut the deficit to 36-33 in the final 90 seconds of the third quarter.</p>
<p>And then Hope, the two-time defending 4A state champion, went off from beyond the arc.</p>
<p>Haile Chase-The Boy drained a huge 3-pointer from the far corner just as the third quarter was ending, and Charity Murphy and Valencia hit 3s in the early minutes of the fourth quarter as the Huskies moved in front 47-35.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Murphy finished with 10 points for Hope, which isn’t even at full strength right now. Brielle Milford, a 6-1 senior forward, is injured and probably won’t be back for a few weeks.</p>
<p>Brooke Nelson led La Cueva with 12 points. The Bears lost to Hope for the second time this season. La Cueva faces a very tough two-game road trip next weekend to Carlsbad and Hobbs.</p>
<p>— James Yodice</p>
<p>ALICE KING INVITATIONAL: In Moriarty, Arianna Martinez scored 21 points to lead St. Pius (7-0) to a 53-50 victory over the host Pintos (7-1) in the tournament final. Alyssa Adams of Moriarty had a game-high 27 points.</p>
<p>St. Pius now has more wins this season than it did all of last season.</p>
<p>Boys</p>
<p>HUB CITY TOURNAMENT: In Belen, the host Eagles took advantage of poor shooting by the Coyotes to take a first-half lead, then solved Roswell’s full-court press in the second half to earn a 57-43 win and knock Roswell (5-1) from the ranks of the undefeated.</p>
<p>“We found a way to get it done. It wasn’t easy, though,” said Belen senior forward Nick Trujillo, who scored eight of his team-high 13 points in the second half.</p>
<p>“This win is a good start, a good building block to where we need to go.”</p>
<p>Belen (6-1) raced out to an 11-2 lead in the first quarter and quickly increased the advantage to 10, holding a 27-17 lead going into halftime after a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by guard Justin Evans.</p>
<p>Roswell began to press in the second half and cut the deficit to five going into the fourth quarter but never got closer.</p>
<p>The Coyotes were led by senior wing Chris Mesquita’s game-high 22 points and Tarren Burrola’s 15 points. Evans added 11 points for Belen while junior Matthew Padilla and senior Gabriel Chavira added 12 and 10 points, respectively.</p>
<p>Chris Mesquita of Roswell led all scorers with 22 points.</p>
<p>&#160;&#160; — Kenn Rodriguez</p>
<p>JOE ARMIJO CLASSIC: Post Nelson Longmire had a team-high 15 points as Hope Christian (5-0) defeated Oñate (6-2) in a closely contested tournament final, 53-48 at Academy.</p>
<p>Senior guard Cole Yearout of Hope Christian was named the tournament MVP.</p>
<p>SUNDEVIL INVITATIONAL: At Sandia Prep, the name of the tournament matched the nickname of the champion — Española Valley, which defeated West Las Vegas 60-55 in an afternoon final as the Sundevils (5-0) remained unbeaten.</p>
<p>St. Pius defeated Valencia 58-38 in the third-place game.</p>
<p>CLEVELAND 67, LOS LUNAS 63: At Cleveland, guard Marcus Hill had a team-best 19 points as the Storm (7-0) held off the Tigers in a matchup of undefeated metro powers. Zanen Zeller led Los Lunas (4-1) with 19 points. This was the last game of a four-team round robin event at Cleveland.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Prep roundup: Hope Christian girls turn aside La Cueva for tourney trophy | false | https://abqjournal.com/906551/prep-hoops-hope-christian-girls-turn-aside-la-cueva-for-tourney-trophy.html | 2least
| Prep roundup: Hope Christian girls turn aside La Cueva for tourney trophy
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<p />
<p>On Saturday night, La Cueva stepped in for the second time this season.</p>
<p>And the Bears were running with the Huskies a good portion of the way in the championship game of the Joe Armijo Classic at Albuquerque Academy.</p>
<p>But Hope, with a burst of three 3-pointers midway through the second half, rejected La Cueva’s advances, and the Huskies remained undefeated with a hard-fought 56-47 victory.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“We know how to win,” senior guard Hanna Valencia said. She was named the tournament’s most valuable player — although Academy officials at first announced the MVP was her teammate, Alivia Lewis, leaving Valencia to momentarily ponder how she didn’t even make the all-tournament team.</p>
<p>“I was like, ‘Oh, bummer,’ ” Valencia said with a giggle. “It was a nice surprise (to get MVP).”</p>
<p>Valencia had a game-high 19 points to pace the Huskies (6-0), a team many coaches are touting as not just the best team in Class 4A but possibly the best team in any classification.</p>
<p>“In practice, we’re not the best (in our minds),” Valencia said. “We have to work.”</p>
<p>La Cueva (5-2) fell into a 20-6 hole early in the second quarter but worked its way back into the game.</p>
<p>The Bears were down only seven at halftime, and cut the deficit to 36-33 in the final 90 seconds of the third quarter.</p>
<p>And then Hope, the two-time defending 4A state champion, went off from beyond the arc.</p>
<p>Haile Chase-The Boy drained a huge 3-pointer from the far corner just as the third quarter was ending, and Charity Murphy and Valencia hit 3s in the early minutes of the fourth quarter as the Huskies moved in front 47-35.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Murphy finished with 10 points for Hope, which isn’t even at full strength right now. Brielle Milford, a 6-1 senior forward, is injured and probably won’t be back for a few weeks.</p>
<p>Brooke Nelson led La Cueva with 12 points. The Bears lost to Hope for the second time this season. La Cueva faces a very tough two-game road trip next weekend to Carlsbad and Hobbs.</p>
<p>— James Yodice</p>
<p>ALICE KING INVITATIONAL: In Moriarty, Arianna Martinez scored 21 points to lead St. Pius (7-0) to a 53-50 victory over the host Pintos (7-1) in the tournament final. Alyssa Adams of Moriarty had a game-high 27 points.</p>
<p>St. Pius now has more wins this season than it did all of last season.</p>
<p>Boys</p>
<p>HUB CITY TOURNAMENT: In Belen, the host Eagles took advantage of poor shooting by the Coyotes to take a first-half lead, then solved Roswell’s full-court press in the second half to earn a 57-43 win and knock Roswell (5-1) from the ranks of the undefeated.</p>
<p>“We found a way to get it done. It wasn’t easy, though,” said Belen senior forward Nick Trujillo, who scored eight of his team-high 13 points in the second half.</p>
<p>“This win is a good start, a good building block to where we need to go.”</p>
<p>Belen (6-1) raced out to an 11-2 lead in the first quarter and quickly increased the advantage to 10, holding a 27-17 lead going into halftime after a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by guard Justin Evans.</p>
<p>Roswell began to press in the second half and cut the deficit to five going into the fourth quarter but never got closer.</p>
<p>The Coyotes were led by senior wing Chris Mesquita’s game-high 22 points and Tarren Burrola’s 15 points. Evans added 11 points for Belen while junior Matthew Padilla and senior Gabriel Chavira added 12 and 10 points, respectively.</p>
<p>Chris Mesquita of Roswell led all scorers with 22 points.</p>
<p>&#160;&#160; — Kenn Rodriguez</p>
<p>JOE ARMIJO CLASSIC: Post Nelson Longmire had a team-high 15 points as Hope Christian (5-0) defeated Oñate (6-2) in a closely contested tournament final, 53-48 at Academy.</p>
<p>Senior guard Cole Yearout of Hope Christian was named the tournament MVP.</p>
<p>SUNDEVIL INVITATIONAL: At Sandia Prep, the name of the tournament matched the nickname of the champion — Española Valley, which defeated West Las Vegas 60-55 in an afternoon final as the Sundevils (5-0) remained unbeaten.</p>
<p>St. Pius defeated Valencia 58-38 in the third-place game.</p>
<p>CLEVELAND 67, LOS LUNAS 63: At Cleveland, guard Marcus Hill had a team-best 19 points as the Storm (7-0) held off the Tigers in a matchup of undefeated metro powers. Zanen Zeller led Los Lunas (4-1) with 19 points. This was the last game of a four-team round robin event at Cleveland.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | 3,266 |
|
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<p />
<p>Sure, there are glimpses of the seemingly reasonable guy beloved by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the one who on Tuesday says he’ll “take all the heat” on immigration, who wants to sign a “bill of love.” Do not be fooled. He is a chimera. By Thursday he will have vanished, leaving you feeling slimed and gaslighted. Graham was right the first time: Trump is a “kook” who is “unfit for office.”</p>
<p>Even after all that came before, this presidency does not lose its power to horrify. Nothing – not even the Trump campaign and Trump transition – truly prepared us for a president who behaves as Trump has. The biggest lie ever told by a candidate to the American people came from Trump, repeatedly, during the campaign: “At the right time, I will be so presidential, you will be so bored.” Now we know: He is characterologically incapable of fulfilling this vow.</p>
<p>But it is important, as we steel ourselves for Year Two, to identify what is so extremely, so uniquely wrong with Trump’s presidency.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>It is not ideology. Whatever his own political convictions, if any, Trump has governed, mostly, as a conservative. And so many true conservatives reconcile themselves to swallowing Trump’s outrages by pointing to what they consider his achievements: The confirmation of Justice Neil Gorsuch and a record number of conservative appellate judges. The move to dismantle or loosen rules across the regulatory landscape. The passage of a major tax cut. The withdrawal from the Paris climate accord. The repeal of the individual mandate to purchase health care. The crackdown on undocumented immigrants.</p>
<p>It is important to remember, as we fume about Trump, that any Republican president, enabled by a Republican House and Senate, would have done most if not all of these things. People like me may disagree with those actions, but they are the natural result of having elected a Republican president. Don’t conflate or confuse Trump outrage with outrage over run-of-the mill Republican policies. Elections have consequences.</p>
<p>Likewise, it is not, or not only, about temperament, as expressed in tweets and similar outbursts, and in the unceasing eruption of untruths that spew forth with no hint of embarrassment. These are unnerving and unseemly. That we are having a national parsing of the invisible distinction between “hole” and “house” illustrates how much Trump has degraded the office. And when it comes to provocations like “Little Rocket Man” and boasts about button size, Trump’s tantrums may be affirmatively dangerous.</p>
<p>The mantra among Trump-reconciled conservatives is that while the tweeting may be unfortunate and regrettable, it is fundamentally irrelevant and should be ignored, like an unsightly rash. This approach is essentially correct. Trump’s tweets offer a cyber-billboard for his narcissism and ignorance. But the tweeting alone, along with other displays of emotional incontinence, does not get to the essence of the Trump problem.</p>
<p>Which is two-fold, a short-term threat and a long-term one. The immediate risk is to national security: Will Trump provoke or instigate war with North Korea, or dangerously mishandle some other international crisis? It is little comfort to conclude that our best hope lies in the rationality of Kim Jong Un and the steadying influence of Defense Secretary James Mattis.</p>
<p>The longer-term and greater danger is that Trump does not believe in American ideals and institutions. He does not believe in a free press or free speech; left unconstrained, he would crack down on both. He does not believe in the rule of law, a Justice Department free of political interference, the separation of powers or an independent judiciary. He does not believe in the United States as a beacon and example to the world. My continuing confidence remains that our institutions can withstand this assault and that our national reputation has been so well-earned that others will understand: Trump does not reflect who we are.</p>
<p>“Someday we’ll look back on this and it will all seem funny,” Bruce Springsteen sang. No, we won’t, not with Trump. What we can hope – and what we must pray – is that we will look back on the Trump presidency as a blot on our nation’s honor, an aberration from our history and a moment from which we emerged, not unscathed, but more resolute for having endured it.</p>
<p>E-mail: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>. Copyright, Washington Post Writers Group.</p>
<p />
<p /> | Trump presidency a blot on our nation’s honor | false | https://abqjournal.com/1122970/trump-presidency-a-blot-on-our-nations-honor.html | 2least
| Trump presidency a blot on our nation’s honor
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<p />
<p>Sure, there are glimpses of the seemingly reasonable guy beloved by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the one who on Tuesday says he’ll “take all the heat” on immigration, who wants to sign a “bill of love.” Do not be fooled. He is a chimera. By Thursday he will have vanished, leaving you feeling slimed and gaslighted. Graham was right the first time: Trump is a “kook” who is “unfit for office.”</p>
<p>Even after all that came before, this presidency does not lose its power to horrify. Nothing – not even the Trump campaign and Trump transition – truly prepared us for a president who behaves as Trump has. The biggest lie ever told by a candidate to the American people came from Trump, repeatedly, during the campaign: “At the right time, I will be so presidential, you will be so bored.” Now we know: He is characterologically incapable of fulfilling this vow.</p>
<p>But it is important, as we steel ourselves for Year Two, to identify what is so extremely, so uniquely wrong with Trump’s presidency.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>It is not ideology. Whatever his own political convictions, if any, Trump has governed, mostly, as a conservative. And so many true conservatives reconcile themselves to swallowing Trump’s outrages by pointing to what they consider his achievements: The confirmation of Justice Neil Gorsuch and a record number of conservative appellate judges. The move to dismantle or loosen rules across the regulatory landscape. The passage of a major tax cut. The withdrawal from the Paris climate accord. The repeal of the individual mandate to purchase health care. The crackdown on undocumented immigrants.</p>
<p>It is important to remember, as we fume about Trump, that any Republican president, enabled by a Republican House and Senate, would have done most if not all of these things. People like me may disagree with those actions, but they are the natural result of having elected a Republican president. Don’t conflate or confuse Trump outrage with outrage over run-of-the mill Republican policies. Elections have consequences.</p>
<p>Likewise, it is not, or not only, about temperament, as expressed in tweets and similar outbursts, and in the unceasing eruption of untruths that spew forth with no hint of embarrassment. These are unnerving and unseemly. That we are having a national parsing of the invisible distinction between “hole” and “house” illustrates how much Trump has degraded the office. And when it comes to provocations like “Little Rocket Man” and boasts about button size, Trump’s tantrums may be affirmatively dangerous.</p>
<p>The mantra among Trump-reconciled conservatives is that while the tweeting may be unfortunate and regrettable, it is fundamentally irrelevant and should be ignored, like an unsightly rash. This approach is essentially correct. Trump’s tweets offer a cyber-billboard for his narcissism and ignorance. But the tweeting alone, along with other displays of emotional incontinence, does not get to the essence of the Trump problem.</p>
<p>Which is two-fold, a short-term threat and a long-term one. The immediate risk is to national security: Will Trump provoke or instigate war with North Korea, or dangerously mishandle some other international crisis? It is little comfort to conclude that our best hope lies in the rationality of Kim Jong Un and the steadying influence of Defense Secretary James Mattis.</p>
<p>The longer-term and greater danger is that Trump does not believe in American ideals and institutions. He does not believe in a free press or free speech; left unconstrained, he would crack down on both. He does not believe in the rule of law, a Justice Department free of political interference, the separation of powers or an independent judiciary. He does not believe in the United States as a beacon and example to the world. My continuing confidence remains that our institutions can withstand this assault and that our national reputation has been so well-earned that others will understand: Trump does not reflect who we are.</p>
<p>“Someday we’ll look back on this and it will all seem funny,” Bruce Springsteen sang. No, we won’t, not with Trump. What we can hope – and what we must pray – is that we will look back on the Trump presidency as a blot on our nation’s honor, an aberration from our history and a moment from which we emerged, not unscathed, but more resolute for having endured it.</p>
<p>E-mail: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>. Copyright, Washington Post Writers Group.</p>
<p />
<p /> | 3,267 |
|
<p>By Cynthia Kim</p>
<p>SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea’s financial regulator on Friday said it will ban raising money through all forms of virtual currencies, a move that follows similar restrictions in China on initial coin offerings.</p>
<p>The Financial Services Commission said all kinds of initial coin offerings (ICO) will be banned as trading of virtual currencies needs to be tightly controlled and monitored.</p>
<p>“Raising funds through ICOs seem to be on the rise globally, and our assessment is that ICOs are increasing in South Korea as well,” the regulator said in a statement after a meeting with the finance ministry, the Bank of Korea and the National Tax Service.</p>
<p>“Stern penalties” will be issued on financial institutions and any parties involved in issuing of ICOs, the statement added, without elaborating further on the details of those penalties.</p>
<p>The decision to ban ICOs as a fundraising tool was made as the government sees such issues as increasing the risk of financial scams. The decision tracks similar announcements in the U.S. and China where increasing trading volumes of cryptocurrencies are sparking concerns.</p>
<p>It added Friday’s announcement doesn’t mean the government has implicitly accepted trading of virtual currencies as part of its financial system, and will continue to monitor markets to see additional regulations are needed.</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> | South Korea bans raising money through initial coin offerings | false | https://newsline.com/south-korea-bans-raising-money-through-initial-coin-offerings/ | 2017-09-28 | 1right-center
| South Korea bans raising money through initial coin offerings
<p>By Cynthia Kim</p>
<p>SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea’s financial regulator on Friday said it will ban raising money through all forms of virtual currencies, a move that follows similar restrictions in China on initial coin offerings.</p>
<p>The Financial Services Commission said all kinds of initial coin offerings (ICO) will be banned as trading of virtual currencies needs to be tightly controlled and monitored.</p>
<p>“Raising funds through ICOs seem to be on the rise globally, and our assessment is that ICOs are increasing in South Korea as well,” the regulator said in a statement after a meeting with the finance ministry, the Bank of Korea and the National Tax Service.</p>
<p>“Stern penalties” will be issued on financial institutions and any parties involved in issuing of ICOs, the statement added, without elaborating further on the details of those penalties.</p>
<p>The decision to ban ICOs as a fundraising tool was made as the government sees such issues as increasing the risk of financial scams. The decision tracks similar announcements in the U.S. and China where increasing trading volumes of cryptocurrencies are sparking concerns.</p>
<p>It added Friday’s announcement doesn’t mean the government has implicitly accepted trading of virtual currencies as part of its financial system, and will continue to monitor markets to see additional regulations are needed.</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> | 3,268 |
<p>By Jeff Brumley</p>
<p>Chris Aho knows a thing or two about worshiping in contemporary spaces, like churches which meet in theaters, schools or former retail spaces.</p>
<p>“There is a sense of young churches trying to take away all the symbolism that was baggage for people, to make it generic,” said Aho, pastor at Oxford Baptist Church in Oxford, N.C.</p>
<p>But sometimes newer generations arrive who don’t want their worship spaces to resemble the malls and movie theaters and big-box stores they frequent the rest of the week, Aho said.</p>
<p>“There are people longing for tangible symbols now like they weren’t 25 to 30 years ago.”&#160;</p>
<p />
<p>That’s also part of the reason First Baptist Church in Athens, Texas, recently installed a steeple on its building where one had never stood before, a minister there said.</p>
<p>And church historians and coaches say that while the steeple and other Christian symbols have ebbed and flowed throughout church history, the presence of traditional structures is by no means the death knell of efforts to appeal to Millennials and other young Americans.</p>
<p>“My hope is that future generations will see traditional architecture is very different because we do something very different” in the church, Aho said.</p>
<p>‘Something with meaning behind it’</p>
<p>That was a big part of the motivation of First Baptist in Athens, where its new steeple was erected in October, student pastor Scott Shelton said.</p>
<p>In fact, there were a lot of reasons the congregation opted to replace an aging, leaking cupula with a traditional steeple.&#160;They included stopping the leaks and helping travelers spot the church more easily, he said.</p>
<p>“Now people can say we are the church with the steeple instead of the church behind the Taco Bell,” said Shelton.</p>
<p>But there were spiritual goals, as well, including using it as a teaching tool for what steeples were always meant to be about: pointing the way to Christ.</p>
<p>Kyle Henderson, pastor of the Athens church, outlined each component of the structure, from spire to lantern to clock, and their biblical significance.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://txb.life/article/do-you-know-the-point-of-a-steeple" type="external">a story published</a>&#160;by Texas Baptist Communications, Henderson explained that the cross atop the steeple represents Christ and contains a rolled up scripture inside: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself (John 12).”</p>
<p>The lantern represents the Bible being Christians’ guide, and the base symbolizes grace, the article said.</p>
<p>“We were motivated to make the statement that we are people of the Cross,” Shelton told Baptist News Global.</p>
<p />
<p>The question of whether younger generations could be turned off by a steeple was part of the conversation church members had about the steeple. But that was dismissed, Shelton said.</p>
<p>“If they are not looking for that, they are going to go someplace else, anyway.”</p>
<p>Besides, the facility has aspects that communicate the congregation’s embrace of functionality and fun —&#160;including a kids’ slide from the third to the ground floor, a game room and a tree house that extends off the side of the sanctuary, he said.</p>
<p>“Our church architecture is trying to show that we are a church for every segment of the population —&#160;old, young —&#160;and that we care about them equally,” he said.</p>
<p>And one thing about Millennials, he added, is they respect authenticity —&#160;including in architecture.</p>
<p>Young people want “something with meaning behind it,” Shelton said. “What we do as a church speaks louder than anything else.”</p>
<p>Crucial relationships</p>
<p>But there are no sure turn-offs, architecturally, for the unchurched, said George Bullard, an author and congregational coach with the South Carolina-based Columbia Partnership.</p>
<p>“Non-church-looking architecture will more likely attract a larger percentage of nones and dones,” said Bullard, referring to what researchers respectively called those with no religious affiliation or who have left organized religion.</p>
<p>“However, there also will be a minority of nones and dones who like the ‘mystery’ of the architecture and the ‘mystery’ of the formal liturgy,” Bullard said in comments emailed to BNG.</p>
<p>What usually matters most is how welcoming a congregation is, he said.</p>
<p />
<p>“Unchurched people want to see church facilities open to people like them and relevant ministries that fill the building 24/7 rather than a few hours on Sunday,” Bullard said.</p>
<p>And Millennials, he added, are much more interested in what’s happening outside a church than in its architecture.</p>
<p>“Millennials want relationships so ‘tall steeple churches’ must work harder to connect with them in relationships outside church buildings” before they will come inside, Bullard said.</p>
<p>‘Timeless and life-giving’</p>
<p>Steeples and other traditional forms of church architecture have enjoyed varied levels of acceptance throughout American church history, church historian Bill Leonard said.</p>
<p>Protestants initially rejected steeples and ornate buildings as symbols of Anglican and Catholic churches in Europe, Leonard told BNG. Instead those groups opted for simple meeting houses devoid of symbolism.</p>
<p>“They wouldn’t call them churches, since the church was the people,” said Leonard, professor of Baptist studies and church history at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, N.C.</p>
<p />
<p>Steeples gradually caught on as a way of identifying sacred spaces, particularly in small cities and towns.</p>
<p>“Baptist churches, particularly as they moved up the economic ladder, tended to use steeples or even more formal architecture —&#160;towers, stone,” Leonard said.</p>
<p>For churches like Oxford Baptist in North Carolina, that means finding creative, perhaps new ways to do ministry while celebrating the traditional structure and symbols it has inherited, Aho said.</p>
<p>“Whatever the changing world throws at us, there are aspects of us that are timeless and life-giving,” Aho said. “And our architecture symbolizes that.”</p> | Steeples and Millennials — does church architecture matter? | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/pastors-contemplate-can-steeples-and-millennials-mix/ | 3left-center
| Steeples and Millennials — does church architecture matter?
<p>By Jeff Brumley</p>
<p>Chris Aho knows a thing or two about worshiping in contemporary spaces, like churches which meet in theaters, schools or former retail spaces.</p>
<p>“There is a sense of young churches trying to take away all the symbolism that was baggage for people, to make it generic,” said Aho, pastor at Oxford Baptist Church in Oxford, N.C.</p>
<p>But sometimes newer generations arrive who don’t want their worship spaces to resemble the malls and movie theaters and big-box stores they frequent the rest of the week, Aho said.</p>
<p>“There are people longing for tangible symbols now like they weren’t 25 to 30 years ago.”&#160;</p>
<p />
<p>That’s also part of the reason First Baptist Church in Athens, Texas, recently installed a steeple on its building where one had never stood before, a minister there said.</p>
<p>And church historians and coaches say that while the steeple and other Christian symbols have ebbed and flowed throughout church history, the presence of traditional structures is by no means the death knell of efforts to appeal to Millennials and other young Americans.</p>
<p>“My hope is that future generations will see traditional architecture is very different because we do something very different” in the church, Aho said.</p>
<p>‘Something with meaning behind it’</p>
<p>That was a big part of the motivation of First Baptist in Athens, where its new steeple was erected in October, student pastor Scott Shelton said.</p>
<p>In fact, there were a lot of reasons the congregation opted to replace an aging, leaking cupula with a traditional steeple.&#160;They included stopping the leaks and helping travelers spot the church more easily, he said.</p>
<p>“Now people can say we are the church with the steeple instead of the church behind the Taco Bell,” said Shelton.</p>
<p>But there were spiritual goals, as well, including using it as a teaching tool for what steeples were always meant to be about: pointing the way to Christ.</p>
<p>Kyle Henderson, pastor of the Athens church, outlined each component of the structure, from spire to lantern to clock, and their biblical significance.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://txb.life/article/do-you-know-the-point-of-a-steeple" type="external">a story published</a>&#160;by Texas Baptist Communications, Henderson explained that the cross atop the steeple represents Christ and contains a rolled up scripture inside: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself (John 12).”</p>
<p>The lantern represents the Bible being Christians’ guide, and the base symbolizes grace, the article said.</p>
<p>“We were motivated to make the statement that we are people of the Cross,” Shelton told Baptist News Global.</p>
<p />
<p>The question of whether younger generations could be turned off by a steeple was part of the conversation church members had about the steeple. But that was dismissed, Shelton said.</p>
<p>“If they are not looking for that, they are going to go someplace else, anyway.”</p>
<p>Besides, the facility has aspects that communicate the congregation’s embrace of functionality and fun —&#160;including a kids’ slide from the third to the ground floor, a game room and a tree house that extends off the side of the sanctuary, he said.</p>
<p>“Our church architecture is trying to show that we are a church for every segment of the population —&#160;old, young —&#160;and that we care about them equally,” he said.</p>
<p>And one thing about Millennials, he added, is they respect authenticity —&#160;including in architecture.</p>
<p>Young people want “something with meaning behind it,” Shelton said. “What we do as a church speaks louder than anything else.”</p>
<p>Crucial relationships</p>
<p>But there are no sure turn-offs, architecturally, for the unchurched, said George Bullard, an author and congregational coach with the South Carolina-based Columbia Partnership.</p>
<p>“Non-church-looking architecture will more likely attract a larger percentage of nones and dones,” said Bullard, referring to what researchers respectively called those with no religious affiliation or who have left organized religion.</p>
<p>“However, there also will be a minority of nones and dones who like the ‘mystery’ of the architecture and the ‘mystery’ of the formal liturgy,” Bullard said in comments emailed to BNG.</p>
<p>What usually matters most is how welcoming a congregation is, he said.</p>
<p />
<p>“Unchurched people want to see church facilities open to people like them and relevant ministries that fill the building 24/7 rather than a few hours on Sunday,” Bullard said.</p>
<p>And Millennials, he added, are much more interested in what’s happening outside a church than in its architecture.</p>
<p>“Millennials want relationships so ‘tall steeple churches’ must work harder to connect with them in relationships outside church buildings” before they will come inside, Bullard said.</p>
<p>‘Timeless and life-giving’</p>
<p>Steeples and other traditional forms of church architecture have enjoyed varied levels of acceptance throughout American church history, church historian Bill Leonard said.</p>
<p>Protestants initially rejected steeples and ornate buildings as symbols of Anglican and Catholic churches in Europe, Leonard told BNG. Instead those groups opted for simple meeting houses devoid of symbolism.</p>
<p>“They wouldn’t call them churches, since the church was the people,” said Leonard, professor of Baptist studies and church history at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, N.C.</p>
<p />
<p>Steeples gradually caught on as a way of identifying sacred spaces, particularly in small cities and towns.</p>
<p>“Baptist churches, particularly as they moved up the economic ladder, tended to use steeples or even more formal architecture —&#160;towers, stone,” Leonard said.</p>
<p>For churches like Oxford Baptist in North Carolina, that means finding creative, perhaps new ways to do ministry while celebrating the traditional structure and symbols it has inherited, Aho said.</p>
<p>“Whatever the changing world throws at us, there are aspects of us that are timeless and life-giving,” Aho said. “And our architecture symbolizes that.”</p> | 3,269 |
|
<p>NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP) — After opposing the building of a mosque near Ground Zero in New York City, the Southern Baptist Convention's chief spokesman on public policy has come out in support of Muslims seeking to build a new Islamic center in Murfreesboro, Tenn.</p>
<p>Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, <a href="http://www.adl.org/PresRele/CvlRt_32/5843_32.htm" type="external">recently</a> signed on as a charter member of the Interfaith Coalition on Mosques, an initiative sponsored by the Jewish Anti-Defamation League.</p>
<p />
<p>The coalition of religious leaders from Jewish, Christian and Muslim faith traditions filed a friend-of-the-court <a href="http://www.adl.org/civil_rights/ab/Filing-of-Amicus-Curiae-09232010.pdf" type="external">brief</a> opposing a lawsuit filed by citizens seeking to halt construction of a new Islamic Center of Middle Tennessee. The brief argues that the lawsuit alleging that local officials acted improperly in granting building permits to an existing Muslim congregation that has outgrown its facilities amounts to "unlawful viewpoint discrimination" against a "disfavored" religion.</p>
<p>Land, who has said publicly that he believes a proposed Park51 Islamic cultural center and mosque near the former World Trade Center should be moved to another location out of respect for survivors of those who lost lives in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, said in general that Muslims have the same right as Christians and everyone else to worship as they please.</p>
<p>"To help preserve the First Amendment for all Americans, we have the right to the free exercise of our faith without the interference of the government," Land said in a recorded audio <a href="http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&amp;pageId=210101" type="external">interview</a> at WorldNetDaily.com.</p>
<p>"We agree with that as Baptists," Land said. "We believe that people have the freedom to worship and to express their faith and to have houses of worship in the places where they live."</p>
<p>Land decried acts of vandalism and arson that have been reported at the proposed future site of the Murfreesboro mosque. "People have resorted to violence to try and keep them from having a place of worship where they live, and we believe that is un-American."</p>
<p>Opponents to the mosque argue that the issue isn't religion but rather that they view radical Islam as a political philosophy with a goal of world domination. Land, however, said the jihadist movement that spawned the 9/11 attacks represents of "a very small minority" of Muslims and is in fact a "death cult" that didn't emerge within Islam until the 18th century.</p>
<p>"I would argue that we should never ever make any religion illegal or should in any was discriminate against a religion," Land said. "I would say the Muslim community in Murfreesboro is definitely being victimized."</p>
<p>The Anti-Defamation League, which also is on record opposing the so-called Ground Zero Mosque, spearheaded the Interfaith Coalition on Mosques to combat what a press release called "a disturbing rise in discrimination against Muslims trying to legally build or expand their houses of worship, or mosques, across the United States."</p>
<p>"We believe the best way to uphold America's democratic values is to ensure that Muslims can exercise the same religious freedom enjoyed by everyone in America," according to the group's <a href="http://www.adl.org/main_interfaith/ICOM_Statement_of_Purpose.htm" type="external">statement</a> of purpose. "They deserve nothing less than to have a place of worship like everyone else."</p>
<p>The statement accused mosque opponents of "misrepresenting the Koran and taking passages out of context and seeking to use the statements of a few extremists to claim that all American Muslims secretly want to impose Islamic Shariah law in the United States."</p>
<p>Another charter member of the coalition is Welton Gaddy of the Interfaith Alliance, an ordained Baptist minister and pastor for preaching and worship at Northminster Church, a Baptist congregation&#160;in Monroe, La.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Bob Allen</a> is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.</p> | SBC ethics chief supports Murfreesboro mosque | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/sbcethicschiefsupportsmurfreesboromosque/ | 3left-center
| SBC ethics chief supports Murfreesboro mosque
<p>NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP) — After opposing the building of a mosque near Ground Zero in New York City, the Southern Baptist Convention's chief spokesman on public policy has come out in support of Muslims seeking to build a new Islamic center in Murfreesboro, Tenn.</p>
<p>Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, <a href="http://www.adl.org/PresRele/CvlRt_32/5843_32.htm" type="external">recently</a> signed on as a charter member of the Interfaith Coalition on Mosques, an initiative sponsored by the Jewish Anti-Defamation League.</p>
<p />
<p>The coalition of religious leaders from Jewish, Christian and Muslim faith traditions filed a friend-of-the-court <a href="http://www.adl.org/civil_rights/ab/Filing-of-Amicus-Curiae-09232010.pdf" type="external">brief</a> opposing a lawsuit filed by citizens seeking to halt construction of a new Islamic Center of Middle Tennessee. The brief argues that the lawsuit alleging that local officials acted improperly in granting building permits to an existing Muslim congregation that has outgrown its facilities amounts to "unlawful viewpoint discrimination" against a "disfavored" religion.</p>
<p>Land, who has said publicly that he believes a proposed Park51 Islamic cultural center and mosque near the former World Trade Center should be moved to another location out of respect for survivors of those who lost lives in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, said in general that Muslims have the same right as Christians and everyone else to worship as they please.</p>
<p>"To help preserve the First Amendment for all Americans, we have the right to the free exercise of our faith without the interference of the government," Land said in a recorded audio <a href="http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&amp;pageId=210101" type="external">interview</a> at WorldNetDaily.com.</p>
<p>"We agree with that as Baptists," Land said. "We believe that people have the freedom to worship and to express their faith and to have houses of worship in the places where they live."</p>
<p>Land decried acts of vandalism and arson that have been reported at the proposed future site of the Murfreesboro mosque. "People have resorted to violence to try and keep them from having a place of worship where they live, and we believe that is un-American."</p>
<p>Opponents to the mosque argue that the issue isn't religion but rather that they view radical Islam as a political philosophy with a goal of world domination. Land, however, said the jihadist movement that spawned the 9/11 attacks represents of "a very small minority" of Muslims and is in fact a "death cult" that didn't emerge within Islam until the 18th century.</p>
<p>"I would argue that we should never ever make any religion illegal or should in any was discriminate against a religion," Land said. "I would say the Muslim community in Murfreesboro is definitely being victimized."</p>
<p>The Anti-Defamation League, which also is on record opposing the so-called Ground Zero Mosque, spearheaded the Interfaith Coalition on Mosques to combat what a press release called "a disturbing rise in discrimination against Muslims trying to legally build or expand their houses of worship, or mosques, across the United States."</p>
<p>"We believe the best way to uphold America's democratic values is to ensure that Muslims can exercise the same religious freedom enjoyed by everyone in America," according to the group's <a href="http://www.adl.org/main_interfaith/ICOM_Statement_of_Purpose.htm" type="external">statement</a> of purpose. "They deserve nothing less than to have a place of worship like everyone else."</p>
<p>The statement accused mosque opponents of "misrepresenting the Koran and taking passages out of context and seeking to use the statements of a few extremists to claim that all American Muslims secretly want to impose Islamic Shariah law in the United States."</p>
<p>Another charter member of the coalition is Welton Gaddy of the Interfaith Alliance, an ordained Baptist minister and pastor for preaching and worship at Northminster Church, a Baptist congregation&#160;in Monroe, La.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Bob Allen</a> is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.</p> | 3,270 |
|
<p>INDIANAPOLIS (BP) — Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton May 6 continued to do well among churchgoers, according to exit polls, despite not having the kind of night her supporters felt she needed to shake up the race and catch frontrunner Barack Obama.</p>
<p>Obama easily won North Carolina, 56-42 percent, while Clinton edged out a victory in Indiana, 51-49 percent.</p>
<p>But among churchgoers, she did better. Clinton won among Protestant weekly churchgoers in North Carolina, 58-39 percent, and among that same group in Indiana, 56-44 percent. The two groups made up 21 percent of the Democratic electorate in North Carolina, 15 percent in Indiana.</p>
<p>She also won among Catholics in both states, 51-48 percent in North Carolina and 61-39 percent in Indiana.</p>
<p>Among all weekly churchgoers — Protestant and non-Protestant — Obama won in North Carolina, 55-43 percent, while the two split in Indiana, each getting 50 percent. Weekly churchgoers made up 49 percent of Democratic voters in North Carolina and 40 percent in Indiana.</p>
<p>Clinton's campaign had hoped to win Indiana easily and to lose North Carolina by a much narrower margin, but neither happened, and several Democratic officials and pundits said the race essentially was over. With 2,025 delegates needed to win the nomination, Obama leads 1,845-1,693, according to a RealClearPolitics. com tally.</p>
<p>Clinton, though, vowed to stay in the race. The next Democratic primary is in West Virginia, where she is favored to win.</p>
<p>“I feel good about how I did with Indiana voters and swing voters in both North Carolina and Indiana,” Clinton told reporters in West Virginia, according to Reuters. “It's a new day. It's a new state and a new election.”</p>
<p>She said she would remain in the race “until there is a nominee,” although she didn't say whether that meant the Democratic National Convention, the Associated Press reported.</p>
<p>Obama posted an impressive performance following a tough two-week stretch of bad news regarding his pastor of 20 years, Jeremiah Wright, who influenced some voters, according to exit polls. In North Carolina, 47 percent of voters said the “situation with Rev. Wright” was very or somewhat important. Among that group, Clinton won, 57-41 percent. In Indiana, 46 percent of voters said the Wright situation was very or somewhat important, and Clinton won among them, 71-29 percent.</p> | Democratic churchgoers like Clinton | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/democraticchurchgoerslikeclinton/ | 3left-center
| Democratic churchgoers like Clinton
<p>INDIANAPOLIS (BP) — Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton May 6 continued to do well among churchgoers, according to exit polls, despite not having the kind of night her supporters felt she needed to shake up the race and catch frontrunner Barack Obama.</p>
<p>Obama easily won North Carolina, 56-42 percent, while Clinton edged out a victory in Indiana, 51-49 percent.</p>
<p>But among churchgoers, she did better. Clinton won among Protestant weekly churchgoers in North Carolina, 58-39 percent, and among that same group in Indiana, 56-44 percent. The two groups made up 21 percent of the Democratic electorate in North Carolina, 15 percent in Indiana.</p>
<p>She also won among Catholics in both states, 51-48 percent in North Carolina and 61-39 percent in Indiana.</p>
<p>Among all weekly churchgoers — Protestant and non-Protestant — Obama won in North Carolina, 55-43 percent, while the two split in Indiana, each getting 50 percent. Weekly churchgoers made up 49 percent of Democratic voters in North Carolina and 40 percent in Indiana.</p>
<p>Clinton's campaign had hoped to win Indiana easily and to lose North Carolina by a much narrower margin, but neither happened, and several Democratic officials and pundits said the race essentially was over. With 2,025 delegates needed to win the nomination, Obama leads 1,845-1,693, according to a RealClearPolitics. com tally.</p>
<p>Clinton, though, vowed to stay in the race. The next Democratic primary is in West Virginia, where she is favored to win.</p>
<p>“I feel good about how I did with Indiana voters and swing voters in both North Carolina and Indiana,” Clinton told reporters in West Virginia, according to Reuters. “It's a new day. It's a new state and a new election.”</p>
<p>She said she would remain in the race “until there is a nominee,” although she didn't say whether that meant the Democratic National Convention, the Associated Press reported.</p>
<p>Obama posted an impressive performance following a tough two-week stretch of bad news regarding his pastor of 20 years, Jeremiah Wright, who influenced some voters, according to exit polls. In North Carolina, 47 percent of voters said the “situation with Rev. Wright” was very or somewhat important. Among that group, Clinton won, 57-41 percent. In Indiana, 46 percent of voters said the Wright situation was very or somewhat important, and Clinton won among them, 71-29 percent.</p> | 3,271 |
|
<p>Malia Obama, who starts at Harvard in the Fall, is apparently living it up before she heads off to school. And according to the Gateway Pundit, she's all about confronting anyone who doesn't think exactly like her.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/03/party-girl-malia-obama-freaks-accosts-white-house-correspondent-lucian-wintrich-exclusive-ny-club/" type="external">a story</a> posted on Sunday, the website says Malia "had been rubbing shoulders with other guests all night until she spotted the Gateway Pundit’s own White House correspondent, Lucian Wintrich. She was quick to confront him."</p>
<p>Multiple witnesses watched as Malia Obama, Obama’s oldest daughter, ran up to Wintrich with the intent of stirring up controversy. Wintrich believes at the point of altercation she was intoxicated, which should bring everyone back to those other moments of infamy when Barack’s daughter decided to “act out”.</p>
<p>Wintrich attempted to snap a picture of Malia before she ran up to him furious. She asked Wintrich to confirm who he was before accosting him and saying: “If you wanna have a conversation, let’s sit down, let’s have a real conversation.”</p>
<p>Wintrich responded in kind by welcoming the invitation: “Absolutely. Let’s sit down and have a conversation.”</p>
<p>This positive response from Wintrich sent Malia into a tailspin with the former President’s daughter saying, “I think you’re disgusting.”</p>
<p>She was quickly escorted away by her personal security.</p>
<p>Wintrich said Malia shouted "both at him and others as she seemed to be visibly unhinged." ​</p>
<p>"Privilege and entitlement grants you the opportunity to be at a club for 21-and-over individuals as well as the opportunity to make a fool of yourself in public. Although the Democrats and the left at large love to say Obama never had any scandals, the fantasy world that the Obama family lives within is quickly dissipating and everyday the White House he ran grows more embarrassing," the site wrote.</p> | Report: Privileged Party Girl Malia Obama FREAKS OUT | true | https://dailywire.com/news/14790/report-privileged-party-girl-malia-obama-freaks-joseph-curl | 2017-03-26 | 0right
| Report: Privileged Party Girl Malia Obama FREAKS OUT
<p>Malia Obama, who starts at Harvard in the Fall, is apparently living it up before she heads off to school. And according to the Gateway Pundit, she's all about confronting anyone who doesn't think exactly like her.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/03/party-girl-malia-obama-freaks-accosts-white-house-correspondent-lucian-wintrich-exclusive-ny-club/" type="external">a story</a> posted on Sunday, the website says Malia "had been rubbing shoulders with other guests all night until she spotted the Gateway Pundit’s own White House correspondent, Lucian Wintrich. She was quick to confront him."</p>
<p>Multiple witnesses watched as Malia Obama, Obama’s oldest daughter, ran up to Wintrich with the intent of stirring up controversy. Wintrich believes at the point of altercation she was intoxicated, which should bring everyone back to those other moments of infamy when Barack’s daughter decided to “act out”.</p>
<p>Wintrich attempted to snap a picture of Malia before she ran up to him furious. She asked Wintrich to confirm who he was before accosting him and saying: “If you wanna have a conversation, let’s sit down, let’s have a real conversation.”</p>
<p>Wintrich responded in kind by welcoming the invitation: “Absolutely. Let’s sit down and have a conversation.”</p>
<p>This positive response from Wintrich sent Malia into a tailspin with the former President’s daughter saying, “I think you’re disgusting.”</p>
<p>She was quickly escorted away by her personal security.</p>
<p>Wintrich said Malia shouted "both at him and others as she seemed to be visibly unhinged." ​</p>
<p>"Privilege and entitlement grants you the opportunity to be at a club for 21-and-over individuals as well as the opportunity to make a fool of yourself in public. Although the Democrats and the left at large love to say Obama never had any scandals, the fantasy world that the Obama family lives within is quickly dissipating and everyday the White House he ran grows more embarrassing," the site wrote.</p> | 3,272 |
<p>Leftist racial activists railing against police don't seem to realize that proactive policing has saved thousands of black lives in New York.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01EEQ9BUA/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1" type="external">Heather Mac Donald</a> defines proactive policing, more popularly known as "broken windows" policing, as "the enforcement of low-level misdemeanor laws regulating public order." This method of policing has come under attack by the Black Lives Matter movement and their leftist sympathizers after the death of Eric Garner in 2014, but MacDonald points out that "it was Garner's resistance to arrest that triggered the events leading to his death."</p>
<p>The statistics prove that thousands of black lives were saved by proactive policing. According to columnist <a href="http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2015/09/09/1-broken-windows-saved-black-lives.html" type="external">Michael Barone</a>, "Murders declined from 2,262 to 333 in New York, from 987 to 251 in Los Angeles, from 943 to 413 in Chicago," between 1990-2014.</p>
<p>The New York Post's <a href="https://nypost.com/2014/08/24/how-the-broken-windows-strategy-saved-lives-in-nyc/" type="external">Franklin Zimring</a> provides some more statistics on the remarkable success of proactive policing in New York City:</p>
<p>Statistics illustrate the dramatic “policing difference” enjoyed by New York. While the homicide rate dropped by half in the nine largest cities other than NYC between 1990 and 2009, it dropped by 82 percent here. Rapes dropped 77 percent in New York, compared with a median rate of 49 percent in those other cities.</p>
<p>New York showed larger declines in every major crime, though particularly in robbery, burglary and auto theft. While robberies dropped 49 percent in other major cities, they fell an astounding 84 percent here.</p>
<p>Consider: In 1990, there were 2,272 homicide victims in New York City. If that rate had remained unchanged, more than 2,400 would have been killed in 2013.</p>
<p>Proactive policing has been on the decline in New York. As <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/419469/police-protesters-increase-crime" type="external">Mac Donald</a> notes, criminal summonses and arrests have been reduced by 26 percent and 17.4 percent since last year, respectively, and pedestrian stops are expected to decline by 42 percent this year. The results have been deadly: a 20 percent spike in homicides in a year's time and a 20 percent rise in shootings over two years.</p>
<p>It's no wonder then that a recent <a href="https://www.qu.edu/news-and-events/quinnipiac-university-poll/new-york-city/release-detail?ReleaseID=2226" type="external">Quinnipiac poll</a> shows that a majority of blacks support proactive policing. It saved thousands of black lives in New York prior to the poisonous rhetoric of Black Lives Matter, and without it more blood has been spilled in the streets of New York.</p> | How Many Black Lives Has Heavy Policing Saved In New York? The Number Will STUN You. | true | https://dailywire.com/news/7415/how-many-black-lives-has-heavy-policing-saved-new-aaron-bandler | 2016-07-13 | 0right
| How Many Black Lives Has Heavy Policing Saved In New York? The Number Will STUN You.
<p>Leftist racial activists railing against police don't seem to realize that proactive policing has saved thousands of black lives in New York.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01EEQ9BUA/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1" type="external">Heather Mac Donald</a> defines proactive policing, more popularly known as "broken windows" policing, as "the enforcement of low-level misdemeanor laws regulating public order." This method of policing has come under attack by the Black Lives Matter movement and their leftist sympathizers after the death of Eric Garner in 2014, but MacDonald points out that "it was Garner's resistance to arrest that triggered the events leading to his death."</p>
<p>The statistics prove that thousands of black lives were saved by proactive policing. According to columnist <a href="http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2015/09/09/1-broken-windows-saved-black-lives.html" type="external">Michael Barone</a>, "Murders declined from 2,262 to 333 in New York, from 987 to 251 in Los Angeles, from 943 to 413 in Chicago," between 1990-2014.</p>
<p>The New York Post's <a href="https://nypost.com/2014/08/24/how-the-broken-windows-strategy-saved-lives-in-nyc/" type="external">Franklin Zimring</a> provides some more statistics on the remarkable success of proactive policing in New York City:</p>
<p>Statistics illustrate the dramatic “policing difference” enjoyed by New York. While the homicide rate dropped by half in the nine largest cities other than NYC between 1990 and 2009, it dropped by 82 percent here. Rapes dropped 77 percent in New York, compared with a median rate of 49 percent in those other cities.</p>
<p>New York showed larger declines in every major crime, though particularly in robbery, burglary and auto theft. While robberies dropped 49 percent in other major cities, they fell an astounding 84 percent here.</p>
<p>Consider: In 1990, there were 2,272 homicide victims in New York City. If that rate had remained unchanged, more than 2,400 would have been killed in 2013.</p>
<p>Proactive policing has been on the decline in New York. As <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/419469/police-protesters-increase-crime" type="external">Mac Donald</a> notes, criminal summonses and arrests have been reduced by 26 percent and 17.4 percent since last year, respectively, and pedestrian stops are expected to decline by 42 percent this year. The results have been deadly: a 20 percent spike in homicides in a year's time and a 20 percent rise in shootings over two years.</p>
<p>It's no wonder then that a recent <a href="https://www.qu.edu/news-and-events/quinnipiac-university-poll/new-york-city/release-detail?ReleaseID=2226" type="external">Quinnipiac poll</a> shows that a majority of blacks support proactive policing. It saved thousands of black lives in New York prior to the poisonous rhetoric of Black Lives Matter, and without it more blood has been spilled in the streets of New York.</p> | 3,273 |
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<p>For all the self-congratulatory back-patting from the White House and Congress on the deal that averted the “fiscal cliff” of tax increases — the deal locked in the George W. Bush-era tax cuts for households making under $450,000 — they tended not to mention what the deal didn’t do on the payroll tax. A 2 percentage point reduction in the Social Security tax, which hits all American workers, had been enacted at the end of 2010. In the fiscal cliff deal, Congress and President Barack Obama neither extended it further nor agreed on any other policies that might have the similar effect of leaving more money in workers’ pockets.</p>
<p>For someone who makes the U.S. average for private-sector workers of $818.69 a week and is paid every other week, that adds up to a reduction of $32.75 in each paycheck. For anyone making over $113,700 annually, each biweekly paycheck will decline by $87.46.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Former U.S. Rep. and now Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., told the Journal in an email that “the Social Security payroll tax holiday was meant as a temporary measure to stimulate the economy and give families some immediate relief. Restoring the tax to its previous level will help ensure Social Security remains solvent for future generations.”</p>
<p>“We need to focus on tax reform that benefits middle-class families more permanently while maintaining the strength of Social Security for New Mexico seniors,” he said.</p>
<p>U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., said in an email: “As long as Social Security is protected and remains strong, I would support an extension of the payroll tax cut.</p>
<p>“While the tax cut is meant to be temporary, these are still difficult times for working families in New Mexico, and an extension for another year would put a little extra money in their pockets that can go a long way for many in our state,” Luján said.</p>
<p>Newly elected U.S. Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, D-N.M., had no vote in the matter but said she was “disappointed that the payroll tax extension wasn’t in the fiscal cliff deal.”</p>
<p>“The economy is still very fragile and a … tax increase will only make it harder for middle- class families who are struggling to get by,” she said in a statement from her office. “It is time we get serious about tax reform in a way that helps working families and produces the long-term growth our economy needs.”</p>
<p>The economic question is whether Americans adjust differently when their paychecks have a tax-induced decline rather than bump.</p> | Employees Find Less in Their Paychecks | false | https://abqjournal.com/160603/employees-find-less-in-their-paychecks.html | 2least
| Employees Find Less in Their Paychecks
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>For all the self-congratulatory back-patting from the White House and Congress on the deal that averted the “fiscal cliff” of tax increases — the deal locked in the George W. Bush-era tax cuts for households making under $450,000 — they tended not to mention what the deal didn’t do on the payroll tax. A 2 percentage point reduction in the Social Security tax, which hits all American workers, had been enacted at the end of 2010. In the fiscal cliff deal, Congress and President Barack Obama neither extended it further nor agreed on any other policies that might have the similar effect of leaving more money in workers’ pockets.</p>
<p>For someone who makes the U.S. average for private-sector workers of $818.69 a week and is paid every other week, that adds up to a reduction of $32.75 in each paycheck. For anyone making over $113,700 annually, each biweekly paycheck will decline by $87.46.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Former U.S. Rep. and now Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., told the Journal in an email that “the Social Security payroll tax holiday was meant as a temporary measure to stimulate the economy and give families some immediate relief. Restoring the tax to its previous level will help ensure Social Security remains solvent for future generations.”</p>
<p>“We need to focus on tax reform that benefits middle-class families more permanently while maintaining the strength of Social Security for New Mexico seniors,” he said.</p>
<p>U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., said in an email: “As long as Social Security is protected and remains strong, I would support an extension of the payroll tax cut.</p>
<p>“While the tax cut is meant to be temporary, these are still difficult times for working families in New Mexico, and an extension for another year would put a little extra money in their pockets that can go a long way for many in our state,” Luján said.</p>
<p>Newly elected U.S. Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, D-N.M., had no vote in the matter but said she was “disappointed that the payroll tax extension wasn’t in the fiscal cliff deal.”</p>
<p>“The economy is still very fragile and a … tax increase will only make it harder for middle- class families who are struggling to get by,” she said in a statement from her office. “It is time we get serious about tax reform in a way that helps working families and produces the long-term growth our economy needs.”</p>
<p>The economic question is whether Americans adjust differently when their paychecks have a tax-induced decline rather than bump.</p> | 3,274 |
|
<p>Another election, another set of bare-fisted battles for state Supreme Court seats. Think the presidential campaign ads were uncivil and misleading? Well…they were. But so were those put on the air by judicial candidates and their backers, who no longer blink at spending in the millions of dollars. Final tallies aren’t in yet, but in the last week before Nov. 4, $5 million was spent on ads in these races, more than in 2006, according to figures compiled by the Brennan Center for Justice.</p>
<p /> | false | https://factcheck.org/tag/mississippi-supreme-court/ | 2least
|
<p>Another election, another set of bare-fisted battles for state Supreme Court seats. Think the presidential campaign ads were uncivil and misleading? Well…they were. But so were those put on the air by judicial candidates and their backers, who no longer blink at spending in the millions of dollars. Final tallies aren’t in yet, but in the last week before Nov. 4, $5 million was spent on ads in these races, more than in 2006, according to figures compiled by the Brennan Center for Justice.</p>
<p /> | 3,275 |
||
<p>WASHINGTON (RNS) — Heated debate. Loss of faith. Religious discord. Questions about death, the universe, and our place in it. According to a new film, Charles Darwin saw—and wrestled with—all of that and more as the implications of his theory of evolution became clear for society as a whole, but even more so, within his own family.</p>
<p><a href="http://creationthemovie.com/" type="external">Creation</a>, a recently released film by director Jon Amiel, introduces Darwin as a 40-something father working on his seminal work, On the Origin of Species, which laid out his theory that would revolutionize society’s understandings of human history.</p>
<p />
<p>Darwin (Paul Bettany) is haunted by the recent death of his daughter Annie (Martha West). His grief, along with his gradual loss of faith, creates a gulf between Darwin and his beloved wife Emma (Jennifer Connelly), a devout Christian.</p>
<p>“Two people who adore and respect each other are driven into opposite corners by firstly a desperate loss, the loss of a child,” Amiel said in an interview.</p>
<p>“But we also see that exacerbated by the fact that Charles rails against an uncaring deity that could make such a bad thing happen to such a good person, whereas Emma retreats to the consolation of religion that their child must be in heaven and takes great consolation from that.”</p>
<p>As his relationship with his wife and other children deteriorates, Darwin falls into the grip of a mysterious illness that some now believe may have been psychosomatic, or induced by mental stress. Enduring a potent treatment of laudanum—a medicine derived from opium—and water therapy, he begins to see visions of his departed daughter.</p>
<p>It’s all a lot to deal with when you’re already struggling with a book that you know will upend the social order.</p>
<p>Amiel describes Darwin as “a deeply shy and socially conservative man who finds himself almost unwillingly in possession of this ideological time bomb, and he is deeply unwilling to throw that bomb into the middle of a society he fundamentally respects and endorses.”</p>
<p>The film, based on the book Annie’s Box by Darwin’s great-great grandson Randall Keynes, is the latest salvo in an ongoing debate among Darwin scholars. Was Annie’s death the final fatal blow to Darwin’s Christian faith? Or was he agnostic as the result of dispassionate scientific research?</p>
<p>“I think (Annie’s death) was a very substantial factor,” Amiel said. And yet, “Darwin himself was very clear—and we quote this in the film—that his loss of faith was something that happened over a thousand afternoons. It was more like the slow shifting of continents for him than the sudden snapping of a tree.”</p>
<p>Michael Ruse, director of Florida State University’s history &amp; philosophy of science program, said Annie’s death was less pivotal than the film portrays.</p>
<p>“I just don’t think the Annie episode was the key issue in Darwin’s religious life. He had become a deist (and) … remained one right through the writing of The Origin, and then became an agnostic because he did not like the idea of eternal punishment for nonbelievers, a group that included his father, whom Darwin thought was the best man he had ever known.”</p>
<p>For his part, Amiel cautioned against inferring too much religious fervor from Darwin’s early seminary studies. Darwin was, he said, “a man who never had a very powerful connection with faith.”</p>
<p>“Darwin went to Cambridge to study divinity, but frankly spent more time talking to … all the other great scientists there, and puttering around in the fens looking for mollusks, than he did studying divinity.”</p>
<p>Darwin had “a respect for (faith), but not a personal connection,” Amiel said. “And I think that connection was weakened substantially by the death of his daughter.”</p>
<p>The film touches on the divide between faith and science, giving the religious side a chance to air its views. However, the heart of the story is the break, and ultimate reconciliation, between Emma and Charles, lovingly depicted by real-life husband and wife Bettany and Connelly.</p>
<p>Ruse, who is not connected with the film, also feels the film overplays the divide between Charles and Emma over their respective beliefs.</p>
<p>Charles Darwin “saw the social value of Christianity and was not about to upset his wife with crude atheism. He was never a crude atheist and always believed in a God right through the writing of The Origin. Unlike (fellow naturalist Thomas) Huxley, Darwin was always first and foremost an English gentleman; he may have lost his faith, but he could not be strident.”</p>
<p>Amiel sees “a parable for all of us” in Charles and Emma, who were able to reconnect despite their strongly divergent beliefs.</p>
<p>“In a sense, without wanting to sound too corny,” Amiel said, “the story of Charles and Emma Darwin really has a lesson to teach us about how love and mutual respect can overcome seemingly unconquerable differences.”</p> | Movie spotlights Darwin’s loss of faith, family crisis | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/moviespotlightsdarwinslossoffaithfamilycrisis/ | 3left-center
| Movie spotlights Darwin’s loss of faith, family crisis
<p>WASHINGTON (RNS) — Heated debate. Loss of faith. Religious discord. Questions about death, the universe, and our place in it. According to a new film, Charles Darwin saw—and wrestled with—all of that and more as the implications of his theory of evolution became clear for society as a whole, but even more so, within his own family.</p>
<p><a href="http://creationthemovie.com/" type="external">Creation</a>, a recently released film by director Jon Amiel, introduces Darwin as a 40-something father working on his seminal work, On the Origin of Species, which laid out his theory that would revolutionize society’s understandings of human history.</p>
<p />
<p>Darwin (Paul Bettany) is haunted by the recent death of his daughter Annie (Martha West). His grief, along with his gradual loss of faith, creates a gulf between Darwin and his beloved wife Emma (Jennifer Connelly), a devout Christian.</p>
<p>“Two people who adore and respect each other are driven into opposite corners by firstly a desperate loss, the loss of a child,” Amiel said in an interview.</p>
<p>“But we also see that exacerbated by the fact that Charles rails against an uncaring deity that could make such a bad thing happen to such a good person, whereas Emma retreats to the consolation of religion that their child must be in heaven and takes great consolation from that.”</p>
<p>As his relationship with his wife and other children deteriorates, Darwin falls into the grip of a mysterious illness that some now believe may have been psychosomatic, or induced by mental stress. Enduring a potent treatment of laudanum—a medicine derived from opium—and water therapy, he begins to see visions of his departed daughter.</p>
<p>It’s all a lot to deal with when you’re already struggling with a book that you know will upend the social order.</p>
<p>Amiel describes Darwin as “a deeply shy and socially conservative man who finds himself almost unwillingly in possession of this ideological time bomb, and he is deeply unwilling to throw that bomb into the middle of a society he fundamentally respects and endorses.”</p>
<p>The film, based on the book Annie’s Box by Darwin’s great-great grandson Randall Keynes, is the latest salvo in an ongoing debate among Darwin scholars. Was Annie’s death the final fatal blow to Darwin’s Christian faith? Or was he agnostic as the result of dispassionate scientific research?</p>
<p>“I think (Annie’s death) was a very substantial factor,” Amiel said. And yet, “Darwin himself was very clear—and we quote this in the film—that his loss of faith was something that happened over a thousand afternoons. It was more like the slow shifting of continents for him than the sudden snapping of a tree.”</p>
<p>Michael Ruse, director of Florida State University’s history &amp; philosophy of science program, said Annie’s death was less pivotal than the film portrays.</p>
<p>“I just don’t think the Annie episode was the key issue in Darwin’s religious life. He had become a deist (and) … remained one right through the writing of The Origin, and then became an agnostic because he did not like the idea of eternal punishment for nonbelievers, a group that included his father, whom Darwin thought was the best man he had ever known.”</p>
<p>For his part, Amiel cautioned against inferring too much religious fervor from Darwin’s early seminary studies. Darwin was, he said, “a man who never had a very powerful connection with faith.”</p>
<p>“Darwin went to Cambridge to study divinity, but frankly spent more time talking to … all the other great scientists there, and puttering around in the fens looking for mollusks, than he did studying divinity.”</p>
<p>Darwin had “a respect for (faith), but not a personal connection,” Amiel said. “And I think that connection was weakened substantially by the death of his daughter.”</p>
<p>The film touches on the divide between faith and science, giving the religious side a chance to air its views. However, the heart of the story is the break, and ultimate reconciliation, between Emma and Charles, lovingly depicted by real-life husband and wife Bettany and Connelly.</p>
<p>Ruse, who is not connected with the film, also feels the film overplays the divide between Charles and Emma over their respective beliefs.</p>
<p>Charles Darwin “saw the social value of Christianity and was not about to upset his wife with crude atheism. He was never a crude atheist and always believed in a God right through the writing of The Origin. Unlike (fellow naturalist Thomas) Huxley, Darwin was always first and foremost an English gentleman; he may have lost his faith, but he could not be strident.”</p>
<p>Amiel sees “a parable for all of us” in Charles and Emma, who were able to reconnect despite their strongly divergent beliefs.</p>
<p>“In a sense, without wanting to sound too corny,” Amiel said, “the story of Charles and Emma Darwin really has a lesson to teach us about how love and mutual respect can overcome seemingly unconquerable differences.”</p> | 3,276 |
|
<p>In the battle over online harassment, it looks like the trolls are winning.</p>
<p>In the summer of 2014, Zoe Quinn, an online game developer and reviewer, went through a breakup with her boyfriend. He retaliated by publishing intimate details about her online. Mobs of Internet users got involved and started to harass and threaten Quinn in an affair that has become known as "GamerGate."</p>
<p>Last year, Quinn filed a lawsuit to prevent her ex from commenting on the controversy and stirring up more harassment against her. But this week, she asked the Massachusetts district attorney to withdraw the criminal case.</p>
<p>“I don't think the courts are ready to deal with this quite frankly,” Quinn <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/02/17/in-the-battle-of-internet-mobs-vs-the-law-the-internet-mobs-have-won/" type="external">told</a> The Washington Post.</p>
<p>But Quinn’s experience is not unique. Brianna Wu, a game developer, journalist, and podcaster, was forced <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/17/brianna-wu-gamergate-human-cost" type="external">to leave her home</a> in October 2014 after harassers published her address and made threats against her online.</p>
<p>“Zoe is kind of the spark that started this in the public consciousness, but she’s also part of a trend that had been happening to women in the gaming industry throughout most of 2014,” Wu says. “I had been speaking out and seeing some of my friends targeted, and eventually they went after me as well.”</p>
<p>In the last year and a half, Wu, CEO of the game development studio <a href="http://www.giantspacekat.com/team/" type="external">Giant Spacekat</a>, says she has received more than 200 death threats, adding that she gets rape threats “constantly.” However, she feels that the larger GamerGate movement goes beyond individuals, arguing that it is connected to the role of women in gaming.</p>
<p>“I think the average person can look at video games and understand that we have some extreme problems in the way that we represent women,” Wu says. “What has happened is, for the last 30 years, video games are perceived by a certain portion of gamers to be their club house. Now that the video game industry is changing, and we have a lot more women developers, women journalists, and women CEOs like me, that is very, very threatening to a certain portion of gamers.”</p>
<p>She adds: “Our crime is simply being a woman in this field and speaking to our lived experience, and asking the industry to do better.”</p>
<p>While most states have passed legislation to prevent cyber harassment, Danielle Citron, a professor of law at the University of Maryland, says the law often breaks down and fails to protect targets of online harassment.</p>
<p>“If you’re going to be convicted of harassment, the state’s got to prove that someone intentionally, repeatedly, [and] persistently targeted the person with speech that we can punish,” says Citron. “Some of the problem when you have a huge collective of people targeting a specific person is that it may be that any given person in the mob may contribute a little to the abuse, but not one person is responsible for persistent, targeted abuse.”</p>
<p>Taken together, a wave of online harassment from many different people can be intimidating and threatening. Yet, it presents a huge barrier for law enforcement looking to bring charges against any one individual.</p>
<p>“The law has great potential here, but as we’ve seen it’s a blunt instrument — sometimes it fails us,” says Citron. “What we saw in Zoe’s case, she gave up because it just became too much for her and her loved ones to bare.”</p>
<p>Citron, author of the book “ <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Crimes-Cyberspace-Danielle-Keats-Citron/dp/0674368290" type="external">Hate Crimes in Cyberspace</a>,” says part of the problem lies in education. Many police officers and other law enforcement officials do not know how to investigate cyber harassment, or recognize the scale of the problem. Between 2010 and 2013, for example, about <a href="http://katherineclark.house.gov/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=8E04E4EE-A016-4788-A0B2-6C788E76F6D2" type="external">2.5 million cases of cyberstalking</a> occurred, yet federal prosecutors pursued just 10 cases.</p>
<p>“They need a lot of training to understand the real significance of this kind of behavior and its real world impact,” Citron. “That really presents problems, not only if you have all the evidence and you can trace all of the posts to specific individuals, even if they all are engaging in prescribable conduct like a true threat, it may be that law enforcement feels outgunned.”</p>
<p>In addition to education, Citron says that social attitudes among law enforcement officials is also a problem.</p>
<p>“In my book, I document how law enforcement will tell victims, ‘Eh, turn your computer off,’ [or] ‘Boys will be boys — it’s no big deal,’” she says. “I think we’re making a little bit — I’ll say very modest progress. We’ve seen top cops like [California Attorney General] Kamala Harris take on this issue, and really think hard about ways in which law enforcement can be better trained.”</p> | The trolls are winning. GamerGate case will not go to trial. | false | https://pri.org/stories/2016-02-18/trolls-are-winning-gamergate-case-will-not-go-trial | 2016-02-18 | 3left-center
| The trolls are winning. GamerGate case will not go to trial.
<p>In the battle over online harassment, it looks like the trolls are winning.</p>
<p>In the summer of 2014, Zoe Quinn, an online game developer and reviewer, went through a breakup with her boyfriend. He retaliated by publishing intimate details about her online. Mobs of Internet users got involved and started to harass and threaten Quinn in an affair that has become known as "GamerGate."</p>
<p>Last year, Quinn filed a lawsuit to prevent her ex from commenting on the controversy and stirring up more harassment against her. But this week, she asked the Massachusetts district attorney to withdraw the criminal case.</p>
<p>“I don't think the courts are ready to deal with this quite frankly,” Quinn <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/02/17/in-the-battle-of-internet-mobs-vs-the-law-the-internet-mobs-have-won/" type="external">told</a> The Washington Post.</p>
<p>But Quinn’s experience is not unique. Brianna Wu, a game developer, journalist, and podcaster, was forced <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/17/brianna-wu-gamergate-human-cost" type="external">to leave her home</a> in October 2014 after harassers published her address and made threats against her online.</p>
<p>“Zoe is kind of the spark that started this in the public consciousness, but she’s also part of a trend that had been happening to women in the gaming industry throughout most of 2014,” Wu says. “I had been speaking out and seeing some of my friends targeted, and eventually they went after me as well.”</p>
<p>In the last year and a half, Wu, CEO of the game development studio <a href="http://www.giantspacekat.com/team/" type="external">Giant Spacekat</a>, says she has received more than 200 death threats, adding that she gets rape threats “constantly.” However, she feels that the larger GamerGate movement goes beyond individuals, arguing that it is connected to the role of women in gaming.</p>
<p>“I think the average person can look at video games and understand that we have some extreme problems in the way that we represent women,” Wu says. “What has happened is, for the last 30 years, video games are perceived by a certain portion of gamers to be their club house. Now that the video game industry is changing, and we have a lot more women developers, women journalists, and women CEOs like me, that is very, very threatening to a certain portion of gamers.”</p>
<p>She adds: “Our crime is simply being a woman in this field and speaking to our lived experience, and asking the industry to do better.”</p>
<p>While most states have passed legislation to prevent cyber harassment, Danielle Citron, a professor of law at the University of Maryland, says the law often breaks down and fails to protect targets of online harassment.</p>
<p>“If you’re going to be convicted of harassment, the state’s got to prove that someone intentionally, repeatedly, [and] persistently targeted the person with speech that we can punish,” says Citron. “Some of the problem when you have a huge collective of people targeting a specific person is that it may be that any given person in the mob may contribute a little to the abuse, but not one person is responsible for persistent, targeted abuse.”</p>
<p>Taken together, a wave of online harassment from many different people can be intimidating and threatening. Yet, it presents a huge barrier for law enforcement looking to bring charges against any one individual.</p>
<p>“The law has great potential here, but as we’ve seen it’s a blunt instrument — sometimes it fails us,” says Citron. “What we saw in Zoe’s case, she gave up because it just became too much for her and her loved ones to bare.”</p>
<p>Citron, author of the book “ <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Crimes-Cyberspace-Danielle-Keats-Citron/dp/0674368290" type="external">Hate Crimes in Cyberspace</a>,” says part of the problem lies in education. Many police officers and other law enforcement officials do not know how to investigate cyber harassment, or recognize the scale of the problem. Between 2010 and 2013, for example, about <a href="http://katherineclark.house.gov/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=8E04E4EE-A016-4788-A0B2-6C788E76F6D2" type="external">2.5 million cases of cyberstalking</a> occurred, yet federal prosecutors pursued just 10 cases.</p>
<p>“They need a lot of training to understand the real significance of this kind of behavior and its real world impact,” Citron. “That really presents problems, not only if you have all the evidence and you can trace all of the posts to specific individuals, even if they all are engaging in prescribable conduct like a true threat, it may be that law enforcement feels outgunned.”</p>
<p>In addition to education, Citron says that social attitudes among law enforcement officials is also a problem.</p>
<p>“In my book, I document how law enforcement will tell victims, ‘Eh, turn your computer off,’ [or] ‘Boys will be boys — it’s no big deal,’” she says. “I think we’re making a little bit — I’ll say very modest progress. We’ve seen top cops like [California Attorney General] Kamala Harris take on this issue, and really think hard about ways in which law enforcement can be better trained.”</p> | 3,277 |
<p>Paula Lerner was a talented photographer whose photos of Afghan women earned her an Emmy award.</p>
<p>Lerner died of cancer earlier this month.</p>
<p>Rangina Hamidi was a close friend of Lerner's. Hamidi is the founder of "Kandahar Treasure", the first women-run business in Kandahar.</p>
<p>She speaks with anchor Lisa Mullins about Paula Lerner's legacy.</p> | Remembering Photojournalist Paula Lerner | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-03-23/remembering-photojournalist-paula-lerner | 2012-03-23 | 3left-center
| Remembering Photojournalist Paula Lerner
<p>Paula Lerner was a talented photographer whose photos of Afghan women earned her an Emmy award.</p>
<p>Lerner died of cancer earlier this month.</p>
<p>Rangina Hamidi was a close friend of Lerner's. Hamidi is the founder of "Kandahar Treasure", the first women-run business in Kandahar.</p>
<p>She speaks with anchor Lisa Mullins about Paula Lerner's legacy.</p> | 3,278 |
<p>Things to note about Heather Peters, the 46-year-old consumer who recently humiliated American <a href="" type="internal">Honda</a> Motor Co. Inc. in a California small claims court and turned an ordinary customer dispute into a public relations nightmare:</p>
<p>* She used to drive BMWs and other high-end vehicles. She bought her 2006 Honda Civic Hybrid because she was down on her luck and thought it would get 50 mpg as advertised.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>* She wasn't some failed, two-bit lawyer who let her law license lapse. She practiced business litigation, defending corporations. She worked at Barger &amp; Wolen, which has offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Newport Beach, Calif., New York and London.</p>
<p>* She also worked as a mediator in business disputes in her own practice.</p>
<p>* She came to a point in her life when she had lost her health, her marriage and her career. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and laid flat on her back. "Everything came apart at the same time," she told me in a telephone interview. "I decided I didn't have anything to lose."</p>
<p>* She had been raised by hippie parents in Greenwich Village. Her mother worked as a fruit-bedecked dancer at the legendary Copacabana. She went to art school. She sells her flower art at mobileartgarden.com. And yet she became a Republican.</p>
<p>*She ran for governor of California amid the 2003 recall election of Gray Davis. She challenged none other than <a href="" type="internal">Arnold Schwarzenegger</a>. Her campaign slogan was "California needs a mediator, not a Terminator."</p>
<p>* Schwarzenegger terminated her bid. But then he appointed her "Deputy Secretary for Business Regulation And Housing" and chair of his "Interdepartmental Task Force On Non-Traditional Mortgages." Not only was she helping "Mr. Universe" deal with the housing crisis, but she kept this job under Gov. Jerry Brown until just recently.</p>
<p>American Honda is now appealing the $9,867 judgment Peters won in a small claims court after complaining that her car got far less than the 50 mpg Honda advertised.</p>
<p>Honda spokesman Chris Martin declined to comment beyond the statement the company released last week: "American Honda believes that the judgment in this case is a radical and unprecedented departure from California and federal law."</p>
<p>"Yeah, it's radical all right," Peters chuckled. "It's radical that the American consumer stopped rolling over and just taking it when big corporations come up against them."</p>
<p>Peters -- clearly, not your average car consumer -- has whipped up a media frenzy with her personal end-run around class-action litigation filed against Honda. If there's one thing people hate as much as big corporations, it's the class-action lawyers who get the biggest checks in any lawsuit the little guys file against big corporations.</p>
<p>Peters rejected a tiny class-action settlement between Honda and its hybrid customers and took matters into her own hands. She not only filed her own lawsuit in small claims court, but notified the Los Angeles Times.</p>
<p>The national media then packed a tiny small-claims courtroom and watched her win. She swiftly became a media folk hero, appearing everywhere from ABC's <a href="" type="internal">Good Morning America</a> and NBC's Nightly News to CNN and FOX News.</p>
<p>"I watched Schwarzenegger work the press," Peters said, "and I learned how to be relevant."</p>
<p>Peters launched a website called dontsettlewithhonda.org where she is selling CDs of the evidence she gathered against Honda for $15. She also is re-activating her law license and is advising other unhappy Honda owners on how to file their own small claims cases as an alternative to a low-ball, class-action settlement.</p>
<p>She says she's been hearing from hundreds of Honda owners and hasn't even found time to answer all their emails.</p>
<p>Some legal observers say she could stoke a grassroots movement in consumer litigation. Others say filing small claims cases is too cumbersome for most people to bother.</p>
<p>Peters told me she would have happily settled with Honda before her case went to trial. She said she would have accepted $7,500, an offer to buy back the car at Bluebook value, or even just a trade-in for used non-hybrid, 2006 Civic.</p>
<p>"I wasn't looking to get rich," she said. "I was ready to take an old car."</p>
<p>Instead, she says she is now doing to Honda everything she promised she would do: "They didn't believe me when I told them, this is what I'm going to do to you, and I'm not kidding. I'm really serious about it."</p>
<p>Honda hopes to win this case in an appellate court where it can deploy corporate lawyers. Lawyers aren't allowed in small claims court.</p>
<p>"I fully anticipate they will bring to bear the best and the brightest lawyers money can buy," Peters said. "But I have confidence in my evidence."</p>
<p>Whatever happens, Peters has put a dent in Honda's reputation that will cost more than $9,867 to repair. Honda likely will pay its lawyers many times the price of a used, Honda Civic to fight Peters.</p>
<p>Are there even lawyers clever enough to go up against this wild card?</p>
<p>The ongoing problem for Honda is that Peters has nothing to lose.</p>
<p>"Even if I lose, I will be still thrilled that I stood up for myself and for others," she said.</p>
<p>(Al's Emporium, written by <a href="" type="internal">Dow Jones</a> Newswires columnist Al Lewis, offers commentary and analysis on a wide range of business subjects through an unconventional perspective. Contact Al at <a href="http://mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected] Opens a New Window.</a> or <a href="http://tellittoal.com" type="external">tellittoal.com Opens a New Window.</a>)</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | Honda Messed With the Wrong Woman | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2012/02/08/honda-messed-with-wrong-woman.html | 2016-01-26 | 0right
| Honda Messed With the Wrong Woman
<p>Things to note about Heather Peters, the 46-year-old consumer who recently humiliated American <a href="" type="internal">Honda</a> Motor Co. Inc. in a California small claims court and turned an ordinary customer dispute into a public relations nightmare:</p>
<p>* She used to drive BMWs and other high-end vehicles. She bought her 2006 Honda Civic Hybrid because she was down on her luck and thought it would get 50 mpg as advertised.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>* She wasn't some failed, two-bit lawyer who let her law license lapse. She practiced business litigation, defending corporations. She worked at Barger &amp; Wolen, which has offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Newport Beach, Calif., New York and London.</p>
<p>* She also worked as a mediator in business disputes in her own practice.</p>
<p>* She came to a point in her life when she had lost her health, her marriage and her career. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and laid flat on her back. "Everything came apart at the same time," she told me in a telephone interview. "I decided I didn't have anything to lose."</p>
<p>* She had been raised by hippie parents in Greenwich Village. Her mother worked as a fruit-bedecked dancer at the legendary Copacabana. She went to art school. She sells her flower art at mobileartgarden.com. And yet she became a Republican.</p>
<p>*She ran for governor of California amid the 2003 recall election of Gray Davis. She challenged none other than <a href="" type="internal">Arnold Schwarzenegger</a>. Her campaign slogan was "California needs a mediator, not a Terminator."</p>
<p>* Schwarzenegger terminated her bid. But then he appointed her "Deputy Secretary for Business Regulation And Housing" and chair of his "Interdepartmental Task Force On Non-Traditional Mortgages." Not only was she helping "Mr. Universe" deal with the housing crisis, but she kept this job under Gov. Jerry Brown until just recently.</p>
<p>American Honda is now appealing the $9,867 judgment Peters won in a small claims court after complaining that her car got far less than the 50 mpg Honda advertised.</p>
<p>Honda spokesman Chris Martin declined to comment beyond the statement the company released last week: "American Honda believes that the judgment in this case is a radical and unprecedented departure from California and federal law."</p>
<p>"Yeah, it's radical all right," Peters chuckled. "It's radical that the American consumer stopped rolling over and just taking it when big corporations come up against them."</p>
<p>Peters -- clearly, not your average car consumer -- has whipped up a media frenzy with her personal end-run around class-action litigation filed against Honda. If there's one thing people hate as much as big corporations, it's the class-action lawyers who get the biggest checks in any lawsuit the little guys file against big corporations.</p>
<p>Peters rejected a tiny class-action settlement between Honda and its hybrid customers and took matters into her own hands. She not only filed her own lawsuit in small claims court, but notified the Los Angeles Times.</p>
<p>The national media then packed a tiny small-claims courtroom and watched her win. She swiftly became a media folk hero, appearing everywhere from ABC's <a href="" type="internal">Good Morning America</a> and NBC's Nightly News to CNN and FOX News.</p>
<p>"I watched Schwarzenegger work the press," Peters said, "and I learned how to be relevant."</p>
<p>Peters launched a website called dontsettlewithhonda.org where she is selling CDs of the evidence she gathered against Honda for $15. She also is re-activating her law license and is advising other unhappy Honda owners on how to file their own small claims cases as an alternative to a low-ball, class-action settlement.</p>
<p>She says she's been hearing from hundreds of Honda owners and hasn't even found time to answer all their emails.</p>
<p>Some legal observers say she could stoke a grassroots movement in consumer litigation. Others say filing small claims cases is too cumbersome for most people to bother.</p>
<p>Peters told me she would have happily settled with Honda before her case went to trial. She said she would have accepted $7,500, an offer to buy back the car at Bluebook value, or even just a trade-in for used non-hybrid, 2006 Civic.</p>
<p>"I wasn't looking to get rich," she said. "I was ready to take an old car."</p>
<p>Instead, she says she is now doing to Honda everything she promised she would do: "They didn't believe me when I told them, this is what I'm going to do to you, and I'm not kidding. I'm really serious about it."</p>
<p>Honda hopes to win this case in an appellate court where it can deploy corporate lawyers. Lawyers aren't allowed in small claims court.</p>
<p>"I fully anticipate they will bring to bear the best and the brightest lawyers money can buy," Peters said. "But I have confidence in my evidence."</p>
<p>Whatever happens, Peters has put a dent in Honda's reputation that will cost more than $9,867 to repair. Honda likely will pay its lawyers many times the price of a used, Honda Civic to fight Peters.</p>
<p>Are there even lawyers clever enough to go up against this wild card?</p>
<p>The ongoing problem for Honda is that Peters has nothing to lose.</p>
<p>"Even if I lose, I will be still thrilled that I stood up for myself and for others," she said.</p>
<p>(Al's Emporium, written by <a href="" type="internal">Dow Jones</a> Newswires columnist Al Lewis, offers commentary and analysis on a wide range of business subjects through an unconventional perspective. Contact Al at <a href="http://mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected] Opens a New Window.</a> or <a href="http://tellittoal.com" type="external">tellittoal.com Opens a New Window.</a>)</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | 3,279 |
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<p />
<p>Robert Fabian, of Alpine, was arrested at a relative’s home on a charge of tampering with or fabricating physical evidence by concealing a human corpse, according to Alpine police Lt. Felipe Fierro.</p>
<p>Sul Ross State University junior ZuZu Verk, 22 of Fort Worth, had been missing since Oct. 12 following a date with Fabian, police said. Fabian reported Verk missing two days later, and since then declined to cooperate with police, Fierro said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Positive identification was pending on the remains discovered Friday by a Border Patrol agent, but police believe the person was Verk.</p>
<p>“Some of the information on the arrest affidavit shows that evidence at the scene, including human remains, have features that are consistent with ZuZu Verk,” Fierro said in a statement. The complete affidavit was expected to be released Monday, according to Fierro.</p>
<p>Investigators believe the remains are Verk, but will not be certain until positive ID is made by forensic examiners, he said. Formal identification was not expected until possibly next week, police said.</p>
<p>Brewster County Sheriff Ronny Dodson said law enforcement personnel on foot searched the brushy area Saturday with the hope of recovering additional evidence.</p>
<p>Fabian was being held Saturday at the Brewster County Jail, in Alpine. Bond was not immediately set, pending his appearance before a magistrate. An attorney for Fabian didn’t immediately return messages for comment Saturday.</p>
<p>A prosecutor from the state attorney general’s office would handle the case, according to Dodson, since the district attorney in office at the time of the disappearance finished his term at the end of 2016.</p>
<p>Alpine is 210 miles southeast of El Paso.</p> | Alpine police believe remains are missing college student | false | https://abqjournal.com/942917/alpine-police-believe-remains-are-missing-college-student.html | 2017-02-04 | 2least
| Alpine police believe remains are missing college student
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<p />
<p>Robert Fabian, of Alpine, was arrested at a relative’s home on a charge of tampering with or fabricating physical evidence by concealing a human corpse, according to Alpine police Lt. Felipe Fierro.</p>
<p>Sul Ross State University junior ZuZu Verk, 22 of Fort Worth, had been missing since Oct. 12 following a date with Fabian, police said. Fabian reported Verk missing two days later, and since then declined to cooperate with police, Fierro said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Positive identification was pending on the remains discovered Friday by a Border Patrol agent, but police believe the person was Verk.</p>
<p>“Some of the information on the arrest affidavit shows that evidence at the scene, including human remains, have features that are consistent with ZuZu Verk,” Fierro said in a statement. The complete affidavit was expected to be released Monday, according to Fierro.</p>
<p>Investigators believe the remains are Verk, but will not be certain until positive ID is made by forensic examiners, he said. Formal identification was not expected until possibly next week, police said.</p>
<p>Brewster County Sheriff Ronny Dodson said law enforcement personnel on foot searched the brushy area Saturday with the hope of recovering additional evidence.</p>
<p>Fabian was being held Saturday at the Brewster County Jail, in Alpine. Bond was not immediately set, pending his appearance before a magistrate. An attorney for Fabian didn’t immediately return messages for comment Saturday.</p>
<p>A prosecutor from the state attorney general’s office would handle the case, according to Dodson, since the district attorney in office at the time of the disappearance finished his term at the end of 2016.</p>
<p>Alpine is 210 miles southeast of El Paso.</p> | 3,280 |
<p><a href="" type="internal" />RealClearPolitics? Jon Entine has taken the New York Times to task over a front page story, by reporter Ian Urbina, on the natural gas industry that the paper recently ran in its Sunday edition. That faint rumbling you hear is the sound of many Mediaite commenters drumming their fingertips together, Mr. Burns-style.</p>
<p>The NYT piece, - <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/us/26gas.html?_r=3" type="external">Insiders Sound an Alarm Amid a Natural Gas Rush</a>,? features quotes from 10 sources who hold a negative view regarding "the prospects for natural gas production from shale." Eight are kept anonymous. The two who are named, reveals Entine, have backgrounds that bring up questions regarding the journalistic standards at play in the NYT newsroom. For instance, the article quotes Houston-based geologist Art Berman:</p>
<p>What didn't the Times disclose? Berman has direct and indirect financial ties to a range of critics of shale gas. For example, In January, Berman testified as a paid expert witness before the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission in support of Indiana Gasification, a unit of Leucadia National Corp., detailing the benefits of buying natural gas made from coal instead of hydraulic fracturing. The coal industry fears getting crushed by the cleaner, natural gas movement, and Berman backed coal.</p>
<p>"Did Berman," Entine wonders, "tell his strategic partners and clients, and directly profit from the Times story?"</p>
<p>The other named source is a woman named Deborah Rogers, a former model who left the fashion industry to work as an assistant at a one-person firm in London, later working as a stockbroker for Merrill Lynch. She now makes artisanal cheese and is described by the Times as a member of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas' advisory committee and as a bank "commissioner." But the article again did not disclose several key details about Rogers' work:</p>
<p>Urbina also did not disclose that Rogers has been fighting the natural gas industry - and Chesapeake Energy in particular - tooth and nail for years. She is on the steering committee of the Oil and Gas Accountability Project at Earthworks, an anti-shale-gas advocacy group, and lectures around the country. In Urbina's story, in her public appearances, including on CNBC, and in her interview with me, she indicated she became an activist by accident. Urbina quoted her as "studying well data from shale companies in October 2009 after attending a speech by the chief executive of Chesapeake [Energy]," the central target of the Times' piece.</p>
<p>What's not reported is that this was hardly a serendipitous event. Throughout 2009, Rogers had tangled with Chesapeake, which has a well near her Texas farm. That spring, she commissioned a study by Wolf Eagle Environmental Engineers and Consultants that tried to prove that gas production was causing air pollution, endangering her farm.</p>
<p>In response to the complaint, the city of Fort Worth commissioned its own study, released that August. It dismissed her allegations, saying Wolf's study was "rudimentary in scope and design," adding, "Discussions of chemical hazards in the documents reviewed were generally exaggerated and speculative, not representative of the hazards posed by the actual concentrations of compounds detected." Ironically, a year later Rogers was cited for failing to conduct bacterial testing of well water at her farm, paid a fine and received 12 months' probation.</p>
<p>For more, read Entine's full article at <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/07/01/natural_gas_bubble_report_market_tinkering_or_shoddy_reporting.html" type="external">RealClearPolitics</a>.</p>
<p>Have a tip we should know? <a href="" type="internal">[email protected]</a></p> | RealClearPolitics Looks Into Undisclosed Information In NYT Natural Gas Story | true | https://mediaite.com/online/realclearpolitics-looks-into-undisclosed-information-behind-nyt-natural-gas-investigation/ | 4left
| RealClearPolitics Looks Into Undisclosed Information In NYT Natural Gas Story
<p><a href="" type="internal" />RealClearPolitics? Jon Entine has taken the New York Times to task over a front page story, by reporter Ian Urbina, on the natural gas industry that the paper recently ran in its Sunday edition. That faint rumbling you hear is the sound of many Mediaite commenters drumming their fingertips together, Mr. Burns-style.</p>
<p>The NYT piece, - <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/us/26gas.html?_r=3" type="external">Insiders Sound an Alarm Amid a Natural Gas Rush</a>,? features quotes from 10 sources who hold a negative view regarding "the prospects for natural gas production from shale." Eight are kept anonymous. The two who are named, reveals Entine, have backgrounds that bring up questions regarding the journalistic standards at play in the NYT newsroom. For instance, the article quotes Houston-based geologist Art Berman:</p>
<p>What didn't the Times disclose? Berman has direct and indirect financial ties to a range of critics of shale gas. For example, In January, Berman testified as a paid expert witness before the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission in support of Indiana Gasification, a unit of Leucadia National Corp., detailing the benefits of buying natural gas made from coal instead of hydraulic fracturing. The coal industry fears getting crushed by the cleaner, natural gas movement, and Berman backed coal.</p>
<p>"Did Berman," Entine wonders, "tell his strategic partners and clients, and directly profit from the Times story?"</p>
<p>The other named source is a woman named Deborah Rogers, a former model who left the fashion industry to work as an assistant at a one-person firm in London, later working as a stockbroker for Merrill Lynch. She now makes artisanal cheese and is described by the Times as a member of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas' advisory committee and as a bank "commissioner." But the article again did not disclose several key details about Rogers' work:</p>
<p>Urbina also did not disclose that Rogers has been fighting the natural gas industry - and Chesapeake Energy in particular - tooth and nail for years. She is on the steering committee of the Oil and Gas Accountability Project at Earthworks, an anti-shale-gas advocacy group, and lectures around the country. In Urbina's story, in her public appearances, including on CNBC, and in her interview with me, she indicated she became an activist by accident. Urbina quoted her as "studying well data from shale companies in October 2009 after attending a speech by the chief executive of Chesapeake [Energy]," the central target of the Times' piece.</p>
<p>What's not reported is that this was hardly a serendipitous event. Throughout 2009, Rogers had tangled with Chesapeake, which has a well near her Texas farm. That spring, she commissioned a study by Wolf Eagle Environmental Engineers and Consultants that tried to prove that gas production was causing air pollution, endangering her farm.</p>
<p>In response to the complaint, the city of Fort Worth commissioned its own study, released that August. It dismissed her allegations, saying Wolf's study was "rudimentary in scope and design," adding, "Discussions of chemical hazards in the documents reviewed were generally exaggerated and speculative, not representative of the hazards posed by the actual concentrations of compounds detected." Ironically, a year later Rogers was cited for failing to conduct bacterial testing of well water at her farm, paid a fine and received 12 months' probation.</p>
<p>For more, read Entine's full article at <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/07/01/natural_gas_bubble_report_market_tinkering_or_shoddy_reporting.html" type="external">RealClearPolitics</a>.</p>
<p>Have a tip we should know? <a href="" type="internal">[email protected]</a></p> | 3,281 |
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<p />
<p>The 30-year-old Albuquerque company has experienced more growth during the last few years than at any other point in its history, according to President Kent Wiechert.</p>
<p>“The largest period of growth has been through this period of time,” Wiechert says of the years during and after the Great Recession. “I think it’s because there was a massive exodus of companies out of the space, so that kind of leaves opportunities for the people standing.”</p>
<p>Wiechert has headed the company since 1984, having acquired Weststar a year after its incorporation.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>He had been working in the computer industry but thought the mortgage business held a certain appeal.</p>
<p>“I had always liked real estate and finance and this was an opportunity (that) came up,” he says. “It was something that looked like it would be fun to pursue.”</p>
<p>The company specialized early on in servicing private loans – helping clients who offered seller financing in lieu of traditional real-estate financing.</p>
<p>It has grown to include retail mortgage origination, and is now offering that service in more than 30 states. Weststar is also a Fannie Mae-approved seller/servicer and a GNMA-approved issuer of mortgage-backed securities.</p>
<p>Weststar is currently servicing about $2.25 billion in loans – approximately $1 billion in private loans and the rest related to Fannie Mae or GNMA.</p>
<p>Wiechert boils the success down to a commitment to service.</p>
<p>“It’s like with any business – you really need to focus on what the customer’s needs are and try to meet those needs,” he says.</p>
<p>Although Weststar employs about 300 people at branches throughout the U.S., it continues to maintain its headquarters in Albuquerque.</p>
<p>“I think there’s a lot of talented individuals with a very strong work ethic,” Wiechert says of Albuquerque. “If there were an advantage (to being based here), I would say it’s with the labor force.”</p>
<p /> | The Private 100: Weststar Mortgage Corp. | false | https://abqjournal.com/298677/business-boom-comes-from-commitment-to-service.html | 2013-11-10 | 2least
| The Private 100: Weststar Mortgage Corp.
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<p />
<p>The 30-year-old Albuquerque company has experienced more growth during the last few years than at any other point in its history, according to President Kent Wiechert.</p>
<p>“The largest period of growth has been through this period of time,” Wiechert says of the years during and after the Great Recession. “I think it’s because there was a massive exodus of companies out of the space, so that kind of leaves opportunities for the people standing.”</p>
<p>Wiechert has headed the company since 1984, having acquired Weststar a year after its incorporation.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>He had been working in the computer industry but thought the mortgage business held a certain appeal.</p>
<p>“I had always liked real estate and finance and this was an opportunity (that) came up,” he says. “It was something that looked like it would be fun to pursue.”</p>
<p>The company specialized early on in servicing private loans – helping clients who offered seller financing in lieu of traditional real-estate financing.</p>
<p>It has grown to include retail mortgage origination, and is now offering that service in more than 30 states. Weststar is also a Fannie Mae-approved seller/servicer and a GNMA-approved issuer of mortgage-backed securities.</p>
<p>Weststar is currently servicing about $2.25 billion in loans – approximately $1 billion in private loans and the rest related to Fannie Mae or GNMA.</p>
<p>Wiechert boils the success down to a commitment to service.</p>
<p>“It’s like with any business – you really need to focus on what the customer’s needs are and try to meet those needs,” he says.</p>
<p>Although Weststar employs about 300 people at branches throughout the U.S., it continues to maintain its headquarters in Albuquerque.</p>
<p>“I think there’s a lot of talented individuals with a very strong work ethic,” Wiechert says of Albuquerque. “If there were an advantage (to being based here), I would say it’s with the labor force.”</p>
<p /> | 3,282 |
<p>Former CIA Analyst</p>
<p>Frontline’s “Bush’s War” on PBS Monday and Tuesday evening was a nicely put-together rehash of the top players’ trickery that led to the attack on Iraq, together with the power-grabbing, back-stabbing, and limitless incompetence of the occupation.</p>
<p>Except for an inside-the-beltway tidbit here and there-for example, about how the pitiable secretary of state Colin Powell had to suffer so many indignities at the hands of other type-A hard chargers, Frontline added little to the discussion. Notably missing was any allusion to the unconscionable role the Fourth Estate adopted as indiscriminate cheerleader for the home team; nor was there any mention that the invasion was a serious violation of international law. But those omissions, I suppose, should have come as no surprise.</p>
<p>Nor was it a surprise that any viewer hoping for insight into why Cheney and Bush were so eager to attack Iraq was left with very thin gruel. It was more infotainment, bereft of substantive discussion of the whys and wherefores of what in my view is the most disastrous foreign policy move in our nation’s history.</p>
<p>Despite recent acknowledgements from the likes of Alan Greenspan, Gen. John Abizaid, and others that oil and permanent (or, if you prefer, “enduring”) military bases were among the main objectives, Frontline avoided any real discussion of such delicate factors. Someone not already aware of how our media has become a tool of the Bush administration might have been shocked at how Frontline could have missed one of President George W. Bush’s most telling “signing statements.” Underneath the recent Defense Authorization Act, he wrote that he did not feel bound by the law’s explicit prohibition against using the funding:</p>
<p>“(1) To establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing for the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq,” or</p>
<p>“(2) To exercise United States control of the oil resources of Iraq.”</p>
<p>So the Frontline show was largely pap.</p>
<p>At one point, however, the garrulous former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage did allude to one of the largest elephants in the living room-Israel’s far-right Likudniks-and their close alliance with the so-called neo-conservatives running our policy toward the Middle East. But Armitage did so only tangentially, referring to the welcome (if totally unrealistic) promise by Ahmed Chalabi that, upon being put in power in Baghdad, he would recognize Israel. Not surprisingly, the interviewer did not pick up on that comment; indeed, I’m surprised the remark avoided the cutting room floor.</p>
<p>Courage No Longer a Frontline Hallmark</p>
<p>Frontline has done no timely reportage that might be looked upon as disparaging the George W. Bush administration-I mean, for example, the real aims behind the war, not simply the gross incompetence characterizing its conduct. Like so many others, Frontline has been, let’s just say it, cowardly in real time-no doubt intimidated partly by attacks on its funding that were inspired by the White House.</p>
<p>And now? Well the retrospective criticism of incompetence comes as polling shows two-thirds of the country against the Iraq occupation (and the number is surely higher among PBS viewers). So, Frontline is repositioning itself as a mild ex-post-facto critic of the war, but still unwilling to go very far out on a limb. Explaining the aims behind war crimes can, of course, be risky. It is as though an invisible Joseph Goebbels holds sway.</p>
<p>Too Late</p>
<p>On Monday evening I found myself initially applauding Frontline’s matter- of-fact, who-shot-John chronology of how our country got lied into attacking and occupying Iraq. Then I got to thinking-have I not seen this picture before? Many times?</p>
<p>It took a Hollywood producer to recognize and act promptly on the con games that sober observers could not miss as the war progressed. Where were the celebrated “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD)? Robert Greenwald simply could not abide the president’s switch to “weapons of mass destruction programs,” which presumably might be easier to find than the much-ballyhooed WMD so heavily advertised before the attack on Iraq. You remember-those remarkable WMD about which UN chief inspector Hans Blix quipped that the U.S. had one hundred percent certainty of their existence in Iraq, but zero percent certainty as to where they were.</p>
<p>Robert Greenwald called me in May 2003. He had read a few of the memoranda published by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) exposing the various charades being acted out by the administration and wanted to know what we thought of the president’s new circumlocution on WMD.</p>
<p>I complimented him on smelling a rat and gave him names of my VIPS colleagues and other experienced folks who could fill him in on the details. Wasting no time, he arrived here in Washington in June, armed simply with copious notes and a cameraman. Greenwald conducted the interviews, flew back to his eager young crew in Hollywood and, poof, the DVD “Uncovered: The War on Iraq” was released at the beginning of November 2003.”</p>
<p>So Frontline is four and a half years behind a Hollywood producer with appropriate interest and skepticism. (Full disclosure: I appear in “Uncovered,” as do many of the interviewees appearing in Frontline’s “Bush’s War.”)</p>
<p>Actually, the interviewing by Frontline occurred just a few months later. I know because I was among those interviewed for that as well, as was my good friend and former colleague at the CIA, Mel Goodman. I was struck that Mel looked four years younger on this week’s Frontline. It only then dawned on me that he was four years younger when interviewed.</p>
<p>Have a look at “ <a href="http://www.truthuncovered.com/index.php" type="external">Uncovered</a>,” and see how you think it compares to Frontline’s “Bush’s War.”</p>
<p>Safety in Retrospectives</p>
<p>It also struck me that producing a Frontline-style retrospective going back several years is a much less risky genre to work with. Chalk it up to my perspective as an intelligence analyst, but ducking the incredibly important issues at stake over the next several months is, in my opinion, unconscionable. The troop “surge” in Iraq, for example.</p>
<p>Only toward the very end of the program does Frontline allow a bit of relevant candor on a point that has been self-evident since Cheney and Bush, against strong opposition from Generals Abizaid and Casey (and apparently even Rumsfeld), decided to double down by sending 30,000 more troops into Iraq. A malleable new secretary of defense would deal with the recalcitrant generals and pick a Petreaus ex Machina of equal malleability and political astuteness to implement this stop-gap plan.</p>
<p>Pulitzer Prize winning journalist/author Steve Coll, with typical candor, put the “surge” into perspective:</p>
<p>“The decision at a minimum guaranteed that his [Bush’s] presidency would not end with a defeat in history’s eyes; that by committing to the surge, he was certain to at least achieve a stalemate.”</p>
<p>Given this week’s fresh surge of violence as the U.S. surge is scheduled to wind down, even a stalemate may be in some doubt. But, okay, small kudos to Frontline for including that bit of truth-however obvious-and for adding the grim background music to its final comment: “Soon Bush’s war will be handed to someone else.”</p>
<p>Rather Not, Thank You</p>
<p>Intimidation of the media is what has happened all around, including with Frontline, which not so many years ago was able to do some gutsy reporting. Let me give you another example about which few are aware.</p>
<p>Do you remember when Dan Rather made his Apologia Pro Vita Sua, admitting that the American media, including him, was failing to reveal the truth about things like Iraq? Speaking to the BBC on May 16, 2002, Rather compared the situation to the fear of “necklacing” in South Africa:</p>
<p>“It’s an obscene comparison,” Rather said, “but there was a time in South Africa when people would put flaming tires around peoples’ necks if they dissented. In some ways, the fear is that you will be neck-laced here, you will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck.”</p>
<p>Talking to another reporter, Dan told it straight about the careerism that keeps US journalists in line. “It’s that fear that keeps [American] journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions and to continue to bore-in on the tough questions so often.”</p>
<p>The comparison to “necklacing” may be “obscene” but, sadly, it is not far off the mark. So what happened to the newly outspoken Dan Rather with the newly found courage, when he ran afoul of Vice President Dick Cheney and the immense pressure he exerts on the corporate media?</p>
<p>We know about the lies and the cheerleading for attacking Iraq. But there is much more most of us do not know and remain unable to learn if Rather and other one-time journalists keep acting like Bert Lahr’s cowardly lion in the Wizard of Oz before he gets “the nerve” and courage.</p>
<p>For Dan Rather, the fear would simply not go away…even after leaving CBS for HDNet and promising that, on his new “Dan Rather Reports” show, viewers would see hard-hitting and courageous reporting that he said he couldn’t do at CBS.</p>
<p>Will it surprise you that Dan Rather cannot shake the necklace? I refer specifically to a program for “Dan Rather Reports,” meticulously prepared by award-winning producer, Kristina Borjesson. The special included interviews with an impressive string of first-hand witnesses to neocon machinations prior to the US attack on Iraq, and provides real insights into motivations-the kind of insights Frontline did not even attempt.</p>
<p>Nipped in the Bud by the “Dark Side”</p>
<p>Last year Borjesson’s taping was finished and the editing had begun. Borjesson’s requests to interview people working for the vice president had been denied. But, following standard journalistic practice (not to mention common courtesy), she sent an email to John Hannah in Cheney’s office in order to give Hannah a chance to react to what others-including several of the same senior folks on Frontline last evening- had said about him for her forthcoming report.</p>
<p>At that point all hell broke loose. Borjesson was abruptly told by Rather’s executive producer that by sending the email, Borjesson could have “brought down the whole (‘Dan Rather Reports’) operation.”</p>
<p>The show was killed and Borjesson sacked. For good measure, she was also accused of “coaching” interview subjects and taking their words out of context. Since neither Rather nor his executive producer would provide proof to substantiate that allegation, Borjesson took the unprecedented step of sending her script and transcripts to all her interview subjects, asking them to confirm or deny that she had coached them or taken their words out of context. Not one of them found her script inaccurate or said they were coached. She has the emails to prove this.</p>
<p>This sorry episode and Frontline’s careful avoidance of basic issues like the strategic aims of the Bush administration in invading and occupying Iraq are proof, if further proof were needed, that the White House, and especially Cheney’s swollen office, exert enormous pressure over what we are allowed to see and hear. The fear they instill in the corporate press, and in what once was serious investigative reporting of programs like Frontline, translates into programs getting neutered or killed outright-and massive public ignorance.</p>
<p>Some consolation is to be found in the good news that, in this particular case, Kristina Borjesson is made of stronger stuff; she has not given up, and was greatly encouraged by how many of the very senior officials and former officials she had already interviewed consented to be re-interviewed (since the tapes belonged to the “Rather Not” folks).</p>
<p>Now who looks forward to being re-interviewed?</p>
<p>Borjesson’s original interviewees took into account her problems with the cowards and the censors-and her atypical, gutsy refusal to self-censor-and went the extra mile. A tribute to them as well, and their interest in getting the truth out.</p>
<p>Borjesson is now completing the program on her own. Look for an announcement in the coming months, if you’re interested in real sustenance rather than the pabulum served up, no doubt under duress, by Frontline.</p>
<p>RAY McGOVERN was a CIA analyst from 1963 to 1990 and Robert Gates’ branch chief in the early 1970s. McGovern now serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). He is a contributor to <a href="http://www.easycartsecure.com/CounterPunch/CounterPunch_Books.html" type="external">Imperial Crusades</a>, edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>This article originally appeared on Consortiumnews.com.</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | Frontline’s War | true | https://counterpunch.org/2008/03/26/frontline-s-war/ | 2008-03-26 | 4left
| Frontline’s War
<p>Former CIA Analyst</p>
<p>Frontline’s “Bush’s War” on PBS Monday and Tuesday evening was a nicely put-together rehash of the top players’ trickery that led to the attack on Iraq, together with the power-grabbing, back-stabbing, and limitless incompetence of the occupation.</p>
<p>Except for an inside-the-beltway tidbit here and there-for example, about how the pitiable secretary of state Colin Powell had to suffer so many indignities at the hands of other type-A hard chargers, Frontline added little to the discussion. Notably missing was any allusion to the unconscionable role the Fourth Estate adopted as indiscriminate cheerleader for the home team; nor was there any mention that the invasion was a serious violation of international law. But those omissions, I suppose, should have come as no surprise.</p>
<p>Nor was it a surprise that any viewer hoping for insight into why Cheney and Bush were so eager to attack Iraq was left with very thin gruel. It was more infotainment, bereft of substantive discussion of the whys and wherefores of what in my view is the most disastrous foreign policy move in our nation’s history.</p>
<p>Despite recent acknowledgements from the likes of Alan Greenspan, Gen. John Abizaid, and others that oil and permanent (or, if you prefer, “enduring”) military bases were among the main objectives, Frontline avoided any real discussion of such delicate factors. Someone not already aware of how our media has become a tool of the Bush administration might have been shocked at how Frontline could have missed one of President George W. Bush’s most telling “signing statements.” Underneath the recent Defense Authorization Act, he wrote that he did not feel bound by the law’s explicit prohibition against using the funding:</p>
<p>“(1) To establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing for the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq,” or</p>
<p>“(2) To exercise United States control of the oil resources of Iraq.”</p>
<p>So the Frontline show was largely pap.</p>
<p>At one point, however, the garrulous former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage did allude to one of the largest elephants in the living room-Israel’s far-right Likudniks-and their close alliance with the so-called neo-conservatives running our policy toward the Middle East. But Armitage did so only tangentially, referring to the welcome (if totally unrealistic) promise by Ahmed Chalabi that, upon being put in power in Baghdad, he would recognize Israel. Not surprisingly, the interviewer did not pick up on that comment; indeed, I’m surprised the remark avoided the cutting room floor.</p>
<p>Courage No Longer a Frontline Hallmark</p>
<p>Frontline has done no timely reportage that might be looked upon as disparaging the George W. Bush administration-I mean, for example, the real aims behind the war, not simply the gross incompetence characterizing its conduct. Like so many others, Frontline has been, let’s just say it, cowardly in real time-no doubt intimidated partly by attacks on its funding that were inspired by the White House.</p>
<p>And now? Well the retrospective criticism of incompetence comes as polling shows two-thirds of the country against the Iraq occupation (and the number is surely higher among PBS viewers). So, Frontline is repositioning itself as a mild ex-post-facto critic of the war, but still unwilling to go very far out on a limb. Explaining the aims behind war crimes can, of course, be risky. It is as though an invisible Joseph Goebbels holds sway.</p>
<p>Too Late</p>
<p>On Monday evening I found myself initially applauding Frontline’s matter- of-fact, who-shot-John chronology of how our country got lied into attacking and occupying Iraq. Then I got to thinking-have I not seen this picture before? Many times?</p>
<p>It took a Hollywood producer to recognize and act promptly on the con games that sober observers could not miss as the war progressed. Where were the celebrated “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD)? Robert Greenwald simply could not abide the president’s switch to “weapons of mass destruction programs,” which presumably might be easier to find than the much-ballyhooed WMD so heavily advertised before the attack on Iraq. You remember-those remarkable WMD about which UN chief inspector Hans Blix quipped that the U.S. had one hundred percent certainty of their existence in Iraq, but zero percent certainty as to where they were.</p>
<p>Robert Greenwald called me in May 2003. He had read a few of the memoranda published by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) exposing the various charades being acted out by the administration and wanted to know what we thought of the president’s new circumlocution on WMD.</p>
<p>I complimented him on smelling a rat and gave him names of my VIPS colleagues and other experienced folks who could fill him in on the details. Wasting no time, he arrived here in Washington in June, armed simply with copious notes and a cameraman. Greenwald conducted the interviews, flew back to his eager young crew in Hollywood and, poof, the DVD “Uncovered: The War on Iraq” was released at the beginning of November 2003.”</p>
<p>So Frontline is four and a half years behind a Hollywood producer with appropriate interest and skepticism. (Full disclosure: I appear in “Uncovered,” as do many of the interviewees appearing in Frontline’s “Bush’s War.”)</p>
<p>Actually, the interviewing by Frontline occurred just a few months later. I know because I was among those interviewed for that as well, as was my good friend and former colleague at the CIA, Mel Goodman. I was struck that Mel looked four years younger on this week’s Frontline. It only then dawned on me that he was four years younger when interviewed.</p>
<p>Have a look at “ <a href="http://www.truthuncovered.com/index.php" type="external">Uncovered</a>,” and see how you think it compares to Frontline’s “Bush’s War.”</p>
<p>Safety in Retrospectives</p>
<p>It also struck me that producing a Frontline-style retrospective going back several years is a much less risky genre to work with. Chalk it up to my perspective as an intelligence analyst, but ducking the incredibly important issues at stake over the next several months is, in my opinion, unconscionable. The troop “surge” in Iraq, for example.</p>
<p>Only toward the very end of the program does Frontline allow a bit of relevant candor on a point that has been self-evident since Cheney and Bush, against strong opposition from Generals Abizaid and Casey (and apparently even Rumsfeld), decided to double down by sending 30,000 more troops into Iraq. A malleable new secretary of defense would deal with the recalcitrant generals and pick a Petreaus ex Machina of equal malleability and political astuteness to implement this stop-gap plan.</p>
<p>Pulitzer Prize winning journalist/author Steve Coll, with typical candor, put the “surge” into perspective:</p>
<p>“The decision at a minimum guaranteed that his [Bush’s] presidency would not end with a defeat in history’s eyes; that by committing to the surge, he was certain to at least achieve a stalemate.”</p>
<p>Given this week’s fresh surge of violence as the U.S. surge is scheduled to wind down, even a stalemate may be in some doubt. But, okay, small kudos to Frontline for including that bit of truth-however obvious-and for adding the grim background music to its final comment: “Soon Bush’s war will be handed to someone else.”</p>
<p>Rather Not, Thank You</p>
<p>Intimidation of the media is what has happened all around, including with Frontline, which not so many years ago was able to do some gutsy reporting. Let me give you another example about which few are aware.</p>
<p>Do you remember when Dan Rather made his Apologia Pro Vita Sua, admitting that the American media, including him, was failing to reveal the truth about things like Iraq? Speaking to the BBC on May 16, 2002, Rather compared the situation to the fear of “necklacing” in South Africa:</p>
<p>“It’s an obscene comparison,” Rather said, “but there was a time in South Africa when people would put flaming tires around peoples’ necks if they dissented. In some ways, the fear is that you will be neck-laced here, you will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck.”</p>
<p>Talking to another reporter, Dan told it straight about the careerism that keeps US journalists in line. “It’s that fear that keeps [American] journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions and to continue to bore-in on the tough questions so often.”</p>
<p>The comparison to “necklacing” may be “obscene” but, sadly, it is not far off the mark. So what happened to the newly outspoken Dan Rather with the newly found courage, when he ran afoul of Vice President Dick Cheney and the immense pressure he exerts on the corporate media?</p>
<p>We know about the lies and the cheerleading for attacking Iraq. But there is much more most of us do not know and remain unable to learn if Rather and other one-time journalists keep acting like Bert Lahr’s cowardly lion in the Wizard of Oz before he gets “the nerve” and courage.</p>
<p>For Dan Rather, the fear would simply not go away…even after leaving CBS for HDNet and promising that, on his new “Dan Rather Reports” show, viewers would see hard-hitting and courageous reporting that he said he couldn’t do at CBS.</p>
<p>Will it surprise you that Dan Rather cannot shake the necklace? I refer specifically to a program for “Dan Rather Reports,” meticulously prepared by award-winning producer, Kristina Borjesson. The special included interviews with an impressive string of first-hand witnesses to neocon machinations prior to the US attack on Iraq, and provides real insights into motivations-the kind of insights Frontline did not even attempt.</p>
<p>Nipped in the Bud by the “Dark Side”</p>
<p>Last year Borjesson’s taping was finished and the editing had begun. Borjesson’s requests to interview people working for the vice president had been denied. But, following standard journalistic practice (not to mention common courtesy), she sent an email to John Hannah in Cheney’s office in order to give Hannah a chance to react to what others-including several of the same senior folks on Frontline last evening- had said about him for her forthcoming report.</p>
<p>At that point all hell broke loose. Borjesson was abruptly told by Rather’s executive producer that by sending the email, Borjesson could have “brought down the whole (‘Dan Rather Reports’) operation.”</p>
<p>The show was killed and Borjesson sacked. For good measure, she was also accused of “coaching” interview subjects and taking their words out of context. Since neither Rather nor his executive producer would provide proof to substantiate that allegation, Borjesson took the unprecedented step of sending her script and transcripts to all her interview subjects, asking them to confirm or deny that she had coached them or taken their words out of context. Not one of them found her script inaccurate or said they were coached. She has the emails to prove this.</p>
<p>This sorry episode and Frontline’s careful avoidance of basic issues like the strategic aims of the Bush administration in invading and occupying Iraq are proof, if further proof were needed, that the White House, and especially Cheney’s swollen office, exert enormous pressure over what we are allowed to see and hear. The fear they instill in the corporate press, and in what once was serious investigative reporting of programs like Frontline, translates into programs getting neutered or killed outright-and massive public ignorance.</p>
<p>Some consolation is to be found in the good news that, in this particular case, Kristina Borjesson is made of stronger stuff; she has not given up, and was greatly encouraged by how many of the very senior officials and former officials she had already interviewed consented to be re-interviewed (since the tapes belonged to the “Rather Not” folks).</p>
<p>Now who looks forward to being re-interviewed?</p>
<p>Borjesson’s original interviewees took into account her problems with the cowards and the censors-and her atypical, gutsy refusal to self-censor-and went the extra mile. A tribute to them as well, and their interest in getting the truth out.</p>
<p>Borjesson is now completing the program on her own. Look for an announcement in the coming months, if you’re interested in real sustenance rather than the pabulum served up, no doubt under duress, by Frontline.</p>
<p>RAY McGOVERN was a CIA analyst from 1963 to 1990 and Robert Gates’ branch chief in the early 1970s. McGovern now serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). He is a contributor to <a href="http://www.easycartsecure.com/CounterPunch/CounterPunch_Books.html" type="external">Imperial Crusades</a>, edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>This article originally appeared on Consortiumnews.com.</p>
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<p>It’s all about family for estate planning attorney María Martínez-Siemel, one of the newest members of the Ask the Experts panel on the Sage magazine website at <a href="http://abqjournalsage.com" type="external">abqjournalsage.com</a>.</p>
<p>That’s what brought her back to New Mexico after she got her undergraduate degree from Rice University in Houston. And family is what informed her career path moving into estate law after being on a pre-med track.</p>
<p>Martínez-Siemel grew up in Martíneztown, where she says, “I have a whole boatload of lawyers in my family.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>But … wait for it … “All of them advised me not to go into law.”</p>
<p>Yet she sees the work as a perfect fit for her, because “a, you get to hear other people’s stories, and b, you help them take care of their family.”</p>
<p>In her blog, she’ll write about how to plan for long-term care, protect estate assets, write advance directives and set up guardianships and conservatorships.</p>
<p>While much of her work focuses on abstract things like documents and tax consequences, Martínez-Siemel says the true aim is helping elderly parents stay independent longer or siblings communicate well as they are caregiving and grieving.</p>
<p>“It doesn’t take too long to work in this area before it becomes not-abstract,” she says.</p>
<p>That’s why, about six years ago, she incorporated legacy interviews into the estate planning process. Many families have exactly that intention: They want to interview their loved ones, but they don’t always act on it.</p>
<p>“We’re already set up for it,” she says. “We have the digital recorder. It’s easier to have someone else ask those questions.”</p>
<p>Martínez-Siemel will ask the client questions such as “What is the thing you love about your kids?” or “What did you learn in life that you want your kids to know?”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Their answers are unique to each family. One might say, “This kid really makes me laugh,” while another might answer, “The value of an education.”</p>
<p>To date, she’s done between 50 and 100 CDs for clients. Where she’s coming from on this is from her own appreciation of family. One of her grandmas was a “hilarious bohemian lady” who had been a debutante in Philadelphia. Her favorite phrase was “honestly.” She was notorious in the family because she had driven a pickup truck and had been to Brazil with Martínez-Siemel’s grandfather.</p>
<p>“That’s what I think about,” Martínez-Siemel says. “I don’t think about her stuff.”</p>
<p>But the stuff does need to get talked about, too, and Martínez-Siemel helps people talk about the hard topics.</p>
<p>She very much understands the strain of caring for an aging parent, compounded by grieving. Even in her enormous family – her mom had 15 brothers and sisters – it was still a supreme challenge to ensure her grandparents received the care necessary.</p>
<p>“Both of my grandparents lived to be 99,” she says. “They were spry. But both of them started to need help at about 95. It’s probably the most difficult job in the world.”</p>
<p>Her aim is to lay a strong legal foundation so the transitions go as smoothly as possible.</p>
<p>In 2011, Martínez-Siemel took time out from estate planning law, working for the City of Albuquerque as the city’s construction lawyer. But she’s back in, as the owner of Siemel Law Firm, because she says, “It’s a place where you can make a huge difference.”</p>
<p>She recognizes that assets have emotional ties. The family home is not just a house.</p>
<p>“You can do so much to make your family, and the process of grieving easier, by planning and by talking to your family,” she says. “Make sure you’ve done what you can. You can make it easier.”</p>
<p>Carolyn Flynn is the editor of Sage magazine, published quarterly in print and daily online at <a href="http://abqjournalsage.com" type="external">abqjournalsage.com</a>. Find Sage at <a href="http://facebook.com/sageabqjournal" type="external">facebook.com/sageabqjournal</a> and “like” the page to get it in your newsfeed. You may reach the editor at 505-823-3870, <a href="" type="internal">[email protected]</a> or through Facebook.</p>
<p>María Martínez-Siemel’s core values&#160; Asked to name four core values, María Martínez-Siemel says, “Family, family, family and family.” For her, the value gets expressed in four different ways: ⋄&#160; The financial portion, the money you provide for your family. ⋄&#160; The everyday portion, the actions you take to take care of them. ⋄&#160; The emotional portion, maintaining an emotional equilibrium, based on the value of “putting family first.” ⋄&#160; The legacy, the love and vision you leave for your family.</p> | Success is all about family for attorney | false | https://abqjournal.com/511036/headline-322-2.html | 2least
| Success is all about family for attorney
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<p>It’s all about family for estate planning attorney María Martínez-Siemel, one of the newest members of the Ask the Experts panel on the Sage magazine website at <a href="http://abqjournalsage.com" type="external">abqjournalsage.com</a>.</p>
<p>That’s what brought her back to New Mexico after she got her undergraduate degree from Rice University in Houston. And family is what informed her career path moving into estate law after being on a pre-med track.</p>
<p>Martínez-Siemel grew up in Martíneztown, where she says, “I have a whole boatload of lawyers in my family.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>But … wait for it … “All of them advised me not to go into law.”</p>
<p>Yet she sees the work as a perfect fit for her, because “a, you get to hear other people’s stories, and b, you help them take care of their family.”</p>
<p>In her blog, she’ll write about how to plan for long-term care, protect estate assets, write advance directives and set up guardianships and conservatorships.</p>
<p>While much of her work focuses on abstract things like documents and tax consequences, Martínez-Siemel says the true aim is helping elderly parents stay independent longer or siblings communicate well as they are caregiving and grieving.</p>
<p>“It doesn’t take too long to work in this area before it becomes not-abstract,” she says.</p>
<p>That’s why, about six years ago, she incorporated legacy interviews into the estate planning process. Many families have exactly that intention: They want to interview their loved ones, but they don’t always act on it.</p>
<p>“We’re already set up for it,” she says. “We have the digital recorder. It’s easier to have someone else ask those questions.”</p>
<p>Martínez-Siemel will ask the client questions such as “What is the thing you love about your kids?” or “What did you learn in life that you want your kids to know?”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Their answers are unique to each family. One might say, “This kid really makes me laugh,” while another might answer, “The value of an education.”</p>
<p>To date, she’s done between 50 and 100 CDs for clients. Where she’s coming from on this is from her own appreciation of family. One of her grandmas was a “hilarious bohemian lady” who had been a debutante in Philadelphia. Her favorite phrase was “honestly.” She was notorious in the family because she had driven a pickup truck and had been to Brazil with Martínez-Siemel’s grandfather.</p>
<p>“That’s what I think about,” Martínez-Siemel says. “I don’t think about her stuff.”</p>
<p>But the stuff does need to get talked about, too, and Martínez-Siemel helps people talk about the hard topics.</p>
<p>She very much understands the strain of caring for an aging parent, compounded by grieving. Even in her enormous family – her mom had 15 brothers and sisters – it was still a supreme challenge to ensure her grandparents received the care necessary.</p>
<p>“Both of my grandparents lived to be 99,” she says. “They were spry. But both of them started to need help at about 95. It’s probably the most difficult job in the world.”</p>
<p>Her aim is to lay a strong legal foundation so the transitions go as smoothly as possible.</p>
<p>In 2011, Martínez-Siemel took time out from estate planning law, working for the City of Albuquerque as the city’s construction lawyer. But she’s back in, as the owner of Siemel Law Firm, because she says, “It’s a place where you can make a huge difference.”</p>
<p>She recognizes that assets have emotional ties. The family home is not just a house.</p>
<p>“You can do so much to make your family, and the process of grieving easier, by planning and by talking to your family,” she says. “Make sure you’ve done what you can. You can make it easier.”</p>
<p>Carolyn Flynn is the editor of Sage magazine, published quarterly in print and daily online at <a href="http://abqjournalsage.com" type="external">abqjournalsage.com</a>. Find Sage at <a href="http://facebook.com/sageabqjournal" type="external">facebook.com/sageabqjournal</a> and “like” the page to get it in your newsfeed. You may reach the editor at 505-823-3870, <a href="" type="internal">[email protected]</a> or through Facebook.</p>
<p>María Martínez-Siemel’s core values&#160; Asked to name four core values, María Martínez-Siemel says, “Family, family, family and family.” For her, the value gets expressed in four different ways: ⋄&#160; The financial portion, the money you provide for your family. ⋄&#160; The everyday portion, the actions you take to take care of them. ⋄&#160; The emotional portion, maintaining an emotional equilibrium, based on the value of “putting family first.” ⋄&#160; The legacy, the love and vision you leave for your family.</p> | 3,284 |
|
<p />
<p>Image source: NVIDIA.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Over the past three years, graphics-chip company NVIDIA has been a share-buyback machine. From fiscal 2014 through fiscal 2016, which ended in January, the company spent a total of $2.29 billion repurchasing its own shares, knocking its diluted share count down by about 9%. NVIDIA's mountain of excess cash, as well as consistent free cash flow generation, fueled the company's capital return policy.</p>
<p>At the beginning of this period, NVIDIA's stock was in the doldrums. At the start of fiscal 2014, shares of NVIDIA traded for just 7 times earnings after backing out the company's net cash. In other words, NVIDIA was able to buy its own shares for a song. Shares of NVIDIA steadily rose over the following two years and then spiked higher during the second half of 2015. When it was all said and done, <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/04/08/why-i-sold-nvidia-corp.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">the stock had nearly tripled Opens a New Window.</a> in a little over three years.</p>
<p><a href="http://ycharts.com/companies/NVDA" type="external">NVDA</a> data by <a href="http://ycharts.com" type="external">YCharts Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p>A few weeks ago, NVIDIA announced that it was entering into an accelerated share repurchase agreement as part of its plan to return $1 billion to shareholders in fiscal 2017. NVIDIA is paying $500 million to receive about 12.1 million shares, with additional shares set to be delivered at settlement, depending on the daily average price of NVIDIA stock. <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/02/22/this-is-one-of-the-most-misleading-terms-in-financ.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Here's a great explanation Opens a New Window.</a> of how these accelerated share repurchase agreements really work.</p>
<p>A $500 million buyback may sound like a great idea, considering how much cash NVIDIA has sitting on its balance sheet. But because the stock price has increased by so much, share buybacks are the last thing NVIDIA should be doing right now.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>A tale of two buybacksPrice matters when it comes to share buybacks. At the beginning of fiscal 2014, NVIDIA's stock was so cheap, even assuming no growth whatsoever, that buybacks were an excellent use of capital. Today, NVIDIA's stock is so expensive that buybacks are an awful idea.</p>
<p>Warren Buffett, in his 1999 letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, laid out his philosophy on when share buybacks make sense: "There is only one combination of facts that makes it advisable for a company to repurchase its shares: First, the company has available funds -- cash plus sensible borrowing capacity -- beyond the near-term needs of the business and, second, finds its stock selling in the market below its intrinsic value, conservatively calculated."</p>
<p>On the first point, NVIDIA passes with flying colors. At the end of fiscal 2016, the company had $5.04 billion of cash and just $1.42 billion of debt, leaving a net cash position of about $3.62 billion. The second point, though, is no longer true. NVIDIA is far from inexpensive, even under optimistic assumptions. At a stock price of $36, and after backing out the net cash, NVIDIA trades for about 27.8 times GAAP earnings. That's a far cry from the cash-adjusted P/E ratio of 7 the stock sported a few years ago.</p>
<p>Let's look at it another way. At the beginning of fiscal 2014, a $500 million buyback, if it could be done all at once, would have boosted EPS by 6.9%. Today, the same buyback would boost EPS by only 2.5%, thanks to the higher stock price. What if that $500 million were invested back into the business? Using NVIDIA's fiscal 2016 tax rate, what pre-tax rate of return would be necessary to achieve the same EPS increase?</p>
<p>Source: author's calculations.</p>
<p>At the beginning of fiscal 2014, NVIDIA would have needed to generate a pre-tax return of 9.44% on that $500 million to match the EPS boost of a share buyback. In other words, share buybacks looked like a fairly attractive option at the time, effectively generating a return of nearly 10% guaranteed.</p>
<p>Today, NVIDIA would only need to achieve a 3.72% return to match the effects of a share buyback. That's a fairly dismal result. If, instead of a buyback program, NVIDIA had announced that it was investing $500 million in a new project, and that it expected a 3.72% return on investment, some eyebrows would have certainly been raised. But the end result, in terms of EPS, would have been exactly the same.</p>
<p>Share buybacks made sense when NVIDIA's stock was cheap. Today, the stock trades at a hefty premium, and while one could argue that the company's growth prospects may justify the price tag, NVIDIA's new $500 million share buyback program is more likely to destroy shareholder value than create it.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/04/12/nvidia-is-making-a-500-million-mistake.aspx" type="external">NVIDIA Is Making a $500 Million Mistake Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFBargainBin/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Timothy Green Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Berkshire Hathaway. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Berkshire Hathaway. The Motley Fool recommends Nvidia. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/help/index.htm?display=about02" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | NVIDIA Is Making a $500 Million Mistake | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/04/12/nvidia-is-making-500-million-mistake.html | 2016-04-12 | 0right
| NVIDIA Is Making a $500 Million Mistake
<p />
<p>Image source: NVIDIA.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Over the past three years, graphics-chip company NVIDIA has been a share-buyback machine. From fiscal 2014 through fiscal 2016, which ended in January, the company spent a total of $2.29 billion repurchasing its own shares, knocking its diluted share count down by about 9%. NVIDIA's mountain of excess cash, as well as consistent free cash flow generation, fueled the company's capital return policy.</p>
<p>At the beginning of this period, NVIDIA's stock was in the doldrums. At the start of fiscal 2014, shares of NVIDIA traded for just 7 times earnings after backing out the company's net cash. In other words, NVIDIA was able to buy its own shares for a song. Shares of NVIDIA steadily rose over the following two years and then spiked higher during the second half of 2015. When it was all said and done, <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/04/08/why-i-sold-nvidia-corp.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">the stock had nearly tripled Opens a New Window.</a> in a little over three years.</p>
<p><a href="http://ycharts.com/companies/NVDA" type="external">NVDA</a> data by <a href="http://ycharts.com" type="external">YCharts Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p>A few weeks ago, NVIDIA announced that it was entering into an accelerated share repurchase agreement as part of its plan to return $1 billion to shareholders in fiscal 2017. NVIDIA is paying $500 million to receive about 12.1 million shares, with additional shares set to be delivered at settlement, depending on the daily average price of NVIDIA stock. <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/02/22/this-is-one-of-the-most-misleading-terms-in-financ.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Here's a great explanation Opens a New Window.</a> of how these accelerated share repurchase agreements really work.</p>
<p>A $500 million buyback may sound like a great idea, considering how much cash NVIDIA has sitting on its balance sheet. But because the stock price has increased by so much, share buybacks are the last thing NVIDIA should be doing right now.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>A tale of two buybacksPrice matters when it comes to share buybacks. At the beginning of fiscal 2014, NVIDIA's stock was so cheap, even assuming no growth whatsoever, that buybacks were an excellent use of capital. Today, NVIDIA's stock is so expensive that buybacks are an awful idea.</p>
<p>Warren Buffett, in his 1999 letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, laid out his philosophy on when share buybacks make sense: "There is only one combination of facts that makes it advisable for a company to repurchase its shares: First, the company has available funds -- cash plus sensible borrowing capacity -- beyond the near-term needs of the business and, second, finds its stock selling in the market below its intrinsic value, conservatively calculated."</p>
<p>On the first point, NVIDIA passes with flying colors. At the end of fiscal 2016, the company had $5.04 billion of cash and just $1.42 billion of debt, leaving a net cash position of about $3.62 billion. The second point, though, is no longer true. NVIDIA is far from inexpensive, even under optimistic assumptions. At a stock price of $36, and after backing out the net cash, NVIDIA trades for about 27.8 times GAAP earnings. That's a far cry from the cash-adjusted P/E ratio of 7 the stock sported a few years ago.</p>
<p>Let's look at it another way. At the beginning of fiscal 2014, a $500 million buyback, if it could be done all at once, would have boosted EPS by 6.9%. Today, the same buyback would boost EPS by only 2.5%, thanks to the higher stock price. What if that $500 million were invested back into the business? Using NVIDIA's fiscal 2016 tax rate, what pre-tax rate of return would be necessary to achieve the same EPS increase?</p>
<p>Source: author's calculations.</p>
<p>At the beginning of fiscal 2014, NVIDIA would have needed to generate a pre-tax return of 9.44% on that $500 million to match the EPS boost of a share buyback. In other words, share buybacks looked like a fairly attractive option at the time, effectively generating a return of nearly 10% guaranteed.</p>
<p>Today, NVIDIA would only need to achieve a 3.72% return to match the effects of a share buyback. That's a fairly dismal result. If, instead of a buyback program, NVIDIA had announced that it was investing $500 million in a new project, and that it expected a 3.72% return on investment, some eyebrows would have certainly been raised. But the end result, in terms of EPS, would have been exactly the same.</p>
<p>Share buybacks made sense when NVIDIA's stock was cheap. Today, the stock trades at a hefty premium, and while one could argue that the company's growth prospects may justify the price tag, NVIDIA's new $500 million share buyback program is more likely to destroy shareholder value than create it.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/04/12/nvidia-is-making-a-500-million-mistake.aspx" type="external">NVIDIA Is Making a $500 Million Mistake Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFBargainBin/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Timothy Green Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Berkshire Hathaway. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Berkshire Hathaway. The Motley Fool recommends Nvidia. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/help/index.htm?display=about02" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | 3,285 |
<p><a href="" type="internal" /> Spanish authorities say Younes Abouyaaqoub was driving the van that killed 13 people in Barcelona. (Photo: Mossos d’Esquadra/Catalan Police)</p>
<p>On Monday it was reported that Younes Abouyaaqoub, the terrorist suspected of driving the van that killed 13 people in Barcelona last week, was shot dead by Catalonian police.</p>
<p>A 14th fatality occurred&#160;when&#160;Abouyaaqoub stabbed and carjacked a motorist during his getaway from La Rambla, and a 15th occurred after other members of the terror cell drove their car into pedestrians and stabbed a woman in the town of Cambrils before being shot and killed by police themselves.</p>
<p>Like the five suspects killed in Cambrils,&#160;Abouyaaqoub was also wearing a fake suicide bomb belt when police fired at him. It is interesting to note that the alleged perpetrators of the <a href="" type="internal">London Bridge attacks</a>&#160;in June of this year were also supposedly wearing fake suicide bomb vests during their attack.</p>
<p>It is also claimed that Abouyaaqoub shouted “Allahu akbar” before police shot him, another recurring feature of recent terrorist incidents.</p>
<p>Furthermore, while it was not initially clear whether there was a link between this incident and the attack in Barcelona, the white Ford Focus that rammed two police officers at a terror checkpoint on Thursday evening is now said to have been driven by Abouyaaqoub.</p>
<p>Other developments in the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/barcelona-suspect-said-terror-cell-planned-to-bomb-monuments-in-city/2017/08/22/54daab3e-86ae-11e7-96a7-d178cf3524eb_story.html?utm_term=.3490fa62287d" type="external">narrative</a> include that the terrorist cell’s imam, Abdelbaki Es Satty, allegedly the ideological ringleader of the cell, is believed to have been killed in the explosion that occurred last Wednesday night in the town of Alcanar. It is <a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/who-abdelbaki-es-satty-man-behind-barcelona-terror-link-2004-madrid-train-bombings-1635887" type="external">claimed</a> that he was radicalized while serving time in prison for smuggling hashish, as during his prison term he met Rachid Aglif, who is serving an 18-year term for his role in the 2004 Madrid train bombings. However, some may find this explanation lacking as it is also being <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/08/22/barcelona-terror-imam-lived-al-qaeda-recruiter-linked-madrid-bombing/" type="external">reported</a> that Es Satty lived with Mohammed Fahsi between 2003 and 2005, shortly before Fahsi was accused of being an al-Qaeda recruiter and jailed for funding terrorism.</p>
<p>In the first days after the attack in Barcelona, the press was quick to point out how none of the suspects were known to authorities, unlike the many <a href="" type="internal">‘known wolves’</a> 21WIRE has reported on in the past. However, it would be hard to make that claim about the ringleader Es Satty, who had not only served time in prison and been granted a reprieve from deportation, but who also shared an address with a known terrorist financier and recruiter.</p>
<p>One other thread in the story concerns a Madrid court which has been receiving the testimony of surviving members of the terror cell. Confidential information from the proceedings is being anonymously leaked to the press. Among this <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-spain-security-idUKKCN1B20GD" type="external">leaked information</a> are claims that other attacks were planned, including a possible bomb attack on the Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona.</p>
<p>READ OUR FULL REPORT HERE:&#160; <a href="" type="internal">BARCELONA: As The Dust Settles, The Story Emerges (Updated)</a></p>
<p>More on this story from The Telegraph…</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" />Mossos d’Esquadra, the police force in Catalonia, shot and killed (Photo: Feliciano Guimarães. Source: <a href="https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mossos_d%27Esquadra_Catalunya.jpg" type="external">Wikicommons</a>)</p>
<p>Hannah Strange, James Badcock &amp; Martin Evans <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/21/first-pictures-emerge-barcelona-attack-suspect-younes-abouyaaqoub/" type="external">The Telegraph</a></p>
<p>The terrorist who went on the run after killing 14 people in Barcelona has been shot dead while wearing a fake suicide belt.</p>
<p>Younes Abouyaaqoub was shot on Monday by armed police in the town of Sant Sadurni d’Anoia in the district of Subirats, around 30 miles west of Barcelona, bringing to an end a five-day international manhunt.</p>
<p>The 22-year-old Moroccan reportedly shouted “Allahu akbar” as he was challenged by officers, leading to fears that he was about to launch a bomb attack. Police used a remote-controlled robot to check his body for explosives, but later confirmed that the suicide belt he was wearing was fake.</p>
<p>Abouyaaqoub was the last remaining member of the jihadist cell responsible for last week’s twin terrorist attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils. Police now believe he was at the wheel of the van when it ploughed into crowds on Las Ramblas on Thursday afternoon, killing 13 people including Julian Cadman, a seven-year-old British boy.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/21/first-pictures-emerge-barcelona-attack-suspect-younes-abouyaaqoub/" type="external">Continue reading this story at The Telegraph</a></p>
<p>READ MORE TERRORISM NEWS AT:&#160; <a href="" type="internal">21st Century Wire Terrorism Files</a></p>
<p>SUPPORT 21WIRE –&#160;SUBSCRIBE &amp; BECOME A MEMBER @&#160; <a href="https://21wire.tv/membership/plans/" type="external">21WIRE.TV</a></p> | UPDATE: The Barcelona Attack | true | http://21stcenturywire.com/2017/08/23/update-barcelona-attack/ | 2017-08-23 | 4left
| UPDATE: The Barcelona Attack
<p><a href="" type="internal" /> Spanish authorities say Younes Abouyaaqoub was driving the van that killed 13 people in Barcelona. (Photo: Mossos d’Esquadra/Catalan Police)</p>
<p>On Monday it was reported that Younes Abouyaaqoub, the terrorist suspected of driving the van that killed 13 people in Barcelona last week, was shot dead by Catalonian police.</p>
<p>A 14th fatality occurred&#160;when&#160;Abouyaaqoub stabbed and carjacked a motorist during his getaway from La Rambla, and a 15th occurred after other members of the terror cell drove their car into pedestrians and stabbed a woman in the town of Cambrils before being shot and killed by police themselves.</p>
<p>Like the five suspects killed in Cambrils,&#160;Abouyaaqoub was also wearing a fake suicide bomb belt when police fired at him. It is interesting to note that the alleged perpetrators of the <a href="" type="internal">London Bridge attacks</a>&#160;in June of this year were also supposedly wearing fake suicide bomb vests during their attack.</p>
<p>It is also claimed that Abouyaaqoub shouted “Allahu akbar” before police shot him, another recurring feature of recent terrorist incidents.</p>
<p>Furthermore, while it was not initially clear whether there was a link between this incident and the attack in Barcelona, the white Ford Focus that rammed two police officers at a terror checkpoint on Thursday evening is now said to have been driven by Abouyaaqoub.</p>
<p>Other developments in the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/barcelona-suspect-said-terror-cell-planned-to-bomb-monuments-in-city/2017/08/22/54daab3e-86ae-11e7-96a7-d178cf3524eb_story.html?utm_term=.3490fa62287d" type="external">narrative</a> include that the terrorist cell’s imam, Abdelbaki Es Satty, allegedly the ideological ringleader of the cell, is believed to have been killed in the explosion that occurred last Wednesday night in the town of Alcanar. It is <a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/who-abdelbaki-es-satty-man-behind-barcelona-terror-link-2004-madrid-train-bombings-1635887" type="external">claimed</a> that he was radicalized while serving time in prison for smuggling hashish, as during his prison term he met Rachid Aglif, who is serving an 18-year term for his role in the 2004 Madrid train bombings. However, some may find this explanation lacking as it is also being <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/08/22/barcelona-terror-imam-lived-al-qaeda-recruiter-linked-madrid-bombing/" type="external">reported</a> that Es Satty lived with Mohammed Fahsi between 2003 and 2005, shortly before Fahsi was accused of being an al-Qaeda recruiter and jailed for funding terrorism.</p>
<p>In the first days after the attack in Barcelona, the press was quick to point out how none of the suspects were known to authorities, unlike the many <a href="" type="internal">‘known wolves’</a> 21WIRE has reported on in the past. However, it would be hard to make that claim about the ringleader Es Satty, who had not only served time in prison and been granted a reprieve from deportation, but who also shared an address with a known terrorist financier and recruiter.</p>
<p>One other thread in the story concerns a Madrid court which has been receiving the testimony of surviving members of the terror cell. Confidential information from the proceedings is being anonymously leaked to the press. Among this <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-spain-security-idUKKCN1B20GD" type="external">leaked information</a> are claims that other attacks were planned, including a possible bomb attack on the Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona.</p>
<p>READ OUR FULL REPORT HERE:&#160; <a href="" type="internal">BARCELONA: As The Dust Settles, The Story Emerges (Updated)</a></p>
<p>More on this story from The Telegraph…</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" />Mossos d’Esquadra, the police force in Catalonia, shot and killed (Photo: Feliciano Guimarães. Source: <a href="https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mossos_d%27Esquadra_Catalunya.jpg" type="external">Wikicommons</a>)</p>
<p>Hannah Strange, James Badcock &amp; Martin Evans <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/21/first-pictures-emerge-barcelona-attack-suspect-younes-abouyaaqoub/" type="external">The Telegraph</a></p>
<p>The terrorist who went on the run after killing 14 people in Barcelona has been shot dead while wearing a fake suicide belt.</p>
<p>Younes Abouyaaqoub was shot on Monday by armed police in the town of Sant Sadurni d’Anoia in the district of Subirats, around 30 miles west of Barcelona, bringing to an end a five-day international manhunt.</p>
<p>The 22-year-old Moroccan reportedly shouted “Allahu akbar” as he was challenged by officers, leading to fears that he was about to launch a bomb attack. Police used a remote-controlled robot to check his body for explosives, but later confirmed that the suicide belt he was wearing was fake.</p>
<p>Abouyaaqoub was the last remaining member of the jihadist cell responsible for last week’s twin terrorist attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils. Police now believe he was at the wheel of the van when it ploughed into crowds on Las Ramblas on Thursday afternoon, killing 13 people including Julian Cadman, a seven-year-old British boy.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/21/first-pictures-emerge-barcelona-attack-suspect-younes-abouyaaqoub/" type="external">Continue reading this story at The Telegraph</a></p>
<p>READ MORE TERRORISM NEWS AT:&#160; <a href="" type="internal">21st Century Wire Terrorism Files</a></p>
<p>SUPPORT 21WIRE –&#160;SUBSCRIBE &amp; BECOME A MEMBER @&#160; <a href="https://21wire.tv/membership/plans/" type="external">21WIRE.TV</a></p> | 3,286 |
<p />
<p>It is not perfectly clear how exactly they pulled it off undetected for so long but a fake U.S. embassy in Ghana did the unthinkable and operated the sham for about ten years.</p>
<p />
<p>The U.S. Department of State revealed in a statement that the fake embassy was operated by organized Ghanian and Turkish criminals in collaboration with a Ghanian lawyer specializing in immigration and criminal law. The main ' service' offered by the sham embassy is issuance of visas that of course turned out to be counterfeit but cost as much as $6,000.</p>
<p />
<p>The bizarre business operated for almost a decade in a property at capital Accra where oddly enough the real U.S. embassy is also located.</p>
<p />
<p>To make the office appear legitimate, the fake embassy flew the American flag three times a week and even hung a photo of President Barack Obama inside.</p>
<p />
<p>Aside from the visas, the sham office also issued fake bank records, education records and birth certificates issued by " consular officers" who happen to be English and Dutch-speaking Turkish citizens.</p>
<p />
<p>The bogus enterprise lasted that long because the operators connived with corrupt officials that gave them access to official blank documents which they then</p>
<p>"Fabricated". So shrewd were the operators that they even made use of two satellite offices including a dress shop which also served as front for the operation and used as base for document production.</p>
<p />
<p>The business proliferated because it was also widely advertised with flyers and billboards in Ghana, Cote d' Iviore and Togo. There were customers coming as far as the most remote areas in West Africa where they were driven to Accra, put up in hotels to avail of the services of the fake embassy.</p>
<p />
<p>It was during a wider trafficking and fraud investigation that diplomatic security agents at the U.S. embassy in Ghana were tipped off about the fake embassy. An international task force composed of various Ghana police forces and officials from the Canada embassy helped the U.S. embassy and conducted the raids resulting into several arrests. Counterfeit passports, visas and IDs from various countries and nationalities, along with gadgets, were seized by the authorities from the sham office.</p>
<p />
<p>Further investigations into the Turkish organized ring are ongoing while several suspects are still at large. The Interpol and Bureau of Consular Affairs have been contacted for possible assistance on the investigations and manhunt for the remaining suspects.</p> | "Accra-Cadabra": Fake U.S. Embassy In Ghana Shut Down After 10 Years of Sham Operations | true | http://thegoldwater.com/news/659-Accra-Cadabra-Fake-U-S-Embassy-In-Ghana-Shut-Down-After-10-Years-of-Sham-Operations | 2016-12-04 | 0right
| "Accra-Cadabra": Fake U.S. Embassy In Ghana Shut Down After 10 Years of Sham Operations
<p />
<p>It is not perfectly clear how exactly they pulled it off undetected for so long but a fake U.S. embassy in Ghana did the unthinkable and operated the sham for about ten years.</p>
<p />
<p>The U.S. Department of State revealed in a statement that the fake embassy was operated by organized Ghanian and Turkish criminals in collaboration with a Ghanian lawyer specializing in immigration and criminal law. The main ' service' offered by the sham embassy is issuance of visas that of course turned out to be counterfeit but cost as much as $6,000.</p>
<p />
<p>The bizarre business operated for almost a decade in a property at capital Accra where oddly enough the real U.S. embassy is also located.</p>
<p />
<p>To make the office appear legitimate, the fake embassy flew the American flag three times a week and even hung a photo of President Barack Obama inside.</p>
<p />
<p>Aside from the visas, the sham office also issued fake bank records, education records and birth certificates issued by " consular officers" who happen to be English and Dutch-speaking Turkish citizens.</p>
<p />
<p>The bogus enterprise lasted that long because the operators connived with corrupt officials that gave them access to official blank documents which they then</p>
<p>"Fabricated". So shrewd were the operators that they even made use of two satellite offices including a dress shop which also served as front for the operation and used as base for document production.</p>
<p />
<p>The business proliferated because it was also widely advertised with flyers and billboards in Ghana, Cote d' Iviore and Togo. There were customers coming as far as the most remote areas in West Africa where they were driven to Accra, put up in hotels to avail of the services of the fake embassy.</p>
<p />
<p>It was during a wider trafficking and fraud investigation that diplomatic security agents at the U.S. embassy in Ghana were tipped off about the fake embassy. An international task force composed of various Ghana police forces and officials from the Canada embassy helped the U.S. embassy and conducted the raids resulting into several arrests. Counterfeit passports, visas and IDs from various countries and nationalities, along with gadgets, were seized by the authorities from the sham office.</p>
<p />
<p>Further investigations into the Turkish organized ring are ongoing while several suspects are still at large. The Interpol and Bureau of Consular Affairs have been contacted for possible assistance on the investigations and manhunt for the remaining suspects.</p> | 3,287 |
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<p>SANTA FE, N.M. — David Roth, 19, a student at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design has been arrested and charged with indecently exposing himself to a 20-year-old female student at the same school, Santa Fe police said in a news release.</p>
<p>Roth exposed himself to the woman in a bathroom on the campus on Thursday morning, October 2, police said. The victim contacted campus security who then contacted Santa Fe Police.</p>
<p>According to the release, the suspect was identified a few days later and arrested Thursday, October 9, without incident.</p>
<p>“Police have offered resources to the victim and will work with the campus security and staff to ensure safety.&#160; Investigators believe this is an isolated incident,” the news release states.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Indecent exposure arrest at Santa Fe school | false | https://abqjournal.com/477967/indecent-exposure-arrest-at-santa-fe-school.html | 2least
| Indecent exposure arrest at Santa Fe school
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>SANTA FE, N.M. — David Roth, 19, a student at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design has been arrested and charged with indecently exposing himself to a 20-year-old female student at the same school, Santa Fe police said in a news release.</p>
<p>Roth exposed himself to the woman in a bathroom on the campus on Thursday morning, October 2, police said. The victim contacted campus security who then contacted Santa Fe Police.</p>
<p>According to the release, the suspect was identified a few days later and arrested Thursday, October 9, without incident.</p>
<p>“Police have offered resources to the victim and will work with the campus security and staff to ensure safety.&#160; Investigators believe this is an isolated incident,” the news release states.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | 3,288 |
|
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>The California gubernatorial contest has taken another early turn toward <a href="" type="internal">the weird</a> with the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo7HiQRM7BA" type="external">best political attack ad ever</a>: A three-minute stream of consciousness pastiche from former HP CEO Carly Fiorina that features footage of sheep, something about “fiscal conservatives in name only,” more sheep, B-roll of random stuff, and OMIGOD DEMON&#160;SHEEP! As one YouTube commenter <a href="http://www.youtube.com/comment_servlet?all_comments&amp;v=yo7HiQRM7BA&amp;fromurl=/watch%3Fv%3Dyo7HiQRM7BA%26feature%3Dplayer_embedded" type="external">puts it</a>, “It’s like a first year film student project gone terribly wrong. LOL—for days.” Of course, there’s already a Twitter hashtag ( <a href="http://twitter.com/search?q=%23demonsheep" type="external">#demonsheep</a>). Can a mashup website, à la <a href="http://keepingitrealwithmichaelsteele.com/" type="external">Keepin’ it Real With Michael Steele</a> or the defunct <a href="http://gawker.com/5339674/at-long-last-the-squirrelizer-has-arrived" type="external">Squirrelizer</a>, be far behind?</p>
<p>Update: Asked how the ad was made, Fiorina’s deputy campaign manager for communications Julie Soderlund says that, <a href="http://wonkette.com/413515/so-how-much-did-this-cost" type="external">contrary to speculation</a>, the sheep scenes were <a href="http://wonkette.com/413515/so-how-much-did-this-cost" type="external">not shot exclusively for the spot</a> but were “really old footage” that ad’s creative team had “in the archives.” The ad was produced not by a film student but <a href="http://www.strategicperceptioninc.com/fred.php" type="external">Fred Davis</a>, a veteran GOP&#160;adman who made the McCain campaign’s <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHXYsw_ZDXg" type="external">“Celebrity” ad</a>, which compared Barack Obama to Paris Hilton. Presumably the satantic sheep analogy didn’t feel right for that one.</p>
<p>This post has been updated.</p>
<p /> | Carly Fiorina’s Demon Sheep | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2010/02/carly-fiorinas-demon-sheep/ | 2010-02-04 | 4left
| Carly Fiorina’s Demon Sheep
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>The California gubernatorial contest has taken another early turn toward <a href="" type="internal">the weird</a> with the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo7HiQRM7BA" type="external">best political attack ad ever</a>: A three-minute stream of consciousness pastiche from former HP CEO Carly Fiorina that features footage of sheep, something about “fiscal conservatives in name only,” more sheep, B-roll of random stuff, and OMIGOD DEMON&#160;SHEEP! As one YouTube commenter <a href="http://www.youtube.com/comment_servlet?all_comments&amp;v=yo7HiQRM7BA&amp;fromurl=/watch%3Fv%3Dyo7HiQRM7BA%26feature%3Dplayer_embedded" type="external">puts it</a>, “It’s like a first year film student project gone terribly wrong. LOL—for days.” Of course, there’s already a Twitter hashtag ( <a href="http://twitter.com/search?q=%23demonsheep" type="external">#demonsheep</a>). Can a mashup website, à la <a href="http://keepingitrealwithmichaelsteele.com/" type="external">Keepin’ it Real With Michael Steele</a> or the defunct <a href="http://gawker.com/5339674/at-long-last-the-squirrelizer-has-arrived" type="external">Squirrelizer</a>, be far behind?</p>
<p>Update: Asked how the ad was made, Fiorina’s deputy campaign manager for communications Julie Soderlund says that, <a href="http://wonkette.com/413515/so-how-much-did-this-cost" type="external">contrary to speculation</a>, the sheep scenes were <a href="http://wonkette.com/413515/so-how-much-did-this-cost" type="external">not shot exclusively for the spot</a> but were “really old footage” that ad’s creative team had “in the archives.” The ad was produced not by a film student but <a href="http://www.strategicperceptioninc.com/fred.php" type="external">Fred Davis</a>, a veteran GOP&#160;adman who made the McCain campaign’s <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHXYsw_ZDXg" type="external">“Celebrity” ad</a>, which compared Barack Obama to Paris Hilton. Presumably the satantic sheep analogy didn’t feel right for that one.</p>
<p>This post has been updated.</p>
<p /> | 3,289 |
<p />
<p />
<p>While the news and most of the people trying to keep up with it were consumed with discussion of Presidential tweets and NFL protests the NDAA 2018 passed very quietly. Starting a war without congressional authorization has never been too insurmountable a trick to attempt. It was the middle of last week that the war powers that have allowed us to begin <a href="http://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/351201-one-congressional-war-authorization-shouldnt-last-for-decades" type="external">wars in 14 countries</a> were expanded through the latest NDAA authorization.</p>
<p>The National Defense Authorization Act, of course, is the draconian and unconstitutional replacement for the Patriot Act that not only stripped rights from citizens but expanded the abilities of our security state to commit drone murder and surveil foreign citizens extrajudicially without warrant or cause. <a href="https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/Section411.html" type="external">The Patriot Act itself weakened Habeas Corpus.</a> "Bring me the body" meaning the accused is endowed with the right to see the body of evidence and of what crime one is being held. This has been de riguer for all Western nations for years, originating as far back as the Magna Carta.</p>
<p>With no fanfare, despite murmurings of worry for months regarding the President's current access to war powers, NDAA passed. Rand Paul is already arguing for a repeal. He has my best wishes for the best of luck and any help I could avail him of. For what it's worth. And that's the sad thing really?</p>
<p />
<p>Press Sec. Sanders: "We've not declared war on North Korea. Frankly, the suggestion of that is absurd." <a href="https://t.co/tgItG8k9xu" type="external">https://t.co/tgItG8k9xu</a> <a href="https://t.co/DouTKPtZQU" type="external">pic.twitter.com/DouTKPtZQU</a></p>
<p />
<p />
<p>That's why <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/us-news/1.814210" type="external">today's events</a> stuck out to me though. We have not declared war on North Korea. And tweets do not equal declaration of war. Are they flaunting the knowledge or testing who is keeping up? I really want to know. Technically at this point with the expanded war powers the President could basically start a war from his smartphone without the aid of any other elected representatives.</p>
<p />
<p>Side note, only $2 billion more for VA. Active duty will only receive 2.1% pay raise, despite $700 billion NDAA budget for 2018.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Meanwhile, $700 Billion dollars will go to Northrop-Grumman, Boeing, Raytheon and the other big defense firms. I don't know where our government plans to find that money. It seems the sofa cushions have already been fully ransacked since the housing and bad debt busts of recent years. Oh wait, I know what they're thinking. "China will cover it." But yeah, how about those tweets and cleats.</p> | NDAA, North Korea, and Declaring War from a Smartphone | true | http://thegoldwater.com/news/8693-NDAA-North-Korea-and-Declaring-War-from-a-Smartphone | 2017-09-26 | 0right
| NDAA, North Korea, and Declaring War from a Smartphone
<p />
<p />
<p>While the news and most of the people trying to keep up with it were consumed with discussion of Presidential tweets and NFL protests the NDAA 2018 passed very quietly. Starting a war without congressional authorization has never been too insurmountable a trick to attempt. It was the middle of last week that the war powers that have allowed us to begin <a href="http://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/351201-one-congressional-war-authorization-shouldnt-last-for-decades" type="external">wars in 14 countries</a> were expanded through the latest NDAA authorization.</p>
<p>The National Defense Authorization Act, of course, is the draconian and unconstitutional replacement for the Patriot Act that not only stripped rights from citizens but expanded the abilities of our security state to commit drone murder and surveil foreign citizens extrajudicially without warrant or cause. <a href="https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/Section411.html" type="external">The Patriot Act itself weakened Habeas Corpus.</a> "Bring me the body" meaning the accused is endowed with the right to see the body of evidence and of what crime one is being held. This has been de riguer for all Western nations for years, originating as far back as the Magna Carta.</p>
<p>With no fanfare, despite murmurings of worry for months regarding the President's current access to war powers, NDAA passed. Rand Paul is already arguing for a repeal. He has my best wishes for the best of luck and any help I could avail him of. For what it's worth. And that's the sad thing really?</p>
<p />
<p>Press Sec. Sanders: "We've not declared war on North Korea. Frankly, the suggestion of that is absurd." <a href="https://t.co/tgItG8k9xu" type="external">https://t.co/tgItG8k9xu</a> <a href="https://t.co/DouTKPtZQU" type="external">pic.twitter.com/DouTKPtZQU</a></p>
<p />
<p />
<p>That's why <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/us-news/1.814210" type="external">today's events</a> stuck out to me though. We have not declared war on North Korea. And tweets do not equal declaration of war. Are they flaunting the knowledge or testing who is keeping up? I really want to know. Technically at this point with the expanded war powers the President could basically start a war from his smartphone without the aid of any other elected representatives.</p>
<p />
<p>Side note, only $2 billion more for VA. Active duty will only receive 2.1% pay raise, despite $700 billion NDAA budget for 2018.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Meanwhile, $700 Billion dollars will go to Northrop-Grumman, Boeing, Raytheon and the other big defense firms. I don't know where our government plans to find that money. It seems the sofa cushions have already been fully ransacked since the housing and bad debt busts of recent years. Oh wait, I know what they're thinking. "China will cover it." But yeah, how about those tweets and cleats.</p> | 3,290 |
<p>Romenesko Letters People like Tim Graham, David Brock and others in the bias-spotting industry have made news outlets afraid of being labeled as biased, says Dan Mitchell. "Our giving in to this fear has turned much of what we produce into sanitized mush," he writes. "There are stories buried in this mush, but the essential truth they are trying to convey often cannot be discerned. It must be 'balanced' with something. Sometimes, with an outright lie." MITCHELL'S TIP: "Rather than trusting the complaints of the bias industry, we should try trusting our readers. Then maybe they'd begin to trust us." &gt; <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2005/07/22/DI2005072201204.html" type="external">Neal: "I know it's the in thing to beat up on journalists now" (WP)</a></p> | How the bias-spotting industry has turned news into mush | false | https://poynter.org/news/how-bias-spotting-industry-has-turned-news-mush | 2005-07-29 | 2least
| How the bias-spotting industry has turned news into mush
<p>Romenesko Letters People like Tim Graham, David Brock and others in the bias-spotting industry have made news outlets afraid of being labeled as biased, says Dan Mitchell. "Our giving in to this fear has turned much of what we produce into sanitized mush," he writes. "There are stories buried in this mush, but the essential truth they are trying to convey often cannot be discerned. It must be 'balanced' with something. Sometimes, with an outright lie." MITCHELL'S TIP: "Rather than trusting the complaints of the bias industry, we should try trusting our readers. Then maybe they'd begin to trust us." &gt; <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2005/07/22/DI2005072201204.html" type="external">Neal: "I know it's the in thing to beat up on journalists now" (WP)</a></p> | 3,291 |
<p>By Paul Kiel / ProPublica and Chris Arnold / NPR</p>
<p>Shutterstock</p>
<p>This piece originally ran on <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/nonprofit-hospital-stops-suing-so-many-poor-patients-will-others-follow" type="external">ProPublica</a>.</p>
<p>For years, Heartland Regional Medical Center, a nonprofit hospital in the small city of St. Joseph, Missouri, had quietly sued thousands of its low-income patients over their unpaid bills.</p>
<p />
<p>But after <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/how-nonprofit-hospitals-are-seizing-patients-wages/" type="external">an investigation by ProPublica and NPR</a> prompted further scrutiny by Sen. Charles Grassley, the hospital overhauled its financial assistance policy late last year and forgave the debts of thousands of former patients.</p>
<p>The hospital “deserves credit for doing the right thing after its practices were scrutinized,” Grassley, R-Iowa, <a href="https://www.propublica.org/documents/item/2843205-Chuck-Grassley-Letter-about-Investigation-of-Non.html" type="external">wrote last week in a letter to his Senate colleagues</a>, “but it should not take Congressional and press attention to ensure that tax-exempt, charitable organizations are focused on their mission of helping those in need.”</p>
<p>While the changes at Heartland, which now goes by Mosaic Life Care, are a boon to its poorest patients, ProPublica has found numerous cases across the country of nonprofit hospitals, which pay no income tax, filing suits by the thousands.</p>
<p>Some have filed more suits than Mosaic ever did. In Evansville, Indiana, for example, Deaconess Hospital filed more than 20,000 lawsuits from 2010 through 2015. Like Mosaic, Deaconess reconsidered its financial assistance policies after questions from ProPublica last week and said it would be making changes.</p>
<p>Grassley, in a floor speech announcing the results of his investigation, said litigious nonprofits should take it upon themselves to change their ways. “Let me be clear, nonprofit hospitals should not be in the business of aggressively suing their patients,” he said. “In essence, because of the favorable tax treatment these hospitals receive, they have a duty to help our nation’s most vulnerable.”</p>
<p>As part of Mosaic’s revamped policies, it instituted a “medical debt grace period” late last year. Typically patients who have been sued by the hospital are no longer eligible for financial assistance. But during the grace period, former patients with outstanding debts were allowed to be evaluated for assistance.</p>
<p>The program resulted in 3,342 people receiving a total of $17 million in debt relief, Mosaic said. The largest bill was $225,000, though the average was a more modest $5,000.</p>
<p>Despite those numbers, patients featured in our 2014 story had a mixed experience trying to get their bills resolved.</p>
<p>After Mosaic secured two court judgments against Keith Herie, a 53-year-old drill operator, it seized about $20,000 from his wages over the course of eight years. But Herie still owed the hospital more than $26,000 when we published our story, partly due to interest on the debt. During the grace period, Mosaic determined that Herie’s income was too high for his debt to be completely forgiven, but offered to settle it for $8,300. He accepted, paying it with the proceeds from a worker’s compensation settlement he received.</p>
<p>“It feels awesome to be able to close the books on it permanently,” he said.</p>
<p>The story was different for Keith Berry, who is on disability, and his wife Tammy, who works at the fast food chain Taco John’s. As we reported back in 2014, Tammy Berry earned just above $8 an hour, but the couple was faced with bills exceeding $11,000.</p>
<p>The couple has yet to find financial relief, although they appear to qualify for free care. In fact, during the grace period, the hospital seized a portion of Tammy Berry’s pay, although she earns barely enough to be garnished under state law. Three months of garnishments extracted only about $300.</p>
<p>In December, ProPublica contacted Keith Berry to see if he had heard of Mosaic’s forgiveness program. He had not, but said he would contact the hospital. In January, Berry told ProPublica that when he had called, he’d been told that he didn’t qualify for help because the bill was “too old.”</p>
<p>“They didn’t seem to want to deal with me,” he said.</p>
<p>In a statement, Mosaic said that it publicized the grace period by advertising on TV, on the radio, and in the newspaper, as well as sending about 100,000 postcards to households in the area, including the Berrys’. Mosaic said it had also attempted to call both Keith and Tammy Berry with no success. Additionally, the hospital had no record of Keith Berry inquiring about financial assistance, the statement said. Meanwhile, Tammy Berry’s paycheck is currently being garnished.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.newspressnow.com/special_reports/top_10_stories/article_56ce43b8-f702-5d64-86c1-ebacaa7a9979.html" type="external">remarks late last year to the St. Joseph News-Press</a>, the hospital’s president and CEO Dr. Mark Laney said the primary lesson the hospital learned from the scrutiny of its collection practices was to be more “proactive” in identifying patients who qualified for aid. “We were doing the medically right thing for the person, but on the financial responsibility part, we were doing the wrong thing,” he said.</p>
<p>Not being “proactive” is a widespread problem for hospitals, according to <a href="http://ihpi.umich.edu/news/are-hospitals-telling-patients-about-charity-care-options-new-study-finds-room-improvement-0" type="external">a national study of hospitals</a> by the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation last year. The institute found that fewer than half of the 1,800 hospitals they studied were notifying patients about their financial assistance policy before attempting to collect unpaid bills.</p>
<p>“It’s an important problem,” said IHPI director Dr. John Z. Ayanian. “Now we need a stronger system of oversight and monitoring to see how well [hospitals] are implementing those policies.”</p>
<p>This year, <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/for-nonprofit-hospitals-who-sue-patients-new-rules/" type="external">new federal rules went into effect</a> that set clearer guidelines for nonprofit hospitals on the steps they should take before suing a patient for failing to pay a bill. But a “big question” remains, said Chi Chi Wu, an attorney with the National Consumer Law Center: Who will enforce the rules?</p>
<p>The IRS is understaffed, <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/for-nonprofit-hospitals-who-sue-patients-new-rules/" type="external">experts say</a>, and doesn’t have a history of aggressive enforcement. The Mosaic case “demonstrates that noncompliance is a distinct possibility unless someone holds the hospital’s feet to the fire,” said Wu.</p>
<p>ProPublica has found nonprofit hospitals filing thousands of suits in several states, from Kansas to Alabama to New Jersey. Last April, ProPublica reported on <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/for-nebraskas-poor-get-sick-and-get-sued/" type="external">the extremely high volume of suits over medical debt in Nebraska</a>, and many of the suits stemmed from hospital bills.</p>
<p>Even as it files as many as 4,000 suits every year, Deaconess Hospital has — on paper — a somewhat generous financial assistance policy. Those with income below the federal poverty line are eligible for free care and those with income below three times the poverty line are eligible for reductions in their bills. But there’s evidence that, as occurred with Mosaic, suits are nevertheless being filed against low-income patients.</p>
<p>Katherine Rybak of Indiana Legal Services said she has often seen low-income clients who clearly qualified for assistance under the hospital’s policy that didn’t know about it and had been sued anyway. She said, however, that the hospital often was cooperative in resolving these situations for her clients once she got involved.</p>
<p>The hospital’s aggressiveness has come despite its very robust finances. In 2015, the last publicly available report, the hospital disclosed a profit of $150 million. The hospital’s CEO Linda White was paid $1.74 million.</p>
<p>In a response to questions from ProPublica, the hospital said in a statement that it made a “proactive” effort to “work with patients to ensure that financial options are explored from the beginning.”</p>
<p>But, it wrote, “we will enhance our processes to further benefit our patients by offering financial assistance through the life of the account” including after a patient has been sued.</p>
<p>And, in response to questions about its financial assistance policy, which is less generous than the other large nonprofit hospital in Evansville, St. Mary’s, Deaconess said it would be changing that as well, allowing those with incomes at twice the poverty line to receive free care.</p>
<p>The hospital said the timing of these changes was prompted by ProPublica’s questions, but that a review of its policies had already been underway.</p>
<p>ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for their <a href="http://www.propublica.org/forms/newsletter_daily_email" type="external">newsletter</a>.</p>
<p /> | Nonprofit Hospital Stops Suing So Many Poor Patients: Will Others Follow? | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/nonprofit-hospital-stops-suing-so-many-poor-patients-will-others-follow/ | 2016-06-02 | 4left
| Nonprofit Hospital Stops Suing So Many Poor Patients: Will Others Follow?
<p>By Paul Kiel / ProPublica and Chris Arnold / NPR</p>
<p>Shutterstock</p>
<p>This piece originally ran on <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/nonprofit-hospital-stops-suing-so-many-poor-patients-will-others-follow" type="external">ProPublica</a>.</p>
<p>For years, Heartland Regional Medical Center, a nonprofit hospital in the small city of St. Joseph, Missouri, had quietly sued thousands of its low-income patients over their unpaid bills.</p>
<p />
<p>But after <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/how-nonprofit-hospitals-are-seizing-patients-wages/" type="external">an investigation by ProPublica and NPR</a> prompted further scrutiny by Sen. Charles Grassley, the hospital overhauled its financial assistance policy late last year and forgave the debts of thousands of former patients.</p>
<p>The hospital “deserves credit for doing the right thing after its practices were scrutinized,” Grassley, R-Iowa, <a href="https://www.propublica.org/documents/item/2843205-Chuck-Grassley-Letter-about-Investigation-of-Non.html" type="external">wrote last week in a letter to his Senate colleagues</a>, “but it should not take Congressional and press attention to ensure that tax-exempt, charitable organizations are focused on their mission of helping those in need.”</p>
<p>While the changes at Heartland, which now goes by Mosaic Life Care, are a boon to its poorest patients, ProPublica has found numerous cases across the country of nonprofit hospitals, which pay no income tax, filing suits by the thousands.</p>
<p>Some have filed more suits than Mosaic ever did. In Evansville, Indiana, for example, Deaconess Hospital filed more than 20,000 lawsuits from 2010 through 2015. Like Mosaic, Deaconess reconsidered its financial assistance policies after questions from ProPublica last week and said it would be making changes.</p>
<p>Grassley, in a floor speech announcing the results of his investigation, said litigious nonprofits should take it upon themselves to change their ways. “Let me be clear, nonprofit hospitals should not be in the business of aggressively suing their patients,” he said. “In essence, because of the favorable tax treatment these hospitals receive, they have a duty to help our nation’s most vulnerable.”</p>
<p>As part of Mosaic’s revamped policies, it instituted a “medical debt grace period” late last year. Typically patients who have been sued by the hospital are no longer eligible for financial assistance. But during the grace period, former patients with outstanding debts were allowed to be evaluated for assistance.</p>
<p>The program resulted in 3,342 people receiving a total of $17 million in debt relief, Mosaic said. The largest bill was $225,000, though the average was a more modest $5,000.</p>
<p>Despite those numbers, patients featured in our 2014 story had a mixed experience trying to get their bills resolved.</p>
<p>After Mosaic secured two court judgments against Keith Herie, a 53-year-old drill operator, it seized about $20,000 from his wages over the course of eight years. But Herie still owed the hospital more than $26,000 when we published our story, partly due to interest on the debt. During the grace period, Mosaic determined that Herie’s income was too high for his debt to be completely forgiven, but offered to settle it for $8,300. He accepted, paying it with the proceeds from a worker’s compensation settlement he received.</p>
<p>“It feels awesome to be able to close the books on it permanently,” he said.</p>
<p>The story was different for Keith Berry, who is on disability, and his wife Tammy, who works at the fast food chain Taco John’s. As we reported back in 2014, Tammy Berry earned just above $8 an hour, but the couple was faced with bills exceeding $11,000.</p>
<p>The couple has yet to find financial relief, although they appear to qualify for free care. In fact, during the grace period, the hospital seized a portion of Tammy Berry’s pay, although she earns barely enough to be garnished under state law. Three months of garnishments extracted only about $300.</p>
<p>In December, ProPublica contacted Keith Berry to see if he had heard of Mosaic’s forgiveness program. He had not, but said he would contact the hospital. In January, Berry told ProPublica that when he had called, he’d been told that he didn’t qualify for help because the bill was “too old.”</p>
<p>“They didn’t seem to want to deal with me,” he said.</p>
<p>In a statement, Mosaic said that it publicized the grace period by advertising on TV, on the radio, and in the newspaper, as well as sending about 100,000 postcards to households in the area, including the Berrys’. Mosaic said it had also attempted to call both Keith and Tammy Berry with no success. Additionally, the hospital had no record of Keith Berry inquiring about financial assistance, the statement said. Meanwhile, Tammy Berry’s paycheck is currently being garnished.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.newspressnow.com/special_reports/top_10_stories/article_56ce43b8-f702-5d64-86c1-ebacaa7a9979.html" type="external">remarks late last year to the St. Joseph News-Press</a>, the hospital’s president and CEO Dr. Mark Laney said the primary lesson the hospital learned from the scrutiny of its collection practices was to be more “proactive” in identifying patients who qualified for aid. “We were doing the medically right thing for the person, but on the financial responsibility part, we were doing the wrong thing,” he said.</p>
<p>Not being “proactive” is a widespread problem for hospitals, according to <a href="http://ihpi.umich.edu/news/are-hospitals-telling-patients-about-charity-care-options-new-study-finds-room-improvement-0" type="external">a national study of hospitals</a> by the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation last year. The institute found that fewer than half of the 1,800 hospitals they studied were notifying patients about their financial assistance policy before attempting to collect unpaid bills.</p>
<p>“It’s an important problem,” said IHPI director Dr. John Z. Ayanian. “Now we need a stronger system of oversight and monitoring to see how well [hospitals] are implementing those policies.”</p>
<p>This year, <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/for-nonprofit-hospitals-who-sue-patients-new-rules/" type="external">new federal rules went into effect</a> that set clearer guidelines for nonprofit hospitals on the steps they should take before suing a patient for failing to pay a bill. But a “big question” remains, said Chi Chi Wu, an attorney with the National Consumer Law Center: Who will enforce the rules?</p>
<p>The IRS is understaffed, <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/for-nonprofit-hospitals-who-sue-patients-new-rules/" type="external">experts say</a>, and doesn’t have a history of aggressive enforcement. The Mosaic case “demonstrates that noncompliance is a distinct possibility unless someone holds the hospital’s feet to the fire,” said Wu.</p>
<p>ProPublica has found nonprofit hospitals filing thousands of suits in several states, from Kansas to Alabama to New Jersey. Last April, ProPublica reported on <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/for-nebraskas-poor-get-sick-and-get-sued/" type="external">the extremely high volume of suits over medical debt in Nebraska</a>, and many of the suits stemmed from hospital bills.</p>
<p>Even as it files as many as 4,000 suits every year, Deaconess Hospital has — on paper — a somewhat generous financial assistance policy. Those with income below the federal poverty line are eligible for free care and those with income below three times the poverty line are eligible for reductions in their bills. But there’s evidence that, as occurred with Mosaic, suits are nevertheless being filed against low-income patients.</p>
<p>Katherine Rybak of Indiana Legal Services said she has often seen low-income clients who clearly qualified for assistance under the hospital’s policy that didn’t know about it and had been sued anyway. She said, however, that the hospital often was cooperative in resolving these situations for her clients once she got involved.</p>
<p>The hospital’s aggressiveness has come despite its very robust finances. In 2015, the last publicly available report, the hospital disclosed a profit of $150 million. The hospital’s CEO Linda White was paid $1.74 million.</p>
<p>In a response to questions from ProPublica, the hospital said in a statement that it made a “proactive” effort to “work with patients to ensure that financial options are explored from the beginning.”</p>
<p>But, it wrote, “we will enhance our processes to further benefit our patients by offering financial assistance through the life of the account” including after a patient has been sued.</p>
<p>And, in response to questions about its financial assistance policy, which is less generous than the other large nonprofit hospital in Evansville, St. Mary’s, Deaconess said it would be changing that as well, allowing those with incomes at twice the poverty line to receive free care.</p>
<p>The hospital said the timing of these changes was prompted by ProPublica’s questions, but that a review of its policies had already been underway.</p>
<p>ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for their <a href="http://www.propublica.org/forms/newsletter_daily_email" type="external">newsletter</a>.</p>
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<p>Stocks are back at record highs as the market posts its fourth gain in a row.</p>
<p>The Dow Jones industrial average rose 154 points, or 0.9 percent, to 17,959 Monday, narrowly beating the record high it set two weeks ago by about half a point.</p>
<p>The Standard &amp; Poor’s 500 index rose seven points, or 0.4 percent, to 2,078. It was the 50th closing high for the S&amp;P 500 this year.</p>
<p>The Nasdaq rose sixteen points, or 0.3 percent, to 4,781.</p>
<p>The market is coming off a big advance last week, which gave the S&amp;P 500 its second-biggest weekly gain this year.</p>
<p>Benchmark U.S. crude fell $1.26 to close at $55.26 a barrel in New York.</p>
<p>Bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.16 percent.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Stocks push to record highs, continuing a rally | false | https://abqjournal.com/516164/stocks-push-to-record-highs-continuing-a-rally.html | 2014-12-22 | 2least
| Stocks push to record highs, continuing a rally
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<p>Stocks are back at record highs as the market posts its fourth gain in a row.</p>
<p>The Dow Jones industrial average rose 154 points, or 0.9 percent, to 17,959 Monday, narrowly beating the record high it set two weeks ago by about half a point.</p>
<p>The Standard &amp; Poor’s 500 index rose seven points, or 0.4 percent, to 2,078. It was the 50th closing high for the S&amp;P 500 this year.</p>
<p>The Nasdaq rose sixteen points, or 0.3 percent, to 4,781.</p>
<p>The market is coming off a big advance last week, which gave the S&amp;P 500 its second-biggest weekly gain this year.</p>
<p>Benchmark U.S. crude fell $1.26 to close at $55.26 a barrel in New York.</p>
<p>Bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.16 percent.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | 3,293 |
<p>Ann Coulter, who was so enamored with Donald Trump during the campaign that she authored the book In Trump We Trust, doesn’t trust Trump any more, calling the Trump Administration a “disaster.”</p>
<p>Interviewed by <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2017/05/14/ann-coulter-is-worried-the-trump-haters-were-right/%20A" type="external">The Daily Caller,</a> Coulter was asked whether she still trusted Trump if it is true Barack Obama’s amnestied immigrants are here to stay. She answered, “If he doesn’t keep his promises I’m out. This is why we voted for him. I think everyone who voted for him knew his personality was grotesque, it was the issues.”</p>
<p>Coulter, disenchanted with Trump’s self-proclaimed vaunted skills as a negotiator, snapped, “I hate to say it, but I agree with every line in my friend Frank Bruni’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/opinion/sunday/donald-trump-a-la-mode.html" type="external">op-ed in The New York Times</a> today. Where is the great negotiation? Where is the bull in the china shop we wanted? That budget the Republicans pushed through was like a practical joke… Did we win anything? And this is the great negotiator?”</p>
<p>But then Coulter defended her backing of Trump, referring to him as “our last shot … I still believe in Trumpism. I have no regrets for ferociously supporting him. What choice did we have?”</p>
<p>Coulter doesn’t define what she means by Trumpism, which makes sense given his myriad of positions on many issues.</p>
<p>Coulter mitigates her own position a tad: “My fingers are still crossed. It’s not like I’m out yet, but boy, things don’t look good. I’ve said to other people, “It’s as if we’re in Chicago and Trump tells us he’s going to get us to LA in six days. But for the first three days we are driving towards New York. Yes, it is true he can still turn around and get us to LA in three days, but I’m a little nervous.”</p>
<p>Coulter rips Trump for his dependence on his daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, saying, “Americans don’t like that, I don’t like that. That’s the one fascist thing he’s done. Hiring his kids.”</p>
<p>But then she softens her position again, allowing, “But I understand if you’re in Washington you don’t know who to trust, the party was against you, the politicians were against you, the bureaucracy was against you, and by the way this isn’t to say anything bad about Jared. Everything I know about him, I think he’s doing a great job. But even if he is absolutely the best person for the job, I don’t like the hiring of relatives.”</p>
<p>Coulter buttresses her prior support of Trump, yet tacitly acknowledges that his words, not his actions, meant everything: “I don’t apologize for supporting Trump. He said all the right things and nobody else would even say it.”</p>
<p>Predictably, since she supported Trump, there has to be another villain and she finds one: the GOP members of Congress: “I do, of course, blame Congress most of all. They are swine. They only care about their own careers. Who knows how much of it is corruption and how much of it is pure stupidity? People should start sending Paul Ryan bricks to indicate how much we want the wall. They are the opposition party to Donald Trump. This is really something we’ve never seen before.”</p>
<p>Back to Trump-worship: “The president stands alone, it’s his own political party, he’s Gary Cooper. All we have is millions of Americans behind him, but he doesn’t have anybody in Washington behind him. … We have to keep Trump’s feet to the fire. It’s weird because I really think in his heart he’s a genuine patriot.</p>
<p>Then Coulter continues sadly, “ It’s just that it has been such a disaster so far …” She concludes, “All of the Trump true believers are petrified.”</p>
<p>The operative words for Coulter, given her rhetoric in the interview, would seem to be confused, disappointed, and, to the degree that she will admit it, chagrined that Trump’s own rhetoric led her astray.</p> | WHOA: ‘In Trump We Trust’ Coulter Says So Far, Trump Administration Has Been ‘Such a Disaster’ | true | https://dailywire.com/news/16458/whoa-trust-we-trump-coulter-says-so-far-trump-hank-berrien | 2017-05-15 | 0right
| WHOA: ‘In Trump We Trust’ Coulter Says So Far, Trump Administration Has Been ‘Such a Disaster’
<p>Ann Coulter, who was so enamored with Donald Trump during the campaign that she authored the book In Trump We Trust, doesn’t trust Trump any more, calling the Trump Administration a “disaster.”</p>
<p>Interviewed by <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2017/05/14/ann-coulter-is-worried-the-trump-haters-were-right/%20A" type="external">The Daily Caller,</a> Coulter was asked whether she still trusted Trump if it is true Barack Obama’s amnestied immigrants are here to stay. She answered, “If he doesn’t keep his promises I’m out. This is why we voted for him. I think everyone who voted for him knew his personality was grotesque, it was the issues.”</p>
<p>Coulter, disenchanted with Trump’s self-proclaimed vaunted skills as a negotiator, snapped, “I hate to say it, but I agree with every line in my friend Frank Bruni’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/opinion/sunday/donald-trump-a-la-mode.html" type="external">op-ed in The New York Times</a> today. Where is the great negotiation? Where is the bull in the china shop we wanted? That budget the Republicans pushed through was like a practical joke… Did we win anything? And this is the great negotiator?”</p>
<p>But then Coulter defended her backing of Trump, referring to him as “our last shot … I still believe in Trumpism. I have no regrets for ferociously supporting him. What choice did we have?”</p>
<p>Coulter doesn’t define what she means by Trumpism, which makes sense given his myriad of positions on many issues.</p>
<p>Coulter mitigates her own position a tad: “My fingers are still crossed. It’s not like I’m out yet, but boy, things don’t look good. I’ve said to other people, “It’s as if we’re in Chicago and Trump tells us he’s going to get us to LA in six days. But for the first three days we are driving towards New York. Yes, it is true he can still turn around and get us to LA in three days, but I’m a little nervous.”</p>
<p>Coulter rips Trump for his dependence on his daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, saying, “Americans don’t like that, I don’t like that. That’s the one fascist thing he’s done. Hiring his kids.”</p>
<p>But then she softens her position again, allowing, “But I understand if you’re in Washington you don’t know who to trust, the party was against you, the politicians were against you, the bureaucracy was against you, and by the way this isn’t to say anything bad about Jared. Everything I know about him, I think he’s doing a great job. But even if he is absolutely the best person for the job, I don’t like the hiring of relatives.”</p>
<p>Coulter buttresses her prior support of Trump, yet tacitly acknowledges that his words, not his actions, meant everything: “I don’t apologize for supporting Trump. He said all the right things and nobody else would even say it.”</p>
<p>Predictably, since she supported Trump, there has to be another villain and she finds one: the GOP members of Congress: “I do, of course, blame Congress most of all. They are swine. They only care about their own careers. Who knows how much of it is corruption and how much of it is pure stupidity? People should start sending Paul Ryan bricks to indicate how much we want the wall. They are the opposition party to Donald Trump. This is really something we’ve never seen before.”</p>
<p>Back to Trump-worship: “The president stands alone, it’s his own political party, he’s Gary Cooper. All we have is millions of Americans behind him, but he doesn’t have anybody in Washington behind him. … We have to keep Trump’s feet to the fire. It’s weird because I really think in his heart he’s a genuine patriot.</p>
<p>Then Coulter continues sadly, “ It’s just that it has been such a disaster so far …” She concludes, “All of the Trump true believers are petrified.”</p>
<p>The operative words for Coulter, given her rhetoric in the interview, would seem to be confused, disappointed, and, to the degree that she will admit it, chagrined that Trump’s own rhetoric led her astray.</p> | 3,294 |
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<p />
<p>Since its launch in 2007, the Berlin-based online music service has allowed pretty much any audio to be uploaded to its cloud - from Kanye West outtakes to teenagers singing over canned music. It has slowly introduced tools to earn revenue, introducing paid services for artists in 2008 and ad revenue sharing for invited musicians in 2014.</p>
<p>But after signing deals with major labels, including holdout Sony Music this month, Soundcloud is adding a subscription plan for consumers, giving them ad-free listening and a whole range of music from mainstream artists that had shunned the service because it only gave tracks away for free, including top acts like Taylor Swift.</p>
<p>Soundcloud, privately held and with tech investors like Union Square Ventures and Kleiner Perkins, will have a staggering 125 million tracks available when the paid tier, Soundcloud Go, launches Tuesday. That's about four times other paid services.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The fast-growing field of paid music subscription services is already crowded, led by companies like Spotify, with 30 million paying subscribers, and Apple, which jumped to 10 million after launching last year.</p>
<p>Soundcloud hopes to distinguish itself with its massive variety and huge audience of 175 million monthly listeners.</p>
<p>"We're at the very early days of streaming," said Eric Wahlforss, the co-founder and chief technology officer, in an interview. "The pie is going to be very large over time."</p>
<p>Soundcloud Go will cost $10 a month and offer ad-free offline playback on mobile devices. It'll also allow artists to choose whether to give away tracks for free or reserve them for paying customers - an option not allowed by Spotify, which depends on having quality free music to draw in prospective paying customers.</p>
<p>Wahlforss said a key selling point for consumers is the many tracks on Soundcloud you won't find elsewhere.</p>
<p>"You're going to be able to listen to a Rihanna next to an emerging artist, next to a DJ set, next to a mashup in the same playlist," said Wahlforss. "It's new for us, it's new for the world."</p>
<p>For example, on Soundcloud you can find gems like a John Legend's cover of the Adele hit, "Rolling in the Deep." Or a 4-minute version of "30 Hours," a shortened take of one of the songs from Kanye West's latest album, "The Life of Pablo." The album version is exclusively streaming on competing music service Tidal.</p>
<p>Soundcloud's reputation for hosting music that is off the beaten path is what drew DJ Kaskade to the platform. Without saying whether he'll put music behind the pay wall, Kaskade's label owner Stephanie LaFera said it has long been a place for the DJ to connect with fans looking to dig deeper than a standard release.</p>
<p>"We feel like we're speaking to an audience that's already with us, fans that are open to experimentation, sub-genres and all the quirks that come with the world of electronic music," she said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow AP Business Writer Ryan Nakashima at https://twitter.com/rnakashi . His work can be found at <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/content/ryan-nakashima" type="external">http://bigstory.ap.org/content/ryan-nakashima</a></p> | Soundcloud expands into mainstream with paid streaming plan | false | https://abqjournal.com/747848/soundcloud-expands-into-mainstream-with-paid-streaming-plan.html | 2least
| Soundcloud expands into mainstream with paid streaming plan
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<p />
<p>Since its launch in 2007, the Berlin-based online music service has allowed pretty much any audio to be uploaded to its cloud - from Kanye West outtakes to teenagers singing over canned music. It has slowly introduced tools to earn revenue, introducing paid services for artists in 2008 and ad revenue sharing for invited musicians in 2014.</p>
<p>But after signing deals with major labels, including holdout Sony Music this month, Soundcloud is adding a subscription plan for consumers, giving them ad-free listening and a whole range of music from mainstream artists that had shunned the service because it only gave tracks away for free, including top acts like Taylor Swift.</p>
<p>Soundcloud, privately held and with tech investors like Union Square Ventures and Kleiner Perkins, will have a staggering 125 million tracks available when the paid tier, Soundcloud Go, launches Tuesday. That's about four times other paid services.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The fast-growing field of paid music subscription services is already crowded, led by companies like Spotify, with 30 million paying subscribers, and Apple, which jumped to 10 million after launching last year.</p>
<p>Soundcloud hopes to distinguish itself with its massive variety and huge audience of 175 million monthly listeners.</p>
<p>"We're at the very early days of streaming," said Eric Wahlforss, the co-founder and chief technology officer, in an interview. "The pie is going to be very large over time."</p>
<p>Soundcloud Go will cost $10 a month and offer ad-free offline playback on mobile devices. It'll also allow artists to choose whether to give away tracks for free or reserve them for paying customers - an option not allowed by Spotify, which depends on having quality free music to draw in prospective paying customers.</p>
<p>Wahlforss said a key selling point for consumers is the many tracks on Soundcloud you won't find elsewhere.</p>
<p>"You're going to be able to listen to a Rihanna next to an emerging artist, next to a DJ set, next to a mashup in the same playlist," said Wahlforss. "It's new for us, it's new for the world."</p>
<p>For example, on Soundcloud you can find gems like a John Legend's cover of the Adele hit, "Rolling in the Deep." Or a 4-minute version of "30 Hours," a shortened take of one of the songs from Kanye West's latest album, "The Life of Pablo." The album version is exclusively streaming on competing music service Tidal.</p>
<p>Soundcloud's reputation for hosting music that is off the beaten path is what drew DJ Kaskade to the platform. Without saying whether he'll put music behind the pay wall, Kaskade's label owner Stephanie LaFera said it has long been a place for the DJ to connect with fans looking to dig deeper than a standard release.</p>
<p>"We feel like we're speaking to an audience that's already with us, fans that are open to experimentation, sub-genres and all the quirks that come with the world of electronic music," she said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow AP Business Writer Ryan Nakashima at https://twitter.com/rnakashi . His work can be found at <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/content/ryan-nakashima" type="external">http://bigstory.ap.org/content/ryan-nakashima</a></p> | 3,295 |
|
<p>CARSON CITY — Bills passed Wednesday by a Senate committee expand membership of the Nevada Veterans Service Commission and set procedures for disposing of memorabilia left at state veteran memorials.</p>
<p>Both measures were approve by the Senate Committee on Government Affairs and now move to the full Senate for consideration.</p>
<p>Senate Bill 58, among other things, broadens the commission to 11 members from nine. The governor appoints three members who are representatives of veteran organizations and two members of the public</p>
<p>Nevada’s governor would appoint two more members, one being a member of the Women Veterans Advisory Committee and one who is pursuing a bachelor’s or higher degree and who was honorably discharged from the military.</p>
<p>The Senate majority leader and speaker of the Assembly appoint one member each, as do the chairs of the Northern and Southern Nevada veteran cemetery advisory committees.</p>
<p>Backers of the bill said it would give women and younger veterans more recognition and status to help shape policies affecting their peers.</p>
<p>Senate Bill 70 sets a process to deal with medals, tiny American flags, photos and other artifacts left at veteran memorials.</p>
<p>Kat Miller, director of the Nevada Department of Veterans Services, said the issue came to light after the state dedicated a memorial in Southern Nevada on Veterans Day last year. Since then, nearly 100 items have been left at the site. Likewise, items are sometimes let at the USS Nevada memorial behind the state Capitol in Carson City. One was an eagle statute with two American flags.</p>
<p>Under the bill, the Department of Veterans Service will work with the Division of Museums and Nevada Historical Society to determine if any of the items have military or historical value, and if so transfer them to appropriate institutions or nonprofits like veterans organizations.</p>
<p>It allows for other less significant items to be destroyed.</p>
<p>The committee was told no items would be destroyed or retired without first being vetted by museum experts and veteran groups.</p>
<p>Contact Sandra Chereb at [email protected] or 775-461-3821. Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/@sandrachereb" type="external">@SandraChereb</a> on Twitter.</p> | Nevada Senate committee passes two veterans-related bills | false | http://reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/nevada/nevada-senate-committee-passes-two-veterans-related-bills/ | 2017-02-08 | 1right-center
| Nevada Senate committee passes two veterans-related bills
<p>CARSON CITY — Bills passed Wednesday by a Senate committee expand membership of the Nevada Veterans Service Commission and set procedures for disposing of memorabilia left at state veteran memorials.</p>
<p>Both measures were approve by the Senate Committee on Government Affairs and now move to the full Senate for consideration.</p>
<p>Senate Bill 58, among other things, broadens the commission to 11 members from nine. The governor appoints three members who are representatives of veteran organizations and two members of the public</p>
<p>Nevada’s governor would appoint two more members, one being a member of the Women Veterans Advisory Committee and one who is pursuing a bachelor’s or higher degree and who was honorably discharged from the military.</p>
<p>The Senate majority leader and speaker of the Assembly appoint one member each, as do the chairs of the Northern and Southern Nevada veteran cemetery advisory committees.</p>
<p>Backers of the bill said it would give women and younger veterans more recognition and status to help shape policies affecting their peers.</p>
<p>Senate Bill 70 sets a process to deal with medals, tiny American flags, photos and other artifacts left at veteran memorials.</p>
<p>Kat Miller, director of the Nevada Department of Veterans Services, said the issue came to light after the state dedicated a memorial in Southern Nevada on Veterans Day last year. Since then, nearly 100 items have been left at the site. Likewise, items are sometimes let at the USS Nevada memorial behind the state Capitol in Carson City. One was an eagle statute with two American flags.</p>
<p>Under the bill, the Department of Veterans Service will work with the Division of Museums and Nevada Historical Society to determine if any of the items have military or historical value, and if so transfer them to appropriate institutions or nonprofits like veterans organizations.</p>
<p>It allows for other less significant items to be destroyed.</p>
<p>The committee was told no items would be destroyed or retired without first being vetted by museum experts and veteran groups.</p>
<p>Contact Sandra Chereb at [email protected] or 775-461-3821. Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/@sandrachereb" type="external">@SandraChereb</a> on Twitter.</p> | 3,296 |
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<p>Spain is taking every possible measure to prevent Catalonians from going to the polls tomorrow.</p>
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<p>Yesterday we heard that school teachers were to be replaced by local mayors to open the schools for tomorrow's referendum, so that the teachers could not be prosecuted afterwards, but if this latest news from Spain rings true, then there might not be a referendum after all.</p>
<p />
<p>Spanish police, who were brought in by the thousands as the orders of the government in Madrid, have started sealing off the polling stations all over Catalonia. So far, 1,300 of the 2,315 schools that were designated as polling station in the region's outlawed independence referendum have been cordoned off.</p>
<p />
<p>The Madrid government's spokesman declared that the people who were still in the schools would be allowed out, but no one would be allowed back in tomorrow.</p>
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<p>In response, Catalonians have started occupying the remaining schools so that the police cannot seal them off as well.</p>
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<p>The news has greatly angered the Catalonian government, but in a first reaction the Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont said that the vote would still go ahead: "Everything is prepared at the more than 2,000 voting points so they have ballot boxes and voting slips, and have everything people need to express their opinion."</p>
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<p>Catalonia is the region with only 16% of the Spanish population but because of its thriving economy, it produces 26% of all Spanish exports and 19% of Spanish GDP. It is far richer than the other regions.</p>
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<p>The referendum is highly contested and could have serious consequences if Catalonians indeed vote for independence. They would then declare themselves as a sovereign state within 48 hours after the result and rip their region out of Spain's grip, leaving them at the same time out of the EU and the Eurozone. According to the latest polls, the vote could go either way.</p>
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<p>Major companies having invested in Catalonia are looking frightful at what is happening. Just yesterday, Google was ordered by a Spanish judge to stop providing information about the referendum which is deemed illegal in Spain.</p>
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<p>Source:</p>
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<p><a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41452174" type="external">bbc.com/news/world-europe-41452174</a></p> | Video: Spanish Police Seal Off Catalonia Polling Stations | true | http://thegoldwater.com/news/8940-Video-Spanish-Police-Seal-Off-Catalonia-Polling-Stations | 2017-09-30 | 0right
| Video: Spanish Police Seal Off Catalonia Polling Stations
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>Spain is taking every possible measure to prevent Catalonians from going to the polls tomorrow.</p>
<p />
<p>Yesterday we heard that school teachers were to be replaced by local mayors to open the schools for tomorrow's referendum, so that the teachers could not be prosecuted afterwards, but if this latest news from Spain rings true, then there might not be a referendum after all.</p>
<p />
<p>Spanish police, who were brought in by the thousands as the orders of the government in Madrid, have started sealing off the polling stations all over Catalonia. So far, 1,300 of the 2,315 schools that were designated as polling station in the region's outlawed independence referendum have been cordoned off.</p>
<p />
<p>The Madrid government's spokesman declared that the people who were still in the schools would be allowed out, but no one would be allowed back in tomorrow.</p>
<p />
<p>In response, Catalonians have started occupying the remaining schools so that the police cannot seal them off as well.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>The news has greatly angered the Catalonian government, but in a first reaction the Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont said that the vote would still go ahead: "Everything is prepared at the more than 2,000 voting points so they have ballot boxes and voting slips, and have everything people need to express their opinion."</p>
<p />
<p>Catalonia is the region with only 16% of the Spanish population but because of its thriving economy, it produces 26% of all Spanish exports and 19% of Spanish GDP. It is far richer than the other regions.</p>
<p />
<p>The referendum is highly contested and could have serious consequences if Catalonians indeed vote for independence. They would then declare themselves as a sovereign state within 48 hours after the result and rip their region out of Spain's grip, leaving them at the same time out of the EU and the Eurozone. According to the latest polls, the vote could go either way.</p>
<p />
<p>Major companies having invested in Catalonia are looking frightful at what is happening. Just yesterday, Google was ordered by a Spanish judge to stop providing information about the referendum which is deemed illegal in Spain.</p>
<p />
<p>Source:</p>
<p />
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41452174" type="external">bbc.com/news/world-europe-41452174</a></p> | 3,297 |
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<p />
<p>The Sunnyvale, California-based company said it had net income of 17 cents per share. Earnings, adjusted for one-time gains and costs, were 20 cents per share.</p>
<p>The results topped Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of 11 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 14 cents per share.</p>
<p>The internet media company posted revenue of $1.31 billion in the period. After subtracting Yahoo’s advertising commissions, revenue was $857.7 million, falling short of Street forecasts. Eight analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $860.9 million.</p>
<p>For the current quarter ending in December, Yahoo said it expects revenue in the range of $880 million to $920 million. Analysts surveyed by Zacks had expected revenue of $938 million.</p>
<p>The company expects full-year revenue in the range of $3.44 billion to $3.48 billion.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Yahoo shares have increased 25 percent since the beginning of the year, while the Standard &amp; Poor’s 500 index has risen roughly 5 percent. In the final minutes of trading on Tuesday, shares hit $41.68, a climb of 24 percent in the last 12 months.</p>
<p>_____</p>
<p>This story was generated by Automated Insights ( <a href="http://automatedinsights.com/ap)" type="external">http://automatedinsights.com/ap)</a> using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on YHOO at <a href="http://www.zacks.com/ap/YHOO" type="external">http://www.zacks.com/ap/YHOO</a></p>
<p>_____</p>
<p>Keywords: Yahoo, Earnings Report, Priority Earnings</p> | Yahoo tops 3Q profit forecasts | false | https://abqjournal.com/869967/yahoo-tops-3q-profit-forecasts.html | 2016-10-18 | 2least
| Yahoo tops 3Q profit forecasts
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>The Sunnyvale, California-based company said it had net income of 17 cents per share. Earnings, adjusted for one-time gains and costs, were 20 cents per share.</p>
<p>The results topped Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of 11 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 14 cents per share.</p>
<p>The internet media company posted revenue of $1.31 billion in the period. After subtracting Yahoo’s advertising commissions, revenue was $857.7 million, falling short of Street forecasts. Eight analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $860.9 million.</p>
<p>For the current quarter ending in December, Yahoo said it expects revenue in the range of $880 million to $920 million. Analysts surveyed by Zacks had expected revenue of $938 million.</p>
<p>The company expects full-year revenue in the range of $3.44 billion to $3.48 billion.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Yahoo shares have increased 25 percent since the beginning of the year, while the Standard &amp; Poor’s 500 index has risen roughly 5 percent. In the final minutes of trading on Tuesday, shares hit $41.68, a climb of 24 percent in the last 12 months.</p>
<p>_____</p>
<p>This story was generated by Automated Insights ( <a href="http://automatedinsights.com/ap)" type="external">http://automatedinsights.com/ap)</a> using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on YHOO at <a href="http://www.zacks.com/ap/YHOO" type="external">http://www.zacks.com/ap/YHOO</a></p>
<p>_____</p>
<p>Keywords: Yahoo, Earnings Report, Priority Earnings</p> | 3,298 |
<p>RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Three teens have been killed in a wreck in North Carolina.</p>
<p>Local media outlets reported the North Carolina Highway Patrol says the wreck happened in Raleigh around 2 a.m. Sunday.</p>
<p>The victims were 18-year-old Erik Avila and two brothers, 19-year-old Carlos Gomez and 17-year-old Juan Gomez. Troopers say Carlos Gomez was driving the car when it collided with an SUV.</p>
<p>A mother and child in the SUV were taken to a Raleigh hospital for injuries that did not appear to be life-threatening. Their names have not been released.</p>
<p>RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Three teens have been killed in a wreck in North Carolina.</p>
<p>Local media outlets reported the North Carolina Highway Patrol says the wreck happened in Raleigh around 2 a.m. Sunday.</p>
<p>The victims were 18-year-old Erik Avila and two brothers, 19-year-old Carlos Gomez and 17-year-old Juan Gomez. Troopers say Carlos Gomez was driving the car when it collided with an SUV.</p>
<p>A mother and child in the SUV were taken to a Raleigh hospital for injuries that did not appear to be life-threatening. Their names have not been released.</p> | 3 killed in North Carolina wreck | false | https://apnews.com/amp/d537f848c76a42a48589d286591ea8f7 | 2018-01-22 | 2least
| 3 killed in North Carolina wreck
<p>RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Three teens have been killed in a wreck in North Carolina.</p>
<p>Local media outlets reported the North Carolina Highway Patrol says the wreck happened in Raleigh around 2 a.m. Sunday.</p>
<p>The victims were 18-year-old Erik Avila and two brothers, 19-year-old Carlos Gomez and 17-year-old Juan Gomez. Troopers say Carlos Gomez was driving the car when it collided with an SUV.</p>
<p>A mother and child in the SUV were taken to a Raleigh hospital for injuries that did not appear to be life-threatening. Their names have not been released.</p>
<p>RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Three teens have been killed in a wreck in North Carolina.</p>
<p>Local media outlets reported the North Carolina Highway Patrol says the wreck happened in Raleigh around 2 a.m. Sunday.</p>
<p>The victims were 18-year-old Erik Avila and two brothers, 19-year-old Carlos Gomez and 17-year-old Juan Gomez. Troopers say Carlos Gomez was driving the car when it collided with an SUV.</p>
<p>A mother and child in the SUV were taken to a Raleigh hospital for injuries that did not appear to be life-threatening. Their names have not been released.</p> | 3,299 |
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