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<p />
<p>I think Alec Baldwin is a kick. I particularly liked him in the movie It’s Complicated and I assume he was paid a handsome sum for his work. As I’m sure he is nicely compensated for his acting on 30 Rock.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Ideally, that’s how it works, right? You hone your craft and then someone pays you for it.</p>
<p>But in the name of all that is holy, I am almost relieved he didn’t get paid a cent to write a recent less-than-100-word – hmmmmm, what to call it – article, post, musing on HuffingtonPost.com called “ <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alec-baldwin/alec-baldwin-30-rock_b_845993.html" type="external">Here’s to Five More Seasons Opens a New Window.</a>.”</p>
<p>“I want to take the opportunity to state that although my days on network TV may be numbered, I hope 30 Rock goes on forever,” Baldwin writes. “Or at least as long as everyone involved desires.”</p>
<p>I have no quarrel with that. More power to Tina Fey and Co. for their cutting edge humor.</p>
<p>What has been stuck in my craw for the better part of this month, however, is the dissing of serious writers since <a href="" type="internal">Arianna Huffington</a> struck a $315 million deal with <a href="" type="internal">AOL</a>. In subsequent commentary, there has been a lot of confusion about why people who were writing/blogging for The <a href="" type="internal">Huffington Post</a> for free would suddenly want to be paid. Um, maybe because when you see in black and white that your work has helped someone make a boatload of money, you figure you’ve volunteered your time and skills long enough? Lots of startups got going with unpaid help and then began compensating employees once they started to turn a profit.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>The writer issue just won’t go away. A recently-leaked e-mail to once-paid Moviefone freelancers in AOL’s Huffington Post Media Group who were being let go by the now-fired Moviefone editor-in-chief said, “You will be invited to contribute as part of our non-paid blogger system; and though I know that for many of you this will not be an option financially, I strongly encourage you to consider it if you’d like to keep writing for us, because we value all of your voices and input.”</p>
<p>The operative word, of course, being “value.” As in, I sure hope you have another marketable skill or at the very least a dog walking opportunity because your clever or melodic turn of phrase and your time mean squat to us.</p>
<p>Nearly a month ago the Newspaper Guild called for a strike against The Huffington Post and the latter’s spokesman, Mario Ruiz, went on record saying, “We are inundated with requests from people who want to blog” for free. Prior to that, staff writer Jason Linkins <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/10/huffington-post-bloggers_n_821446.html" type="external">wrote a mostly helpful piece Opens a New Window.</a> explaining the structure at Huffington and how there are full-time staffers and then those who contribute as bloggers for free.</p>
<p>“Please note, that part of what ‘free’ entitles you to is a freedom from ‘having to work,’” Linkins wrote. “No daily hours, no deadlines, no late nights, no weekends. You just do what you like when the spirit moves you.”</p>
<p>Actually, that might be true for those in the category of, say, Bill Maher, but it leaves out the professional writers who are not free from “having to work” at all. Just because they’re not on the schedule and under the demands a full-time staffer would be doesn’t mean in many cases they’re not grinding out a living and putting in time. Not to mention the fact that those freelancers are also saving his company the hefty cost of benefits and a salary despite still providing content. Is there nothing in between? It’s full-timer or slacker?</p>
<p>There seems to be murkiness in the public consciousness around the distinction between those whose livelihoods are in other fields and are simply seeking an outlet for expression, and those who write professionally. For example, it is no mystery why Alec Baldwin would have no objection to providing content for free or why Bianca Jagger would do so to promote a cause she’s passionate about. When Maher tells Arianna Huffington while she’s a guest on his show that he will continue to post for free, it’s not exactly jarring.</p>
<p>And, of course, Huffington herself is bringing some much-needed change to AOL that is more in line with ethical journalistic standards.</p>
<p>“The ‘AOL Way’ entailed combining business and editorial staff for similar sites in the same operating unit, known as a ‘town,’” writes Jessica E. Vascellaro in The <a href="" type="internal">Wall Street</a> Journal. “Ms. Huffington abandoned the system, and moved ad sales to a different floor, concerned that the department was playing too big a role in generating content ideas.”</p>
<p>Amen.</p>
<p>But getting back to writers, this isn’t just about The Huffington Post or AOL.</p>
<p>For the record, FoxBusiness.com pays me to bring my 25 years of journalism experience to its site week after week. A few years ago a respected professional approached me about contributing articles to her Web site and when I asked about the pay I was told that her writers do it “for the joy of writing.” How nice for them, I thought, but count me out. I journal every morning “for the joy of writing.” I have dabbled in writing classes outside of my comfort level “for the joy of writing.” I have been writing since about age 12 “for the joy of writing.” I put myself through college and earned a degree in journalism and professional writing “for the joy of writing.”</p>
<p>Now I strive to make money “for the joy of writing.” I can’t imagine asking the aforementioned Ph.D in psychology if she’d like to counsel a few of my friends for “the joy of counseling.”</p>
<p>Just for sport, I took a look at Craigslist.org under the ‘writing/editing’ category to see if I could find a few opportunities for those writers interested in merely exploding with joy as opposed to, say, paying their bills. I was not disappointed. My hands-down favorite was for AskMissA.com, an online magazine run by Andrea Rodgers -- recognized by Politico as being one of the Top 10 Social Leaders in Washington, D.C. -- with the tagline “love life.”</p>
<p>“Recognized for her grace, professionalism and style, Andrea is a member of the Vogue 100,&#160;a hand-selected group by Vogue magazine of 100 influential decision makers and opinion leaders across the country known for their distinctive taste in fashion and culture,” reads Rodgers’ bio.</p>
<p>Her site is seeking experts in their field, reviewers of the arts or those with knowledge of a particular geographical area who are willing to share their ‘love of life’ with 650,000 unique visitors a year for free. While they don’t get money, they do get exposure and “full credit for the post, a bio including your head shot with a link to your business or blog website.” Further, “posts will never be edited or changed in any way … Any changes or modifications have to be done by the author.”</p>
<p>However, more reading of the rules reveals that “as of March 2011, AskMissA.com articles will be edited according to AP Style. If you are not familiar with it, we suggest you&#160;purchase a copy of the AP Stylebook.”</p>
<p>Seriously? You want writers of that caliber who also know the AP Stylebook? Some of us took an entire course in college to become acquainted with the AP Stylebook and find that mind-blowing.</p>
<p>I know aggregation is the way things are going and I realize we’re dealing with a lot of readers who don’t know the difference between news and opinion or off-the-cuff blogging vs. thoughtful essay writing, but gosh, couldn’t we strive for standards that educate them a bit? The beauty of the Internet for writers who aspire to make a living from their craft is that they can showcase their writing by simply starting a blog or even writing an e-book. It gives them control for little or no start-up cost.</p>
<p>But it’s a whole different story when someone else is asking them to do it.</p>
<p>“No one cares who writes these shows, they care who presents these shows,” Stephen Colbert joked on The Comedy Awards last weekend.</p>
<p>It was funny because it was true. Most writers that are any good write because they must. It’s a calling that is heady and unnerving all at once. It’s got us by the throat and, darn it, some respect and some cash would be much appreciated as we toil and thrive in our process.</p>
<p>I stand firm until the day Alec Baldwin accepts a role in a <a href="" type="internal">blockbuster</a> film for the sheer joy of acting. Then we can talk.</p>
<p>Nancy Colasurdo is a practicing life coach and freelance writer. Her Web site is <a href="http://www.nancola.com" type="external">www.nancola.com Opens a New Window.</a> and you can follow her on <a href="" type="internal">Twitter</a> @nancola. Please direct all questions/comments to <a href="http://mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected] Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | The Joy of Getting Paid to Write | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2011/04/13/joy-getting-paid-write.html | 2016-03-04 | 0right
| The Joy of Getting Paid to Write
<p />
<p>I think Alec Baldwin is a kick. I particularly liked him in the movie It’s Complicated and I assume he was paid a handsome sum for his work. As I’m sure he is nicely compensated for his acting on 30 Rock.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Ideally, that’s how it works, right? You hone your craft and then someone pays you for it.</p>
<p>But in the name of all that is holy, I am almost relieved he didn’t get paid a cent to write a recent less-than-100-word – hmmmmm, what to call it – article, post, musing on HuffingtonPost.com called “ <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alec-baldwin/alec-baldwin-30-rock_b_845993.html" type="external">Here’s to Five More Seasons Opens a New Window.</a>.”</p>
<p>“I want to take the opportunity to state that although my days on network TV may be numbered, I hope 30 Rock goes on forever,” Baldwin writes. “Or at least as long as everyone involved desires.”</p>
<p>I have no quarrel with that. More power to Tina Fey and Co. for their cutting edge humor.</p>
<p>What has been stuck in my craw for the better part of this month, however, is the dissing of serious writers since <a href="" type="internal">Arianna Huffington</a> struck a $315 million deal with <a href="" type="internal">AOL</a>. In subsequent commentary, there has been a lot of confusion about why people who were writing/blogging for The <a href="" type="internal">Huffington Post</a> for free would suddenly want to be paid. Um, maybe because when you see in black and white that your work has helped someone make a boatload of money, you figure you’ve volunteered your time and skills long enough? Lots of startups got going with unpaid help and then began compensating employees once they started to turn a profit.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>The writer issue just won’t go away. A recently-leaked e-mail to once-paid Moviefone freelancers in AOL’s Huffington Post Media Group who were being let go by the now-fired Moviefone editor-in-chief said, “You will be invited to contribute as part of our non-paid blogger system; and though I know that for many of you this will not be an option financially, I strongly encourage you to consider it if you’d like to keep writing for us, because we value all of your voices and input.”</p>
<p>The operative word, of course, being “value.” As in, I sure hope you have another marketable skill or at the very least a dog walking opportunity because your clever or melodic turn of phrase and your time mean squat to us.</p>
<p>Nearly a month ago the Newspaper Guild called for a strike against The Huffington Post and the latter’s spokesman, Mario Ruiz, went on record saying, “We are inundated with requests from people who want to blog” for free. Prior to that, staff writer Jason Linkins <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/10/huffington-post-bloggers_n_821446.html" type="external">wrote a mostly helpful piece Opens a New Window.</a> explaining the structure at Huffington and how there are full-time staffers and then those who contribute as bloggers for free.</p>
<p>“Please note, that part of what ‘free’ entitles you to is a freedom from ‘having to work,’” Linkins wrote. “No daily hours, no deadlines, no late nights, no weekends. You just do what you like when the spirit moves you.”</p>
<p>Actually, that might be true for those in the category of, say, Bill Maher, but it leaves out the professional writers who are not free from “having to work” at all. Just because they’re not on the schedule and under the demands a full-time staffer would be doesn’t mean in many cases they’re not grinding out a living and putting in time. Not to mention the fact that those freelancers are also saving his company the hefty cost of benefits and a salary despite still providing content. Is there nothing in between? It’s full-timer or slacker?</p>
<p>There seems to be murkiness in the public consciousness around the distinction between those whose livelihoods are in other fields and are simply seeking an outlet for expression, and those who write professionally. For example, it is no mystery why Alec Baldwin would have no objection to providing content for free or why Bianca Jagger would do so to promote a cause she’s passionate about. When Maher tells Arianna Huffington while she’s a guest on his show that he will continue to post for free, it’s not exactly jarring.</p>
<p>And, of course, Huffington herself is bringing some much-needed change to AOL that is more in line with ethical journalistic standards.</p>
<p>“The ‘AOL Way’ entailed combining business and editorial staff for similar sites in the same operating unit, known as a ‘town,’” writes Jessica E. Vascellaro in The <a href="" type="internal">Wall Street</a> Journal. “Ms. Huffington abandoned the system, and moved ad sales to a different floor, concerned that the department was playing too big a role in generating content ideas.”</p>
<p>Amen.</p>
<p>But getting back to writers, this isn’t just about The Huffington Post or AOL.</p>
<p>For the record, FoxBusiness.com pays me to bring my 25 years of journalism experience to its site week after week. A few years ago a respected professional approached me about contributing articles to her Web site and when I asked about the pay I was told that her writers do it “for the joy of writing.” How nice for them, I thought, but count me out. I journal every morning “for the joy of writing.” I have dabbled in writing classes outside of my comfort level “for the joy of writing.” I have been writing since about age 12 “for the joy of writing.” I put myself through college and earned a degree in journalism and professional writing “for the joy of writing.”</p>
<p>Now I strive to make money “for the joy of writing.” I can’t imagine asking the aforementioned Ph.D in psychology if she’d like to counsel a few of my friends for “the joy of counseling.”</p>
<p>Just for sport, I took a look at Craigslist.org under the ‘writing/editing’ category to see if I could find a few opportunities for those writers interested in merely exploding with joy as opposed to, say, paying their bills. I was not disappointed. My hands-down favorite was for AskMissA.com, an online magazine run by Andrea Rodgers -- recognized by Politico as being one of the Top 10 Social Leaders in Washington, D.C. -- with the tagline “love life.”</p>
<p>“Recognized for her grace, professionalism and style, Andrea is a member of the Vogue 100,&#160;a hand-selected group by Vogue magazine of 100 influential decision makers and opinion leaders across the country known for their distinctive taste in fashion and culture,” reads Rodgers’ bio.</p>
<p>Her site is seeking experts in their field, reviewers of the arts or those with knowledge of a particular geographical area who are willing to share their ‘love of life’ with 650,000 unique visitors a year for free. While they don’t get money, they do get exposure and “full credit for the post, a bio including your head shot with a link to your business or blog website.” Further, “posts will never be edited or changed in any way … Any changes or modifications have to be done by the author.”</p>
<p>However, more reading of the rules reveals that “as of March 2011, AskMissA.com articles will be edited according to AP Style. If you are not familiar with it, we suggest you&#160;purchase a copy of the AP Stylebook.”</p>
<p>Seriously? You want writers of that caliber who also know the AP Stylebook? Some of us took an entire course in college to become acquainted with the AP Stylebook and find that mind-blowing.</p>
<p>I know aggregation is the way things are going and I realize we’re dealing with a lot of readers who don’t know the difference between news and opinion or off-the-cuff blogging vs. thoughtful essay writing, but gosh, couldn’t we strive for standards that educate them a bit? The beauty of the Internet for writers who aspire to make a living from their craft is that they can showcase their writing by simply starting a blog or even writing an e-book. It gives them control for little or no start-up cost.</p>
<p>But it’s a whole different story when someone else is asking them to do it.</p>
<p>“No one cares who writes these shows, they care who presents these shows,” Stephen Colbert joked on The Comedy Awards last weekend.</p>
<p>It was funny because it was true. Most writers that are any good write because they must. It’s a calling that is heady and unnerving all at once. It’s got us by the throat and, darn it, some respect and some cash would be much appreciated as we toil and thrive in our process.</p>
<p>I stand firm until the day Alec Baldwin accepts a role in a <a href="" type="internal">blockbuster</a> film for the sheer joy of acting. Then we can talk.</p>
<p>Nancy Colasurdo is a practicing life coach and freelance writer. Her Web site is <a href="http://www.nancola.com" type="external">www.nancola.com Opens a New Window.</a> and you can follow her on <a href="" type="internal">Twitter</a> @nancola. Please direct all questions/comments to <a href="http://mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected] Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | 3,800 |
<p>Not all super-rich political donors want to bask in the spotlight. Many actually prefer to let their money do the talking while they stay far away from the attention garnered by the candidates and causes they support.</p>
<p>Here's a look at some of the donors who have kept a low profile while donating big money to outside spending groups so far in the 2014 election cycle, as <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/summ.php?disp=D" type="external">compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics</a>:</p>
<p>Robert J. Perry, Houston, TX -- The late Houston homebuilder gave at least $75 million in political contributions throughout his lifetime, most notably during the 2004 presidential campaign as the chief financial backer of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Perry died last year at age 80, but he will still have a tremendous impact in the 2014 midterm elections. Before his death, Perry contributed $1 million to the Senate Conservative Action Fund, $2 million to a Super PAC supporting Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn and $100,000 to a Super PAC supporting Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.</p>
<p>John Jordan, Healdsburg, CA -- The 41-year-old California vintner comes from a family of longtime wine makers and Republican donors. The CEO of Jordan Winery poured more than $1.3 million into his Super PAC "Americans for Progressive Action" to support Republican Gabriel Gomez in his unsuccessful Massachusetts Senate campaign. Jordan, who supports abortion rights and gay marriage, <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/06/21/california-vintner-pours-money-into-massachusetts-senate-race/" type="external">told the Wall Street Journal</a> that Republicans need to seek "moderate centrist reasonable people who have the best interests of the country at heart.”</p>
<p>David Boies, Armonk, NY -- The prominent litigator has been the go-to attorney for a host of Democratic legal issues, including representing Al Gore in the 2000 presidential recount and teaming up with high-profile Republican attorney Ted Olson to successfully argue against California’s ban on same-sex marriage. The duo is now mounting a similar legal battle for same-sex marriage in Virginia. Boies and his wife have contributed $500,000 to both the Senate and House Majority PACs, aimed at giving Democrats the majority in both chambers of Congress.</p>
<p>Carolyn Oliver, Austin, TX -- The Texas physician has spent millions in support of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis and Battleground Texas, the group working to turn the highly conservative state more competitive.</p>
<p>Richard Uihlein, Lake Forest, IL -- The Illinois businessman became a heavy-weight donor after the Supreme Court's Citizen's United decision in 2010. Since then he has contributed heavily to tea party groups like the Club for Growth and Liberty Principles PAC. Uihlein, who along with his wife owns a packaging supply company, has also given to potential 2016 GOP presidential candidates Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.</p> | Low-Profile Super Donors Having Big Influence in 2014 | false | http://nbcnews.com/politics/elections/low-profile-super-donors-having-big-influence-2014-n72276 | 2014-04-08 | 3left-center
| Low-Profile Super Donors Having Big Influence in 2014
<p>Not all super-rich political donors want to bask in the spotlight. Many actually prefer to let their money do the talking while they stay far away from the attention garnered by the candidates and causes they support.</p>
<p>Here's a look at some of the donors who have kept a low profile while donating big money to outside spending groups so far in the 2014 election cycle, as <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/summ.php?disp=D" type="external">compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics</a>:</p>
<p>Robert J. Perry, Houston, TX -- The late Houston homebuilder gave at least $75 million in political contributions throughout his lifetime, most notably during the 2004 presidential campaign as the chief financial backer of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Perry died last year at age 80, but he will still have a tremendous impact in the 2014 midterm elections. Before his death, Perry contributed $1 million to the Senate Conservative Action Fund, $2 million to a Super PAC supporting Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn and $100,000 to a Super PAC supporting Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.</p>
<p>John Jordan, Healdsburg, CA -- The 41-year-old California vintner comes from a family of longtime wine makers and Republican donors. The CEO of Jordan Winery poured more than $1.3 million into his Super PAC "Americans for Progressive Action" to support Republican Gabriel Gomez in his unsuccessful Massachusetts Senate campaign. Jordan, who supports abortion rights and gay marriage, <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/06/21/california-vintner-pours-money-into-massachusetts-senate-race/" type="external">told the Wall Street Journal</a> that Republicans need to seek "moderate centrist reasonable people who have the best interests of the country at heart.”</p>
<p>David Boies, Armonk, NY -- The prominent litigator has been the go-to attorney for a host of Democratic legal issues, including representing Al Gore in the 2000 presidential recount and teaming up with high-profile Republican attorney Ted Olson to successfully argue against California’s ban on same-sex marriage. The duo is now mounting a similar legal battle for same-sex marriage in Virginia. Boies and his wife have contributed $500,000 to both the Senate and House Majority PACs, aimed at giving Democrats the majority in both chambers of Congress.</p>
<p>Carolyn Oliver, Austin, TX -- The Texas physician has spent millions in support of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis and Battleground Texas, the group working to turn the highly conservative state more competitive.</p>
<p>Richard Uihlein, Lake Forest, IL -- The Illinois businessman became a heavy-weight donor after the Supreme Court's Citizen's United decision in 2010. Since then he has contributed heavily to tea party groups like the Club for Growth and Liberty Principles PAC. Uihlein, who along with his wife owns a packaging supply company, has also given to potential 2016 GOP presidential candidates Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.</p> | 3,801 |
<p>Worldwide demand has made walnuts the fourth largest export in California, according to an industry report. The $820 million per year industry has seen record growth in the last five years, with exports now accounting for 60 percent of shipments. Walnut producers reached $1 billion in farm revenue in 2010, producing more than 500,000 tons for the first time ever, says the report.</p>
<p>Access to new markets has helped absorb these gains, industry insiders say. Strong demand from Asia, Europe and the Middle East should propel strong sales again this year.&#160; Here are some highlights from the California Walnut Commission (CWC) report:</p>
<p>The report attributes the industry’s success to the development of export demand through product promotion, something the USDA Foreign Agriculture Service’s Market Access Program (MAP) has played a key role in cultivating. Grants from MAP, which average $4.5 million, go toward partially funding export development activities. Matching funds come from the industry.</p>
<p>The CWC says that health research, using MAP program funds, has helped positively change consumer perceptions about the nutritional benefits of walnuts. This has led to an increased demand for walnuts worldwide.</p> | Wanted: California walnuts | false | https://ivn.us/2012/02/10/wanted-california-walnuts/ | 2012-02-10 | 2least
| Wanted: California walnuts
<p>Worldwide demand has made walnuts the fourth largest export in California, according to an industry report. The $820 million per year industry has seen record growth in the last five years, with exports now accounting for 60 percent of shipments. Walnut producers reached $1 billion in farm revenue in 2010, producing more than 500,000 tons for the first time ever, says the report.</p>
<p>Access to new markets has helped absorb these gains, industry insiders say. Strong demand from Asia, Europe and the Middle East should propel strong sales again this year.&#160; Here are some highlights from the California Walnut Commission (CWC) report:</p>
<p>The report attributes the industry’s success to the development of export demand through product promotion, something the USDA Foreign Agriculture Service’s Market Access Program (MAP) has played a key role in cultivating. Grants from MAP, which average $4.5 million, go toward partially funding export development activities. Matching funds come from the industry.</p>
<p>The CWC says that health research, using MAP program funds, has helped positively change consumer perceptions about the nutritional benefits of walnuts. This has led to an increased demand for walnuts worldwide.</p> | 3,802 |
<p><a href="" type="internal">&lt;img class=" size-large wp-image-3424 aligncenter" src="http://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Neighborhood-1024x535.jpg" alt="Neighborhood" width="620" height="324" srcset="https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Neighborhood-1024x535.jpg 1024w, https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Neighborhood-300x157.jpg 300w, https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Neighborhood-768x401.jpg 768w, https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Neighborhood.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px" /&gt;</a></p>
<p>I’m a guy who talks to everyone. Ask my wife. A trip to the grocery store for milk can turn into a thirty minute conversation with the bag-boy. Most of the people who work with me on this site ( <a href="https://twitter.com/brodigan" type="external">Brodigan</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/TheFriddle" type="external">Krystal</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/JMittelo" type="external">Jared,</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/CalebHowe" type="external">Caleb</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/FunDipDan" type="external">‘FunDip’ Dan</a>) are just people with whom I’ve had a good conversation at one point or another. Never once did I ask for a resume.</p>
<p>They dread my phone-calls because I always go long. I’m that guy.</p>
<p>I’ve always loved talking with people. But in the last few years, something’s changed dramatically. Political correctness has become a cancerous growth on the absolute gift that is human interaction.</p>
<p>I can no longer make a silly face at a child in the movie line without his mother clutching him for fear of “stranger danger.” I can’t compliment a woman on her smile without being guilty of perpetuating “rape culture.” Some of the most common words in my everyday vernacular like “amigo” and “brother” must now be exclusively and fearfully reserved for strictly non-ethnic demographics. Instead of becoming better neighbors, we spend our time ensuring avoidance of the latest “racist code-word” or the possibility of cultural insensitivity.</p>
<p>It’s a terrible feeling, it’s dividing America more than ever before and it is absolutely ruining America’s neighborhoods. Allow me&#160;me tell you a story.</p>
<p>Last week, I was walking to my corner drugstore. As I emerged into my neighborhood, I noticed a man dressed to the nines. Clean-close-shave, suit and tie, the whole shebang. He was tying up his bicycle. Without even thinking, I&#160;blurted:</p>
<p>“Man, all decked out for an evening bike ride. I dig it! You make me look like an absolute bum.”</p>
<p>Shocked, he responded.</p>
<p>“Aw come on man, you ain’t gotta do me like that.”</p>
<p>Oh, this is about the time I should mention the fact that he was a black man. I know, I know. I didn’t think it was relevant either. Until he said that to me, that is. Then&#160;I noticed his general perturbedness. &#160;Now, I know that many white Americans can find themselves out of touch with black culture. And yes, I’m white. But I’m also a hip-hop fan. Three out of my top ten favorite albums of all time were created by talented black men. So while I may not be fluent, the lingo isn’t completely lost on me.</p>
<p>And as a general rule, “do me like that” usually implies some kind of wrong-doing. I found myself confused. So I tried to smoothe it over.</p>
<p>“No man, I just mean you look great. I should step my game up or you’ll make us all look bad.” I said with a smile. He seemed even more frustrated.</p>
<p>“Come on man.”</p>
<p>I honestly didn’t know what to say. Clearly, I’m an insensitive ass. So I wished him well and went on with my evening. But it ate away at me for days after that. I couldn’t&#160;believe that we live in a country where the joy of being neighborly has been replaced with the sinking feeling in our stomachs of collective guilt. I couldn’t&#160;believe that man’s worldview had been so warped by today’s politically correct climate, that he would take offense&#160;to a genuine compliment. Is this really what America’s become?</p>
<p>See, this is the goal of the left. Divide and conquer. It’s why they espouse multiculturalism instead of the American melting pot. The left wants a post-tower-of-babel America, where every person can be separated into their own pigeon-holed, pander-succeptible portion&#160;of the American voting base. Because if we all stand as Americans unified, they’d never win another election.</p>
<p>I just couldn’t believe that this many people had bought it. My heart literally hurt. I wept for the neighborhood of a bygone era, perhaps never to be seen again.</p>
<p>Then it happened. I was walking my dog (an all-white Dogo Argentino, mind you). The weather had turned warm, so Hopper was exhausted and dragging his feet home, trailing a good few steps behind me. A van slowed as it drove by and the window rolled down. A black lady, smile beaming, poked her head out.&#160; <a href="" type="internal">&lt;img class=" wp-image-3419 alignright" src="http://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/NobleHopper-683x1024.jpg" alt="NobleHopper" width="288" height="432" srcset="https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/NobleHopper-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/NobleHopper-200x300.jpg 200w, https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/NobleHopper-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/NobleHopper.jpg 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 288px) 100vw, 288px" /&gt;</a></p>
<p>“That dog ain’t havin’ none of it from you today!” she said, commenting on Hopper’s slothfulness.</p>
<p>“Most people don’t either!” I laughed. She laughed back.</p>
<p>“He’s got that beautiful white coat.” she said.</p>
<p>“Thanks! See, an all white-dog, bridging the racial divide, who’d have thought.” I responded.</p>
<p>She cocked her head back and laughed.</p>
<p>“Haha I like that! Have a great day, sir.”</p>
<p>My heart warmed. Maybe there’s hope for American neighborhoods yet.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p /> | Political Correctness Is Ruining Your Neighborhood… | true | http://louderwithcrowder.com/political-correctness-is-ruining-your-neighborhood/ | 2015-05-25 | 0right
| Political Correctness Is Ruining Your Neighborhood…
<p><a href="" type="internal">&lt;img class=" size-large wp-image-3424 aligncenter" src="http://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Neighborhood-1024x535.jpg" alt="Neighborhood" width="620" height="324" srcset="https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Neighborhood-1024x535.jpg 1024w, https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Neighborhood-300x157.jpg 300w, https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Neighborhood-768x401.jpg 768w, https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Neighborhood.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px" /&gt;</a></p>
<p>I’m a guy who talks to everyone. Ask my wife. A trip to the grocery store for milk can turn into a thirty minute conversation with the bag-boy. Most of the people who work with me on this site ( <a href="https://twitter.com/brodigan" type="external">Brodigan</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/TheFriddle" type="external">Krystal</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/JMittelo" type="external">Jared,</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/CalebHowe" type="external">Caleb</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/FunDipDan" type="external">‘FunDip’ Dan</a>) are just people with whom I’ve had a good conversation at one point or another. Never once did I ask for a resume.</p>
<p>They dread my phone-calls because I always go long. I’m that guy.</p>
<p>I’ve always loved talking with people. But in the last few years, something’s changed dramatically. Political correctness has become a cancerous growth on the absolute gift that is human interaction.</p>
<p>I can no longer make a silly face at a child in the movie line without his mother clutching him for fear of “stranger danger.” I can’t compliment a woman on her smile without being guilty of perpetuating “rape culture.” Some of the most common words in my everyday vernacular like “amigo” and “brother” must now be exclusively and fearfully reserved for strictly non-ethnic demographics. Instead of becoming better neighbors, we spend our time ensuring avoidance of the latest “racist code-word” or the possibility of cultural insensitivity.</p>
<p>It’s a terrible feeling, it’s dividing America more than ever before and it is absolutely ruining America’s neighborhoods. Allow me&#160;me tell you a story.</p>
<p>Last week, I was walking to my corner drugstore. As I emerged into my neighborhood, I noticed a man dressed to the nines. Clean-close-shave, suit and tie, the whole shebang. He was tying up his bicycle. Without even thinking, I&#160;blurted:</p>
<p>“Man, all decked out for an evening bike ride. I dig it! You make me look like an absolute bum.”</p>
<p>Shocked, he responded.</p>
<p>“Aw come on man, you ain’t gotta do me like that.”</p>
<p>Oh, this is about the time I should mention the fact that he was a black man. I know, I know. I didn’t think it was relevant either. Until he said that to me, that is. Then&#160;I noticed his general perturbedness. &#160;Now, I know that many white Americans can find themselves out of touch with black culture. And yes, I’m white. But I’m also a hip-hop fan. Three out of my top ten favorite albums of all time were created by talented black men. So while I may not be fluent, the lingo isn’t completely lost on me.</p>
<p>And as a general rule, “do me like that” usually implies some kind of wrong-doing. I found myself confused. So I tried to smoothe it over.</p>
<p>“No man, I just mean you look great. I should step my game up or you’ll make us all look bad.” I said with a smile. He seemed even more frustrated.</p>
<p>“Come on man.”</p>
<p>I honestly didn’t know what to say. Clearly, I’m an insensitive ass. So I wished him well and went on with my evening. But it ate away at me for days after that. I couldn’t&#160;believe that we live in a country where the joy of being neighborly has been replaced with the sinking feeling in our stomachs of collective guilt. I couldn’t&#160;believe that man’s worldview had been so warped by today’s politically correct climate, that he would take offense&#160;to a genuine compliment. Is this really what America’s become?</p>
<p>See, this is the goal of the left. Divide and conquer. It’s why they espouse multiculturalism instead of the American melting pot. The left wants a post-tower-of-babel America, where every person can be separated into their own pigeon-holed, pander-succeptible portion&#160;of the American voting base. Because if we all stand as Americans unified, they’d never win another election.</p>
<p>I just couldn’t believe that this many people had bought it. My heart literally hurt. I wept for the neighborhood of a bygone era, perhaps never to be seen again.</p>
<p>Then it happened. I was walking my dog (an all-white Dogo Argentino, mind you). The weather had turned warm, so Hopper was exhausted and dragging his feet home, trailing a good few steps behind me. A van slowed as it drove by and the window rolled down. A black lady, smile beaming, poked her head out.&#160; <a href="" type="internal">&lt;img class=" wp-image-3419 alignright" src="http://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/NobleHopper-683x1024.jpg" alt="NobleHopper" width="288" height="432" srcset="https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/NobleHopper-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/NobleHopper-200x300.jpg 200w, https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/NobleHopper-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/NobleHopper.jpg 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 288px) 100vw, 288px" /&gt;</a></p>
<p>“That dog ain’t havin’ none of it from you today!” she said, commenting on Hopper’s slothfulness.</p>
<p>“Most people don’t either!” I laughed. She laughed back.</p>
<p>“He’s got that beautiful white coat.” she said.</p>
<p>“Thanks! See, an all white-dog, bridging the racial divide, who’d have thought.” I responded.</p>
<p>She cocked her head back and laughed.</p>
<p>“Haha I like that! Have a great day, sir.”</p>
<p>My heart warmed. Maybe there’s hope for American neighborhoods yet.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p /> | 3,803 |
<p>ATLANTA (AP) - When Kirby Smart returned to his alma mater, he already had a pretty good template for success.</p>
<p>He might as well have been wearing a wrist band with the letters "WWND."</p>
<p>What Would Nick Do?</p>
<p>In just two short years, <a href="https://collegefootball.ap.org/article/dawgs-run-wild-georgia-beats-oklahoma-54-48-rose-bowl" type="external">Smart has taken Georgia to the cusp of its first national championship since 1980</a> , largely by following the process laid out by his former boss, Alabama's Nick Saban.</p>
<p>Perhaps it's only fitting that to win the title, Smart will have to beat the man who taught him so well.</p>
<p>Bring it on, says Saban, in the twilight of his career but still on top of his game.</p>
<p>"I have a lot of respect for all the guys that worked for me," the Crimson Tide coach said. "I'm happy to see them doing well wherever they go, and when we have to play against them, I'm sure they're doing everything they can to beat us for their team and their players. We're going to do the same with our players. It's not personal."</p>
<p>While some would have you believe this is one of those potential changing-of-the-guard games, let's not get ahead of ourselves.</p>
<p>Saban hasn't stared down a true coaching peer in the Southeastern Conference since Urban Meyer left Florida, and it would be foolish to anoint Smart to fill that role even if Georgia defeats the Crimson Tide in Monday night's national championship game.</p>
<p>Saban's greatness is in the longevity.</p>
<p>It will take more than one title to take down perhaps the greatest coach in college football history.</p>
<p>Like the man at the helm, <a href="https://collegefootball.ap.org/article/alabamas-saban-adapts-times-keeps-winning" type="external">Saban's program is a self-perpetuating behemoth that never sits still</a> . His dynasty has endured for a full decade in an era of increased parity because it never takes time to revel in its accomplishments. Any celebrations are fleeting. When there's a rare stumble along the way, he always gets right back up.</p>
<p>Win or lose, Saban will go to work Tuesday with the same mindset, singularly focused on what it will take to build his next championship team. At 66, he shows no signs of slowing down, no signs of being the least bit satisfied with what he's accomplished, no signs of loosening his grip over every little aspect of football program he calls "the organization."</p>
<p>Those are lessons that Smart surely learned well during 11 seasons spent on Saban's staff, first at LSU, then with the Miami Dolphins, but mostly at Alabama, where he earned enough trust to be anointed coordinator of Saban's fearsome defenses.</p>
<p>"It's a demanding approach of never, literally never, taking your foot off the accelerator," said ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit, who will be part of the broadcast team for the title game. "They do a good job of loving on the guys when it's the training table or you're in the locker room or whatever. But as far as when it's time to work, man, it's unlike any other place you go as far as how demanding Nick Saban and Kirby Smart are, and how involved they are. I mean, I don't know how many calories they burn during practice, but they're involved."</p>
<p>If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Smart certainly came across as a Saban clone as soon as he was handed the keys to the Bulldogs, a sleeping giant of a program that never quite lived up to its full potential under predecessor Mark Richt.</p>
<p>For as long as anyone could remember, going back to the days of Vince Dooley, Georgia coaches had always held their weekly news conferences on Tuesday. But Saban performs this function on Monday, so that's the way it is now with Smart. Also following the lead of his mentor, Smart banned freshmen and assistant coaches from talking to the media, which meant Jake Fromm - who took over as the starting quarterback in the second game of the season - was off-limits to reporters until after the SEC championship game, when league rules require everyone to be available.</p>
<p>But Smart's battened-down dealings were the media were mere window dressing.</p>
<p>He knew the real key to Saban's success.</p>
<p>"Recruiting really good players that are really big and really fast," Smart said. "Then you have to block them, OK, or you have to be able to run the ball against them or you have to be able to defend the wideouts and the corner. It comes down to a lot more than his tendencies because his tendencies are very similar to a lot of good coaches: smart, good decisions, protect the ball, play great defense, kick your butt on special teams."</p>
<p>When Smart got to Georgia, he saw a roster that was talented at the skill positions but lacking in the trenches. He made it a priority to sign big, strong, quick lineman on both sides of the ball, knowing that's the foundation of any great program and certainly the reason that Saban has stayed No. 1 for so long.</p>
<p>For good measure, Smart's also had stunning success recruiting the most important position on the field. After taking over for Richt, the new coach persuaded top quarterback recruit Jacob Eason to stay in the fold. Even though he started as a true freshman, Smart landed another five-star prospect in Fromm, who wound up claiming the job when Eason was hurt in the season opener. Now, <a href="https://collegefootball.ap.org/article/fabulous-freshman-fromm-leads-georgia-poise-veteran" type="external">even though Fromm is seemingly set for at least next two years</a> (Eason will almost surely transfer), Georgia picked off the nation's No. 1 dual-threat quarterback prospect, Justin Fields, in <a href="https://collegefootball.ap.org/article/majority-top-prospects-capitalize-early-signing-period" type="external">an early signing class that was a consensus choice as the best in the country</a> .</p>
<p>There's no longer any doubt that Georgia made the right call with its much-debated decision to dump Richt, trading in a really good coach for a potentially great one. Smart shows no signs of becoming another Jim McElwain, a former Saban coordinator who got off to a strong start at Florida but flamed out in less than three seasons.</p>
<p>Can Smart become the new king of the SEC?</p>
<p>Get back to us in a few years on that one.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Paul Newberry is a sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at [email protected] or at <a href="http://www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963" type="external">www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963</a> . His work can be found at <a href="" type="internal">https://apnews.com/search/paul%20newberry</a></p>
<p>___</p>
<p>For more AP college football coverage: <a href="http://www.collegefootball.ap.org" type="external">www.collegefootball.ap.org</a> and <a href="http://www.twitter.com/AP_Top25" type="external">www.twitter.com/AP_Top25</a></p>
<p>ATLANTA (AP) - When Kirby Smart returned to his alma mater, he already had a pretty good template for success.</p>
<p>He might as well have been wearing a wrist band with the letters "WWND."</p>
<p>What Would Nick Do?</p>
<p>In just two short years, <a href="https://collegefootball.ap.org/article/dawgs-run-wild-georgia-beats-oklahoma-54-48-rose-bowl" type="external">Smart has taken Georgia to the cusp of its first national championship since 1980</a> , largely by following the process laid out by his former boss, Alabama's Nick Saban.</p>
<p>Perhaps it's only fitting that to win the title, Smart will have to beat the man who taught him so well.</p>
<p>Bring it on, says Saban, in the twilight of his career but still on top of his game.</p>
<p>"I have a lot of respect for all the guys that worked for me," the Crimson Tide coach said. "I'm happy to see them doing well wherever they go, and when we have to play against them, I'm sure they're doing everything they can to beat us for their team and their players. We're going to do the same with our players. It's not personal."</p>
<p>While some would have you believe this is one of those potential changing-of-the-guard games, let's not get ahead of ourselves.</p>
<p>Saban hasn't stared down a true coaching peer in the Southeastern Conference since Urban Meyer left Florida, and it would be foolish to anoint Smart to fill that role even if Georgia defeats the Crimson Tide in Monday night's national championship game.</p>
<p>Saban's greatness is in the longevity.</p>
<p>It will take more than one title to take down perhaps the greatest coach in college football history.</p>
<p>Like the man at the helm, <a href="https://collegefootball.ap.org/article/alabamas-saban-adapts-times-keeps-winning" type="external">Saban's program is a self-perpetuating behemoth that never sits still</a> . His dynasty has endured for a full decade in an era of increased parity because it never takes time to revel in its accomplishments. Any celebrations are fleeting. When there's a rare stumble along the way, he always gets right back up.</p>
<p>Win or lose, Saban will go to work Tuesday with the same mindset, singularly focused on what it will take to build his next championship team. At 66, he shows no signs of slowing down, no signs of being the least bit satisfied with what he's accomplished, no signs of loosening his grip over every little aspect of football program he calls "the organization."</p>
<p>Those are lessons that Smart surely learned well during 11 seasons spent on Saban's staff, first at LSU, then with the Miami Dolphins, but mostly at Alabama, where he earned enough trust to be anointed coordinator of Saban's fearsome defenses.</p>
<p>"It's a demanding approach of never, literally never, taking your foot off the accelerator," said ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit, who will be part of the broadcast team for the title game. "They do a good job of loving on the guys when it's the training table or you're in the locker room or whatever. But as far as when it's time to work, man, it's unlike any other place you go as far as how demanding Nick Saban and Kirby Smart are, and how involved they are. I mean, I don't know how many calories they burn during practice, but they're involved."</p>
<p>If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Smart certainly came across as a Saban clone as soon as he was handed the keys to the Bulldogs, a sleeping giant of a program that never quite lived up to its full potential under predecessor Mark Richt.</p>
<p>For as long as anyone could remember, going back to the days of Vince Dooley, Georgia coaches had always held their weekly news conferences on Tuesday. But Saban performs this function on Monday, so that's the way it is now with Smart. Also following the lead of his mentor, Smart banned freshmen and assistant coaches from talking to the media, which meant Jake Fromm - who took over as the starting quarterback in the second game of the season - was off-limits to reporters until after the SEC championship game, when league rules require everyone to be available.</p>
<p>But Smart's battened-down dealings were the media were mere window dressing.</p>
<p>He knew the real key to Saban's success.</p>
<p>"Recruiting really good players that are really big and really fast," Smart said. "Then you have to block them, OK, or you have to be able to run the ball against them or you have to be able to defend the wideouts and the corner. It comes down to a lot more than his tendencies because his tendencies are very similar to a lot of good coaches: smart, good decisions, protect the ball, play great defense, kick your butt on special teams."</p>
<p>When Smart got to Georgia, he saw a roster that was talented at the skill positions but lacking in the trenches. He made it a priority to sign big, strong, quick lineman on both sides of the ball, knowing that's the foundation of any great program and certainly the reason that Saban has stayed No. 1 for so long.</p>
<p>For good measure, Smart's also had stunning success recruiting the most important position on the field. After taking over for Richt, the new coach persuaded top quarterback recruit Jacob Eason to stay in the fold. Even though he started as a true freshman, Smart landed another five-star prospect in Fromm, who wound up claiming the job when Eason was hurt in the season opener. Now, <a href="https://collegefootball.ap.org/article/fabulous-freshman-fromm-leads-georgia-poise-veteran" type="external">even though Fromm is seemingly set for at least next two years</a> (Eason will almost surely transfer), Georgia picked off the nation's No. 1 dual-threat quarterback prospect, Justin Fields, in <a href="https://collegefootball.ap.org/article/majority-top-prospects-capitalize-early-signing-period" type="external">an early signing class that was a consensus choice as the best in the country</a> .</p>
<p>There's no longer any doubt that Georgia made the right call with its much-debated decision to dump Richt, trading in a really good coach for a potentially great one. Smart shows no signs of becoming another Jim McElwain, a former Saban coordinator who got off to a strong start at Florida but flamed out in less than three seasons.</p>
<p>Can Smart become the new king of the SEC?</p>
<p>Get back to us in a few years on that one.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Paul Newberry is a sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at [email protected] or at <a href="http://www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963" type="external">www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963</a> . His work can be found at <a href="" type="internal">https://apnews.com/search/paul%20newberry</a></p>
<p>___</p>
<p>For more AP college football coverage: <a href="http://www.collegefootball.ap.org" type="external">www.collegefootball.ap.org</a> and <a href="http://www.twitter.com/AP_Top25" type="external">www.twitter.com/AP_Top25</a></p> | Column: Can Smart take down Saban? Check back in a few years | false | https://apnews.com/amp/004fcfe804cf45009740f196151b8837 | 2018-01-05 | 2least
| Column: Can Smart take down Saban? Check back in a few years
<p>ATLANTA (AP) - When Kirby Smart returned to his alma mater, he already had a pretty good template for success.</p>
<p>He might as well have been wearing a wrist band with the letters "WWND."</p>
<p>What Would Nick Do?</p>
<p>In just two short years, <a href="https://collegefootball.ap.org/article/dawgs-run-wild-georgia-beats-oklahoma-54-48-rose-bowl" type="external">Smart has taken Georgia to the cusp of its first national championship since 1980</a> , largely by following the process laid out by his former boss, Alabama's Nick Saban.</p>
<p>Perhaps it's only fitting that to win the title, Smart will have to beat the man who taught him so well.</p>
<p>Bring it on, says Saban, in the twilight of his career but still on top of his game.</p>
<p>"I have a lot of respect for all the guys that worked for me," the Crimson Tide coach said. "I'm happy to see them doing well wherever they go, and when we have to play against them, I'm sure they're doing everything they can to beat us for their team and their players. We're going to do the same with our players. It's not personal."</p>
<p>While some would have you believe this is one of those potential changing-of-the-guard games, let's not get ahead of ourselves.</p>
<p>Saban hasn't stared down a true coaching peer in the Southeastern Conference since Urban Meyer left Florida, and it would be foolish to anoint Smart to fill that role even if Georgia defeats the Crimson Tide in Monday night's national championship game.</p>
<p>Saban's greatness is in the longevity.</p>
<p>It will take more than one title to take down perhaps the greatest coach in college football history.</p>
<p>Like the man at the helm, <a href="https://collegefootball.ap.org/article/alabamas-saban-adapts-times-keeps-winning" type="external">Saban's program is a self-perpetuating behemoth that never sits still</a> . His dynasty has endured for a full decade in an era of increased parity because it never takes time to revel in its accomplishments. Any celebrations are fleeting. When there's a rare stumble along the way, he always gets right back up.</p>
<p>Win or lose, Saban will go to work Tuesday with the same mindset, singularly focused on what it will take to build his next championship team. At 66, he shows no signs of slowing down, no signs of being the least bit satisfied with what he's accomplished, no signs of loosening his grip over every little aspect of football program he calls "the organization."</p>
<p>Those are lessons that Smart surely learned well during 11 seasons spent on Saban's staff, first at LSU, then with the Miami Dolphins, but mostly at Alabama, where he earned enough trust to be anointed coordinator of Saban's fearsome defenses.</p>
<p>"It's a demanding approach of never, literally never, taking your foot off the accelerator," said ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit, who will be part of the broadcast team for the title game. "They do a good job of loving on the guys when it's the training table or you're in the locker room or whatever. But as far as when it's time to work, man, it's unlike any other place you go as far as how demanding Nick Saban and Kirby Smart are, and how involved they are. I mean, I don't know how many calories they burn during practice, but they're involved."</p>
<p>If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Smart certainly came across as a Saban clone as soon as he was handed the keys to the Bulldogs, a sleeping giant of a program that never quite lived up to its full potential under predecessor Mark Richt.</p>
<p>For as long as anyone could remember, going back to the days of Vince Dooley, Georgia coaches had always held their weekly news conferences on Tuesday. But Saban performs this function on Monday, so that's the way it is now with Smart. Also following the lead of his mentor, Smart banned freshmen and assistant coaches from talking to the media, which meant Jake Fromm - who took over as the starting quarterback in the second game of the season - was off-limits to reporters until after the SEC championship game, when league rules require everyone to be available.</p>
<p>But Smart's battened-down dealings were the media were mere window dressing.</p>
<p>He knew the real key to Saban's success.</p>
<p>"Recruiting really good players that are really big and really fast," Smart said. "Then you have to block them, OK, or you have to be able to run the ball against them or you have to be able to defend the wideouts and the corner. It comes down to a lot more than his tendencies because his tendencies are very similar to a lot of good coaches: smart, good decisions, protect the ball, play great defense, kick your butt on special teams."</p>
<p>When Smart got to Georgia, he saw a roster that was talented at the skill positions but lacking in the trenches. He made it a priority to sign big, strong, quick lineman on both sides of the ball, knowing that's the foundation of any great program and certainly the reason that Saban has stayed No. 1 for so long.</p>
<p>For good measure, Smart's also had stunning success recruiting the most important position on the field. After taking over for Richt, the new coach persuaded top quarterback recruit Jacob Eason to stay in the fold. Even though he started as a true freshman, Smart landed another five-star prospect in Fromm, who wound up claiming the job when Eason was hurt in the season opener. Now, <a href="https://collegefootball.ap.org/article/fabulous-freshman-fromm-leads-georgia-poise-veteran" type="external">even though Fromm is seemingly set for at least next two years</a> (Eason will almost surely transfer), Georgia picked off the nation's No. 1 dual-threat quarterback prospect, Justin Fields, in <a href="https://collegefootball.ap.org/article/majority-top-prospects-capitalize-early-signing-period" type="external">an early signing class that was a consensus choice as the best in the country</a> .</p>
<p>There's no longer any doubt that Georgia made the right call with its much-debated decision to dump Richt, trading in a really good coach for a potentially great one. Smart shows no signs of becoming another Jim McElwain, a former Saban coordinator who got off to a strong start at Florida but flamed out in less than three seasons.</p>
<p>Can Smart become the new king of the SEC?</p>
<p>Get back to us in a few years on that one.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Paul Newberry is a sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at [email protected] or at <a href="http://www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963" type="external">www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963</a> . His work can be found at <a href="" type="internal">https://apnews.com/search/paul%20newberry</a></p>
<p>___</p>
<p>For more AP college football coverage: <a href="http://www.collegefootball.ap.org" type="external">www.collegefootball.ap.org</a> and <a href="http://www.twitter.com/AP_Top25" type="external">www.twitter.com/AP_Top25</a></p>
<p>ATLANTA (AP) - When Kirby Smart returned to his alma mater, he already had a pretty good template for success.</p>
<p>He might as well have been wearing a wrist band with the letters "WWND."</p>
<p>What Would Nick Do?</p>
<p>In just two short years, <a href="https://collegefootball.ap.org/article/dawgs-run-wild-georgia-beats-oklahoma-54-48-rose-bowl" type="external">Smart has taken Georgia to the cusp of its first national championship since 1980</a> , largely by following the process laid out by his former boss, Alabama's Nick Saban.</p>
<p>Perhaps it's only fitting that to win the title, Smart will have to beat the man who taught him so well.</p>
<p>Bring it on, says Saban, in the twilight of his career but still on top of his game.</p>
<p>"I have a lot of respect for all the guys that worked for me," the Crimson Tide coach said. "I'm happy to see them doing well wherever they go, and when we have to play against them, I'm sure they're doing everything they can to beat us for their team and their players. We're going to do the same with our players. It's not personal."</p>
<p>While some would have you believe this is one of those potential changing-of-the-guard games, let's not get ahead of ourselves.</p>
<p>Saban hasn't stared down a true coaching peer in the Southeastern Conference since Urban Meyer left Florida, and it would be foolish to anoint Smart to fill that role even if Georgia defeats the Crimson Tide in Monday night's national championship game.</p>
<p>Saban's greatness is in the longevity.</p>
<p>It will take more than one title to take down perhaps the greatest coach in college football history.</p>
<p>Like the man at the helm, <a href="https://collegefootball.ap.org/article/alabamas-saban-adapts-times-keeps-winning" type="external">Saban's program is a self-perpetuating behemoth that never sits still</a> . His dynasty has endured for a full decade in an era of increased parity because it never takes time to revel in its accomplishments. Any celebrations are fleeting. When there's a rare stumble along the way, he always gets right back up.</p>
<p>Win or lose, Saban will go to work Tuesday with the same mindset, singularly focused on what it will take to build his next championship team. At 66, he shows no signs of slowing down, no signs of being the least bit satisfied with what he's accomplished, no signs of loosening his grip over every little aspect of football program he calls "the organization."</p>
<p>Those are lessons that Smart surely learned well during 11 seasons spent on Saban's staff, first at LSU, then with the Miami Dolphins, but mostly at Alabama, where he earned enough trust to be anointed coordinator of Saban's fearsome defenses.</p>
<p>"It's a demanding approach of never, literally never, taking your foot off the accelerator," said ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit, who will be part of the broadcast team for the title game. "They do a good job of loving on the guys when it's the training table or you're in the locker room or whatever. But as far as when it's time to work, man, it's unlike any other place you go as far as how demanding Nick Saban and Kirby Smart are, and how involved they are. I mean, I don't know how many calories they burn during practice, but they're involved."</p>
<p>If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Smart certainly came across as a Saban clone as soon as he was handed the keys to the Bulldogs, a sleeping giant of a program that never quite lived up to its full potential under predecessor Mark Richt.</p>
<p>For as long as anyone could remember, going back to the days of Vince Dooley, Georgia coaches had always held their weekly news conferences on Tuesday. But Saban performs this function on Monday, so that's the way it is now with Smart. Also following the lead of his mentor, Smart banned freshmen and assistant coaches from talking to the media, which meant Jake Fromm - who took over as the starting quarterback in the second game of the season - was off-limits to reporters until after the SEC championship game, when league rules require everyone to be available.</p>
<p>But Smart's battened-down dealings were the media were mere window dressing.</p>
<p>He knew the real key to Saban's success.</p>
<p>"Recruiting really good players that are really big and really fast," Smart said. "Then you have to block them, OK, or you have to be able to run the ball against them or you have to be able to defend the wideouts and the corner. It comes down to a lot more than his tendencies because his tendencies are very similar to a lot of good coaches: smart, good decisions, protect the ball, play great defense, kick your butt on special teams."</p>
<p>When Smart got to Georgia, he saw a roster that was talented at the skill positions but lacking in the trenches. He made it a priority to sign big, strong, quick lineman on both sides of the ball, knowing that's the foundation of any great program and certainly the reason that Saban has stayed No. 1 for so long.</p>
<p>For good measure, Smart's also had stunning success recruiting the most important position on the field. After taking over for Richt, the new coach persuaded top quarterback recruit Jacob Eason to stay in the fold. Even though he started as a true freshman, Smart landed another five-star prospect in Fromm, who wound up claiming the job when Eason was hurt in the season opener. Now, <a href="https://collegefootball.ap.org/article/fabulous-freshman-fromm-leads-georgia-poise-veteran" type="external">even though Fromm is seemingly set for at least next two years</a> (Eason will almost surely transfer), Georgia picked off the nation's No. 1 dual-threat quarterback prospect, Justin Fields, in <a href="https://collegefootball.ap.org/article/majority-top-prospects-capitalize-early-signing-period" type="external">an early signing class that was a consensus choice as the best in the country</a> .</p>
<p>There's no longer any doubt that Georgia made the right call with its much-debated decision to dump Richt, trading in a really good coach for a potentially great one. Smart shows no signs of becoming another Jim McElwain, a former Saban coordinator who got off to a strong start at Florida but flamed out in less than three seasons.</p>
<p>Can Smart become the new king of the SEC?</p>
<p>Get back to us in a few years on that one.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Paul Newberry is a sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at [email protected] or at <a href="http://www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963" type="external">www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963</a> . His work can be found at <a href="" type="internal">https://apnews.com/search/paul%20newberry</a></p>
<p>___</p>
<p>For more AP college football coverage: <a href="http://www.collegefootball.ap.org" type="external">www.collegefootball.ap.org</a> and <a href="http://www.twitter.com/AP_Top25" type="external">www.twitter.com/AP_Top25</a></p> | 3,804 |
<p>“Even despots, gangsters and pirates have specific sensitiveness, (and) follow some specific morals.”</p>
<p>The claim was made by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a recent speech, following the deadly commando raid on the humanitarian aid flotilla to Gaza on May 31. According to Erdogan, Israel doesn’t adhere to the code of conduct embraced even by the vilest of criminals.</p>
<p>The statement alone indicates the momentous political shift that’s currently underway in the Middle East. While the shift isn’t entirely new, one dares to claim it might now be a lasting one. To borrow from Erdogan’s own assessment of the political fallout that followed Israel’s raid, the damage is “irreparable.”</p>
<p>Countless analyses have emerged in the wake of the long-planned and calculated Israeli attack on the Turkish ship, Mavi Marmara, which claimed the lives of nine, mostly Turkish peace activists.</p>
<p>In “Turkey’s Strategic U-Turn, Israel’s Tactical Mistakes,” published in the Israeli daily Haaretz, Ofra Bengio suggested Turkey’s position was purely strategic. But he also chastised Israel for driving Turkey further and faster “toward the Arab and Muslim worlds.”</p>
<p>In this week’s Zaman, a Turkish publication, Bulent Kenes wrote: “As a result of the Davos (where the Turkish prime minister stormed out of a televised discussion with Israeli President Shimon Peres, after accusing him and Israel of murder), the myth that Israel is untouchable was destroyed by Erdogan, and because of that Israel nurses a hatred for Turkey.”</p>
<p>In fact, the Davos incident is significant not because it demonstrates that Israel can be criticized, but rather because it was Turkey — and not any other easily dismissible party — that dared to voice such criticism.</p>
<p>Writing in the Financial Times under the title, “Erdogan turns to face East in a delicate balancing act,” David Gardner places Turkey’s political turn within a European context. He sums up that thought in a quote uttered by no other than Robert Gates, US defense secretary: “If there is anything to the notion that Turkey is moving Eastward, it is in no small part because it was pushed, and pushed by some in Europe refusing to give Turkey the kind of organic link to the West that Turkey sought.” But what many analysts missed was the larger political and historical context, not only as pertaining to Israel and Turkey, but to the whole region and all its players, including the US itself. Only this context can help us understand the logic behind Israel’s seemingly erratic behavior.</p>
<p>In 1996, Israeli leaders appeared very confident. A group of neoconservative American politicians had laid out a road map for Israel to ensure complete dominance over the Middle East. In the document entitled, “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” Turkey was mentioned four times. Each reference envisaged the country as a tool to “contain, destabilize, and roll back some of .. (the) most dangerous threats” to Israel. That very “vision” in fact served as the backbone of the larger strategy used by the US, as it carried out its heedless military adventures in the Middle East.</p>
<p>Frustrated by the American failure to reshape the region and unquestioningly eliminate anything and everything that Israel might perceive as a threat, Israel took matters into its own hands. However, in 2006 and between 2008 and 2009, it was up for major surprises. Superior firepower doesn’t guarantee military victory. More, while Israel had once more demonstrated its capacity to inflict untold damage on people and infrastructure, the Israeli weapon was no longer strategically effective. In other words, Israel’s military advantage could no longer translate into political gains, and this was a game-changer.</p>
<p>There are many issues the Israeli leadership has had to wrangle with in recent years. The US, Israel’s most faithful benefactor, is now on a crisis management mode in Iraq and Afghanistan, struggling on all fronts, whether political, military or economic. That recoil has further emboldened Israel’s enemies, who are no longer intimidated by the American bogyman. Israel’s desperate attempt at using its own military to achieve its grand objectives has also failed, and miserably so.</p>
<p>With options growing even more limited, Israel now understands that Gaza is its last card; ending the siege or ceasing the killings could be understood as another indication of political weakness, a risk that Israel is not ready to take.</p>
<p>Turkey, on the other hand, was fighting — and mostly winning — its own battles. Democracy in Turkey has never been as healthy and meaningful as it is today. Turkey has also eased its chase of the proverbial dangling carrot, of EU membership, especially considering the arrogant attitude of some EU members who perceive Turkey as too large and too Muslim to be trusted. Turkey needed new platforms, new options and a more diverse strategy.</p>
<p>But that is where many analysts went wrong. Turkey’s popular government has not entered the Middle Eastern political foray to pick fights. On the contrary, the Turkish government has for years been trying to get involved as a peacemaker, a mediator between various parties. So, yes, Turkey’s political shift was largely strategic, but it was not ill-intentioned.</p>
<p>The uninvited Turkish involvement, however, is highly irritating to Israel. Turkey’s approach to its new role grew agitating to Israel when the role wasn’t confined to being that of the host — in indirect talks between Syria and Israel, for example. Instead, Turkey began to take increasingly solid and determined political stances. Thus the Davos episode.</p>
<p>By participating at such a high capacity in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, with firm intentions of breaking the siege, Turkey was escalating its involvement well beyond Israel’s comfort zone. Therefore, Israel needed a decisive response that would send a message to Turkey — and any daring other — about crossing the line of what is and is not acceptable. It’s ironic how the neoconservatives’ “A Clean Break” envisaged an Israeli violation of the political and geographic boundaries of its neighbors, with the help of Turkey. Yet, 14 years later, it was Turkey, with representatives from 32 other countries, which came with a peaceful armada to breach what Israel perceived as its own political domain.</p>
<p>The Israeli response, as bloody as it was, can only be understood within this larger context. Erdogan’s statements and the popular support his government enjoys show that Turkey has decided to take on the Israeli challenge. The US government was exposed as ineffectual and hostage to the failing Israeli agenda in the region, thanks to the lobby. Ironically it is now the neoconservatives who are leading the charge against Turkey, the very country they had hoped would become Israel’s willing ally in its apocalyptic vision.</p>
<p>RAMZY BAROUD is editor of <a href="http://www.PalestineChronicle.com" type="external">PalestineChronicle.com</a>. His work has been published in many newspapers and journals worldwide. His latest book is <a href="" type="internal">The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle</a> (Pluto Press, London). His newbook is, “ <a href="" type="internal">My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story</a>” (Pluto Press, London).</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p><a href="http://greentags.bigcartel.com/" type="external">WORDS THAT STICK</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p />
<p /> | What Ankara Knows | true | https://counterpunch.org/2010/06/18/what-ankara-knows/ | 2010-06-18 | 4left
| What Ankara Knows
<p>“Even despots, gangsters and pirates have specific sensitiveness, (and) follow some specific morals.”</p>
<p>The claim was made by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a recent speech, following the deadly commando raid on the humanitarian aid flotilla to Gaza on May 31. According to Erdogan, Israel doesn’t adhere to the code of conduct embraced even by the vilest of criminals.</p>
<p>The statement alone indicates the momentous political shift that’s currently underway in the Middle East. While the shift isn’t entirely new, one dares to claim it might now be a lasting one. To borrow from Erdogan’s own assessment of the political fallout that followed Israel’s raid, the damage is “irreparable.”</p>
<p>Countless analyses have emerged in the wake of the long-planned and calculated Israeli attack on the Turkish ship, Mavi Marmara, which claimed the lives of nine, mostly Turkish peace activists.</p>
<p>In “Turkey’s Strategic U-Turn, Israel’s Tactical Mistakes,” published in the Israeli daily Haaretz, Ofra Bengio suggested Turkey’s position was purely strategic. But he also chastised Israel for driving Turkey further and faster “toward the Arab and Muslim worlds.”</p>
<p>In this week’s Zaman, a Turkish publication, Bulent Kenes wrote: “As a result of the Davos (where the Turkish prime minister stormed out of a televised discussion with Israeli President Shimon Peres, after accusing him and Israel of murder), the myth that Israel is untouchable was destroyed by Erdogan, and because of that Israel nurses a hatred for Turkey.”</p>
<p>In fact, the Davos incident is significant not because it demonstrates that Israel can be criticized, but rather because it was Turkey — and not any other easily dismissible party — that dared to voice such criticism.</p>
<p>Writing in the Financial Times under the title, “Erdogan turns to face East in a delicate balancing act,” David Gardner places Turkey’s political turn within a European context. He sums up that thought in a quote uttered by no other than Robert Gates, US defense secretary: “If there is anything to the notion that Turkey is moving Eastward, it is in no small part because it was pushed, and pushed by some in Europe refusing to give Turkey the kind of organic link to the West that Turkey sought.” But what many analysts missed was the larger political and historical context, not only as pertaining to Israel and Turkey, but to the whole region and all its players, including the US itself. Only this context can help us understand the logic behind Israel’s seemingly erratic behavior.</p>
<p>In 1996, Israeli leaders appeared very confident. A group of neoconservative American politicians had laid out a road map for Israel to ensure complete dominance over the Middle East. In the document entitled, “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” Turkey was mentioned four times. Each reference envisaged the country as a tool to “contain, destabilize, and roll back some of .. (the) most dangerous threats” to Israel. That very “vision” in fact served as the backbone of the larger strategy used by the US, as it carried out its heedless military adventures in the Middle East.</p>
<p>Frustrated by the American failure to reshape the region and unquestioningly eliminate anything and everything that Israel might perceive as a threat, Israel took matters into its own hands. However, in 2006 and between 2008 and 2009, it was up for major surprises. Superior firepower doesn’t guarantee military victory. More, while Israel had once more demonstrated its capacity to inflict untold damage on people and infrastructure, the Israeli weapon was no longer strategically effective. In other words, Israel’s military advantage could no longer translate into political gains, and this was a game-changer.</p>
<p>There are many issues the Israeli leadership has had to wrangle with in recent years. The US, Israel’s most faithful benefactor, is now on a crisis management mode in Iraq and Afghanistan, struggling on all fronts, whether political, military or economic. That recoil has further emboldened Israel’s enemies, who are no longer intimidated by the American bogyman. Israel’s desperate attempt at using its own military to achieve its grand objectives has also failed, and miserably so.</p>
<p>With options growing even more limited, Israel now understands that Gaza is its last card; ending the siege or ceasing the killings could be understood as another indication of political weakness, a risk that Israel is not ready to take.</p>
<p>Turkey, on the other hand, was fighting — and mostly winning — its own battles. Democracy in Turkey has never been as healthy and meaningful as it is today. Turkey has also eased its chase of the proverbial dangling carrot, of EU membership, especially considering the arrogant attitude of some EU members who perceive Turkey as too large and too Muslim to be trusted. Turkey needed new platforms, new options and a more diverse strategy.</p>
<p>But that is where many analysts went wrong. Turkey’s popular government has not entered the Middle Eastern political foray to pick fights. On the contrary, the Turkish government has for years been trying to get involved as a peacemaker, a mediator between various parties. So, yes, Turkey’s political shift was largely strategic, but it was not ill-intentioned.</p>
<p>The uninvited Turkish involvement, however, is highly irritating to Israel. Turkey’s approach to its new role grew agitating to Israel when the role wasn’t confined to being that of the host — in indirect talks between Syria and Israel, for example. Instead, Turkey began to take increasingly solid and determined political stances. Thus the Davos episode.</p>
<p>By participating at such a high capacity in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, with firm intentions of breaking the siege, Turkey was escalating its involvement well beyond Israel’s comfort zone. Therefore, Israel needed a decisive response that would send a message to Turkey — and any daring other — about crossing the line of what is and is not acceptable. It’s ironic how the neoconservatives’ “A Clean Break” envisaged an Israeli violation of the political and geographic boundaries of its neighbors, with the help of Turkey. Yet, 14 years later, it was Turkey, with representatives from 32 other countries, which came with a peaceful armada to breach what Israel perceived as its own political domain.</p>
<p>The Israeli response, as bloody as it was, can only be understood within this larger context. Erdogan’s statements and the popular support his government enjoys show that Turkey has decided to take on the Israeli challenge. The US government was exposed as ineffectual and hostage to the failing Israeli agenda in the region, thanks to the lobby. Ironically it is now the neoconservatives who are leading the charge against Turkey, the very country they had hoped would become Israel’s willing ally in its apocalyptic vision.</p>
<p>RAMZY BAROUD is editor of <a href="http://www.PalestineChronicle.com" type="external">PalestineChronicle.com</a>. His work has been published in many newspapers and journals worldwide. His latest book is <a href="" type="internal">The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle</a> (Pluto Press, London). His newbook is, “ <a href="" type="internal">My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story</a>” (Pluto Press, London).</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p><a href="http://greentags.bigcartel.com/" type="external">WORDS THAT STICK</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p />
<p /> | 3,805 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>KEEPING SCORE: Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 rose 1.2 percent to 18,843.98. Australia’s S&amp;P/ASX 200 gained 0.1 percent to 5,857.00. South Korea’s Kospi added 0.2 percent to 2,169.96. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.1 percent to 24,016.23, while the Shanghai Composite fell 1.6 percent to 3,123.80.</p>
<p>FRENCH ELECTION: After the weekend vote, centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right populist Marine Le Pen are advancing to a runoff in France’s presidential election. The outcome could lead to a reshaping of the country’s political landscape and set up a showdown over France’s participation in the European Union.</p>
<p>WALL STREET: The Standard &amp; Poor’s 500 index lost 0.3 percent to end the week at 2,348.69. The Dow Jones industrial average dipped 0.2 percent to 20,547.76. The Nasdaq composite fell 0.1 percent to 5,910.52.</p>
<p>THE QUOTE: “It seems like a ‘relief rebound’ following the result of the French election just a few hours ago, which shows that Macron and Le Pen will go head-to-head in the final round. The first round election result was very much in line with earlier poll results,” Margaret Yang Yan, market analyst at CMC Markets Singapore, said in a commentary.</p>
<p>ENERGY: Benchmark U.S. crude rose 25 cents to $49.87 a barrel in New York. It shed $1.09, or 2.1 percent, to $49.62 a barrel Friday. Brent crude, used to price international oils, rose 28 cents to $52.24 a barrel in London.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>CURRENCIES: The dollar recovered to 110.04 yen from 109.09 yen late last week in Asia. The euro rose to $1.0847 from $1.0701.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at https://twitter.com/yurikageyama</p>
<p>Her work can be found at <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/content/yuri-kageyama" type="external">http://bigstory.ap.org/content/yuri-kageyama</a></p> | Asian stocks mixed as investors mull French election outcome | false | https://abqjournal.com/992209/asian-stocks-mixed-as-investors-mull-french-election-outcome.html | 2017-04-23 | 2least
| Asian stocks mixed as investors mull French election outcome
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>KEEPING SCORE: Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 rose 1.2 percent to 18,843.98. Australia’s S&amp;P/ASX 200 gained 0.1 percent to 5,857.00. South Korea’s Kospi added 0.2 percent to 2,169.96. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.1 percent to 24,016.23, while the Shanghai Composite fell 1.6 percent to 3,123.80.</p>
<p>FRENCH ELECTION: After the weekend vote, centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right populist Marine Le Pen are advancing to a runoff in France’s presidential election. The outcome could lead to a reshaping of the country’s political landscape and set up a showdown over France’s participation in the European Union.</p>
<p>WALL STREET: The Standard &amp; Poor’s 500 index lost 0.3 percent to end the week at 2,348.69. The Dow Jones industrial average dipped 0.2 percent to 20,547.76. The Nasdaq composite fell 0.1 percent to 5,910.52.</p>
<p>THE QUOTE: “It seems like a ‘relief rebound’ following the result of the French election just a few hours ago, which shows that Macron and Le Pen will go head-to-head in the final round. The first round election result was very much in line with earlier poll results,” Margaret Yang Yan, market analyst at CMC Markets Singapore, said in a commentary.</p>
<p>ENERGY: Benchmark U.S. crude rose 25 cents to $49.87 a barrel in New York. It shed $1.09, or 2.1 percent, to $49.62 a barrel Friday. Brent crude, used to price international oils, rose 28 cents to $52.24 a barrel in London.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>CURRENCIES: The dollar recovered to 110.04 yen from 109.09 yen late last week in Asia. The euro rose to $1.0847 from $1.0701.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at https://twitter.com/yurikageyama</p>
<p>Her work can be found at <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/content/yuri-kageyama" type="external">http://bigstory.ap.org/content/yuri-kageyama</a></p> | 3,806 |
<p />
<p>International Business Machines Corp (NYSE:IBM) has urged lawmakers to use a different strategy than toughening foreign investment rules because of U.S. concerns about Chinese military actions and intellectual property theft, according to a letter seen by Reuters on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>In the letter dated Nov. 9 and sent to the bills’ sponsors and co-sponsors, IBM said it was worried the bills would needlessly expand the role of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States so that it is bogged down with routine transactions.</p>
<p>CFIUS, an inter-agency panel, blocks international deals that could harm U.S. national security.</p>
<p>”As drafted, the bill could turn CFIUS into a supra-export control agency, unilaterally limiting the ability of American</p>
<p>firms to do business abroad while empowering foreign competitors to capture global markets,” wrote Christopher Padilla, IBM’s vice president for government and regulatory affairs.</p>
<p>Instead, IBM urged the lawmakers to update export control rules to address their unease.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Officials are concerned about Chinese intellectual property theft, including U.S. high-tech know-how, and militarizing islands in the South China Sea.</p>
<p>Senator John Cornyn, a member of the Republican leadership, introduced a Senate bill while Republican Representative Robert Pittenger introduced an identical bill in the House.</p>
<p>Under the bills, CFIUS could stop smaller investments than ones it now reviews and add new national security factors for CFIUS to consider, including whether information about Americans, such as Social Security numbers, would be exposed as part of the transaction.</p>
<p>Cornyn, in a speech on Tuesday to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, argued the bills were needed because of China’s military provocations.</p>
<p>“Unless these trend lines change, we may one day see some of our own technology used against us should, heaven forbid, we ever have to face China in some sort of military confrontation,” he said.</p>
<p>Cornyn said he hoped for a Senate hearing on the bill before the end of the year and committee action soon after.</p>
<p>“Every timeline I might speculate about in the Senate I’ll probably be wrong. Things always happen slower than we would like but I have a great sense of urgency about this,” he said.</p>
<p>IBM did not respond to a request for comment about the letter.</p>
<p>IBM has had transactions successfully go before CFIUS. In 2014, the panel allowed IBM to sell a low-end server business to China’s Lenovo. In 2005, it sold its personal computer business, also to Lenovo.</p> | IBM urges lawmakers to 'narrow' bill targeting Chinese investment | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/11/14/ibm-urges-lawmakers-to-narrow-bill-targeting-chinese-investment.html | 2017-11-14 | 0right
| IBM urges lawmakers to 'narrow' bill targeting Chinese investment
<p />
<p>International Business Machines Corp (NYSE:IBM) has urged lawmakers to use a different strategy than toughening foreign investment rules because of U.S. concerns about Chinese military actions and intellectual property theft, according to a letter seen by Reuters on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>In the letter dated Nov. 9 and sent to the bills’ sponsors and co-sponsors, IBM said it was worried the bills would needlessly expand the role of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States so that it is bogged down with routine transactions.</p>
<p>CFIUS, an inter-agency panel, blocks international deals that could harm U.S. national security.</p>
<p>”As drafted, the bill could turn CFIUS into a supra-export control agency, unilaterally limiting the ability of American</p>
<p>firms to do business abroad while empowering foreign competitors to capture global markets,” wrote Christopher Padilla, IBM’s vice president for government and regulatory affairs.</p>
<p>Instead, IBM urged the lawmakers to update export control rules to address their unease.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Officials are concerned about Chinese intellectual property theft, including U.S. high-tech know-how, and militarizing islands in the South China Sea.</p>
<p>Senator John Cornyn, a member of the Republican leadership, introduced a Senate bill while Republican Representative Robert Pittenger introduced an identical bill in the House.</p>
<p>Under the bills, CFIUS could stop smaller investments than ones it now reviews and add new national security factors for CFIUS to consider, including whether information about Americans, such as Social Security numbers, would be exposed as part of the transaction.</p>
<p>Cornyn, in a speech on Tuesday to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, argued the bills were needed because of China’s military provocations.</p>
<p>“Unless these trend lines change, we may one day see some of our own technology used against us should, heaven forbid, we ever have to face China in some sort of military confrontation,” he said.</p>
<p>Cornyn said he hoped for a Senate hearing on the bill before the end of the year and committee action soon after.</p>
<p>“Every timeline I might speculate about in the Senate I’ll probably be wrong. Things always happen slower than we would like but I have a great sense of urgency about this,” he said.</p>
<p>IBM did not respond to a request for comment about the letter.</p>
<p>IBM has had transactions successfully go before CFIUS. In 2014, the panel allowed IBM to sell a low-end server business to China’s Lenovo. In 2005, it sold its personal computer business, also to Lenovo.</p> | 3,807 |
<p>As president,&#160;everything&#160;you say matters. Furthermore, when you call the White House “home,” then you damn sure have to answer for any and every controversial or questionable comment you make. It’s clear Donald Trump doesn’t understand this. Much like his days pushing ridiculous conspiracy theories about Barack Obama’s birth certificate, he still seems to think he can continue this behavior without being held accountable for his words.</p>
<p>Unfortunately for him, that’s not how it works.</p>
<p>Thankfully, more and more members of the media are beginning to take a <a href="" type="internal">stronger stance against Trump</a>, his behavior, and his fondness for <a href="" type="internal">pushing his fact-free conspiracy theories</a> which he never seems to have any evidence to support.</p>
<p>Such as NBC News’ White House correspondent Hallie Jackson, who took apart White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s rather laughable defense of Trump’s wiretapping claim against Barack Obama.</p>
<p>“You said the president stands by his tweets Saturday morning that President Obama ordered this wiretap,” Jackson&#160;stated. “You’ve also said that the president&#160;wants Congress to investigate. Some members of Congress, by the way, have asked the White House and asked the president to come forward with the information.”</p>
<p>“So bottom line, why would the president want Congress to investigate for information he already has?” she asked.</p>
<p>Spicer then tried rambling on about a “separation of powers” and “appropriateness” for Trump to ask Congress to investigate.</p>
<p>As Jackson had just pointed out, if Trump already has this “proof” he claims exists, why doesn’t he simply turn it over to Congress? Why would he waste Congress’s time by making them dig for information that he claims to already have?</p>
<p>That doesn’t make any sense, which was basically Jackson’s next point.</p>
<p>“But if the president has the info, if he’s sitting on this information, if he’s found out, he’s now directing or asking or recommending that the intelligence committees look into this,” Jackson replied. “And you talked about they have resources and staff, which they do. But why expend those resources and staff if the president found out this information and has it?”</p>
<p>Spicer then claimed&#160;Trump’s desire to have Congress involved is his attempt to add credibility to the investigation. While that&#160;sounds&#160;all well and good, it still doesn’t explain why he’s withholding evidence from Congress.</p>
<p>That’s like me saying I have proof that someone committed a crime against me,&#160;calling for the police to conduct an investigation, then&#160;refusing to turn over the evidence I claimed I had to the law enforcement officers in charge of conducting the investigation&#160;I asked for.</p>
<p>If that sounds stupid, it should — but that’s&#160;essentially what Trump’s saying.</p>
<p>This&#160;isn’t about whether or not Congress could potentially investigate these&#160;allegations. Obviously if they’re&#160;presented with&#160;enough evidence indicating that what Trump’s saying happened is true,&#160;Republicans won’t have any problem launching an extensive investigation. The controversy with all of this centers around Trump’s&#160;claim to&#160;have evidence&#160;he says proves his accusations against Obama are true — that he seems unwilling to share with the American public or even Congress.</p>
<p>It’s obvious what he’s doing.</p>
<p>Since he doesn’t actually have any credible evidence to support his conspiracy, he’s trying to spin it as he’s holding back what he knows so it doesn’t influence the “checks and balances” of any potential congressional investigation. Though, as Jackson made sure to bring up, members of Congress have asked for his “evidence,” yet he won’t even show it to them.</p>
<p>Like with <a href="" type="internal">all of Trump’s other conspiracies</a>, he’s never going to provide any evidence to support anything he says —&#160;because it doesn’t exist. Just like when he said:</p>
<p>Those are just a few (there are many more) of the conspiracies Trump’s&#160;claimed are&#160;all true — yet&#160;he’s never once provided any evidence for a single one of them. Luckily for Trump, he’s supported by <a href="" type="internal">people who believe anything he says</a> and leads a party that doesn’t seem interested in holding him to even 1/100th of the same set of standards they would a Democrat.</p>
<p>All that being said, Jackson’s point was spot-on. It’s something many people, myself included, have been saying for the last few days. If Donald Trump has evidence he claims proves Barack Obama ordered an illegal wiretap of Trump Tower, then there’s no reason for him not to provide that evidence to Congress. The fact that he seems unwilling to do so, even though it’s been requested by members of Congress, proves that he doesn’t have anything. Otherwise there’s not a single rational or logical reason why he’d withhold evidence from the very people he says he wants to investigate something that, if true, would be one of the biggest scandals since Watergate.</p>
<p>Watch the exchange below via Fox News by way of Raw Story:</p>
<p />
<p />
<p><a href="" type="internal">Going By Trump's Own Words, Here's Proof that Fox News Deserves His 'Dishonest and Corrupt Media Award'</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Former Obama Spokesman Rips GOP Memo: 'Government by Conspiracy Theory' (Video)</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Donald Trump's Arrogance and Ignorance Could Land Him in Prison After the Election</a></p>
<p>28 Facebook comments</p> | MSNBC Reporter Slams Spicer, Exposes Stupidity of Trump’s Wiretapping Conspiracy (Video) | true | https://forwardprogressives.com/msnbc-reporter-slams-spicer-exposes-stupidity-trumps-wiretapping-conspiracy-video/ | 2017-03-07 | 4left
| MSNBC Reporter Slams Spicer, Exposes Stupidity of Trump’s Wiretapping Conspiracy (Video)
<p>As president,&#160;everything&#160;you say matters. Furthermore, when you call the White House “home,” then you damn sure have to answer for any and every controversial or questionable comment you make. It’s clear Donald Trump doesn’t understand this. Much like his days pushing ridiculous conspiracy theories about Barack Obama’s birth certificate, he still seems to think he can continue this behavior without being held accountable for his words.</p>
<p>Unfortunately for him, that’s not how it works.</p>
<p>Thankfully, more and more members of the media are beginning to take a <a href="" type="internal">stronger stance against Trump</a>, his behavior, and his fondness for <a href="" type="internal">pushing his fact-free conspiracy theories</a> which he never seems to have any evidence to support.</p>
<p>Such as NBC News’ White House correspondent Hallie Jackson, who took apart White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s rather laughable defense of Trump’s wiretapping claim against Barack Obama.</p>
<p>“You said the president stands by his tweets Saturday morning that President Obama ordered this wiretap,” Jackson&#160;stated. “You’ve also said that the president&#160;wants Congress to investigate. Some members of Congress, by the way, have asked the White House and asked the president to come forward with the information.”</p>
<p>“So bottom line, why would the president want Congress to investigate for information he already has?” she asked.</p>
<p>Spicer then tried rambling on about a “separation of powers” and “appropriateness” for Trump to ask Congress to investigate.</p>
<p>As Jackson had just pointed out, if Trump already has this “proof” he claims exists, why doesn’t he simply turn it over to Congress? Why would he waste Congress’s time by making them dig for information that he claims to already have?</p>
<p>That doesn’t make any sense, which was basically Jackson’s next point.</p>
<p>“But if the president has the info, if he’s sitting on this information, if he’s found out, he’s now directing or asking or recommending that the intelligence committees look into this,” Jackson replied. “And you talked about they have resources and staff, which they do. But why expend those resources and staff if the president found out this information and has it?”</p>
<p>Spicer then claimed&#160;Trump’s desire to have Congress involved is his attempt to add credibility to the investigation. While that&#160;sounds&#160;all well and good, it still doesn’t explain why he’s withholding evidence from Congress.</p>
<p>That’s like me saying I have proof that someone committed a crime against me,&#160;calling for the police to conduct an investigation, then&#160;refusing to turn over the evidence I claimed I had to the law enforcement officers in charge of conducting the investigation&#160;I asked for.</p>
<p>If that sounds stupid, it should — but that’s&#160;essentially what Trump’s saying.</p>
<p>This&#160;isn’t about whether or not Congress could potentially investigate these&#160;allegations. Obviously if they’re&#160;presented with&#160;enough evidence indicating that what Trump’s saying happened is true,&#160;Republicans won’t have any problem launching an extensive investigation. The controversy with all of this centers around Trump’s&#160;claim to&#160;have evidence&#160;he says proves his accusations against Obama are true — that he seems unwilling to share with the American public or even Congress.</p>
<p>It’s obvious what he’s doing.</p>
<p>Since he doesn’t actually have any credible evidence to support his conspiracy, he’s trying to spin it as he’s holding back what he knows so it doesn’t influence the “checks and balances” of any potential congressional investigation. Though, as Jackson made sure to bring up, members of Congress have asked for his “evidence,” yet he won’t even show it to them.</p>
<p>Like with <a href="" type="internal">all of Trump’s other conspiracies</a>, he’s never going to provide any evidence to support anything he says —&#160;because it doesn’t exist. Just like when he said:</p>
<p>Those are just a few (there are many more) of the conspiracies Trump’s&#160;claimed are&#160;all true — yet&#160;he’s never once provided any evidence for a single one of them. Luckily for Trump, he’s supported by <a href="" type="internal">people who believe anything he says</a> and leads a party that doesn’t seem interested in holding him to even 1/100th of the same set of standards they would a Democrat.</p>
<p>All that being said, Jackson’s point was spot-on. It’s something many people, myself included, have been saying for the last few days. If Donald Trump has evidence he claims proves Barack Obama ordered an illegal wiretap of Trump Tower, then there’s no reason for him not to provide that evidence to Congress. The fact that he seems unwilling to do so, even though it’s been requested by members of Congress, proves that he doesn’t have anything. Otherwise there’s not a single rational or logical reason why he’d withhold evidence from the very people he says he wants to investigate something that, if true, would be one of the biggest scandals since Watergate.</p>
<p>Watch the exchange below via Fox News by way of Raw Story:</p>
<p />
<p />
<p><a href="" type="internal">Going By Trump's Own Words, Here's Proof that Fox News Deserves His 'Dishonest and Corrupt Media Award'</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Former Obama Spokesman Rips GOP Memo: 'Government by Conspiracy Theory' (Video)</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Donald Trump's Arrogance and Ignorance Could Land Him in Prison After the Election</a></p>
<p>28 Facebook comments</p> | 3,808 |
<p />
<p>The mainstream media has adopted a vicious culture of misrepresenting facts and spreading fake news, this trend has become the mode of operation of most MMS outlets. The Washington Post is no exception, the outlet had recently posted some fake news that implied that Russian hackers had penetrated the U.S. electricity grid via a utility in Vermont. However, the outlet has retracted the fake news story.</p>
<p />
<p>One of the editors noted on the Post's story that the earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Russian hackers had penetrated the U.S. electric grid. Adding that authorities confirmed that it was not true and no indication had been identified. The editor also acknowledged the fact that the computer at Burlington Electric that was hacked was not attached to the grid.</p>
<p />
<p>The outrageous story was originally posted by AFP newswire, which is followed by many mainstream media outlets. The mainstream media outlets such as Washington Post exposed their misleading headline at the end of the story which claimed that a code linked to Russian hacking efforts had been discovered in a utility system in Vermont which was a great indication of the vulnerabilities in the US electrical grid. The paper reported that the code detected in the northeastern state's system did not disrupt its operations. Adding that the code was associated with the Russian hacking efforts that US officials termed as Grizzly Steppe.</p>
<p />
<p>Burlington Electric Department reported that it had been alerted by the government on Thursday night after which it carried out a scan and found the malware in one laptop that was not connected to the grid systems. They thus isolated the laptop.</p>
<p>This was just a great example of the mainstream media attempt to create fear using the Russian hacking hysteria.</p> | Washington Post Withdraws Fake News Story Claiming Russia Hacked U.S. Power Grid | true | http://thegoldwater.com/news/914-Washington-Post-Withdraws-Fake-News-Story-Claiming-Russia-Hacked-U-S-Power-Grid | 2017-01-02 | 0right
| Washington Post Withdraws Fake News Story Claiming Russia Hacked U.S. Power Grid
<p />
<p>The mainstream media has adopted a vicious culture of misrepresenting facts and spreading fake news, this trend has become the mode of operation of most MMS outlets. The Washington Post is no exception, the outlet had recently posted some fake news that implied that Russian hackers had penetrated the U.S. electricity grid via a utility in Vermont. However, the outlet has retracted the fake news story.</p>
<p />
<p>One of the editors noted on the Post's story that the earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Russian hackers had penetrated the U.S. electric grid. Adding that authorities confirmed that it was not true and no indication had been identified. The editor also acknowledged the fact that the computer at Burlington Electric that was hacked was not attached to the grid.</p>
<p />
<p>The outrageous story was originally posted by AFP newswire, which is followed by many mainstream media outlets. The mainstream media outlets such as Washington Post exposed their misleading headline at the end of the story which claimed that a code linked to Russian hacking efforts had been discovered in a utility system in Vermont which was a great indication of the vulnerabilities in the US electrical grid. The paper reported that the code detected in the northeastern state's system did not disrupt its operations. Adding that the code was associated with the Russian hacking efforts that US officials termed as Grizzly Steppe.</p>
<p />
<p>Burlington Electric Department reported that it had been alerted by the government on Thursday night after which it carried out a scan and found the malware in one laptop that was not connected to the grid systems. They thus isolated the laptop.</p>
<p>This was just a great example of the mainstream media attempt to create fear using the Russian hacking hysteria.</p> | 3,809 |
<p>Published time: 29 Nov, 2017 10:45</p>
<p>Scientists conducting tests on a tomb purported to be the burial place of Jesus Christ have confirmed a vital part of the site’s history.</p>
<p>Researchers studying Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre made the discovery after taking mortar samples from the original limestone surface of the burial bed inside the tomb. They also tested the marble slab laid over it. &#160;</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/311675-mediterranean-human-made-monolith/" type="external">READ MORE: Rock of ages: Man-made 10,000yo monolith found off Italian coast</a></p>
<p>The results, as reported by <a href="https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/11/jesus-tomb-archaeology-jerusalem-christianity-rome/" type="external">National Geographic</a>, reveal that the marble dates back to around 345 AD, the era of Constantine, the first Christian Roman emperor. Antonia <a href="http://users.ntua.gr/amoropul/" type="external">Moropoulou</a>, chief scientific coordinator of the restoration works for the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), told AFP the results are consistent with the traditional belief that the Romans enshrined the tomb in a new church, known as the Edicule, in 326 AD.</p>
<p>“This is a very important finding because it confirms that it was, as historically evidenced, Constantine the Great responsible for cladding bedrock of the tomb of Christ with the marble slabs in the Edicule,” said Moropoulou.</p>
<p>The church housing the Edicule has endured a rather turbulent history. It has been periodically attacked by successive waves of invaders including Persians and the Crusaders. Razed and rebuilt in the second century, and then again in 1009 AD, dating tests on the church’s walls have returned varied results. Tests on the plaster of the cave purported to hold the burial tomb of Christ have been dated between 335 AD and 1570 AD.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/382083-jesus-tomb-reopened-jerusalem-collapse/" type="external">READ MORE: Jesus’ tomb reopened in Jerusalem amid fears of ‘catastrophic’ collapse (PHOTOS)</a></p>
<p>It’s not known if Jesus was buried at the shrine, an event thought to have occurred around 33 AD. The mortar samples were taken during extensive archaeological and restoration works to the Edicule by the NTUA last year. &#160;</p>
<p>The Greek Orthodox, Armenian and Roman Catholic churches, the joint custodians of the site, contributed more than $3 million for the project, with King Abdullah of Jordan also reported to have made a contribution. It is the first time in more than two centuries that the Edicule and the cave have received any maintenance work, following repeated warnings from archeologists that a failure to restore the site would lead to its catastrophic collapse.</p> | Dating tests on ‘Christ’s tomb’ confirm origins of ancient shrine | false | https://newsline.com/dating-tests-on-christs-tomb-confirm-origins-of-ancient-shrine/ | 2017-11-29 | 1right-center
| Dating tests on ‘Christ’s tomb’ confirm origins of ancient shrine
<p>Published time: 29 Nov, 2017 10:45</p>
<p>Scientists conducting tests on a tomb purported to be the burial place of Jesus Christ have confirmed a vital part of the site’s history.</p>
<p>Researchers studying Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre made the discovery after taking mortar samples from the original limestone surface of the burial bed inside the tomb. They also tested the marble slab laid over it. &#160;</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/311675-mediterranean-human-made-monolith/" type="external">READ MORE: Rock of ages: Man-made 10,000yo monolith found off Italian coast</a></p>
<p>The results, as reported by <a href="https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/11/jesus-tomb-archaeology-jerusalem-christianity-rome/" type="external">National Geographic</a>, reveal that the marble dates back to around 345 AD, the era of Constantine, the first Christian Roman emperor. Antonia <a href="http://users.ntua.gr/amoropul/" type="external">Moropoulou</a>, chief scientific coordinator of the restoration works for the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), told AFP the results are consistent with the traditional belief that the Romans enshrined the tomb in a new church, known as the Edicule, in 326 AD.</p>
<p>“This is a very important finding because it confirms that it was, as historically evidenced, Constantine the Great responsible for cladding bedrock of the tomb of Christ with the marble slabs in the Edicule,” said Moropoulou.</p>
<p>The church housing the Edicule has endured a rather turbulent history. It has been periodically attacked by successive waves of invaders including Persians and the Crusaders. Razed and rebuilt in the second century, and then again in 1009 AD, dating tests on the church’s walls have returned varied results. Tests on the plaster of the cave purported to hold the burial tomb of Christ have been dated between 335 AD and 1570 AD.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/382083-jesus-tomb-reopened-jerusalem-collapse/" type="external">READ MORE: Jesus’ tomb reopened in Jerusalem amid fears of ‘catastrophic’ collapse (PHOTOS)</a></p>
<p>It’s not known if Jesus was buried at the shrine, an event thought to have occurred around 33 AD. The mortar samples were taken during extensive archaeological and restoration works to the Edicule by the NTUA last year. &#160;</p>
<p>The Greek Orthodox, Armenian and Roman Catholic churches, the joint custodians of the site, contributed more than $3 million for the project, with King Abdullah of Jordan also reported to have made a contribution. It is the first time in more than two centuries that the Edicule and the cave have received any maintenance work, following repeated warnings from archeologists that a failure to restore the site would lead to its catastrophic collapse.</p> | 3,810 |
<p>Two landmark developments on August 16th give momentum to the growing interest of cities and counties in addressing the mortgage crisis using eminent domain:</p>
<p>(1) The Washington State Supreme Court held in <a href="" type="internal">Bain v. MERS, et al.</a>, that an electronic database called Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS) is not a “beneficiary” entitled to foreclose under a deed of trust; and</p>
<p>(2) San Bernardino County, California, <a href="" type="internal">passed a resolution</a> to consider plans to use eminent domain to address the glut of underwater borrowers by purchasing and refinancing their loans.</p>
<p>MERS is the electronic smokescreen that allowed banks to build their securitization Ponzi scheme without worrying about details like ownership and chain of title.&#160; <a href="" type="internal">According to trial attorney Neil Garfield</a>, properties were sold to multiple investors or conveyed to empty trusts, subprime securities were endorsed as triple A, and banks earned up to 40 times what they could earn on a paying loan, using credit default swaps in which they bet the loan would go into default.&#160; As the dust settles from collapse of the scheme, homeowners are left with underwater mortgages with no legitimate owners to negotiate with.&#160; The solution now being considered is for municipalities to simply take ownership of the mortgages through eminent domain.&#160; This would allow them to clear title and start fresh, along with some other lucrative dividends.</p>
<p>A major snag in these proposals has been that to make them economically feasible, the mortgages would have to be purchased at less than fair market value, in violation of eminent domain laws.&#160; But for troubled properties with MERS in the title—which now seems to be the majority of them—this may no longer be a problem.&#160; If MERS is not a beneficiary entitled to foreclose, as held in Bain, it is not entitled to assign that right or to assign title.&#160; Title remains with the original note holder; and in the typical case, the note holder can no longer be located or established, since the property has been used as collateral for multiple investors.&#160; In these cases, counties or cities may be able to obtain the mortgages free and clear.&#160; The county or city would then be in a position to “do the fair thing,” settling with stakeholders in proportion to their legitimate claims, and refinancing or reselling the properties, with proceeds accruing to the city or county.</p>
<p>Bain v. MERS: No Rights Without the Original Note</p>
<p>Although Bain is binding precedent only in Washington State, it is well reasoned and is expected to be followed elsewhere.&#160; The question, said the panel, was “whether MERS and its associated business partners and institutions can both replace the existing recording system established by Washington statutes and still take advantage of legal procedures established in those same statutes.”&#160; The Court held that they could not have it both ways:</p>
<p>Simply put, if MERS does not hold the note, it is not a lawful beneficiary. . . .</p>
<p>MERS suggests that, if we find a violation of the act, “MERS should be required to assign its interest in any deed of trust to the holder of the promissory note, and have that assignment recorded in the land title records, before any non-judicial foreclosure could take place.” But if MERS is not the beneficiary as contemplated by Washington law, it is unclear what rights, if any, it has to convey. Other courts have rejected similar suggestions. [Citations omitted.]</p>
<p>If MERS has no rights that it can assign, the parties are back to square one: the original holder of the promissory note must be found.&#160; The problem is that many of these mortgage companies are no longer in business; and even if <a href="" type="internal" />they could be located, it is too late in most cases to assign the note to the trusts that are being tossed this hot potato.</p>
<p>Mortgage-backed securities are sold to investors in packages representing interests in trusts called REMICs (Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduits), which are designed as tax shelters.&#160; To qualify for that status, however, they must be “static.” Mortgages can’t be transferred in and out once the closing date has occurred. The REMIC Pooling and Servicing Agreement typically states that any transfer after the closing date is invalid. Yet few, if any, properties in foreclosure seem to have been assigned to these REMICs before the closing date, in blatant disregard of legal requirements.</p>
<p>The whole business is quite&#160; <a href="" type="internal">complicated</a>, but the bottom line is that title has been clouded not only by MERS but because the trusts purporting to foreclose do not own the properties by the terms of their own documents.&#160; Legally, the latter defect may be even more fatal than filing in the name of MERS in establishing a break in the chain of title to securitized properties.</p>
<p>What This Means for Eminent Domain Plans</p>
<p>Under the plans that the San Bernardino County board of supervisors voted to explore, the county would take underwater mortgages by eminent domain and then help the borrowers into mortgages with significantly lower monthly payments.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Objections</a> voiced at the August 16th hearing included suspicions concerning the role of Mortgage Resolution Partners, the private venture capital firm bringing the proposal (would it make off with the profits and leave the county footing the bills?), and where the county would get the money for the purchases.</p>
<p>A way around these objections might be to eliminate the private middleman and proceed through a <a href="http://www.huduser.org/portal/publications/landbanks.pdf" type="external">county land bank</a> of the sort set up in other states.&#160; If the land bank focused on properties with MERS in the chain of title (underwater, foreclosed or abandoned), it might obtain a significant inventory of properties free and clear.</p>
<p>The county would simply need to give notice in the local newspaper of intent to exercise its right of eminent domain. The burden of proof would then transfer to the claimant to establish title in a court proceeding.&#160; If the court followed Bain, title typically could not be proved and would pass free and clear to the county land bank, which could sell or rent the property and work out a fair settlement with the parties.</p>
<p>That would resolve not only the funding question but whether using eminent domain to cure mortgage problems constitutes an unconstitutional taking of private property.&#160; In these cases, there would be no one to take from, since no one would be able to prove title.&#160; The investors would take their place in line as unsecured creditors with claims in equity for actual damages.&#160; In most cases, they would be protected by credit default swaps and could recover from those arrangements.</p>
<p>The investors, banks and servicers all profited from the smokescreen of MERS, which shielded them from liability.&#160; As noted in Bain:</p>
<p>Critics of the MERS system point out that after bundling many loans together, it is difficult, if not impossible, to identify the current holder of any particular loan, or to negotiate with that holder. . . . Under the MERS system, questions of authority and accountability arise, and determining who has authority to negotiate loan modifications and who is accountable for misrepresentation and fraud becomes extraordinarily difficult.</p>
<p>Like MERS itself, the investors must deal with the consequences of an anonymity so remote that they removed themselves from the chain of title.</p>
<p>On August 15th, <a href="" type="internal">the Federal Housing Finance Agency threatened</a> to take action against municipalities condemning federal property.&#160; But to establish its claim, the FHFA, too, would have to establish that the mortgages were federal property; and under the Bain ruling, this could be difficult.</p>
<p>Setting Things Right</p>
<p>While banks and investors were busy counting their profits behind the curtain of MERS,&#160; homeowners and counties have been made to bear the losses.&#160; The city of San Bernardino is in such dire straits that on August 1, it filed for bankruptcy.</p>
<p>San Bernardino and other counties are drowning in debt from a crisis created when Wall Street’s real estate securitization bubble burst.&#160; By using eminent domain, they can clean up the destruction of their land title records and 400 years of real property law.&#160; And <a href="http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/the_way.php" type="external">by setting up their own banks</a>, counties and other municipalities can use their own capital and revenues to generate credit for local purposes.</p>
<p>Homeowners who paid much more for a home than it was worth as a result of the securitization bubble have little chance of challenging the legitimacy of their underwater mortgages on their own.&#160; Insisting that their state and local governments follow the lead of Washington State and San Bernardino County may be their best shot at escaping debt peonage to their mortgage lenders.</p>
<p>ELLEN BROWN&#160;is the author of&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Web of Debt: the Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free</a>. She can be reached through her&#160; <a href="http://www.webofdebt.com/" type="external">website</a>.&#160;</p> | Fighting the Mortgage Mess | true | https://counterpunch.org/2012/08/23/fighting-the-mortgage-mess/ | 2012-08-23 | 4left
| Fighting the Mortgage Mess
<p>Two landmark developments on August 16th give momentum to the growing interest of cities and counties in addressing the mortgage crisis using eminent domain:</p>
<p>(1) The Washington State Supreme Court held in <a href="" type="internal">Bain v. MERS, et al.</a>, that an electronic database called Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS) is not a “beneficiary” entitled to foreclose under a deed of trust; and</p>
<p>(2) San Bernardino County, California, <a href="" type="internal">passed a resolution</a> to consider plans to use eminent domain to address the glut of underwater borrowers by purchasing and refinancing their loans.</p>
<p>MERS is the electronic smokescreen that allowed banks to build their securitization Ponzi scheme without worrying about details like ownership and chain of title.&#160; <a href="" type="internal">According to trial attorney Neil Garfield</a>, properties were sold to multiple investors or conveyed to empty trusts, subprime securities were endorsed as triple A, and banks earned up to 40 times what they could earn on a paying loan, using credit default swaps in which they bet the loan would go into default.&#160; As the dust settles from collapse of the scheme, homeowners are left with underwater mortgages with no legitimate owners to negotiate with.&#160; The solution now being considered is for municipalities to simply take ownership of the mortgages through eminent domain.&#160; This would allow them to clear title and start fresh, along with some other lucrative dividends.</p>
<p>A major snag in these proposals has been that to make them economically feasible, the mortgages would have to be purchased at less than fair market value, in violation of eminent domain laws.&#160; But for troubled properties with MERS in the title—which now seems to be the majority of them—this may no longer be a problem.&#160; If MERS is not a beneficiary entitled to foreclose, as held in Bain, it is not entitled to assign that right or to assign title.&#160; Title remains with the original note holder; and in the typical case, the note holder can no longer be located or established, since the property has been used as collateral for multiple investors.&#160; In these cases, counties or cities may be able to obtain the mortgages free and clear.&#160; The county or city would then be in a position to “do the fair thing,” settling with stakeholders in proportion to their legitimate claims, and refinancing or reselling the properties, with proceeds accruing to the city or county.</p>
<p>Bain v. MERS: No Rights Without the Original Note</p>
<p>Although Bain is binding precedent only in Washington State, it is well reasoned and is expected to be followed elsewhere.&#160; The question, said the panel, was “whether MERS and its associated business partners and institutions can both replace the existing recording system established by Washington statutes and still take advantage of legal procedures established in those same statutes.”&#160; The Court held that they could not have it both ways:</p>
<p>Simply put, if MERS does not hold the note, it is not a lawful beneficiary. . . .</p>
<p>MERS suggests that, if we find a violation of the act, “MERS should be required to assign its interest in any deed of trust to the holder of the promissory note, and have that assignment recorded in the land title records, before any non-judicial foreclosure could take place.” But if MERS is not the beneficiary as contemplated by Washington law, it is unclear what rights, if any, it has to convey. Other courts have rejected similar suggestions. [Citations omitted.]</p>
<p>If MERS has no rights that it can assign, the parties are back to square one: the original holder of the promissory note must be found.&#160; The problem is that many of these mortgage companies are no longer in business; and even if <a href="" type="internal" />they could be located, it is too late in most cases to assign the note to the trusts that are being tossed this hot potato.</p>
<p>Mortgage-backed securities are sold to investors in packages representing interests in trusts called REMICs (Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduits), which are designed as tax shelters.&#160; To qualify for that status, however, they must be “static.” Mortgages can’t be transferred in and out once the closing date has occurred. The REMIC Pooling and Servicing Agreement typically states that any transfer after the closing date is invalid. Yet few, if any, properties in foreclosure seem to have been assigned to these REMICs before the closing date, in blatant disregard of legal requirements.</p>
<p>The whole business is quite&#160; <a href="" type="internal">complicated</a>, but the bottom line is that title has been clouded not only by MERS but because the trusts purporting to foreclose do not own the properties by the terms of their own documents.&#160; Legally, the latter defect may be even more fatal than filing in the name of MERS in establishing a break in the chain of title to securitized properties.</p>
<p>What This Means for Eminent Domain Plans</p>
<p>Under the plans that the San Bernardino County board of supervisors voted to explore, the county would take underwater mortgages by eminent domain and then help the borrowers into mortgages with significantly lower monthly payments.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Objections</a> voiced at the August 16th hearing included suspicions concerning the role of Mortgage Resolution Partners, the private venture capital firm bringing the proposal (would it make off with the profits and leave the county footing the bills?), and where the county would get the money for the purchases.</p>
<p>A way around these objections might be to eliminate the private middleman and proceed through a <a href="http://www.huduser.org/portal/publications/landbanks.pdf" type="external">county land bank</a> of the sort set up in other states.&#160; If the land bank focused on properties with MERS in the chain of title (underwater, foreclosed or abandoned), it might obtain a significant inventory of properties free and clear.</p>
<p>The county would simply need to give notice in the local newspaper of intent to exercise its right of eminent domain. The burden of proof would then transfer to the claimant to establish title in a court proceeding.&#160; If the court followed Bain, title typically could not be proved and would pass free and clear to the county land bank, which could sell or rent the property and work out a fair settlement with the parties.</p>
<p>That would resolve not only the funding question but whether using eminent domain to cure mortgage problems constitutes an unconstitutional taking of private property.&#160; In these cases, there would be no one to take from, since no one would be able to prove title.&#160; The investors would take their place in line as unsecured creditors with claims in equity for actual damages.&#160; In most cases, they would be protected by credit default swaps and could recover from those arrangements.</p>
<p>The investors, banks and servicers all profited from the smokescreen of MERS, which shielded them from liability.&#160; As noted in Bain:</p>
<p>Critics of the MERS system point out that after bundling many loans together, it is difficult, if not impossible, to identify the current holder of any particular loan, or to negotiate with that holder. . . . Under the MERS system, questions of authority and accountability arise, and determining who has authority to negotiate loan modifications and who is accountable for misrepresentation and fraud becomes extraordinarily difficult.</p>
<p>Like MERS itself, the investors must deal with the consequences of an anonymity so remote that they removed themselves from the chain of title.</p>
<p>On August 15th, <a href="" type="internal">the Federal Housing Finance Agency threatened</a> to take action against municipalities condemning federal property.&#160; But to establish its claim, the FHFA, too, would have to establish that the mortgages were federal property; and under the Bain ruling, this could be difficult.</p>
<p>Setting Things Right</p>
<p>While banks and investors were busy counting their profits behind the curtain of MERS,&#160; homeowners and counties have been made to bear the losses.&#160; The city of San Bernardino is in such dire straits that on August 1, it filed for bankruptcy.</p>
<p>San Bernardino and other counties are drowning in debt from a crisis created when Wall Street’s real estate securitization bubble burst.&#160; By using eminent domain, they can clean up the destruction of their land title records and 400 years of real property law.&#160; And <a href="http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/the_way.php" type="external">by setting up their own banks</a>, counties and other municipalities can use their own capital and revenues to generate credit for local purposes.</p>
<p>Homeowners who paid much more for a home than it was worth as a result of the securitization bubble have little chance of challenging the legitimacy of their underwater mortgages on their own.&#160; Insisting that their state and local governments follow the lead of Washington State and San Bernardino County may be their best shot at escaping debt peonage to their mortgage lenders.</p>
<p>ELLEN BROWN&#160;is the author of&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Web of Debt: the Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free</a>. She can be reached through her&#160; <a href="http://www.webofdebt.com/" type="external">website</a>.&#160;</p> | 3,811 |
<p>SAN DIEGO (AP) — Recent assaults by tactical teams on prototypes of President Donald Trump's proposed wall with Mexico found their imposing heights should stop border crossers, The Associated Press has learned, a finding that's likely to please security hawks but raise concerns about costs and environmental damage.</p>
<p>Military special forces based in Florida and U.S. Customs and Border Protection special units spent three weeks trying to breach and scale the eight models in San Diego, using jackhammers, saws, torches and other tools and climbing devices, a U.S. official with direct knowledge of the rigorous testing told the AP on condition of anonymity because the information was not authorized for public release.</p>
<p>Each model was to be 18 to 30 feet (5 to 9 meters) high, and contractors built at or near the maximum, which is roughly twice as high as many existing barriers. Ronald Vitiello, the agency's acting deputy commissioner, said after visiting the prototypes in October that he was struck most by their height.</p>
<p>The highly trained testers scaled 16 to 20 feet (5 to 6 meters) unassisted but needed help after that, said the official, who described the assaults on the wall prototypes to the AP. Testers also expressed safety concerns about getting down from 30 feet.</p>
<p>Only once did a tester manage to land a hook on top of the wall without help, the official said. Tubes atop some models repelled climbing devices but wouldn't work in more mountainous areas because the terrain is too jagged.</p>
<p>The findings appear to challenge what Janet Napolitano, now chancellor of the University of California, often said when she was President Barack Obama's homeland security secretary: "You show me a 50-foot wall, and I'll show you a 51-foot ladder."</p>
<p>A Customs and Border Protection report on the tests identifies strengths and flaws of each design but does not pick an overall winner or rank them. The report recommends combining elements of each, depending on the terrain. The official likened it to a Lego design, pulling pieces from different prototypes.</p>
<p>The report favors steel at the ground level because agents can see what is happening on the other side through mesh, and damage can more easily be fixed than concrete, the official said. With concrete, large slabs have to be replaced for even small breaches, which is time-consuming and expensive. Topping the steel with smooth concrete surfaces helps prevent climbing.</p>
<p>Brandon Judd, who heads the union representing border agents, said the recommended height and steel-concrete design make sense. He said people have been able to scale the smaller border walls, which were not put to same degree of testing before construction.</p>
<p>"Not many people are going to attempt to go over 30 feet," said Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council. "I just don't see it happening."</p>
<p>Just as daunting as getting over, he said, is climbing back if someone decides to try to return to Mexico to avoid capture.</p>
<p>Taller barriers are undoubtedly more effective, but they drive up the cost and could endanger wildlife.</p>
<p>Brian Segee, an attorney for Center for Biological Diversity, which has sued to block construction, said border walls 15 feet (5 meters) or less have prevented the movement of low-flying birds and insects.</p>
<p>"The bigger, more impervious the wall, the worse the impacts are going to be for wildlife," Segee said.</p>
<p>U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat in a border district, said a 30-foot (9-meter) wall would increase the cost "tremendously" and do nothing to address the problem of people entering the country legally and overstaying their visas.</p>
<p>Customs and Border Protection leaders were set to be briefed on the findings this week amid a standoff over immigration legislation that threatens to shut down the government. Democrats insist it includes protections for hundreds of thousands of young immigrants who were shielded from deportation under an Obama-era program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which is scheduled to end in March.</p>
<p>The administration has insisted wall funding be part of any immigration deal, but Trump has been unclear about how long the wall would be and how it should be designed. The administration has asked for $1.6 billion this year to build or replace 74 miles (118 kilometers) of barriers in Texas' Rio Grande Valley and San Diego and plans to request another $1.6 billion next year.</p>
<p>A proposal by Customs and Border Protection calls for spending $18 billion over 10 years to extend barriers to cover nearly half the border. Mexico has steadfastly rejected Trump's demand that it pay for the wall.</p>
<p>The agency is still in "the testing phase" and results are being evaluated, spokesman Carlos Diaz said. Combining elements of different prototypes instead of picking a winner is consistent with previous statements by officials, he said, noting that the agency said in bidding guidelines that a minimum height of 18 feet (5 meters) would be a key characteristic.</p>
<p>Contractors were awarded between $300,000 and $500,000 for each prototype. They were built last fall in a remote part of San Diego to guide future construction of one of Trump's signature campaign pledges. Four were concrete and four were made of other materials.</p>
<p>SAN DIEGO (AP) — Recent assaults by tactical teams on prototypes of President Donald Trump's proposed wall with Mexico found their imposing heights should stop border crossers, The Associated Press has learned, a finding that's likely to please security hawks but raise concerns about costs and environmental damage.</p>
<p>Military special forces based in Florida and U.S. Customs and Border Protection special units spent three weeks trying to breach and scale the eight models in San Diego, using jackhammers, saws, torches and other tools and climbing devices, a U.S. official with direct knowledge of the rigorous testing told the AP on condition of anonymity because the information was not authorized for public release.</p>
<p>Each model was to be 18 to 30 feet (5 to 9 meters) high, and contractors built at or near the maximum, which is roughly twice as high as many existing barriers. Ronald Vitiello, the agency's acting deputy commissioner, said after visiting the prototypes in October that he was struck most by their height.</p>
<p>The highly trained testers scaled 16 to 20 feet (5 to 6 meters) unassisted but needed help after that, said the official, who described the assaults on the wall prototypes to the AP. Testers also expressed safety concerns about getting down from 30 feet.</p>
<p>Only once did a tester manage to land a hook on top of the wall without help, the official said. Tubes atop some models repelled climbing devices but wouldn't work in more mountainous areas because the terrain is too jagged.</p>
<p>The findings appear to challenge what Janet Napolitano, now chancellor of the University of California, often said when she was President Barack Obama's homeland security secretary: "You show me a 50-foot wall, and I'll show you a 51-foot ladder."</p>
<p>A Customs and Border Protection report on the tests identifies strengths and flaws of each design but does not pick an overall winner or rank them. The report recommends combining elements of each, depending on the terrain. The official likened it to a Lego design, pulling pieces from different prototypes.</p>
<p>The report favors steel at the ground level because agents can see what is happening on the other side through mesh, and damage can more easily be fixed than concrete, the official said. With concrete, large slabs have to be replaced for even small breaches, which is time-consuming and expensive. Topping the steel with smooth concrete surfaces helps prevent climbing.</p>
<p>Brandon Judd, who heads the union representing border agents, said the recommended height and steel-concrete design make sense. He said people have been able to scale the smaller border walls, which were not put to same degree of testing before construction.</p>
<p>"Not many people are going to attempt to go over 30 feet," said Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council. "I just don't see it happening."</p>
<p>Just as daunting as getting over, he said, is climbing back if someone decides to try to return to Mexico to avoid capture.</p>
<p>Taller barriers are undoubtedly more effective, but they drive up the cost and could endanger wildlife.</p>
<p>Brian Segee, an attorney for Center for Biological Diversity, which has sued to block construction, said border walls 15 feet (5 meters) or less have prevented the movement of low-flying birds and insects.</p>
<p>"The bigger, more impervious the wall, the worse the impacts are going to be for wildlife," Segee said.</p>
<p>U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat in a border district, said a 30-foot (9-meter) wall would increase the cost "tremendously" and do nothing to address the problem of people entering the country legally and overstaying their visas.</p>
<p>Customs and Border Protection leaders were set to be briefed on the findings this week amid a standoff over immigration legislation that threatens to shut down the government. Democrats insist it includes protections for hundreds of thousands of young immigrants who were shielded from deportation under an Obama-era program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which is scheduled to end in March.</p>
<p>The administration has insisted wall funding be part of any immigration deal, but Trump has been unclear about how long the wall would be and how it should be designed. The administration has asked for $1.6 billion this year to build or replace 74 miles (118 kilometers) of barriers in Texas' Rio Grande Valley and San Diego and plans to request another $1.6 billion next year.</p>
<p>A proposal by Customs and Border Protection calls for spending $18 billion over 10 years to extend barriers to cover nearly half the border. Mexico has steadfastly rejected Trump's demand that it pay for the wall.</p>
<p>The agency is still in "the testing phase" and results are being evaluated, spokesman Carlos Diaz said. Combining elements of different prototypes instead of picking a winner is consistent with previous statements by officials, he said, noting that the agency said in bidding guidelines that a minimum height of 18 feet (5 meters) would be a key characteristic.</p>
<p>Contractors were awarded between $300,000 and $500,000 for each prototype. They were built last fall in a remote part of San Diego to guide future construction of one of Trump's signature campaign pledges. Four were concrete and four were made of other materials.</p> | Border wall tests find heights should keep out crossers | false | https://apnews.com/amp/a7c524fcd45e4c99959970d337dbdc3c | 2018-01-20 | 2least
| Border wall tests find heights should keep out crossers
<p>SAN DIEGO (AP) — Recent assaults by tactical teams on prototypes of President Donald Trump's proposed wall with Mexico found their imposing heights should stop border crossers, The Associated Press has learned, a finding that's likely to please security hawks but raise concerns about costs and environmental damage.</p>
<p>Military special forces based in Florida and U.S. Customs and Border Protection special units spent three weeks trying to breach and scale the eight models in San Diego, using jackhammers, saws, torches and other tools and climbing devices, a U.S. official with direct knowledge of the rigorous testing told the AP on condition of anonymity because the information was not authorized for public release.</p>
<p>Each model was to be 18 to 30 feet (5 to 9 meters) high, and contractors built at or near the maximum, which is roughly twice as high as many existing barriers. Ronald Vitiello, the agency's acting deputy commissioner, said after visiting the prototypes in October that he was struck most by their height.</p>
<p>The highly trained testers scaled 16 to 20 feet (5 to 6 meters) unassisted but needed help after that, said the official, who described the assaults on the wall prototypes to the AP. Testers also expressed safety concerns about getting down from 30 feet.</p>
<p>Only once did a tester manage to land a hook on top of the wall without help, the official said. Tubes atop some models repelled climbing devices but wouldn't work in more mountainous areas because the terrain is too jagged.</p>
<p>The findings appear to challenge what Janet Napolitano, now chancellor of the University of California, often said when she was President Barack Obama's homeland security secretary: "You show me a 50-foot wall, and I'll show you a 51-foot ladder."</p>
<p>A Customs and Border Protection report on the tests identifies strengths and flaws of each design but does not pick an overall winner or rank them. The report recommends combining elements of each, depending on the terrain. The official likened it to a Lego design, pulling pieces from different prototypes.</p>
<p>The report favors steel at the ground level because agents can see what is happening on the other side through mesh, and damage can more easily be fixed than concrete, the official said. With concrete, large slabs have to be replaced for even small breaches, which is time-consuming and expensive. Topping the steel with smooth concrete surfaces helps prevent climbing.</p>
<p>Brandon Judd, who heads the union representing border agents, said the recommended height and steel-concrete design make sense. He said people have been able to scale the smaller border walls, which were not put to same degree of testing before construction.</p>
<p>"Not many people are going to attempt to go over 30 feet," said Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council. "I just don't see it happening."</p>
<p>Just as daunting as getting over, he said, is climbing back if someone decides to try to return to Mexico to avoid capture.</p>
<p>Taller barriers are undoubtedly more effective, but they drive up the cost and could endanger wildlife.</p>
<p>Brian Segee, an attorney for Center for Biological Diversity, which has sued to block construction, said border walls 15 feet (5 meters) or less have prevented the movement of low-flying birds and insects.</p>
<p>"The bigger, more impervious the wall, the worse the impacts are going to be for wildlife," Segee said.</p>
<p>U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat in a border district, said a 30-foot (9-meter) wall would increase the cost "tremendously" and do nothing to address the problem of people entering the country legally and overstaying their visas.</p>
<p>Customs and Border Protection leaders were set to be briefed on the findings this week amid a standoff over immigration legislation that threatens to shut down the government. Democrats insist it includes protections for hundreds of thousands of young immigrants who were shielded from deportation under an Obama-era program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which is scheduled to end in March.</p>
<p>The administration has insisted wall funding be part of any immigration deal, but Trump has been unclear about how long the wall would be and how it should be designed. The administration has asked for $1.6 billion this year to build or replace 74 miles (118 kilometers) of barriers in Texas' Rio Grande Valley and San Diego and plans to request another $1.6 billion next year.</p>
<p>A proposal by Customs and Border Protection calls for spending $18 billion over 10 years to extend barriers to cover nearly half the border. Mexico has steadfastly rejected Trump's demand that it pay for the wall.</p>
<p>The agency is still in "the testing phase" and results are being evaluated, spokesman Carlos Diaz said. Combining elements of different prototypes instead of picking a winner is consistent with previous statements by officials, he said, noting that the agency said in bidding guidelines that a minimum height of 18 feet (5 meters) would be a key characteristic.</p>
<p>Contractors were awarded between $300,000 and $500,000 for each prototype. They were built last fall in a remote part of San Diego to guide future construction of one of Trump's signature campaign pledges. Four were concrete and four were made of other materials.</p>
<p>SAN DIEGO (AP) — Recent assaults by tactical teams on prototypes of President Donald Trump's proposed wall with Mexico found their imposing heights should stop border crossers, The Associated Press has learned, a finding that's likely to please security hawks but raise concerns about costs and environmental damage.</p>
<p>Military special forces based in Florida and U.S. Customs and Border Protection special units spent three weeks trying to breach and scale the eight models in San Diego, using jackhammers, saws, torches and other tools and climbing devices, a U.S. official with direct knowledge of the rigorous testing told the AP on condition of anonymity because the information was not authorized for public release.</p>
<p>Each model was to be 18 to 30 feet (5 to 9 meters) high, and contractors built at or near the maximum, which is roughly twice as high as many existing barriers. Ronald Vitiello, the agency's acting deputy commissioner, said after visiting the prototypes in October that he was struck most by their height.</p>
<p>The highly trained testers scaled 16 to 20 feet (5 to 6 meters) unassisted but needed help after that, said the official, who described the assaults on the wall prototypes to the AP. Testers also expressed safety concerns about getting down from 30 feet.</p>
<p>Only once did a tester manage to land a hook on top of the wall without help, the official said. Tubes atop some models repelled climbing devices but wouldn't work in more mountainous areas because the terrain is too jagged.</p>
<p>The findings appear to challenge what Janet Napolitano, now chancellor of the University of California, often said when she was President Barack Obama's homeland security secretary: "You show me a 50-foot wall, and I'll show you a 51-foot ladder."</p>
<p>A Customs and Border Protection report on the tests identifies strengths and flaws of each design but does not pick an overall winner or rank them. The report recommends combining elements of each, depending on the terrain. The official likened it to a Lego design, pulling pieces from different prototypes.</p>
<p>The report favors steel at the ground level because agents can see what is happening on the other side through mesh, and damage can more easily be fixed than concrete, the official said. With concrete, large slabs have to be replaced for even small breaches, which is time-consuming and expensive. Topping the steel with smooth concrete surfaces helps prevent climbing.</p>
<p>Brandon Judd, who heads the union representing border agents, said the recommended height and steel-concrete design make sense. He said people have been able to scale the smaller border walls, which were not put to same degree of testing before construction.</p>
<p>"Not many people are going to attempt to go over 30 feet," said Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council. "I just don't see it happening."</p>
<p>Just as daunting as getting over, he said, is climbing back if someone decides to try to return to Mexico to avoid capture.</p>
<p>Taller barriers are undoubtedly more effective, but they drive up the cost and could endanger wildlife.</p>
<p>Brian Segee, an attorney for Center for Biological Diversity, which has sued to block construction, said border walls 15 feet (5 meters) or less have prevented the movement of low-flying birds and insects.</p>
<p>"The bigger, more impervious the wall, the worse the impacts are going to be for wildlife," Segee said.</p>
<p>U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat in a border district, said a 30-foot (9-meter) wall would increase the cost "tremendously" and do nothing to address the problem of people entering the country legally and overstaying their visas.</p>
<p>Customs and Border Protection leaders were set to be briefed on the findings this week amid a standoff over immigration legislation that threatens to shut down the government. Democrats insist it includes protections for hundreds of thousands of young immigrants who were shielded from deportation under an Obama-era program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which is scheduled to end in March.</p>
<p>The administration has insisted wall funding be part of any immigration deal, but Trump has been unclear about how long the wall would be and how it should be designed. The administration has asked for $1.6 billion this year to build or replace 74 miles (118 kilometers) of barriers in Texas' Rio Grande Valley and San Diego and plans to request another $1.6 billion next year.</p>
<p>A proposal by Customs and Border Protection calls for spending $18 billion over 10 years to extend barriers to cover nearly half the border. Mexico has steadfastly rejected Trump's demand that it pay for the wall.</p>
<p>The agency is still in "the testing phase" and results are being evaluated, spokesman Carlos Diaz said. Combining elements of different prototypes instead of picking a winner is consistent with previous statements by officials, he said, noting that the agency said in bidding guidelines that a minimum height of 18 feet (5 meters) would be a key characteristic.</p>
<p>Contractors were awarded between $300,000 and $500,000 for each prototype. They were built last fall in a remote part of San Diego to guide future construction of one of Trump's signature campaign pledges. Four were concrete and four were made of other materials.</p> | 3,812 |
<p>Rep. Devin Nunes, a Republican from the biggest cow county in the USA, Tulare CA, booted home his San Joaquin Valley Water Reliability Act (HR 1837)&#160;to a big&#160;win in the House two weeks ago. An old-fashioned Western water grab got the Tea Party all hot and a few Blue Dog Democrats slithered along for the ride.</p>
<p>The Act is worthy of all truce-breaking acts the world over through history back to the time the goddess Athena persuaded godlike but stupid Pandaros to shoot an arrow into Helen’s husband, Menelaos, prolonging Homer’s Iliad for 23 more chapters.</p>
<p>Ol’ Devin sat downstream south of where the bed of the San Joaquin River ran dry all his life until last year, in a part of California where the Dairy Queen consorts with King Cotton in the Land of Fruits and Nuts. A leader of his people and defender of his region, he fired off a salvo of missiles aimed at destroying the modest advances of civilization made among upstream jurisdictions since the last dry winter. As usual in the history of irrigation societies, the downstream users are more belligerent, aggressive, autocratically organized (more corporation-like in our era), and richer than the more individualist, democratic, numerous, &#160;and more disorganized and middling farmers and river people of the Delta.</p>
<p>President Obama said he’d veto HR 1837 if it ever got to him. The president is not going to get many votes down stream in the Land of the Dairy Queen, King Cotton and the Fruits and Nuts. But he’s got a good shot with the river people. In California, among the coastal urban masses, it is considered boorish to mention the subject of water.</p>
<p>Ordinarily, the Great Shield against such southerly missiles would be Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-CA. But 78-year-old DiDi is running for reelection again this year and one of the largest supporters of HR 1937, the Shah of the Land of Fruits and Nuts, Stewart Resnick and his Queen Consort, Lynda, just did a big fundraiser for the senator. Resnick’s Roll International owns the largest citrus, almond and pomegranate orchards in the nation, two San Joaquin Valley water banks, Fiji Water, Pom Wonderful and much else besides. Old Valley hands wonder if Feinstein will “pull a Cranston,” a reference to former Sen. Alan Cranston, who sold his vote to the largest cotton farmers in the nation with an amendment exempting them on a key provision in the federal Reclamation Reform Act of 1982.</p>
<p>Feinstein met with HR 1837 co-author Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Turlock, on Friday. Denham, who claimed before the House Rules Committee that his home county since his recent election to Congress, Stanislaus, lies “north of the Delta,”&#160;wavers between stupidity and mendacity at the best of times, so it is hard to know what might have been discussed between the two great leaders. Central Valley residents wonder if&#160;the Sutter Buttes be renamed the “Stanislaus Buttes” soon, if Denham decides to jump to yet another congressional district bankrolled by yet another Indian casino?</p>
<p>The malevolent intent behind the HR 1937 already threatens the fragile truce in which state and federal agencies, property owners and local, state and federal legislators attempt to simply stop the bleeding in the dying ecology of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and attempt to put water back into reaches of the San Joaquin that have been dry for 60 years and reintroduce salmon to the river. For a moment lasting several years, war weary stakeholders met around large tables, produced tons of paperwork, just recently released, earnestly tried to believe that the same kind of engineers that designed the destructive system could make it “sustainable” and “find the balance between urban, farm and ecological use” of Delta water. Meanwhile, others were working on restoring channels in the San Joaquin that had been dry for decades and dealing with seepage issues that had not occurred in the lifetimes of most of the farmers along the river.. It was a time of negotiation, give and take, trust building and slow, small, solid accomplishments – despite the rhetoric about restoring balance, creating sustainability, using the best science, and managing fairly – and with truly intense public outreach, too. It was a time when the informed public could at least have a sense that maybe a little more of what is left to save might be saved as a result of the efforts.</p>
<p>The bare elements of the geography are that the two longest rivers in California, the Sacramento in the north and the San Joaquin in the south, flow toward each other and meet in the Delta in the middle of the 400-mile long Central Valley. The valley north of the Delta is called the Sacramento Valley; the south is called San Joaquin Valley. The San Joaquin Valley is further divided by the San Joaquin River, which flows from its headwaters between Yosemite and Kings Canyon national parks across the Valley and then north to the Delta. Historically, the valley south of the San Joaquin River was known by the names of two lakes, Buena Vista and Tulare which, when floods joined them composed the largest freshwater lake west of the Great Lakes.</p>
<p>The Friant Dam interrupts the flow of the San Joaquin River at the eastern edge of the Valley and for 60 years has been diverting 95 percent of the river south through the Friant-Kern Canal. The Bureau of Reclamation felt no duty toward the anadromous fish living in the river, so on their return from the ocean they could not spawn and died.</p>
<p>Two gigantic canals flow south out of the Delta through the flat west side of the Valley right next to the north-flowing San Joaquin River. The water from the two canals, one state, the other federal, flow south to the San Luis Reservoir, where it is stored and released to agriculture and for drinking water in the south Bay Area and in Southern California. South of the San Luis Reservoir on the west side of the Valley the water war is always simmering if not blazing in courts, legislatures and the media because it is the worst land in the whole irrigation system and the farmers have the most junior water rights, which means the amount of water they get is dependent on the Sierra snowmelt flowing through the Delta.</p>
<p>Except for remote areas, most of California is developed beyond the capacity of its resources to sustain themselves. Practically, this means that every dry winter we have – and this is the arid West – causes ever rising levels of panic in downstream cities and agriculture. When, in moments of truce, we can come together enough to admit even publicly that the Delta is dying, some modest planning efforts have a chance. Then the water war breaks out again and the plans are forgotten as everyone returns to the barricades. All water is local. If you want your locale to grow and prosper or even to survive, you need to secure your water supply (without attention to whose water you are securing). This is called Progress and the West, as we know, is very progressive. The San Francisco Chronicle expressed the dominant and enduring attitude of our culture to any environmental value but exploitation with this editorial in 1913 on that city’s success getting the federal government to build a dam that would flood Yosemite’s twin canyon, Hetch Hetchy, to secure a huge reservoir of Tuolumne River water.</p>
<p>Editorial Sept. 4, 1913</p>
<p>San Francisco Chronicle</p>
<p>“The Hetch Hetchy bill has passed the House, in spite of the factious opposition which it encountered. … The nature men got very little sympathy and their ridiculous performances were upon the whole probably useful in utterly discrediting cranks who would divert natural resources from any important economic use in order to gratify the alleged aesthetic sensibilities of neurotics and emotionalists. The cult is cantankerous beyond measure and its members care for nobody but themselves, but there are not very many of them … The West is and always has been a source of great profit to the country, and we who live here insist that, having long ago paid for our estate at a very round figure, we shall be allowed from now on to enjoy its full usufruct without paying further tribute to extortioners.”</p>
<p>So much for John Muir and his crowd. Or our crowd.</p>
<p>Their perverse logic continues, unabated. The districts of Nunes and his staunchest allies on HR 1837, representatives Jeff Denham and Tom McClintock, are all about half national forest and contain many dams and reservoirs as well as the core of the state’s wilderness tourist attractions from Death Valley to the Modoc County Lava Beds. Denham and McClintock are actually carpetbaggers from the coast. But, even so, they apparently have no feeling whatsoever for land. Only for money. That’s called leadership and California is just full of it.</p>
<p>How will HR 1837 plunge California water policy back into the fog of war?</p>
<p>First, it aims to change the federal Central Valley Project Improvement Act. As the Bureau of Reclamation describes it, “In 1992, Congress passed the CVPIA which directed the Bureau of Reclamation to take steps to remedy the environmental harm caused its the Central Valley Project.&#160; The Act prohibited the Secretary of the Interior from entering into any new long term contracts until all ESA and NEPA procedural requirements were fully carried out and potential impacts considered.&#160; It also directed the Central Valley Project to comply with state laws and to elevate fish and wildlife to a co-equal purpose with irrigation in the operation of the project. Finally, Congress ordered the Secretary to incorporate all requirements imposed by existing law into renewed contracts.”</p>
<p>The Nunes bill requires that the 800,000 acre feet set aside by the CVPIA for environmental purposes be replaced by 2016. This “environmental water” has been one of the major factors in preserving wild fish through their life cycles in the rivers, including the sea-going salmon and steelhead. HR 1837 removes protections for the Striped bass and American shad, two of the most prominent sport fish in the Delta on the bogus argument that they aren’t native. At this point, they are as naturalized as the English sparrow and the starling.</p>
<p>The dreary list continues, a catalogue of vengeance against Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez. Miller represents the south Delta and communities around San Pablo Bay. In 1992, he co-authored the CVPIA, which modified the Central Valley Project Act of 1937 to include some environmental safeguards. The CVP has been responsible for water-infrastructure projects in California from Shasta Dam to the end of the Friant-Kern Canal at the foot of the Tehachapi Range, which have made the California water system the largest, most complex in the world. Its major projects include the San Luis Dam, the Delta-Mendota Canal, the Folsom Dam, the Friant Dam and many others.</p>
<p>The CVPIA shortened water contracts for irrigation districts from 40 to 25 years. Nunes’ bill restores the 40-year contracts in the name of water reliance and, other backers assert, financial stability of agricultural operations. The might be so in some instances but not for Nunes’ primary financial backers, whose junior-most water rights (farthest downstream and the last land to be irrigated by the CVP) do not in any way guarantee 100-percent deliveries on contract amounts. In fact, there is a whole arcane game played on the issue of percent of deliveries. The Bureau of Reclamation starts its estimates low at the beginning of March. This year, in what appears to be a very dry winter, the bureau started with a 30-percent estimate. This is actually 5-10 percent higher than it might have been and reflects that the previous winter was wet and the reservoirs are in good shape. During a bad drought that lasted into the early 1990s, one year the bureau delivered no water at all to junior contract holders below the San Joaquin River on the west side of the Valley.</p>
<p>HR 1837 would remove the state Department of Fish and Game from the group of agencies – they would all be federal under 1837 – that decides on rates of stream flow. The two federal agencies the bill adds are not responsible for either terrestrial fish or wildlife.</p>
<p>The elimination in HR 1937 of tiered pricing and the expediting of intra-agency water transfers are code for water districts saving money on costs and streamlining profits on sales, for example, when federally subsidized water at an untiered, low rate for agriculture is resold to municipal water departments, Los Angeles Water and Power comes to mind, at rates many times higher than the cost.</p>
<p>The dismal list goes on but the last two examples show the slow percolations of the Republican mind. It had to be pointed out to them by “big government” Democrats that the provision removing the state fish and game department and prohibiting the state from protecting any species within the CVP profoundly violates states’ rights to manage their own water. It paves the way for Congress to override states’ water laws. The other one is just plain theft from the taxpayer and shows that if you can control a supply of water, as for example Sen. Feinstein’s good friends, the Resnicks do, you can make an enormous amount of money by converting the Public Trust into private gain. If you invest those profits wisely, you’ll have members of Congress returning your phone calls.</p>
<p>HR 1837 directs federal agencies to enact no regulations based on any science after the Bay-Delta Accord in 1994, which initiated a period of collaboration called “CalFed” between state and federal agencies on studies and policies to try to “fix” the Delta. A number of opponents of this bill spoke before the House Rules Committee and on the House floor against this provision, which the last 16 years of scientific study on the Delta.</p>
<p>The bill would also enshrine into law what former Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, did by strangling appropriations. Pombo, chair of the then-called Resources Committee, made sure the CalFed process was never adequately funded. 1837 would guarantee that no science on the Delta will ever be adequately funded again.</p>
<p>Moving on to other matters, HR 1837 would repeal the San Joaquin River Restoration Settlement Agreement of 2006. This is, if anything, even meaner than the damage Nunes’ paymasters want to do to the Delta. The Delta is broken and too big to be fixed in any known way. Perhaps ways could be invented but it would take funds, trust and collegiality impossible to imagine among the stakeholder combatants, all of whom know that all it takes in one jackass congressman claiming, as Nunes did in 2008 that “80,000” workers would lose their jobs because of environmental regulations protecting a drastically endangered fish, the Delta smelt, the victim of five years of the most massive amounts ever pumped out of the Delta. The real amount of lost jobs was in the range of 6,000. The demand causing that massive pumping and take of endangered species was the result of several factors all impacting Delta fish: the Colorado River Agreement that curtailed supplies to Southern California from that river; the biggest speculative real estate boom the world had ever seen; and huge plantations of young orchards in the southern San Joaquin Valley. The Delta smelt will probably be extirpated as a result of those impacts.</p>
<p>But the San Joaquin River might be fixable. After 18 years in court, a federal judge ruled that the Bureau of Reclamation could not take all the water out of the San Joaquin River, thus destroying historical salmon runs, and divert it into a canal. However, having reached that decision, based on relevant state rather than federal law, the judge urged the environmental groups led by the Natural Resources Defense Council to negotiate with federal agencies and the Friant Water Users Authority to come to a settlement agreement. This was done. The settlement was sent to Congress for appropriations to fund restoration of the river. After three years of war, Congress made the funding commitments and restoration work began and there have already been experimental reintroductions of salmon.</p>
<p>In the words of Revive the San Joaquin, an NGO deeply involved in the restoration: “The San Joaquin River Restoration Program is a river restoration program developed for the 150-mile segment of California’s second largest river between Friant Dam and the confluence of the Merced River.&#160;&#160; The implementing agencies include the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service, the CA Department of Water Resources, and the CA Department of Fish and Game.”</p>
<p>Nunes’ paymasters want to wipe the floors of Congress with that settlement. What they fear and hate most of all is productive collaboration between environmentalists and farmers. When state and federal resource agencies are added to the mix, it violates the underlying plutocratic agribusiness order of things. When they feel threatened they react with things like HR 1837 – crude, intimidating, defended by “passionate” men in full mendacious cry.</p>
<p>Last, the bill contains several provisions that would change water contracts to make them more lucrative to the contractors.</p>
<p>HR 1837 is just the end of another truce violated by paranoid downstream despots who have never wanted to do anything but control all the water they could to continue to irrigate desert land that is rapidly salting up due to irrigation itself and, without being too melodramatic about it, the sweat and tears of people working in the worst paid and hardest jobs in America and the majority of them, not by historical accident are&#160;illegal immigrants and&#160;have no legal protections against harassment, intimidation, and exploitations of all kinds. Someday all these hydraulic monuments to sheer engineering will fail and the arid West will reclaim itself and begin a slow process of healing, perhaps coming to sustain new generations of humanity at least until their hydraulic technology destroys them again.</p>
<p>Bill Hatch is a writer and environmental activist in the San Joaquin Valley. He can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Downstream Vengeance in California | true | https://counterpunch.org/2012/03/14/downstream-vengeance-in-california/ | 2012-03-14 | 4left
| Downstream Vengeance in California
<p>Rep. Devin Nunes, a Republican from the biggest cow county in the USA, Tulare CA, booted home his San Joaquin Valley Water Reliability Act (HR 1837)&#160;to a big&#160;win in the House two weeks ago. An old-fashioned Western water grab got the Tea Party all hot and a few Blue Dog Democrats slithered along for the ride.</p>
<p>The Act is worthy of all truce-breaking acts the world over through history back to the time the goddess Athena persuaded godlike but stupid Pandaros to shoot an arrow into Helen’s husband, Menelaos, prolonging Homer’s Iliad for 23 more chapters.</p>
<p>Ol’ Devin sat downstream south of where the bed of the San Joaquin River ran dry all his life until last year, in a part of California where the Dairy Queen consorts with King Cotton in the Land of Fruits and Nuts. A leader of his people and defender of his region, he fired off a salvo of missiles aimed at destroying the modest advances of civilization made among upstream jurisdictions since the last dry winter. As usual in the history of irrigation societies, the downstream users are more belligerent, aggressive, autocratically organized (more corporation-like in our era), and richer than the more individualist, democratic, numerous, &#160;and more disorganized and middling farmers and river people of the Delta.</p>
<p>President Obama said he’d veto HR 1837 if it ever got to him. The president is not going to get many votes down stream in the Land of the Dairy Queen, King Cotton and the Fruits and Nuts. But he’s got a good shot with the river people. In California, among the coastal urban masses, it is considered boorish to mention the subject of water.</p>
<p>Ordinarily, the Great Shield against such southerly missiles would be Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-CA. But 78-year-old DiDi is running for reelection again this year and one of the largest supporters of HR 1937, the Shah of the Land of Fruits and Nuts, Stewart Resnick and his Queen Consort, Lynda, just did a big fundraiser for the senator. Resnick’s Roll International owns the largest citrus, almond and pomegranate orchards in the nation, two San Joaquin Valley water banks, Fiji Water, Pom Wonderful and much else besides. Old Valley hands wonder if Feinstein will “pull a Cranston,” a reference to former Sen. Alan Cranston, who sold his vote to the largest cotton farmers in the nation with an amendment exempting them on a key provision in the federal Reclamation Reform Act of 1982.</p>
<p>Feinstein met with HR 1837 co-author Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Turlock, on Friday. Denham, who claimed before the House Rules Committee that his home county since his recent election to Congress, Stanislaus, lies “north of the Delta,”&#160;wavers between stupidity and mendacity at the best of times, so it is hard to know what might have been discussed between the two great leaders. Central Valley residents wonder if&#160;the Sutter Buttes be renamed the “Stanislaus Buttes” soon, if Denham decides to jump to yet another congressional district bankrolled by yet another Indian casino?</p>
<p>The malevolent intent behind the HR 1937 already threatens the fragile truce in which state and federal agencies, property owners and local, state and federal legislators attempt to simply stop the bleeding in the dying ecology of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and attempt to put water back into reaches of the San Joaquin that have been dry for 60 years and reintroduce salmon to the river. For a moment lasting several years, war weary stakeholders met around large tables, produced tons of paperwork, just recently released, earnestly tried to believe that the same kind of engineers that designed the destructive system could make it “sustainable” and “find the balance between urban, farm and ecological use” of Delta water. Meanwhile, others were working on restoring channels in the San Joaquin that had been dry for decades and dealing with seepage issues that had not occurred in the lifetimes of most of the farmers along the river.. It was a time of negotiation, give and take, trust building and slow, small, solid accomplishments – despite the rhetoric about restoring balance, creating sustainability, using the best science, and managing fairly – and with truly intense public outreach, too. It was a time when the informed public could at least have a sense that maybe a little more of what is left to save might be saved as a result of the efforts.</p>
<p>The bare elements of the geography are that the two longest rivers in California, the Sacramento in the north and the San Joaquin in the south, flow toward each other and meet in the Delta in the middle of the 400-mile long Central Valley. The valley north of the Delta is called the Sacramento Valley; the south is called San Joaquin Valley. The San Joaquin Valley is further divided by the San Joaquin River, which flows from its headwaters between Yosemite and Kings Canyon national parks across the Valley and then north to the Delta. Historically, the valley south of the San Joaquin River was known by the names of two lakes, Buena Vista and Tulare which, when floods joined them composed the largest freshwater lake west of the Great Lakes.</p>
<p>The Friant Dam interrupts the flow of the San Joaquin River at the eastern edge of the Valley and for 60 years has been diverting 95 percent of the river south through the Friant-Kern Canal. The Bureau of Reclamation felt no duty toward the anadromous fish living in the river, so on their return from the ocean they could not spawn and died.</p>
<p>Two gigantic canals flow south out of the Delta through the flat west side of the Valley right next to the north-flowing San Joaquin River. The water from the two canals, one state, the other federal, flow south to the San Luis Reservoir, where it is stored and released to agriculture and for drinking water in the south Bay Area and in Southern California. South of the San Luis Reservoir on the west side of the Valley the water war is always simmering if not blazing in courts, legislatures and the media because it is the worst land in the whole irrigation system and the farmers have the most junior water rights, which means the amount of water they get is dependent on the Sierra snowmelt flowing through the Delta.</p>
<p>Except for remote areas, most of California is developed beyond the capacity of its resources to sustain themselves. Practically, this means that every dry winter we have – and this is the arid West – causes ever rising levels of panic in downstream cities and agriculture. When, in moments of truce, we can come together enough to admit even publicly that the Delta is dying, some modest planning efforts have a chance. Then the water war breaks out again and the plans are forgotten as everyone returns to the barricades. All water is local. If you want your locale to grow and prosper or even to survive, you need to secure your water supply (without attention to whose water you are securing). This is called Progress and the West, as we know, is very progressive. The San Francisco Chronicle expressed the dominant and enduring attitude of our culture to any environmental value but exploitation with this editorial in 1913 on that city’s success getting the federal government to build a dam that would flood Yosemite’s twin canyon, Hetch Hetchy, to secure a huge reservoir of Tuolumne River water.</p>
<p>Editorial Sept. 4, 1913</p>
<p>San Francisco Chronicle</p>
<p>“The Hetch Hetchy bill has passed the House, in spite of the factious opposition which it encountered. … The nature men got very little sympathy and their ridiculous performances were upon the whole probably useful in utterly discrediting cranks who would divert natural resources from any important economic use in order to gratify the alleged aesthetic sensibilities of neurotics and emotionalists. The cult is cantankerous beyond measure and its members care for nobody but themselves, but there are not very many of them … The West is and always has been a source of great profit to the country, and we who live here insist that, having long ago paid for our estate at a very round figure, we shall be allowed from now on to enjoy its full usufruct without paying further tribute to extortioners.”</p>
<p>So much for John Muir and his crowd. Or our crowd.</p>
<p>Their perverse logic continues, unabated. The districts of Nunes and his staunchest allies on HR 1837, representatives Jeff Denham and Tom McClintock, are all about half national forest and contain many dams and reservoirs as well as the core of the state’s wilderness tourist attractions from Death Valley to the Modoc County Lava Beds. Denham and McClintock are actually carpetbaggers from the coast. But, even so, they apparently have no feeling whatsoever for land. Only for money. That’s called leadership and California is just full of it.</p>
<p>How will HR 1837 plunge California water policy back into the fog of war?</p>
<p>First, it aims to change the federal Central Valley Project Improvement Act. As the Bureau of Reclamation describes it, “In 1992, Congress passed the CVPIA which directed the Bureau of Reclamation to take steps to remedy the environmental harm caused its the Central Valley Project.&#160; The Act prohibited the Secretary of the Interior from entering into any new long term contracts until all ESA and NEPA procedural requirements were fully carried out and potential impacts considered.&#160; It also directed the Central Valley Project to comply with state laws and to elevate fish and wildlife to a co-equal purpose with irrigation in the operation of the project. Finally, Congress ordered the Secretary to incorporate all requirements imposed by existing law into renewed contracts.”</p>
<p>The Nunes bill requires that the 800,000 acre feet set aside by the CVPIA for environmental purposes be replaced by 2016. This “environmental water” has been one of the major factors in preserving wild fish through their life cycles in the rivers, including the sea-going salmon and steelhead. HR 1837 removes protections for the Striped bass and American shad, two of the most prominent sport fish in the Delta on the bogus argument that they aren’t native. At this point, they are as naturalized as the English sparrow and the starling.</p>
<p>The dreary list continues, a catalogue of vengeance against Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez. Miller represents the south Delta and communities around San Pablo Bay. In 1992, he co-authored the CVPIA, which modified the Central Valley Project Act of 1937 to include some environmental safeguards. The CVP has been responsible for water-infrastructure projects in California from Shasta Dam to the end of the Friant-Kern Canal at the foot of the Tehachapi Range, which have made the California water system the largest, most complex in the world. Its major projects include the San Luis Dam, the Delta-Mendota Canal, the Folsom Dam, the Friant Dam and many others.</p>
<p>The CVPIA shortened water contracts for irrigation districts from 40 to 25 years. Nunes’ bill restores the 40-year contracts in the name of water reliance and, other backers assert, financial stability of agricultural operations. The might be so in some instances but not for Nunes’ primary financial backers, whose junior-most water rights (farthest downstream and the last land to be irrigated by the CVP) do not in any way guarantee 100-percent deliveries on contract amounts. In fact, there is a whole arcane game played on the issue of percent of deliveries. The Bureau of Reclamation starts its estimates low at the beginning of March. This year, in what appears to be a very dry winter, the bureau started with a 30-percent estimate. This is actually 5-10 percent higher than it might have been and reflects that the previous winter was wet and the reservoirs are in good shape. During a bad drought that lasted into the early 1990s, one year the bureau delivered no water at all to junior contract holders below the San Joaquin River on the west side of the Valley.</p>
<p>HR 1837 would remove the state Department of Fish and Game from the group of agencies – they would all be federal under 1837 – that decides on rates of stream flow. The two federal agencies the bill adds are not responsible for either terrestrial fish or wildlife.</p>
<p>The elimination in HR 1937 of tiered pricing and the expediting of intra-agency water transfers are code for water districts saving money on costs and streamlining profits on sales, for example, when federally subsidized water at an untiered, low rate for agriculture is resold to municipal water departments, Los Angeles Water and Power comes to mind, at rates many times higher than the cost.</p>
<p>The dismal list goes on but the last two examples show the slow percolations of the Republican mind. It had to be pointed out to them by “big government” Democrats that the provision removing the state fish and game department and prohibiting the state from protecting any species within the CVP profoundly violates states’ rights to manage their own water. It paves the way for Congress to override states’ water laws. The other one is just plain theft from the taxpayer and shows that if you can control a supply of water, as for example Sen. Feinstein’s good friends, the Resnicks do, you can make an enormous amount of money by converting the Public Trust into private gain. If you invest those profits wisely, you’ll have members of Congress returning your phone calls.</p>
<p>HR 1837 directs federal agencies to enact no regulations based on any science after the Bay-Delta Accord in 1994, which initiated a period of collaboration called “CalFed” between state and federal agencies on studies and policies to try to “fix” the Delta. A number of opponents of this bill spoke before the House Rules Committee and on the House floor against this provision, which the last 16 years of scientific study on the Delta.</p>
<p>The bill would also enshrine into law what former Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, did by strangling appropriations. Pombo, chair of the then-called Resources Committee, made sure the CalFed process was never adequately funded. 1837 would guarantee that no science on the Delta will ever be adequately funded again.</p>
<p>Moving on to other matters, HR 1837 would repeal the San Joaquin River Restoration Settlement Agreement of 2006. This is, if anything, even meaner than the damage Nunes’ paymasters want to do to the Delta. The Delta is broken and too big to be fixed in any known way. Perhaps ways could be invented but it would take funds, trust and collegiality impossible to imagine among the stakeholder combatants, all of whom know that all it takes in one jackass congressman claiming, as Nunes did in 2008 that “80,000” workers would lose their jobs because of environmental regulations protecting a drastically endangered fish, the Delta smelt, the victim of five years of the most massive amounts ever pumped out of the Delta. The real amount of lost jobs was in the range of 6,000. The demand causing that massive pumping and take of endangered species was the result of several factors all impacting Delta fish: the Colorado River Agreement that curtailed supplies to Southern California from that river; the biggest speculative real estate boom the world had ever seen; and huge plantations of young orchards in the southern San Joaquin Valley. The Delta smelt will probably be extirpated as a result of those impacts.</p>
<p>But the San Joaquin River might be fixable. After 18 years in court, a federal judge ruled that the Bureau of Reclamation could not take all the water out of the San Joaquin River, thus destroying historical salmon runs, and divert it into a canal. However, having reached that decision, based on relevant state rather than federal law, the judge urged the environmental groups led by the Natural Resources Defense Council to negotiate with federal agencies and the Friant Water Users Authority to come to a settlement agreement. This was done. The settlement was sent to Congress for appropriations to fund restoration of the river. After three years of war, Congress made the funding commitments and restoration work began and there have already been experimental reintroductions of salmon.</p>
<p>In the words of Revive the San Joaquin, an NGO deeply involved in the restoration: “The San Joaquin River Restoration Program is a river restoration program developed for the 150-mile segment of California’s second largest river between Friant Dam and the confluence of the Merced River.&#160;&#160; The implementing agencies include the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service, the CA Department of Water Resources, and the CA Department of Fish and Game.”</p>
<p>Nunes’ paymasters want to wipe the floors of Congress with that settlement. What they fear and hate most of all is productive collaboration between environmentalists and farmers. When state and federal resource agencies are added to the mix, it violates the underlying plutocratic agribusiness order of things. When they feel threatened they react with things like HR 1837 – crude, intimidating, defended by “passionate” men in full mendacious cry.</p>
<p>Last, the bill contains several provisions that would change water contracts to make them more lucrative to the contractors.</p>
<p>HR 1837 is just the end of another truce violated by paranoid downstream despots who have never wanted to do anything but control all the water they could to continue to irrigate desert land that is rapidly salting up due to irrigation itself and, without being too melodramatic about it, the sweat and tears of people working in the worst paid and hardest jobs in America and the majority of them, not by historical accident are&#160;illegal immigrants and&#160;have no legal protections against harassment, intimidation, and exploitations of all kinds. Someday all these hydraulic monuments to sheer engineering will fail and the arid West will reclaim itself and begin a slow process of healing, perhaps coming to sustain new generations of humanity at least until their hydraulic technology destroys them again.</p>
<p>Bill Hatch is a writer and environmental activist in the San Joaquin Valley. He can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | 3,813 |
<p>AT CLARK STREET Keith Bromery, director of CPS communications, announced he will leave the post effective March 1 but has not yet said where he is going, He was hired as board’s chief spokesman in March 2000 and was previously manager of media relations at Ameritech. Joi Mecks, deputy director of communications, will handle Bromery’s duties until a replacement is named. … Pamela Dyson, former King High principal, was named director of elementary school reviews, a new post that reports to Chief Education Officer Barbara Eason-Watkins. Dyson will oversee the rollout of the board’s new reading initiative.</p>
<p>Sandra Givens, director of teacher accountability, has retired. A replacement has not been named. …Also retired is Geraldine Oberman, director of compliance in the Office of Accountability. She is succeeded by Janet Elenbogen, who previously was in charge of internal quality reviews.</p>
<p>Brandi Turco has been named chief of staff to the Board of Education. Turco, previously a senior assistant, replaces James Wright, who resigned and went to work in a private law practice. Greg Minniefield was appointed deputy chief of staff to the board, a new post. … Another senior assistant, Jorge Oclander, was named executive director of the Academic Accountability Council. He replaces Tami Doig.</p>
<p>LAWSUIT The board filed a lawsuit Feb. 15 to compel the state to contribute more money to the Chicago teachers pension fund. Under current state law, contributions to pension funds for downstate and suburban teachers are paid through the Teachers Retirement System; Chicago teacher pensions are paid out of a separate fund. Officials of the board and the Chicago Teachers Union contend that the system shortchanges CPS teachers.</p>
<p>PRINCIPALS Two acting principals have been awarded four-year contracts. They are Yvonne Calhoun, Hoyne, and Patricia Vaughn-Dossiea, Chalmers. … Gregory C. Wiley, a teacher at Lawndale, is now contract principal at Cather. … John Butterfield, principal at Mather, has had his contract renewed. … Linda Coles, previously principal at Keller Regional Gifted Center, was named acting principal of King High School, replacing Pamela Dyson. (see above) … Adrian G. Willis was named interim principal at Keller.</p>
<p>PRINICPAL RETIREMENTS Frank Blatnick, Yates; Harry Randall, assistant principal, was named acting principal. … Beverly LaCoste, Wells Prep and Phillips; LaCoste will remain as acting principal at both schools until June.</p>
<p>LSC ELECTIONS April 3 is the deadline for parents, teachers and community residents to sign up to run for a seat on a LSC. Candidates may register at schools through the LSC election coordinator; elections will be held May 1 and 2. …LSCs using PENCUL to select a principal may now apply for matching grants up to $600. PENCUL and the Chicago School Leadership Cooperative teamed up to offer the grants to match $200 that LSCs would put up themselves. For more information, contact the Cooperative at (312) 499-4800 or PENCUL at (312) 261-3183.</p> | Comings and goings | false | http://chicagoreporter.com/comings-and-goings-3-2/ | 2005-07-28 | 3left-center
| Comings and goings
<p>AT CLARK STREET Keith Bromery, director of CPS communications, announced he will leave the post effective March 1 but has not yet said where he is going, He was hired as board’s chief spokesman in March 2000 and was previously manager of media relations at Ameritech. Joi Mecks, deputy director of communications, will handle Bromery’s duties until a replacement is named. … Pamela Dyson, former King High principal, was named director of elementary school reviews, a new post that reports to Chief Education Officer Barbara Eason-Watkins. Dyson will oversee the rollout of the board’s new reading initiative.</p>
<p>Sandra Givens, director of teacher accountability, has retired. A replacement has not been named. …Also retired is Geraldine Oberman, director of compliance in the Office of Accountability. She is succeeded by Janet Elenbogen, who previously was in charge of internal quality reviews.</p>
<p>Brandi Turco has been named chief of staff to the Board of Education. Turco, previously a senior assistant, replaces James Wright, who resigned and went to work in a private law practice. Greg Minniefield was appointed deputy chief of staff to the board, a new post. … Another senior assistant, Jorge Oclander, was named executive director of the Academic Accountability Council. He replaces Tami Doig.</p>
<p>LAWSUIT The board filed a lawsuit Feb. 15 to compel the state to contribute more money to the Chicago teachers pension fund. Under current state law, contributions to pension funds for downstate and suburban teachers are paid through the Teachers Retirement System; Chicago teacher pensions are paid out of a separate fund. Officials of the board and the Chicago Teachers Union contend that the system shortchanges CPS teachers.</p>
<p>PRINCIPALS Two acting principals have been awarded four-year contracts. They are Yvonne Calhoun, Hoyne, and Patricia Vaughn-Dossiea, Chalmers. … Gregory C. Wiley, a teacher at Lawndale, is now contract principal at Cather. … John Butterfield, principal at Mather, has had his contract renewed. … Linda Coles, previously principal at Keller Regional Gifted Center, was named acting principal of King High School, replacing Pamela Dyson. (see above) … Adrian G. Willis was named interim principal at Keller.</p>
<p>PRINICPAL RETIREMENTS Frank Blatnick, Yates; Harry Randall, assistant principal, was named acting principal. … Beverly LaCoste, Wells Prep and Phillips; LaCoste will remain as acting principal at both schools until June.</p>
<p>LSC ELECTIONS April 3 is the deadline for parents, teachers and community residents to sign up to run for a seat on a LSC. Candidates may register at schools through the LSC election coordinator; elections will be held May 1 and 2. …LSCs using PENCUL to select a principal may now apply for matching grants up to $600. PENCUL and the Chicago School Leadership Cooperative teamed up to offer the grants to match $200 that LSCs would put up themselves. For more information, contact the Cooperative at (312) 499-4800 or PENCUL at (312) 261-3183.</p> | 3,814 |
<p>The Middle East appears to have been shocked by Seba al-Herz’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1583228713/counterpunchmaga" type="external">The Others</a>, a novel about clandestine lesbian activities in Saudi Arabia.&#160; The author’s name is a pseudonym; the translator is not identified; three years ago the book was published in its original Arabic version in Beirut, that liberal bastion of the Middle East where so many Arabic writers have begun their literary careers.&#160; The American edition prints the two words of the title together, i.e., theothers, suggesting an intimate coupling.</p>
<p>The American publisher also quotes Al Hayat, the daily pan-Arab newspaper published in London, stating, “[This book] could be the most controversial novel to emerge in our times, not just from Saudi Arabia, but from the whole of the Arab world.”&#160; All that is quite a mouthful, especially when juxtaposed to added remark—also from the American publisher—that lesbianism in Saudi Arabia is “punishable by death if discovered.”</p>
<p>To muddle the issue, the translator in her/his lengthy “Afterword” throws the entire issue of the novel’s sexual deviancy into a quasi-backlash caused by the Saudi Sunni majority against the minority Shi’is. “The [unnamed] narrator and her friends are wired in every way, but they are only comfortable in their pseudonymous internet existences, or in clandestine relationships that carry other tensions and self-questioning….&#160; Marginalized and disallowed from strengthening religious institutions such as mosques, Saudi Arabia’s Shi’is have turned to alternative institutions,” and, by implication, sexual lifestyles. &#160;I don’t doubt the importance of any of these contexts, but the novel is clearly about more than forbidden sexuality.</p>
<p>The unnamed narrator–an undergraduate at a woman’s college–describes her erotic awakening during an encounter with another, more-worldly student and the subsequent world of illicit parties, group encounters, and personal tensions from engagement in the forbidden.&#160; These relationships often turn ugly, possessive, if not masochistic, as young women quickly alter their loyalties, aware of the danger of their activities.&#160; Yet, not too far into an often boring narrative, the main character provides a clue about the eventual outcome of her story: “Ever since I was a semi-boy or a sexless child, I have gotten used to the idea, never challenged, that children do not gain the qualities of their sex until after marriage, when the girls give birth to children and the boys go out to work.”&#160; To wit, a certain amount of sexual exploration is biologically natural though obviously much more unlikely in repressive societies.</p>
<p>I can’t get too excited about the lesbian journey of The Other’s main character.</p>
<p>But there is something buried in the story that seems much more profound and psychologically interesting: the narrator’s self-loathing because of her body.&#160; Nor is this the body in a state of sexual arousal but, rather, obsessive embarrassment because of an inherited affliction.&#160; The narrator suffers from seizures, epilepsy, genetically explained, but turned into an obsession so overwhelming that she often can’t sleep, is filled with loathing about her imperfect body, can love no one for fear that that person will become aware of her abnormality.&#160; It would be fascinating to see how a psychiatrist would react to the following passage:</p>
<p>“My body hurts me….&#160; My body pains me, the kind of pain that Panadol pills do not take away, an ache that does not disappear when I try to ignore it.&#160; Pain that is like heaviness, as if I am pushing forward with difficulty across a terrain of mud and green creatures that stick to me, pain that urges me to abandon the whole idea of life altogether; a deceptive and complex pain. My head is a bullet hole around which voices buzz and the wind whips.&#160; Pain gallops through my head like wild horses….”</p>
<p>The narrator’s self-loathing and inescapable pain result in a longing for death, described in great detail in lengthy passages toward the end of the narrative. One such passage: “I want Death to be a little bit nice to me, to take me without hurting me, to take me gently and lightly, to take me without stuffing me into a space smaller than my body, to take me with my filth and black spots and the mire in my soul, to take me and raise me on his wings, to lift me outside and above my body, above the world, above, where God is.&#160; I want to say goodbye to my body, but without death I will never be able to leave it.”</p>
<p>It isn’t the forbidden sexuality that is fascinating in The Others but, rather, the exploration of an obsessed mind unable to relinquish her belief in a perfect body.&#160; Yes, the lesbian encounters may have triggered the narrator’s sense of imperfection, but by the end of the story, sexuality has moved off-stage.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1583228713/counterpunchmaga" type="external">The Others</a> by Seba Al-Herz Seven Stories Press, 320 pp., $17.95</p>
<p>CHARLES R. LARSON is Professor of Literature at American University, in Washington, D.C.</p> | Banned and Forbidden in Saudi Arabia | true | https://counterpunch.org/2009/12/11/banned-and-forbidden-in-saudi-arabia/ | 2009-12-11 | 4left
| Banned and Forbidden in Saudi Arabia
<p>The Middle East appears to have been shocked by Seba al-Herz’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1583228713/counterpunchmaga" type="external">The Others</a>, a novel about clandestine lesbian activities in Saudi Arabia.&#160; The author’s name is a pseudonym; the translator is not identified; three years ago the book was published in its original Arabic version in Beirut, that liberal bastion of the Middle East where so many Arabic writers have begun their literary careers.&#160; The American edition prints the two words of the title together, i.e., theothers, suggesting an intimate coupling.</p>
<p>The American publisher also quotes Al Hayat, the daily pan-Arab newspaper published in London, stating, “[This book] could be the most controversial novel to emerge in our times, not just from Saudi Arabia, but from the whole of the Arab world.”&#160; All that is quite a mouthful, especially when juxtaposed to added remark—also from the American publisher—that lesbianism in Saudi Arabia is “punishable by death if discovered.”</p>
<p>To muddle the issue, the translator in her/his lengthy “Afterword” throws the entire issue of the novel’s sexual deviancy into a quasi-backlash caused by the Saudi Sunni majority against the minority Shi’is. “The [unnamed] narrator and her friends are wired in every way, but they are only comfortable in their pseudonymous internet existences, or in clandestine relationships that carry other tensions and self-questioning….&#160; Marginalized and disallowed from strengthening religious institutions such as mosques, Saudi Arabia’s Shi’is have turned to alternative institutions,” and, by implication, sexual lifestyles. &#160;I don’t doubt the importance of any of these contexts, but the novel is clearly about more than forbidden sexuality.</p>
<p>The unnamed narrator–an undergraduate at a woman’s college–describes her erotic awakening during an encounter with another, more-worldly student and the subsequent world of illicit parties, group encounters, and personal tensions from engagement in the forbidden.&#160; These relationships often turn ugly, possessive, if not masochistic, as young women quickly alter their loyalties, aware of the danger of their activities.&#160; Yet, not too far into an often boring narrative, the main character provides a clue about the eventual outcome of her story: “Ever since I was a semi-boy or a sexless child, I have gotten used to the idea, never challenged, that children do not gain the qualities of their sex until after marriage, when the girls give birth to children and the boys go out to work.”&#160; To wit, a certain amount of sexual exploration is biologically natural though obviously much more unlikely in repressive societies.</p>
<p>I can’t get too excited about the lesbian journey of The Other’s main character.</p>
<p>But there is something buried in the story that seems much more profound and psychologically interesting: the narrator’s self-loathing because of her body.&#160; Nor is this the body in a state of sexual arousal but, rather, obsessive embarrassment because of an inherited affliction.&#160; The narrator suffers from seizures, epilepsy, genetically explained, but turned into an obsession so overwhelming that she often can’t sleep, is filled with loathing about her imperfect body, can love no one for fear that that person will become aware of her abnormality.&#160; It would be fascinating to see how a psychiatrist would react to the following passage:</p>
<p>“My body hurts me….&#160; My body pains me, the kind of pain that Panadol pills do not take away, an ache that does not disappear when I try to ignore it.&#160; Pain that is like heaviness, as if I am pushing forward with difficulty across a terrain of mud and green creatures that stick to me, pain that urges me to abandon the whole idea of life altogether; a deceptive and complex pain. My head is a bullet hole around which voices buzz and the wind whips.&#160; Pain gallops through my head like wild horses….”</p>
<p>The narrator’s self-loathing and inescapable pain result in a longing for death, described in great detail in lengthy passages toward the end of the narrative. One such passage: “I want Death to be a little bit nice to me, to take me without hurting me, to take me gently and lightly, to take me without stuffing me into a space smaller than my body, to take me with my filth and black spots and the mire in my soul, to take me and raise me on his wings, to lift me outside and above my body, above the world, above, where God is.&#160; I want to say goodbye to my body, but without death I will never be able to leave it.”</p>
<p>It isn’t the forbidden sexuality that is fascinating in The Others but, rather, the exploration of an obsessed mind unable to relinquish her belief in a perfect body.&#160; Yes, the lesbian encounters may have triggered the narrator’s sense of imperfection, but by the end of the story, sexuality has moved off-stage.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1583228713/counterpunchmaga" type="external">The Others</a> by Seba Al-Herz Seven Stories Press, 320 pp., $17.95</p>
<p>CHARLES R. LARSON is Professor of Literature at American University, in Washington, D.C.</p> | 3,815 |
<p>Sec. of Defense Leon Panetta, Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak / AP</p>
<p>BY: <a href="" type="internal">Bill Gertz</a> August 7, 2012 5:00 am</p>
<p>U.S. intelligence analysts watching for indicators of Israeli military action recently reported that there are signs the Jewish state plans an attack against Iran in October.</p>
<p>The Obama administration, meanwhile, is preparing to provide logistical support for a military strike but is pressing Israel to delay any action until the administration’s policy of sanctions have had more time to work, and that any attack would be put off until after the November presidential election.</p>
<p>U.S. opposition to any pre-election strike was discussed during the recent visit to Israel by White House National Security Adviser Thomas Donilon and a later visit by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, according to U.S. officials.</p>
<p>Panetta signaled possible U.S. military options for an Iran contingency during his press conference in Tel Aviv with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak Aug. 1. Panetta said the United States and Israel are united in seeking to prevent Iran from ever having nuclear arms.</p>
<p>"We have been steadily applying more and more pressure against Tehran, focusing on diplomatic and economic sanctions, and I believe these steps are having an effect," Panetta said.</p>
<p>He then added: "It's my responsibility as secretary of defense to provide the president with a full range of options, including military options, should diplomacy fail. President Obama has made clear that preventing a nuclear-armed Iran is a top national security priority by the United States and that all options — all options — are on the table."</p>
<p>Any Israeli military attack is expected to be carried out with little or no warning, which has meant stepped up monitoring of Israel by U.S. intelligence agencies for all indicators of an impending attack.</p>
<p>Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense minister, made a significant statement on Israel’s plans on July 25. Barak said during a graduation ceremony that if sanctions fail to halt Tehran’s nuclear program, an attack would be needed.</p>
<p>"I am well aware of the difficulties involved in thwarting Iran's attempts to acquire a nuclear weapon," Barak was quoted as saying by Israel’s Ynet news agency.</p>
<p>"However, it is clear to me that without a doubt, dealing with the threat itself will be far more complicated, far more dangerous and far more costly in resources and human life," he said, referring to a future nuclear-armed Iran.</p>
<p>Barak also said that sanctions and other diplomatic steps "are not enough to stop Iran's nuclear program."</p>
<p>U.S. officials said both Donilon and Panetta urged the Israelis to give sanctions a chance to work. New sanctions were imposed on Iranian financial institutions last week.</p>
<p>But the sanctions contain loopholes that critics say will limit their effect in influencing Iran’s Islamist regime from coming into compliance with international controls on its nuclear program.</p>
<p>The International Atomic Energy Agency, contradicting standard U.S. intelligence analysis, stated recently that there are signs Iran engaged in nuclear arms development past 2003, when U.S. agencies said such work halted.</p>
<p>Some Israeli military leaders are said to be raising new concerns that Iran is positioning its forces for asymmetric counterattacks, specifically a new aggressive naval strategy of shutting down western oil supplies. Evidence of the new strategy was the recent dispatch of Iranian warships to the Mediterranean for the first time since 1979. The warships could be used to threaten shipping through the Red Sea and followed threats by Iranian officials to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which a major portion of the world’s oil passes.</p>
<p>Other Israeli military and national security officials favor continuing the current campaign of covert action against Iran, including the assassination of key Iranian nuclear technicians and the use of aggressive cyber warfare attacks, like Stuxnet, Flame, and other viruses that have infected Iranian industrial control networks, including those engaged in nuclear development.</p>
<p>Intelligence analysts, in recent assessments, said an Israeli attack on Iran likely will trigger a global oil crisis involving Iranian counter-actions designed to disrupt the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf to Asia, Europe and elsewhere. They include closing the strategic Strait of Hormuz and disrupting shipping lanes.</p>
<p>One element of leverage for the administration in dissuading Israel to attack was outlined in the recent meetings with Israeli officials who were told that a U.S.-supported strike against Iran possibly could involve advanced weaponry from the U.S. arsenal, including a new Air Force conventional bomb designed to blast deeply buried and hardened targets.</p>
<p>The Israeli strike plan against Iranian nuclear facilities is expected to include an air bombing campaign against two main nuclear plants at Natanz and Qom that are key elements in producing enriched uranium, which could be used to fuel nuclear bombs.</p>
<p>Military analysts also have said the Israelis are expected to launch "decapitation" bombing raids targeting key Iranian leaders — including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who publicly has called for destroying Israel — and other key Iranian military and political leaders.</p>
<p>One veteran Israeli journalist, Channel 2’s Ehud Yaari was quoted July 28 as saying he was told the most likely date for an Israeli military strike is October.</p>
<p>"I will give you an impression, and this is just an impression, but it is a strong impression, after conversations with the people one needs to talk with about this matter," Yaari said.</p>
<p>"My impression is that the Americans are convinced that there is very high chance that Israel will decide to attack in Iran before the elections in the U.S."</p>
<p>"The date that they are talking about — they say that the prime minister will have to make a decision around October," he said. "They are getting ready for a possibility like that in the sense that they have to decide what they will do if there is one response or another by Iran, in the follow-up stage."</p>
<p>"But when you talk to them, they talk about [an Israeli strike] almost as a given—as a clear, unassailable fact."</p>
<p>The sensationalist Israeli newsletter DEBKAfile reported July 29 that its sources in Washington report "October is often mentioned these days in the White House, the Pentagon and top military command as the month to watch."</p>
<p>The report said Persian Gulf states would prefer a U.S. attack rather than an Israeli strike. The July 29 report said senior Saudi officials recently told western officials that they have been assured by the United States that the Israelis will be the first to attack and that U.S. forces would later join in. The Saudis also were told that the Obama administration has been pressing the Israelis to hold off from conducting an attack but that Washington cannot be certain that Israel will wait.</p>
<p>The Untied States currently has two aircraft carrier strike groups in the region.</p>
<p>Iran’s nuclear facilities, in addition to the enrichment facilities at Natanz and Qom, include research reactors at Tehran, Bonab, and Ramsar and nuclear sites at Bushehr, Arak and Isfahan. All are potential targets.</p> | October Surprise | true | http://freebeacon.com/october-surprise/ | 2012-08-07 | 0right
| October Surprise
<p>Sec. of Defense Leon Panetta, Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak / AP</p>
<p>BY: <a href="" type="internal">Bill Gertz</a> August 7, 2012 5:00 am</p>
<p>U.S. intelligence analysts watching for indicators of Israeli military action recently reported that there are signs the Jewish state plans an attack against Iran in October.</p>
<p>The Obama administration, meanwhile, is preparing to provide logistical support for a military strike but is pressing Israel to delay any action until the administration’s policy of sanctions have had more time to work, and that any attack would be put off until after the November presidential election.</p>
<p>U.S. opposition to any pre-election strike was discussed during the recent visit to Israel by White House National Security Adviser Thomas Donilon and a later visit by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, according to U.S. officials.</p>
<p>Panetta signaled possible U.S. military options for an Iran contingency during his press conference in Tel Aviv with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak Aug. 1. Panetta said the United States and Israel are united in seeking to prevent Iran from ever having nuclear arms.</p>
<p>"We have been steadily applying more and more pressure against Tehran, focusing on diplomatic and economic sanctions, and I believe these steps are having an effect," Panetta said.</p>
<p>He then added: "It's my responsibility as secretary of defense to provide the president with a full range of options, including military options, should diplomacy fail. President Obama has made clear that preventing a nuclear-armed Iran is a top national security priority by the United States and that all options — all options — are on the table."</p>
<p>Any Israeli military attack is expected to be carried out with little or no warning, which has meant stepped up monitoring of Israel by U.S. intelligence agencies for all indicators of an impending attack.</p>
<p>Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense minister, made a significant statement on Israel’s plans on July 25. Barak said during a graduation ceremony that if sanctions fail to halt Tehran’s nuclear program, an attack would be needed.</p>
<p>"I am well aware of the difficulties involved in thwarting Iran's attempts to acquire a nuclear weapon," Barak was quoted as saying by Israel’s Ynet news agency.</p>
<p>"However, it is clear to me that without a doubt, dealing with the threat itself will be far more complicated, far more dangerous and far more costly in resources and human life," he said, referring to a future nuclear-armed Iran.</p>
<p>Barak also said that sanctions and other diplomatic steps "are not enough to stop Iran's nuclear program."</p>
<p>U.S. officials said both Donilon and Panetta urged the Israelis to give sanctions a chance to work. New sanctions were imposed on Iranian financial institutions last week.</p>
<p>But the sanctions contain loopholes that critics say will limit their effect in influencing Iran’s Islamist regime from coming into compliance with international controls on its nuclear program.</p>
<p>The International Atomic Energy Agency, contradicting standard U.S. intelligence analysis, stated recently that there are signs Iran engaged in nuclear arms development past 2003, when U.S. agencies said such work halted.</p>
<p>Some Israeli military leaders are said to be raising new concerns that Iran is positioning its forces for asymmetric counterattacks, specifically a new aggressive naval strategy of shutting down western oil supplies. Evidence of the new strategy was the recent dispatch of Iranian warships to the Mediterranean for the first time since 1979. The warships could be used to threaten shipping through the Red Sea and followed threats by Iranian officials to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which a major portion of the world’s oil passes.</p>
<p>Other Israeli military and national security officials favor continuing the current campaign of covert action against Iran, including the assassination of key Iranian nuclear technicians and the use of aggressive cyber warfare attacks, like Stuxnet, Flame, and other viruses that have infected Iranian industrial control networks, including those engaged in nuclear development.</p>
<p>Intelligence analysts, in recent assessments, said an Israeli attack on Iran likely will trigger a global oil crisis involving Iranian counter-actions designed to disrupt the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf to Asia, Europe and elsewhere. They include closing the strategic Strait of Hormuz and disrupting shipping lanes.</p>
<p>One element of leverage for the administration in dissuading Israel to attack was outlined in the recent meetings with Israeli officials who were told that a U.S.-supported strike against Iran possibly could involve advanced weaponry from the U.S. arsenal, including a new Air Force conventional bomb designed to blast deeply buried and hardened targets.</p>
<p>The Israeli strike plan against Iranian nuclear facilities is expected to include an air bombing campaign against two main nuclear plants at Natanz and Qom that are key elements in producing enriched uranium, which could be used to fuel nuclear bombs.</p>
<p>Military analysts also have said the Israelis are expected to launch "decapitation" bombing raids targeting key Iranian leaders — including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who publicly has called for destroying Israel — and other key Iranian military and political leaders.</p>
<p>One veteran Israeli journalist, Channel 2’s Ehud Yaari was quoted July 28 as saying he was told the most likely date for an Israeli military strike is October.</p>
<p>"I will give you an impression, and this is just an impression, but it is a strong impression, after conversations with the people one needs to talk with about this matter," Yaari said.</p>
<p>"My impression is that the Americans are convinced that there is very high chance that Israel will decide to attack in Iran before the elections in the U.S."</p>
<p>"The date that they are talking about — they say that the prime minister will have to make a decision around October," he said. "They are getting ready for a possibility like that in the sense that they have to decide what they will do if there is one response or another by Iran, in the follow-up stage."</p>
<p>"But when you talk to them, they talk about [an Israeli strike] almost as a given—as a clear, unassailable fact."</p>
<p>The sensationalist Israeli newsletter DEBKAfile reported July 29 that its sources in Washington report "October is often mentioned these days in the White House, the Pentagon and top military command as the month to watch."</p>
<p>The report said Persian Gulf states would prefer a U.S. attack rather than an Israeli strike. The July 29 report said senior Saudi officials recently told western officials that they have been assured by the United States that the Israelis will be the first to attack and that U.S. forces would later join in. The Saudis also were told that the Obama administration has been pressing the Israelis to hold off from conducting an attack but that Washington cannot be certain that Israel will wait.</p>
<p>The Untied States currently has two aircraft carrier strike groups in the region.</p>
<p>Iran’s nuclear facilities, in addition to the enrichment facilities at Natanz and Qom, include research reactors at Tehran, Bonab, and Ramsar and nuclear sites at Bushehr, Arak and Isfahan. All are potential targets.</p> | 3,816 |
<p />
<p>On Thursday afternoon, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist was expected to announce he will pull out of the GOP Senate primary and run for the open Senate seat as an independent. That would leave Marco Rubio, a former state House speaker, as the presumed Republican nominee. Crist’s move has the politerati all a-twitter, because it’s the most dramatic indicator of the Republican Party’s lurch to the right and Tea Partydom—and because it now sets up a dramatic three-way contest that will pit a right-wing Republican against an ex-Republican moderate against a Democrat (Rep. Kendrick Meek).</p>
<p>This election will get loads of national attention, and it will be interesting to see how social media becomes a part of it. So far, Rubio has cleaned Crist’s clock in this regard. A report put out today (conveniently!) by the <a href="http://www.threeshipsmedia.com/page/the-emerging-media-research-council" type="external">Emerging Media Research Council</a> gives the stats:</p>
<p>*&#160;Rubio’s Web traffic has grown 251% across the last three months while Crist’s Web traffic has grown only 44%.</p>
<p>*&#160;YouTube: Rubio has more than 540,000 views across 135 videos; Crist’s videos have been viewed 32,000 times. *</p>
<p>* Facebook: Rubio maintains more than a 4-1 advantage on Facebook: 60,000 “likes” to 14,700 “likes”.</p>
<p>*&#160;Twitter: Rubio maintains more than a 2-1 advantage on Twitter: 11,500 followers to 5,100 followers.</p>
<p>This certainly reflects the intensity of the support Rubio, a Tea Party darling, has drawn locally and nationally. Rubio is a young and dynamic candidate who appeals to a die-hard band; thus, he’s a natural for social media. The question is, once the older and more moderate Crist goes indie, can he also go viral?</p>
<p /> | Crist-Rubio Social Media Smackdown | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2010/04/crist-rubio-social-media-smackdown/ | 2010-04-29 | 4left
| Crist-Rubio Social Media Smackdown
<p />
<p>On Thursday afternoon, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist was expected to announce he will pull out of the GOP Senate primary and run for the open Senate seat as an independent. That would leave Marco Rubio, a former state House speaker, as the presumed Republican nominee. Crist’s move has the politerati all a-twitter, because it’s the most dramatic indicator of the Republican Party’s lurch to the right and Tea Partydom—and because it now sets up a dramatic three-way contest that will pit a right-wing Republican against an ex-Republican moderate against a Democrat (Rep. Kendrick Meek).</p>
<p>This election will get loads of national attention, and it will be interesting to see how social media becomes a part of it. So far, Rubio has cleaned Crist’s clock in this regard. A report put out today (conveniently!) by the <a href="http://www.threeshipsmedia.com/page/the-emerging-media-research-council" type="external">Emerging Media Research Council</a> gives the stats:</p>
<p>*&#160;Rubio’s Web traffic has grown 251% across the last three months while Crist’s Web traffic has grown only 44%.</p>
<p>*&#160;YouTube: Rubio has more than 540,000 views across 135 videos; Crist’s videos have been viewed 32,000 times. *</p>
<p>* Facebook: Rubio maintains more than a 4-1 advantage on Facebook: 60,000 “likes” to 14,700 “likes”.</p>
<p>*&#160;Twitter: Rubio maintains more than a 2-1 advantage on Twitter: 11,500 followers to 5,100 followers.</p>
<p>This certainly reflects the intensity of the support Rubio, a Tea Party darling, has drawn locally and nationally. Rubio is a young and dynamic candidate who appeals to a die-hard band; thus, he’s a natural for social media. The question is, once the older and more moderate Crist goes indie, can he also go viral?</p>
<p /> | 3,817 |
<p>Jean Claude Brizard, the newly-minted CPS CEO, started his listening tour Thursday at Guggenheim Elementary, a school that is representative of one of the district’s biggest problems.</p>
<p>Located in Englewood, Guggenheim’s test scores lag behind the rest of the district and its student population has dwindled through the years. About 70 schools in CPS are like Guggenheim with fewer than 300 students–the population at which experts say schools become financially viable.</p>
<p>But closing down schools like Guggenheim is not easy, as Brizard’s predecessor found out last year.&#160;</p>
<p>After crunching the numbers, former CEO Ron Huberman announced last year that Guggenheim was going to close down. But after intense community pressure, at the last minute he allowed it to stay open, citing safety concerns.</p>
<p>CPS spokeswoman Becky Carroll said that Guggenheim was chosen as the first stop in the listening tour because it is in Ald. Latasha Thomas’ ward. Thomas is the chairwoman of the City Council’s education committee.&#160;</p>
<p>“He (Brizard) wanted to start in a neighborhood school,” she said. Brizard plans to visit a school every day (except Fridays) until the end of the school year, and to have listening sessions with different groups around the city a few times a week. Brizard hails from New York.</p>
<p>Since last year, Guggenheim has gotten a new, dynamic principal, Vikki Stokes. Her task is to revive the school against all odds. Englewood has seen its population decline, and families now have a myriad of choices in schools, from magnets to charter schools.</p>
<p>Sit-down sessions between Brizard, Stokes and teachers were kept private. Stokes said she spoke to Brizard about the need to give schools like hers the resources to prepare students to compete in a global world. She noted that students are expected to be tested on the new Common Core standards in 2014.&#160;</p>
<p>“These kindergarteners will be tested on them,” she said. “They are expected to be much more rigorous than current standards. I want to be ready.”</p>
<p>Stokes also wanted more help exposing her students to a good science curriculum, something that Brizard, a former physics and science teacher, could relate to.</p>
<p>She said she wasn’t worried that the school is still in danger of shutting down. But the thought still lingered in the minds of some students and teachers.&#160;</p>
<p>Brizard went into a science class, where some students were observing worms and others were watching a virtual tour of an exhibit at the Field Museum. Brizard stopped to ask Jaquisha Bowman about a DNA model.&#160;</p>
<p>She sheepishly smiled, but didn’t exactly know the answer. Later, she said Guggenheim is the school her mother, her mother’s siblings and all her brothers and sisters attended.&#160;</p>
<p>Going out to rallies to try to save Guggenheim was still fresh in her mind. But she said she thought that test scores were better and that would keep the doors open.&#160;</p>
<p>Bettye Plarr, who serves on the local school council and has a daughter at Guggenheim, said she thinks administrators like Brizard need to talk to parents before making decisions that affect children.</p>
<p>“In the back of my mind I keep thinking that the school will be turned into a charter school,” she said. That would be a shame, she said, because many of the current teachers work hard and go out of their way for the students.&#160;</p>
<p>Plarr told Brizard that she wanted to talk with him. He gave her his e-mail address.</p>
<p>Few other parents were on hand to talk to Brizard.</p>
<p>Stokes was only notified on Wednesday that Brizard would be coming by the next day. There was no publicity around his visit.&#160;</p>
<p>The parents and community members who did show up were mostly there by happenstance. One was coming to chaperone a field trip that did not happen. Another was there to complain about her daughter being bullied.&#160;</p>
<p>Stokes said that Brizard’s staff told her that he wanted to see a regular school day.&#160;</p> | Chicago Schools CEO Brizard kicks off listening tour at Englewood school | false | http://chicagoreporter.com/chicago-schools-ceo-brizard-kicks-listening-tour-englewood-school/ | 2011-05-26 | 3left-center
| Chicago Schools CEO Brizard kicks off listening tour at Englewood school
<p>Jean Claude Brizard, the newly-minted CPS CEO, started his listening tour Thursday at Guggenheim Elementary, a school that is representative of one of the district’s biggest problems.</p>
<p>Located in Englewood, Guggenheim’s test scores lag behind the rest of the district and its student population has dwindled through the years. About 70 schools in CPS are like Guggenheim with fewer than 300 students–the population at which experts say schools become financially viable.</p>
<p>But closing down schools like Guggenheim is not easy, as Brizard’s predecessor found out last year.&#160;</p>
<p>After crunching the numbers, former CEO Ron Huberman announced last year that Guggenheim was going to close down. But after intense community pressure, at the last minute he allowed it to stay open, citing safety concerns.</p>
<p>CPS spokeswoman Becky Carroll said that Guggenheim was chosen as the first stop in the listening tour because it is in Ald. Latasha Thomas’ ward. Thomas is the chairwoman of the City Council’s education committee.&#160;</p>
<p>“He (Brizard) wanted to start in a neighborhood school,” she said. Brizard plans to visit a school every day (except Fridays) until the end of the school year, and to have listening sessions with different groups around the city a few times a week. Brizard hails from New York.</p>
<p>Since last year, Guggenheim has gotten a new, dynamic principal, Vikki Stokes. Her task is to revive the school against all odds. Englewood has seen its population decline, and families now have a myriad of choices in schools, from magnets to charter schools.</p>
<p>Sit-down sessions between Brizard, Stokes and teachers were kept private. Stokes said she spoke to Brizard about the need to give schools like hers the resources to prepare students to compete in a global world. She noted that students are expected to be tested on the new Common Core standards in 2014.&#160;</p>
<p>“These kindergarteners will be tested on them,” she said. “They are expected to be much more rigorous than current standards. I want to be ready.”</p>
<p>Stokes also wanted more help exposing her students to a good science curriculum, something that Brizard, a former physics and science teacher, could relate to.</p>
<p>She said she wasn’t worried that the school is still in danger of shutting down. But the thought still lingered in the minds of some students and teachers.&#160;</p>
<p>Brizard went into a science class, where some students were observing worms and others were watching a virtual tour of an exhibit at the Field Museum. Brizard stopped to ask Jaquisha Bowman about a DNA model.&#160;</p>
<p>She sheepishly smiled, but didn’t exactly know the answer. Later, she said Guggenheim is the school her mother, her mother’s siblings and all her brothers and sisters attended.&#160;</p>
<p>Going out to rallies to try to save Guggenheim was still fresh in her mind. But she said she thought that test scores were better and that would keep the doors open.&#160;</p>
<p>Bettye Plarr, who serves on the local school council and has a daughter at Guggenheim, said she thinks administrators like Brizard need to talk to parents before making decisions that affect children.</p>
<p>“In the back of my mind I keep thinking that the school will be turned into a charter school,” she said. That would be a shame, she said, because many of the current teachers work hard and go out of their way for the students.&#160;</p>
<p>Plarr told Brizard that she wanted to talk with him. He gave her his e-mail address.</p>
<p>Few other parents were on hand to talk to Brizard.</p>
<p>Stokes was only notified on Wednesday that Brizard would be coming by the next day. There was no publicity around his visit.&#160;</p>
<p>The parents and community members who did show up were mostly there by happenstance. One was coming to chaperone a field trip that did not happen. Another was there to complain about her daughter being bullied.&#160;</p>
<p>Stokes said that Brizard’s staff told her that he wanted to see a regular school day.&#160;</p> | 3,818 |
<p>WASHINGTON — As the Supreme Court launched two days of oral arguments March 26 on a landmark same-sex marriage case, ministers and members of some Baptist churches in the Mid-Atlantic rallied with other faith groups at an early morning interfaith service and later on the court’s steps in support of marriage equality.</p>
<p>The high court today is scrutinizing California’s Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage, a case that could affect other states as well. Later this week it will look at the federal Defense of Marriage Act’s denial of government benefits to same-sex spouses.</p>
<p />
<p>A “Prayer for Love and Justice” interfaith service, hosted Tuesday morning by the Lutheran Church of the Reformation in Washington, drew a standing-room-only crowd as clergy and lay leaders prayed for marriage equality in the United States.</p>
<p>Baptists were encouraged to attend by the <a href="http://www.awab.org/" type="external">Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists</a>.</p>
<p>“It is critical that Welcoming and Affirming Baptists speak out in support of marriage equality since there is so much attention being paid to the non-affirming voices in the Baptist world,” said Robin Lunn, AWAB’s executive director.</p>
<p>Baptists from Maryland and the District led portions of the interfaith service, held to demonstrate broad-based support in the faith community for LGBT equality and the dignity of each person as religious values, said organizers.</p>
<p>Dennis Wiley, co-pastor of <a href="http://covenantbaptistucc.org/" type="external">Covenant Baptist United Church of Christ</a> in Washington, offered prayers focused on love, justice and marriage equality. Jill McCrory, pastor of <a href="http://www.twinbrookbaptist.org/" type="external">Twinbrook Baptist Church</a> in Rockville, Md., and an AWAB board member, participated in a blessing of couples, reminding them that it was a Baptist minister offering the blessing — and to remember that as they left the church to join the rally. The congregation responded with laughter and “amens.”</p>
<p />
<p>Also participating was Carol Blythe, president of the Alliance of Baptists and a member of <a href="http://www.calvarydc.org/" type="external">Calvary Baptist Church</a> in Washington.</p>
<p>“The Alliance of Baptists has been committed to inclusivity and marriage equality for many years,” said Blythe. “We are glad to add our voice to this interfaith prayer service in support of love and justice. By participating we want to make clear to the world that the broader Baptist family includes our group of justice-seeking Baptists.”</p>
<p>Following the prayer service, a group of drummers led the clergy in song, as they marched the two blocks from the church to the Supreme Court steps to join the United for Marriage Equality rally. Among the speakers there were Al Sharpton, an ordained American Baptist minister, and Allyson Robinson, also an ordained Baptist minister and executive director of OutServe, a support organization for gay members of the armed forces. Robinson is a member of Calvary Baptist Church in Washington.</p>
<p>Steve Hyde, pastor of <a href="http://www.rbc-va.org/" type="external">Ravensworth Baptist Church</a> in Annandale, Va., a suburban congregation represented at the rally by both members and ministers, noted the event coincided with Holy Week.</p>
<p>“On Tuesday of the first Holy Week, Jesus moved among the Temple courts, fielding questions intended to entrap and discredit him,” said Hyde. “On Tuesday of this Holy Week, it was a great privilege as a pastor to stand with so many people of faith in front of the highest court of our land, and to stand for justice and marriage equality.“</p>
<p>Marshall Marks, a Ravensworth member, said, “We’re happy to be out here and to serve as a light for justice so that all couples can be granted the same laws.” &#160; Added AWAB’s Lunn: “Whether it’s Westboro Baptist Church or Richard Land from the Southern Baptist Convention, so often the only Baptist voices that people hear are the negative ones that the media lifts up. We need to stand up and be loud and proud as Welcoming and Affirming Baptists so people who are wounded and have left the church can find a place to call home.”</p>
<p>Leah Grundset Davis ( <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>), associate pastor for congregational life at Calvary Baptist Church in Washington, is a Religious Herald contributing writer.</p> | Baptists from Mid-Atlantic rally in support of gay marriage as Supreme Court begins landmark case | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/baptistsfrommid-atlanticrallyinsupportofgaymarriageassupremecourtbeginslandmarkcase/ | 3left-center
| Baptists from Mid-Atlantic rally in support of gay marriage as Supreme Court begins landmark case
<p>WASHINGTON — As the Supreme Court launched two days of oral arguments March 26 on a landmark same-sex marriage case, ministers and members of some Baptist churches in the Mid-Atlantic rallied with other faith groups at an early morning interfaith service and later on the court’s steps in support of marriage equality.</p>
<p>The high court today is scrutinizing California’s Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage, a case that could affect other states as well. Later this week it will look at the federal Defense of Marriage Act’s denial of government benefits to same-sex spouses.</p>
<p />
<p>A “Prayer for Love and Justice” interfaith service, hosted Tuesday morning by the Lutheran Church of the Reformation in Washington, drew a standing-room-only crowd as clergy and lay leaders prayed for marriage equality in the United States.</p>
<p>Baptists were encouraged to attend by the <a href="http://www.awab.org/" type="external">Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists</a>.</p>
<p>“It is critical that Welcoming and Affirming Baptists speak out in support of marriage equality since there is so much attention being paid to the non-affirming voices in the Baptist world,” said Robin Lunn, AWAB’s executive director.</p>
<p>Baptists from Maryland and the District led portions of the interfaith service, held to demonstrate broad-based support in the faith community for LGBT equality and the dignity of each person as religious values, said organizers.</p>
<p>Dennis Wiley, co-pastor of <a href="http://covenantbaptistucc.org/" type="external">Covenant Baptist United Church of Christ</a> in Washington, offered prayers focused on love, justice and marriage equality. Jill McCrory, pastor of <a href="http://www.twinbrookbaptist.org/" type="external">Twinbrook Baptist Church</a> in Rockville, Md., and an AWAB board member, participated in a blessing of couples, reminding them that it was a Baptist minister offering the blessing — and to remember that as they left the church to join the rally. The congregation responded with laughter and “amens.”</p>
<p />
<p>Also participating was Carol Blythe, president of the Alliance of Baptists and a member of <a href="http://www.calvarydc.org/" type="external">Calvary Baptist Church</a> in Washington.</p>
<p>“The Alliance of Baptists has been committed to inclusivity and marriage equality for many years,” said Blythe. “We are glad to add our voice to this interfaith prayer service in support of love and justice. By participating we want to make clear to the world that the broader Baptist family includes our group of justice-seeking Baptists.”</p>
<p>Following the prayer service, a group of drummers led the clergy in song, as they marched the two blocks from the church to the Supreme Court steps to join the United for Marriage Equality rally. Among the speakers there were Al Sharpton, an ordained American Baptist minister, and Allyson Robinson, also an ordained Baptist minister and executive director of OutServe, a support organization for gay members of the armed forces. Robinson is a member of Calvary Baptist Church in Washington.</p>
<p>Steve Hyde, pastor of <a href="http://www.rbc-va.org/" type="external">Ravensworth Baptist Church</a> in Annandale, Va., a suburban congregation represented at the rally by both members and ministers, noted the event coincided with Holy Week.</p>
<p>“On Tuesday of the first Holy Week, Jesus moved among the Temple courts, fielding questions intended to entrap and discredit him,” said Hyde. “On Tuesday of this Holy Week, it was a great privilege as a pastor to stand with so many people of faith in front of the highest court of our land, and to stand for justice and marriage equality.“</p>
<p>Marshall Marks, a Ravensworth member, said, “We’re happy to be out here and to serve as a light for justice so that all couples can be granted the same laws.” &#160; Added AWAB’s Lunn: “Whether it’s Westboro Baptist Church or Richard Land from the Southern Baptist Convention, so often the only Baptist voices that people hear are the negative ones that the media lifts up. We need to stand up and be loud and proud as Welcoming and Affirming Baptists so people who are wounded and have left the church can find a place to call home.”</p>
<p>Leah Grundset Davis ( <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>), associate pastor for congregational life at Calvary Baptist Church in Washington, is a Religious Herald contributing writer.</p> | 3,819 |
|
<p>”The Orphan Master’s Son” A book by Adam Johnson</p>
<p>Citizens, gather ’round your loudspeakers! It is time for the final installment of this year’s Best North Korean Story, though it might as well be titled the Greatest North Korean Story of All Time! — from “The Orphan Master’s Son”</p>
<p>I wonder if Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s new, poker-faced leader, will read this novel. If he does, he may be baffled unless his Switzerland schooling gave him a real understanding of Kafka, Nabokov, Pynchon, Swift and Borges. “The Orphan Master’s Son” by Adam Johnson — an American — is a rich, careening, dystopian tale that stretches the form of a novel to give us a visceral hit of life inside North Korea.</p>
<p>So Kim Jong Un, this review’s for you. This audacious and (to despots like you) dangerous novel set in your country is definitely the Greatest North Korean Story of All Time, no matter what you might decree.</p>
<p />
<p>“The Orphan Master’s Son” is about a lot of things — freedom and captivity, love and loss, truth and lies — but at its deepest level it’s about identity and story. It’s about who holds the power to say, “This is who I am.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/0812992792?aff=Truthdig" type="external" /></p>
<p>By Adam Johnson</p>
<p>Random House, 464 pages</p>
<p><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/0812992792?aff=Truthdig" type="external" /></p>
<p>Dr. Song turned to Jun Do. ‘Where we are from,’ he said. ‘Stories are factual. If a farmer is declared a music virtuoso by the state, everyone had better start calling him maestro. And secretly, he’d be wise to start practicing the piano. For us, the story is more important than the person. If a man and his story are in conflict, it is the man who must change.’</p>
<p>The protagonist, a man named Pak Jun Do (I can’t help but think “John Doe”), has his life story determined by other people — mostly the North Korean state — again and again until he finally seizes his own power to define who he is.</p>
<p>This novel is not for readers who are squeamish about form or content. Horrors such as bloodletting in prison mines are followed by hilarious banter from a young careerist (the profession is interrogation) and his interns, interspersed with a sort of Greek chorus of propaganda, hellish and humorous, boomed from the state through the loudspeakers affixed in every North Korean home and workplace. This novel proves the truism that comedy is rooted in tragedy.</p>
<p>The narrative is sometimes confusing, even as you can’t put the book down. It jumps between characters and through time with only the slightest clues to make the connections. The shards of the story come together only retrospectively. But this shattering of the narrative creates an absurd, cognitive dissonance — the experience of North Korean society.</p>
<p>The plot is quite a roller coaster ride. If the summary that follows is a bit breathless, and if you, Mr. Kim, feel nauseated, just swallow hard and carry on, as your people do.</p>
<p>Divided into two parts, the novel opens with Jun Do as a boy at a work-camp orphanage called Long Tomorrows, where he toils under the cruel master, his father. He survives to be sent into one strange job after another. He fights in the tunnels under the DMZ, then gets promoted, so to speak, as a kidnapper of people in Japan. Next up is carrying out radio surveillance from a fishing boat. The sailors all have tattoos of their wives on their chests, and they give the unmarried Jun Do a tattoo of North Korea’s famous film actress, Sun Moon, who will become important later.</p>
<p>To see long excerpts from “The Orphan Master’s Son” at Google Books, <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=ozHdgAFoZPYC&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;dq=the+orphan+master's+son&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=PJkpT6iFE6ixiQLH2MHaCg&amp;ved=0CDgQuwUwAA#v=onepage&amp;q=the%20orphan%20master's%20son&amp;f=false" type="external">click here</a>.</p>
<p>Jun Do fails at his next gig, a diplomatic/espionage mission to Texas. He is imprisoned in a mining camp. A maimed woman takes post-death photographs of inmates to help the government close out its records on the prisoners. Why she decides to help Jun Do isn’t totally clear, but she photographs him as dead so he can be freed of his identity as Jun Do and, potentially, escape. Part One ends, “from this point forward nothing further is known of the citizen named Pak Jun Do.”</p>
<p>This roller coaster plot now performs some real loop-de-loops. Part Two, “The Confessions of Commander Ga,” opens one year later. We meet a young interrogator taking the “biography” of the infamous Ga, apprehended for supposedly murdering his wife, the actress Sun Moon, and their children. Their bodies are missing.</p>
<p>We begin to gather that the man who the interrogator believes is Ga is actually Jun Do. We learn that a year ago at the prison camp, Jun Do, newly stripped of his identity, killed the real Commander Ga, who as head of prison mines had been visiting the camp. Jun Do took Ga’s uniform and assumed his identity — including being married to Sun Moon. (The tattoo helps.)</p>
<p>Impossible? Absurd? But this is North Korea, where the story, the fabrication, is truer than truth.</p>
<p>Mr. Kim, surely you follow. But gird yourself because now we enter even trickier narrative terrain. One of the challenges for any novelist is how and when to deliver information — planting just enough to let the reader understand what’s going on, but not so much as to reveal the mystery. Novels, Mr. Kim, are about seduction, not coercion.</p>
<p>The structure of Part Two creates remarkable suspense. We get two points of view — the interrogator’s and Ga’s (Jun Do’s) — in separate chapters that proceed chronologically. All well and good, but here’s the killer: Not until the end of the novel do we figure out that the “real time” of the interrogator’s chapters takes place after all the events described in the Ga chapters.</p>
<p>This is narrative as algebra. Here’s the breakdown of the interrogator and Ga sections using the alphabet as a stand-in for time and narrative progression: op ab qr cd st ef uv gh wx ij yz kl mn. Got that?</p>
<p>For the full pleasure of this novel, read it twice — once to feel the full force of bafflement, and the second time, after you know where it’s going, to appreciate its intricate craft.</p>
<p>Mr. Kim, the innovation of this American author is not yet exhausted.</p>
<p>Now we add a third layer of narrative: the storytelling by the loudspeaker, a voice that intervenes throughout the novel. The loudspeaker calls, “Citizens!” and riffs off propaganda so outrageous it seems hyperbolic, though it sounds exactly like North Korea’s 2012 New Year’s message praising the “socialist fairylands” of Pyongyang. After reviewing the story, the loudspeaker then becomes an omniscient author and hilariously moves the action forward.</p>
<p>The tone of the entire book is casual and conversational about horrors, using dark humor to keep us from turning away. The interrogator says: “While we were in college, the big trend was to throw them all into the prison mines, where life expectancy is six months. And of course now organ harvesting is where so many of our subjects meet their end.” Now, though, interrogators settle subjects in “the Q and A chairs, which are amazingly comfortable. We have a contractor in Syria who makes them for us — they’re similar to dental chairs, with baby-blue leather and arm- and headrests.” The chairs are hooked up to a device called the autopilot, “a hands-free piece of electronic wizardry” where “we ramp up the pain to inconceivable levels, a shifting, muscular river of pain. Pain of this nature creates a rift in the identity. … There’s no way around it: to get a new life, you’ve got to trade in your old one.”</p>
<p>One of the novel’s best passages describes how this Orwellian autopilot “works in concert with the mind” in a “dance with identity”:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/0812992792?aff=Truthdig" type="external" /></p>
<p>By Adam Johnson</p>
<p>Random House, 464 pages</p>
<p><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/0812992792?aff=Truthdig" type="external" /></p>
<p>Yes, picture a pencil and an eraser engaged in a beautiful dance across the page. The pencil’s tip bursts with expression — squiggles, figures, words — filling the page, as the eraser measures, takes notes, follows in the pencil’s footsteps, leaving only blankness in its wake. The pencil’s next seizure of scribbles is perhaps more intense and desperate, but shorter lived, and the eraser follows again. They continue in lockstep this way, the self and the state, coming closer to one another until finally the pencil and the eraser are almost one, moving in sympathy, the line disappearing even as it’s laid down, the words unwritten before the letters are formed, and finally there is only white.</p>
<p>The interrogator adds, “The electricity sometimes gives male subjects tremendous erections, so I’m not convinced the experience is all bad.”</p>
<p>Don’t forget true love. Jun Do, who as Ga is married to Sun Moon, really is in love with her, “a love he’s been saving up for his entire life, and it doesn’t matter that he must make a great journey to her, and it doesn’t matter if their time together is brief, that afterward he might lose her.”</p>
<p>When Jun Do first meets Sun Moon (after assuming Ga’s identity), she’s quite the moody, bourgeois, spoiled film star. But it turns out that Sun Moon, like everyone else in North Korea except perhaps the Dear Leader (as everyone must call Kim Jong Il), is faking it. Sun Moon eventually reveals her true story to Jun Do, crying, “My whole life is a lie. … I must act all the time,” telling how she was plucked from poverty by the Dear Leader himself.</p>
<p>The loudspeaker gets carried away with their growing intimacy. In one over-the-top passage, Jun Do and Sun Moon are visiting the national greenhouses. Here is their first sexual rapprochement. “Commander Ga dripped with sweat, and in his honor, groping stamens emanated their scent in clouds of sweet spoor that coated our lovers’ bodies with the sticky seed of socialism. Sun Moon offered her Juche to him, and he gave her all he had of Songun policy. At length, in depth, their spirited exchange culminated in a mutual exclaim of Party understanding.”</p>
<p>A lot more happens as the novel moves toward its own climax. Questions of identity and storytelling continue to refract all over the place. I’ll say only this: Appearing throughout the book is a DVD of “Casablanca.” If you know the story in that film, that’s the most important clue you’ll get about how “The Orphan Master’s Son” ends.</p>
<p>Back to you, Mr. Kim. On the Amazon website — I suppose you’re one of the few North Koreans online — the author has provided a helpful kind of Cliffs Notes. Johnson describes his fascination with how your government “prescribes an official narrative to an entire people.” He notes that though this official story is “a complete fiction,” every citizen is “forced to become a character whose motivations, desires and fears were dictated by this script.” Your labor camps are filled with those “who hadn’t played their parts.”</p>
<p>Mr. Kim, do you believe the lies told by Dear Leader Dad? Will you continue to spout those lies? And if you do, will that be a conscious act of cruelty and power — or sheer self-delusion?</p>
<p>Bertrand Russell — did you read him at school in Switzerland, Mr. Kim? — wrote, “No satisfaction based upon self-deception is solid, and however unpleasant the truth may be, it is better to face it once and for all.”</p>
<p>Dear Supreme Commander, start by procuring this book.</p>
<p /> | Kim Jong Un, This One’s for You | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/kim-jong-un-this-ones-for-you/ | 2012-02-03 | 4left
| Kim Jong Un, This One’s for You
<p>”The Orphan Master’s Son” A book by Adam Johnson</p>
<p>Citizens, gather ’round your loudspeakers! It is time for the final installment of this year’s Best North Korean Story, though it might as well be titled the Greatest North Korean Story of All Time! — from “The Orphan Master’s Son”</p>
<p>I wonder if Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s new, poker-faced leader, will read this novel. If he does, he may be baffled unless his Switzerland schooling gave him a real understanding of Kafka, Nabokov, Pynchon, Swift and Borges. “The Orphan Master’s Son” by Adam Johnson — an American — is a rich, careening, dystopian tale that stretches the form of a novel to give us a visceral hit of life inside North Korea.</p>
<p>So Kim Jong Un, this review’s for you. This audacious and (to despots like you) dangerous novel set in your country is definitely the Greatest North Korean Story of All Time, no matter what you might decree.</p>
<p />
<p>“The Orphan Master’s Son” is about a lot of things — freedom and captivity, love and loss, truth and lies — but at its deepest level it’s about identity and story. It’s about who holds the power to say, “This is who I am.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/0812992792?aff=Truthdig" type="external" /></p>
<p>By Adam Johnson</p>
<p>Random House, 464 pages</p>
<p><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/0812992792?aff=Truthdig" type="external" /></p>
<p>Dr. Song turned to Jun Do. ‘Where we are from,’ he said. ‘Stories are factual. If a farmer is declared a music virtuoso by the state, everyone had better start calling him maestro. And secretly, he’d be wise to start practicing the piano. For us, the story is more important than the person. If a man and his story are in conflict, it is the man who must change.’</p>
<p>The protagonist, a man named Pak Jun Do (I can’t help but think “John Doe”), has his life story determined by other people — mostly the North Korean state — again and again until he finally seizes his own power to define who he is.</p>
<p>This novel is not for readers who are squeamish about form or content. Horrors such as bloodletting in prison mines are followed by hilarious banter from a young careerist (the profession is interrogation) and his interns, interspersed with a sort of Greek chorus of propaganda, hellish and humorous, boomed from the state through the loudspeakers affixed in every North Korean home and workplace. This novel proves the truism that comedy is rooted in tragedy.</p>
<p>The narrative is sometimes confusing, even as you can’t put the book down. It jumps between characters and through time with only the slightest clues to make the connections. The shards of the story come together only retrospectively. But this shattering of the narrative creates an absurd, cognitive dissonance — the experience of North Korean society.</p>
<p>The plot is quite a roller coaster ride. If the summary that follows is a bit breathless, and if you, Mr. Kim, feel nauseated, just swallow hard and carry on, as your people do.</p>
<p>Divided into two parts, the novel opens with Jun Do as a boy at a work-camp orphanage called Long Tomorrows, where he toils under the cruel master, his father. He survives to be sent into one strange job after another. He fights in the tunnels under the DMZ, then gets promoted, so to speak, as a kidnapper of people in Japan. Next up is carrying out radio surveillance from a fishing boat. The sailors all have tattoos of their wives on their chests, and they give the unmarried Jun Do a tattoo of North Korea’s famous film actress, Sun Moon, who will become important later.</p>
<p>To see long excerpts from “The Orphan Master’s Son” at Google Books, <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=ozHdgAFoZPYC&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;dq=the+orphan+master's+son&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=PJkpT6iFE6ixiQLH2MHaCg&amp;ved=0CDgQuwUwAA#v=onepage&amp;q=the%20orphan%20master's%20son&amp;f=false" type="external">click here</a>.</p>
<p>Jun Do fails at his next gig, a diplomatic/espionage mission to Texas. He is imprisoned in a mining camp. A maimed woman takes post-death photographs of inmates to help the government close out its records on the prisoners. Why she decides to help Jun Do isn’t totally clear, but she photographs him as dead so he can be freed of his identity as Jun Do and, potentially, escape. Part One ends, “from this point forward nothing further is known of the citizen named Pak Jun Do.”</p>
<p>This roller coaster plot now performs some real loop-de-loops. Part Two, “The Confessions of Commander Ga,” opens one year later. We meet a young interrogator taking the “biography” of the infamous Ga, apprehended for supposedly murdering his wife, the actress Sun Moon, and their children. Their bodies are missing.</p>
<p>We begin to gather that the man who the interrogator believes is Ga is actually Jun Do. We learn that a year ago at the prison camp, Jun Do, newly stripped of his identity, killed the real Commander Ga, who as head of prison mines had been visiting the camp. Jun Do took Ga’s uniform and assumed his identity — including being married to Sun Moon. (The tattoo helps.)</p>
<p>Impossible? Absurd? But this is North Korea, where the story, the fabrication, is truer than truth.</p>
<p>Mr. Kim, surely you follow. But gird yourself because now we enter even trickier narrative terrain. One of the challenges for any novelist is how and when to deliver information — planting just enough to let the reader understand what’s going on, but not so much as to reveal the mystery. Novels, Mr. Kim, are about seduction, not coercion.</p>
<p>The structure of Part Two creates remarkable suspense. We get two points of view — the interrogator’s and Ga’s (Jun Do’s) — in separate chapters that proceed chronologically. All well and good, but here’s the killer: Not until the end of the novel do we figure out that the “real time” of the interrogator’s chapters takes place after all the events described in the Ga chapters.</p>
<p>This is narrative as algebra. Here’s the breakdown of the interrogator and Ga sections using the alphabet as a stand-in for time and narrative progression: op ab qr cd st ef uv gh wx ij yz kl mn. Got that?</p>
<p>For the full pleasure of this novel, read it twice — once to feel the full force of bafflement, and the second time, after you know where it’s going, to appreciate its intricate craft.</p>
<p>Mr. Kim, the innovation of this American author is not yet exhausted.</p>
<p>Now we add a third layer of narrative: the storytelling by the loudspeaker, a voice that intervenes throughout the novel. The loudspeaker calls, “Citizens!” and riffs off propaganda so outrageous it seems hyperbolic, though it sounds exactly like North Korea’s 2012 New Year’s message praising the “socialist fairylands” of Pyongyang. After reviewing the story, the loudspeaker then becomes an omniscient author and hilariously moves the action forward.</p>
<p>The tone of the entire book is casual and conversational about horrors, using dark humor to keep us from turning away. The interrogator says: “While we were in college, the big trend was to throw them all into the prison mines, where life expectancy is six months. And of course now organ harvesting is where so many of our subjects meet their end.” Now, though, interrogators settle subjects in “the Q and A chairs, which are amazingly comfortable. We have a contractor in Syria who makes them for us — they’re similar to dental chairs, with baby-blue leather and arm- and headrests.” The chairs are hooked up to a device called the autopilot, “a hands-free piece of electronic wizardry” where “we ramp up the pain to inconceivable levels, a shifting, muscular river of pain. Pain of this nature creates a rift in the identity. … There’s no way around it: to get a new life, you’ve got to trade in your old one.”</p>
<p>One of the novel’s best passages describes how this Orwellian autopilot “works in concert with the mind” in a “dance with identity”:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/0812992792?aff=Truthdig" type="external" /></p>
<p>By Adam Johnson</p>
<p>Random House, 464 pages</p>
<p><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/0812992792?aff=Truthdig" type="external" /></p>
<p>Yes, picture a pencil and an eraser engaged in a beautiful dance across the page. The pencil’s tip bursts with expression — squiggles, figures, words — filling the page, as the eraser measures, takes notes, follows in the pencil’s footsteps, leaving only blankness in its wake. The pencil’s next seizure of scribbles is perhaps more intense and desperate, but shorter lived, and the eraser follows again. They continue in lockstep this way, the self and the state, coming closer to one another until finally the pencil and the eraser are almost one, moving in sympathy, the line disappearing even as it’s laid down, the words unwritten before the letters are formed, and finally there is only white.</p>
<p>The interrogator adds, “The electricity sometimes gives male subjects tremendous erections, so I’m not convinced the experience is all bad.”</p>
<p>Don’t forget true love. Jun Do, who as Ga is married to Sun Moon, really is in love with her, “a love he’s been saving up for his entire life, and it doesn’t matter that he must make a great journey to her, and it doesn’t matter if their time together is brief, that afterward he might lose her.”</p>
<p>When Jun Do first meets Sun Moon (after assuming Ga’s identity), she’s quite the moody, bourgeois, spoiled film star. But it turns out that Sun Moon, like everyone else in North Korea except perhaps the Dear Leader (as everyone must call Kim Jong Il), is faking it. Sun Moon eventually reveals her true story to Jun Do, crying, “My whole life is a lie. … I must act all the time,” telling how she was plucked from poverty by the Dear Leader himself.</p>
<p>The loudspeaker gets carried away with their growing intimacy. In one over-the-top passage, Jun Do and Sun Moon are visiting the national greenhouses. Here is their first sexual rapprochement. “Commander Ga dripped with sweat, and in his honor, groping stamens emanated their scent in clouds of sweet spoor that coated our lovers’ bodies with the sticky seed of socialism. Sun Moon offered her Juche to him, and he gave her all he had of Songun policy. At length, in depth, their spirited exchange culminated in a mutual exclaim of Party understanding.”</p>
<p>A lot more happens as the novel moves toward its own climax. Questions of identity and storytelling continue to refract all over the place. I’ll say only this: Appearing throughout the book is a DVD of “Casablanca.” If you know the story in that film, that’s the most important clue you’ll get about how “The Orphan Master’s Son” ends.</p>
<p>Back to you, Mr. Kim. On the Amazon website — I suppose you’re one of the few North Koreans online — the author has provided a helpful kind of Cliffs Notes. Johnson describes his fascination with how your government “prescribes an official narrative to an entire people.” He notes that though this official story is “a complete fiction,” every citizen is “forced to become a character whose motivations, desires and fears were dictated by this script.” Your labor camps are filled with those “who hadn’t played their parts.”</p>
<p>Mr. Kim, do you believe the lies told by Dear Leader Dad? Will you continue to spout those lies? And if you do, will that be a conscious act of cruelty and power — or sheer self-delusion?</p>
<p>Bertrand Russell — did you read him at school in Switzerland, Mr. Kim? — wrote, “No satisfaction based upon self-deception is solid, and however unpleasant the truth may be, it is better to face it once and for all.”</p>
<p>Dear Supreme Commander, start by procuring this book.</p>
<p /> | 3,820 |
<p>There is a new participant in the international deliberations on global warming and agrofuels: the biotechnology industry. The corporate giants of the genetics industry propose new technologies, including genetically modified trees, second generation cellulosic ethanol, and synthetic biology, to wean society off fossil fuels and fight climate change.</p>
<p>The implications for Latin America are breathtaking. The biotechnology industry’s massive move into the energy sector brings together major social and ecological issues in the region, such as agrofuel promotion, genetically modified (GM) crops, and the growth of agribusiness monocultures. Latin American civil society’s aspirations of land reform, environmental protection, alternatives to neoliberalism, and food and energy sovereignty, are at stake. Biotechnology companies have become some of the main movers in promoting the use of farm crops like corn, soy, and sugar cane to make fuel for motor vehicles. Faced with increasing public resistance to human consumption of their GM crops, the biotech industry sees its salvation in the production of GM agrofuels. By portraying GM crops as the answer to climate change and resource depletion caused by fossil fuels, they hope to cast a more favorable light on biotech plants.</p>
<p>They have a lot at stake: Monsanto, for example, obtains 60% of its revenue from the sale of GM seeds. Riding the tide of the biofuels boom, Monsanto and other companies hope to avoid the human health concerns associated with GM food crops and open up a whole new area of profit from the global warming crisis.</p>
<p>Public Sentiment Against GM Crops</p>
<p>GM organisms contain genetic codes (genomes) that have been altered by genetic engineering—an unprecedented procedure that creates genetic combinations not possible in nature. The main GM products in the U.S. market are corn and soy, which have been genetically modified for resistance to herbicides (usually Monsanto’s Roundup) or to pests (known as Bt crops). These crops are used mostly to feed farm animals and to make additives (such as sweeteners and starch) present in most processed foods.</p>
<p>In spite of the upbeat propaganda of the biotechnology companies, broad sectors of society reject GM products, claiming they are neither safe nor necessary. Thousands of protesters from all over the world swamped three United Nations events that took place in southern Brazil almost simultaneously in March 2006: the biennial conferences of the Biodiversity Convention and the Biosafety Protocol, and the World Conference on Agrarian Reform and Local Development. Prominent among their demands was a ban on GM crops.</p>
<p>As the meetings and protests took place, activists of the MST, Brazil’s landless people’s movement, seized a farm in the state of Parana where the Syngenta biotechnology corporation had illegally planted GM corn and soy in the buffer zone of the Iguaçu National Park. On Oct. 21, 2007 armed gunmen violently evicted them, wounding many and murdering 34 year-old Valmir “Keno” Mota de Oliveira, father of three. The MST, Vía Campesina, and countless civil society organizations in Brazil have condemned these acts. They demand that Syngenta take responsibility for the killing, that it be held accountable for its environmental violations, close down its experimental plot, and leave the country.</p>
<p>In February 2007, farmers and animal herders, representatives of civil society groups, social movements, and environmentalists from 17 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe met in Mali to discuss food and farming issues. Together they issued the Bamako Declaration, which, among other things, categorically says NO to genetically modified organisms.</p>
<p>The Bamako Declaration was part of the preparatory process for the World Forum for Food Sovereignty, which took place that same week in Mali. Over 500 men and women from more than 80 countries, and representing organizations of peasants/family farmers, fisherfolk, indigenous peoples, landless peoples, rural workers, migrants, pastoralists, forest communities, women, youth, consumers, and environmental and urban movements, drafted the Nyeleni Declaration.</p>
<p>The declaration rejects GM foods: (We fight against) “technologies and practices that undercut our future food-producing capacities, damage the environment, and put our health at risk. These include transgenic crops and animals, terminator technology, industrial aquaculture and destructive fishing practices, the so-called White Revolution of industrial dairy practices, the so-called ‘old’ and ‘new’ Green Revolutions, and the “Green Deserts” of industrial bio-fuel monocultures and other plantations.”</p>
<p>In March 2008, around 300 women of the MST destroyed a nursery of GM corn seedlings belonging to Monsanto in the southern Brazilian state of São Paulo to protest the government’s biosafety council’s approval of plantings of GM corn. In the days that followed, some 1,500 women protested in front of several Syngenta properties in the state of Parana.</p>
<p>The Bio Boom</p>
<p>Agrofuels, also known as biofuels or energy crops, are fuels made from plants and animal fat. Since they are not derived from underground fossil sources like coal or oil, their supporters claim they can help mitigate global warming. Motor vehicle emissions are responsible for 14% of global warming.</p>
<p>There are two types of agrofuels: ethanol and biodiesel. Ethanol can be obtained from sugarcane, molasses, sweet sorghum, and grains, such as corn, wheat, and barley. Ethanol can replace gasoline but its use requires specially adapted motors. It can be mixed with gasoline and used in a regular car motor. Biodiesel is derived from the vegetable oils of plants like canola, soy, and oil palm, as well as from animal fat. It can be used in its pure form in a regular diesel engine without the need for any modification. These uses are considered “generation one” of agrofuels. The second generation, still in the research and development stage, consists of cellulosic fuels.</p>
<p>It seems everyone is in favor of agrofuels: the United Nations, American politicians from Al Gore to George W. Bush, the European Union, most South American and African governments, and many environmental groups. The alignment of corporate interests in favor of agrofuels is impressive: grain traders (Cargill, Con Agra), auto makers (Volkswagen, Peugeot, Citroen, Renault, SAAB), biotechnology companies (Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, Dupont), oil corporations (BP, Shell, Exxon), and celebrity investors like Bill Gates, George Soros, and Richard Branson, all investing billions of dollars in this new line of business.</p>
<p>According to the UN report “Sustainable Bioenergy: A Framework for Decision Makers” released in 2007, agrofuels are the fastest growing sector in world agriculture. The Financial Times estimates that OECD country subsidies for agrofuels amount to a total of $15 billion dollars a year. The industry expects production to increase from 11 billion gallons in 2006 to 87 billion by 2020, and the market to grow from $20.5 billion in 2006 to $80.9 billion in 2016.</p>
<p>Brazil: The New Colossus</p>
<p>Brazil is attracting more investment in agrofuels than any other country ($9 billion in 2006). Brazil got a head start in the industry and has been running hard ever since. It already runs most of its vehicles on sugarcane ethanol, and now has 62% of the world sugar market, compared to only 7% of the market in 1994. Sugarcane monocultures in Brazil cover 6.9 million hectares, with half of those dedicated to ethanol. By 2025 it expects to add 42 million hectares more.</p>
<p>Its biodiesel potential is also massive: 21% of the country’s farmland (almost 20 million hectares) is planted with soy. “In the next 10-15 years, we will see Brazil become the leading producer of biodiesel,” said Brazilian president Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva in 2005. Brazil is expected to overtake the United States as the world’s leading soy exporter by the end of 2008.</p>
<p>Agribusiness giant ADM has chosen Brazil as the hub of its South American biodiesel operations. Its new biodiesel refinery in the southern state of Mato Grosso do Sul is Brazil’s biggest and its clients include state governor Blairo Maggi, who also happens to be one of the world’s largest soy farmers.</p>
<p>“To secure its share in the emerging global industry of clean energy, Brazil has adopted quite an impressive strategy on agrofuels, from combining public and private sector interests,” according to a 2008 joint report by the U.S.-based Oakland Institute and Brazil’s Terra de Direitos. Brazil’s “Agroenergy Plan (2006-2011), (is) the most ambitious public policy on agroenergy in the world.”</p>
<p>Far from being rivals, the United States and Brazil are agrofuel partners. Together they produce 70% of the world’s ethanol and are working in tandem to maintain their supremacy in this sector. In March 2007 Lula traveled to Camp David to sign a memorandum of understanding on ethanol with U.S. President George W. Bush. The agreement forms a bilateral partnership on research and development, feasibility studies, technical assistance, and greater compatibility of standards and codes with the goal of establishing a world commodity market for agrofuels. A few days later, Bush visited Brazil and several other Latin American countries in what is popularly known as the “ethanol tour.”</p>
<p>“Brazil is paving the way in transforming ethanol into an internationally tradable energy commodity,” says Roberto Abdenur, former Brazilian ambassador in the United States. “An improved bilateral relationship is not only necessary and beneficial for Brazilian interests, but U.S. interests as well. The bilateral dialogue is increasingly a two-way street. The United States continues to set the agenda for the international arena; however, Brazil is a decisive player in defining the terms on which that agenda is discussed.”</p>
<p>Ethanol is an important component of Brazil’s ambitious global designs. It has reached agroenergy agreements with countries like Senegal, Benin, South Africa, Nigeria, Japan, China, and India. In October 2007 Lula toured several African countries, including Congo and Angola to, among other things, urge them to join the “biofuels revolution.” Among other aspirations, the country is seeking to join the UN Security Council. Once in the Council, Brazil hopes to be able to exert a decisive influence on the UN’s deliberations related to global warming and therefore any proposed solution, like agrofuels.</p>
<p>Not few political observers contend that the Bush-Lula “ethanol alliance” is a geopolitical maneuver intended to economically isolate the governments of Bolivia’s Evo Morales and Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, both of whom are funding their social change projects with the export of fossil fuels.</p>
<p>“The political-business alliance between the United States and Brazil around ethanol is a blow against regional integration based on oil and gas that for several years has been loosely constructed between Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, and recently Ecuador,” said Uruguayan journalist Raúl Zibechi in a 2007 Americas Program <a href="" type="internal">report</a>.</p>
<p>According to Zibechi, the Brazil-U.S. alliance breathes new life into the objectives that Bush had to postpone in November 2005 when the Free Trade Area of the Americas foundered in the Americas Summit in Mar del Plata, Argentina. “A long term agreement with Brazil would allow the United States to achieve three central objectives: diversify the petroleum matrix, reducing its dependence on imports from Venezuela and the Middle East; weaken Venezuela and its allies; and put brakes on the regional integration powered by hydrocarbons which had taken off in 2006.”</p>
<p>Agrofuels’ Negative Environmental Balance Sheet</p>
<p>Is there enough land on the planet to satisfy a significant part of world energy demand using first-generation agrofuels? Or will they exacerbate global warming and other environmental problems? How will agrofuel production affect indigenous and rural peoples? According to GRAIN, a Europe-based NGO that advocates the protection of agricultural biodiversity, if the United States dedicated its whole corn and soy harvests to make fuel, it would cover less than one-eighth of its oil demand and barely 6% of its diesel demand. The figures are even more sobering considering the United States grows around 44% of the world’s corn—more than China, the European Union, Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico combined. This means that if world corn production were to be quadrupled and dedicated entirely to ethanol production, it could satisfy U.S. demand, but would leave the rest of the world’s motor vehicle fleet still running on oil, while drivers starved.</p>
<p>The situation in Europe does not look much better. In his 2007 book Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning, British researcher George Monbiot calculates that running all cars and buses in the United Kingdom on biodiesel would require 25.9 million hectares, but England has no more than 5.7 million hectares of farmland in total.</p>
<p>World agrofuel production must be quintupled to merely keep up with rising energy demand, according to the Interamerican Development Bank report “A Blueprint for Green Energy in the Americas.” If this is achieved, agrofuels will cover 5% of world energy demand by 2020.</p>
<p>Various Latin America-based organizations, including Oilwatch South America and the Latin American Network against Tree Monocultures declared in 2006 that “energy crops will expand … at the expense of our natural ecosystems. Soy is projected to be one of the main sources for diesel production, but it is a fact that soy monocultures are the main cause of the destruction of native forest in Argentina, the tropical Amazon rainforest in Brazil and Bolivia, and the Mata Atlántica in Brazil and Paraguay.”</p>
<p>“Sugarcane plantations and ethanol production in Brazil are the business of an oligopoly that utilizes slave labor,” said the declaration, titled “The Land Should Feed People, Not Cars.” “Palm oil plantations grow at the expense of jungles and territories of indigenous populations and other traditional populations of Colombia, Ecuador, and other countries, increasingly oriented to biodiesel production.”</p>
<p>One of the signatory organizations, the World Rainforest Movement, affirmed in early 2007 that “the cultivation of these fuels means death. Death of entire communities; death of cultures; death of people; death of nature. Be these oil palm or eucalyptus plantations, be these sugarcane or transgenic soybean monoculture plantations, be they promoted by ‘progressive’ or ‘conservative’ governments. Death.”</p>
<p>“All of these crops, and all of this monoculture expansion, are direct causes of deforestation, eviction of local communities from their lands, water and air pollution, soil erosion, and destruction of biodiversity,” stated GRAIN in 2007 in a manifesto titled “Stop the Agrofuels Craze!” “They also lead, paradoxically, to a massive increase of CO2 emissions, due to the burning of the forests and peat lands to make way for agrofuel plantations.”</p>
<p>“In a country like Brazil, way ahead of everybody else in producing ethanol for transport fuel, it turns out that 80% of the country’s greenhouse gases come not from cars but from deforestation, partly caused by the expanding soya and sugarcane plantations. Recent studies have shown that the production of one ton of palm-oil biodiesel from peatlands in Southeast Asia creates 2-8 times more CO2 than is emitted by burning one ton of fossil-fuel diesel. While scientists debate whether the ‘net energy balance’ of crops such as maize, soya, sugar cane, and oil palm is positive or negative, the emissions caused by the creation of many of the agrofuels plantations send any potential benefit, literally, up in smoke.” Some 260 representatives of over 100 organizations, including civil society and academia, from Brazil, United States, Europe, El Salvador, Uruguay, Chile, Costa Rica, and all regions of Mexico, met in Mexico City in August 2007 for a forum on agrofuels and food sovereignty. The forum’s conclusions were hardly flattering to the agrofuels industry.</p>
<p>“In a context of crisis in the countryside and of campesino and indigenous agriculture, of agrarian conflicts against communities and the ejido, of attempts to privatize water and the resources of communities, agrofuels can be a new threat of the neoliberal model,” said their final declaration. “We declare ourselves in permanent defense of peasant and indigenous territories, the ejido, and the community. We will not permit the expansion of crops for agroindustrial fuels at the expense of the dispossession of their territories and resources. We revindicate again the demand for recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples and their right to self-determination.”</p>
<p>CARMELO RUIZ MARRERO is a Puerto Rican independent environmental journalist and environmental analyst for the Americas Policy Program ( <a href="http://www.americaspolicy.org/" type="external">www.americaspolicy.org</a>), a fellow of the Oakland Institute and a senior fellow of the Environmental Leadership Program, and founder/director of the Puerto Rico Project on Biosafety ( <a href="http://bioseguridad.blogspot.com/" type="external">bioseguridad.blogspot.com</a>). His bilingual web page ( <a href="http://carmeloruiz.blogspot.com/" type="external">carmeloruiz.blogspot.com</a>) is devoted to global environment and development issues.</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | Why Biotech is Betting on Biofuels | true | https://counterpunch.org/2008/04/25/why-biotech-is-betting-on-biofuels/ | 2008-04-25 | 4left
| Why Biotech is Betting on Biofuels
<p>There is a new participant in the international deliberations on global warming and agrofuels: the biotechnology industry. The corporate giants of the genetics industry propose new technologies, including genetically modified trees, second generation cellulosic ethanol, and synthetic biology, to wean society off fossil fuels and fight climate change.</p>
<p>The implications for Latin America are breathtaking. The biotechnology industry’s massive move into the energy sector brings together major social and ecological issues in the region, such as agrofuel promotion, genetically modified (GM) crops, and the growth of agribusiness monocultures. Latin American civil society’s aspirations of land reform, environmental protection, alternatives to neoliberalism, and food and energy sovereignty, are at stake. Biotechnology companies have become some of the main movers in promoting the use of farm crops like corn, soy, and sugar cane to make fuel for motor vehicles. Faced with increasing public resistance to human consumption of their GM crops, the biotech industry sees its salvation in the production of GM agrofuels. By portraying GM crops as the answer to climate change and resource depletion caused by fossil fuels, they hope to cast a more favorable light on biotech plants.</p>
<p>They have a lot at stake: Monsanto, for example, obtains 60% of its revenue from the sale of GM seeds. Riding the tide of the biofuels boom, Monsanto and other companies hope to avoid the human health concerns associated with GM food crops and open up a whole new area of profit from the global warming crisis.</p>
<p>Public Sentiment Against GM Crops</p>
<p>GM organisms contain genetic codes (genomes) that have been altered by genetic engineering—an unprecedented procedure that creates genetic combinations not possible in nature. The main GM products in the U.S. market are corn and soy, which have been genetically modified for resistance to herbicides (usually Monsanto’s Roundup) or to pests (known as Bt crops). These crops are used mostly to feed farm animals and to make additives (such as sweeteners and starch) present in most processed foods.</p>
<p>In spite of the upbeat propaganda of the biotechnology companies, broad sectors of society reject GM products, claiming they are neither safe nor necessary. Thousands of protesters from all over the world swamped three United Nations events that took place in southern Brazil almost simultaneously in March 2006: the biennial conferences of the Biodiversity Convention and the Biosafety Protocol, and the World Conference on Agrarian Reform and Local Development. Prominent among their demands was a ban on GM crops.</p>
<p>As the meetings and protests took place, activists of the MST, Brazil’s landless people’s movement, seized a farm in the state of Parana where the Syngenta biotechnology corporation had illegally planted GM corn and soy in the buffer zone of the Iguaçu National Park. On Oct. 21, 2007 armed gunmen violently evicted them, wounding many and murdering 34 year-old Valmir “Keno” Mota de Oliveira, father of three. The MST, Vía Campesina, and countless civil society organizations in Brazil have condemned these acts. They demand that Syngenta take responsibility for the killing, that it be held accountable for its environmental violations, close down its experimental plot, and leave the country.</p>
<p>In February 2007, farmers and animal herders, representatives of civil society groups, social movements, and environmentalists from 17 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe met in Mali to discuss food and farming issues. Together they issued the Bamako Declaration, which, among other things, categorically says NO to genetically modified organisms.</p>
<p>The Bamako Declaration was part of the preparatory process for the World Forum for Food Sovereignty, which took place that same week in Mali. Over 500 men and women from more than 80 countries, and representing organizations of peasants/family farmers, fisherfolk, indigenous peoples, landless peoples, rural workers, migrants, pastoralists, forest communities, women, youth, consumers, and environmental and urban movements, drafted the Nyeleni Declaration.</p>
<p>The declaration rejects GM foods: (We fight against) “technologies and practices that undercut our future food-producing capacities, damage the environment, and put our health at risk. These include transgenic crops and animals, terminator technology, industrial aquaculture and destructive fishing practices, the so-called White Revolution of industrial dairy practices, the so-called ‘old’ and ‘new’ Green Revolutions, and the “Green Deserts” of industrial bio-fuel monocultures and other plantations.”</p>
<p>In March 2008, around 300 women of the MST destroyed a nursery of GM corn seedlings belonging to Monsanto in the southern Brazilian state of São Paulo to protest the government’s biosafety council’s approval of plantings of GM corn. In the days that followed, some 1,500 women protested in front of several Syngenta properties in the state of Parana.</p>
<p>The Bio Boom</p>
<p>Agrofuels, also known as biofuels or energy crops, are fuels made from plants and animal fat. Since they are not derived from underground fossil sources like coal or oil, their supporters claim they can help mitigate global warming. Motor vehicle emissions are responsible for 14% of global warming.</p>
<p>There are two types of agrofuels: ethanol and biodiesel. Ethanol can be obtained from sugarcane, molasses, sweet sorghum, and grains, such as corn, wheat, and barley. Ethanol can replace gasoline but its use requires specially adapted motors. It can be mixed with gasoline and used in a regular car motor. Biodiesel is derived from the vegetable oils of plants like canola, soy, and oil palm, as well as from animal fat. It can be used in its pure form in a regular diesel engine without the need for any modification. These uses are considered “generation one” of agrofuels. The second generation, still in the research and development stage, consists of cellulosic fuels.</p>
<p>It seems everyone is in favor of agrofuels: the United Nations, American politicians from Al Gore to George W. Bush, the European Union, most South American and African governments, and many environmental groups. The alignment of corporate interests in favor of agrofuels is impressive: grain traders (Cargill, Con Agra), auto makers (Volkswagen, Peugeot, Citroen, Renault, SAAB), biotechnology companies (Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, Dupont), oil corporations (BP, Shell, Exxon), and celebrity investors like Bill Gates, George Soros, and Richard Branson, all investing billions of dollars in this new line of business.</p>
<p>According to the UN report “Sustainable Bioenergy: A Framework for Decision Makers” released in 2007, agrofuels are the fastest growing sector in world agriculture. The Financial Times estimates that OECD country subsidies for agrofuels amount to a total of $15 billion dollars a year. The industry expects production to increase from 11 billion gallons in 2006 to 87 billion by 2020, and the market to grow from $20.5 billion in 2006 to $80.9 billion in 2016.</p>
<p>Brazil: The New Colossus</p>
<p>Brazil is attracting more investment in agrofuels than any other country ($9 billion in 2006). Brazil got a head start in the industry and has been running hard ever since. It already runs most of its vehicles on sugarcane ethanol, and now has 62% of the world sugar market, compared to only 7% of the market in 1994. Sugarcane monocultures in Brazil cover 6.9 million hectares, with half of those dedicated to ethanol. By 2025 it expects to add 42 million hectares more.</p>
<p>Its biodiesel potential is also massive: 21% of the country’s farmland (almost 20 million hectares) is planted with soy. “In the next 10-15 years, we will see Brazil become the leading producer of biodiesel,” said Brazilian president Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva in 2005. Brazil is expected to overtake the United States as the world’s leading soy exporter by the end of 2008.</p>
<p>Agribusiness giant ADM has chosen Brazil as the hub of its South American biodiesel operations. Its new biodiesel refinery in the southern state of Mato Grosso do Sul is Brazil’s biggest and its clients include state governor Blairo Maggi, who also happens to be one of the world’s largest soy farmers.</p>
<p>“To secure its share in the emerging global industry of clean energy, Brazil has adopted quite an impressive strategy on agrofuels, from combining public and private sector interests,” according to a 2008 joint report by the U.S.-based Oakland Institute and Brazil’s Terra de Direitos. Brazil’s “Agroenergy Plan (2006-2011), (is) the most ambitious public policy on agroenergy in the world.”</p>
<p>Far from being rivals, the United States and Brazil are agrofuel partners. Together they produce 70% of the world’s ethanol and are working in tandem to maintain their supremacy in this sector. In March 2007 Lula traveled to Camp David to sign a memorandum of understanding on ethanol with U.S. President George W. Bush. The agreement forms a bilateral partnership on research and development, feasibility studies, technical assistance, and greater compatibility of standards and codes with the goal of establishing a world commodity market for agrofuels. A few days later, Bush visited Brazil and several other Latin American countries in what is popularly known as the “ethanol tour.”</p>
<p>“Brazil is paving the way in transforming ethanol into an internationally tradable energy commodity,” says Roberto Abdenur, former Brazilian ambassador in the United States. “An improved bilateral relationship is not only necessary and beneficial for Brazilian interests, but U.S. interests as well. The bilateral dialogue is increasingly a two-way street. The United States continues to set the agenda for the international arena; however, Brazil is a decisive player in defining the terms on which that agenda is discussed.”</p>
<p>Ethanol is an important component of Brazil’s ambitious global designs. It has reached agroenergy agreements with countries like Senegal, Benin, South Africa, Nigeria, Japan, China, and India. In October 2007 Lula toured several African countries, including Congo and Angola to, among other things, urge them to join the “biofuels revolution.” Among other aspirations, the country is seeking to join the UN Security Council. Once in the Council, Brazil hopes to be able to exert a decisive influence on the UN’s deliberations related to global warming and therefore any proposed solution, like agrofuels.</p>
<p>Not few political observers contend that the Bush-Lula “ethanol alliance” is a geopolitical maneuver intended to economically isolate the governments of Bolivia’s Evo Morales and Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, both of whom are funding their social change projects with the export of fossil fuels.</p>
<p>“The political-business alliance between the United States and Brazil around ethanol is a blow against regional integration based on oil and gas that for several years has been loosely constructed between Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, and recently Ecuador,” said Uruguayan journalist Raúl Zibechi in a 2007 Americas Program <a href="" type="internal">report</a>.</p>
<p>According to Zibechi, the Brazil-U.S. alliance breathes new life into the objectives that Bush had to postpone in November 2005 when the Free Trade Area of the Americas foundered in the Americas Summit in Mar del Plata, Argentina. “A long term agreement with Brazil would allow the United States to achieve three central objectives: diversify the petroleum matrix, reducing its dependence on imports from Venezuela and the Middle East; weaken Venezuela and its allies; and put brakes on the regional integration powered by hydrocarbons which had taken off in 2006.”</p>
<p>Agrofuels’ Negative Environmental Balance Sheet</p>
<p>Is there enough land on the planet to satisfy a significant part of world energy demand using first-generation agrofuels? Or will they exacerbate global warming and other environmental problems? How will agrofuel production affect indigenous and rural peoples? According to GRAIN, a Europe-based NGO that advocates the protection of agricultural biodiversity, if the United States dedicated its whole corn and soy harvests to make fuel, it would cover less than one-eighth of its oil demand and barely 6% of its diesel demand. The figures are even more sobering considering the United States grows around 44% of the world’s corn—more than China, the European Union, Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico combined. This means that if world corn production were to be quadrupled and dedicated entirely to ethanol production, it could satisfy U.S. demand, but would leave the rest of the world’s motor vehicle fleet still running on oil, while drivers starved.</p>
<p>The situation in Europe does not look much better. In his 2007 book Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning, British researcher George Monbiot calculates that running all cars and buses in the United Kingdom on biodiesel would require 25.9 million hectares, but England has no more than 5.7 million hectares of farmland in total.</p>
<p>World agrofuel production must be quintupled to merely keep up with rising energy demand, according to the Interamerican Development Bank report “A Blueprint for Green Energy in the Americas.” If this is achieved, agrofuels will cover 5% of world energy demand by 2020.</p>
<p>Various Latin America-based organizations, including Oilwatch South America and the Latin American Network against Tree Monocultures declared in 2006 that “energy crops will expand … at the expense of our natural ecosystems. Soy is projected to be one of the main sources for diesel production, but it is a fact that soy monocultures are the main cause of the destruction of native forest in Argentina, the tropical Amazon rainforest in Brazil and Bolivia, and the Mata Atlántica in Brazil and Paraguay.”</p>
<p>“Sugarcane plantations and ethanol production in Brazil are the business of an oligopoly that utilizes slave labor,” said the declaration, titled “The Land Should Feed People, Not Cars.” “Palm oil plantations grow at the expense of jungles and territories of indigenous populations and other traditional populations of Colombia, Ecuador, and other countries, increasingly oriented to biodiesel production.”</p>
<p>One of the signatory organizations, the World Rainforest Movement, affirmed in early 2007 that “the cultivation of these fuels means death. Death of entire communities; death of cultures; death of people; death of nature. Be these oil palm or eucalyptus plantations, be these sugarcane or transgenic soybean monoculture plantations, be they promoted by ‘progressive’ or ‘conservative’ governments. Death.”</p>
<p>“All of these crops, and all of this monoculture expansion, are direct causes of deforestation, eviction of local communities from their lands, water and air pollution, soil erosion, and destruction of biodiversity,” stated GRAIN in 2007 in a manifesto titled “Stop the Agrofuels Craze!” “They also lead, paradoxically, to a massive increase of CO2 emissions, due to the burning of the forests and peat lands to make way for agrofuel plantations.”</p>
<p>“In a country like Brazil, way ahead of everybody else in producing ethanol for transport fuel, it turns out that 80% of the country’s greenhouse gases come not from cars but from deforestation, partly caused by the expanding soya and sugarcane plantations. Recent studies have shown that the production of one ton of palm-oil biodiesel from peatlands in Southeast Asia creates 2-8 times more CO2 than is emitted by burning one ton of fossil-fuel diesel. While scientists debate whether the ‘net energy balance’ of crops such as maize, soya, sugar cane, and oil palm is positive or negative, the emissions caused by the creation of many of the agrofuels plantations send any potential benefit, literally, up in smoke.” Some 260 representatives of over 100 organizations, including civil society and academia, from Brazil, United States, Europe, El Salvador, Uruguay, Chile, Costa Rica, and all regions of Mexico, met in Mexico City in August 2007 for a forum on agrofuels and food sovereignty. The forum’s conclusions were hardly flattering to the agrofuels industry.</p>
<p>“In a context of crisis in the countryside and of campesino and indigenous agriculture, of agrarian conflicts against communities and the ejido, of attempts to privatize water and the resources of communities, agrofuels can be a new threat of the neoliberal model,” said their final declaration. “We declare ourselves in permanent defense of peasant and indigenous territories, the ejido, and the community. We will not permit the expansion of crops for agroindustrial fuels at the expense of the dispossession of their territories and resources. We revindicate again the demand for recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples and their right to self-determination.”</p>
<p>CARMELO RUIZ MARRERO is a Puerto Rican independent environmental journalist and environmental analyst for the Americas Policy Program ( <a href="http://www.americaspolicy.org/" type="external">www.americaspolicy.org</a>), a fellow of the Oakland Institute and a senior fellow of the Environmental Leadership Program, and founder/director of the Puerto Rico Project on Biosafety ( <a href="http://bioseguridad.blogspot.com/" type="external">bioseguridad.blogspot.com</a>). His bilingual web page ( <a href="http://carmeloruiz.blogspot.com/" type="external">carmeloruiz.blogspot.com</a>) is devoted to global environment and development issues.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | 3,821 |
<p />
<p>On Monday at 9:30 a.m., the Federal Communications Commission is scheduled to meet for its "2002 Biennial Regulatory Review" –- in other words, to consider proposed revisions of its ownership rules.</p>
<p>If you've been following this story (via <a href="" type="internal">Poynter's Convergence Chaser</a>, <a href="http://www.iwantmedia.com/consolidation" type="external">iwantmedia.com</a>, the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fcc-sg,1,6558950.storygallery" type="external">L.A. Times</a>, or elsewhere), you know the proposed changes are likely to cause shifts in the media landscape for journalists&#160;and news consumers. If you're just joining this program in progress, below is a list of the current rules (courtesy of the <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/dtaweb/home.asp" type="external">Center for Public Integrity</a>) and the proposed changes (courtesy of the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-fcc10may10,1,6492463.story" type="external">L.A. Times</a>). In other stories, we try to summarize for you who is supporting and opposing the various possibilities, and why. We'd&#160;like to hear what you think.</p>
<p>PROPOSED RULE CHANGESCurrent Rule: "Television broadcast companies may not buy newspapers in communities where they own stations."</p>
<p>Proposed Change: "A single company can own up to three television stations and one newspaper in large markets such as Los Angeles and New York." (L.A. Times)</p>
<p>Current Rule: "A television broadcast company may not own stations that reach more than 35 percent of the national audience."</p>
<p>Proposed Change: "Officials … will recommend allowing TV broadcasters to reach up to 45 percent of U.S. households rather than the current 35 percent." (L.A. Times)Current Rule: "A single company may own two television stations in a single market only if one or both of the stations is not rated among the top four and there will still be at least eight remaining independent stations after the acquisition."Proposed Change: "The staff report will recommend allowing TV station mergers, called duopolies, in small and mid-size markets, using a tiered system that permits consolidation in markets with at least six TV stations … In smaller markets, duopolies and TV-newspaper cross-ownership still will be disallowed to preserve diversity." (L.A. Times)RULES THAT WON'T BE CHANGEDThese rules are expected to remain as they are:</p>
<p>Also&#160;under discussion&#160;is <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-formula10feb10,1,1736042.story" type="external">a diversity index</a>. It is unclear whether&#160;any action will be taken on it&#160;on Monday.THE BOTTOM LINE</p>
<p>For journalists,&#160;one question is will the way you do your work (and who you do it for) change, and if so how? But for those who watch our newscasts, listen to us in the car, and buy our newspapers --&#160;and for the journalism that is our master --&#160;the real question is <a href="http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16002" type="external">whether democracy is being served</a>. It will be months, possibly years, before the answer is clear.</p>
<p>[ <a href="" type="internal">Does it matter to you who your boss is?</a> ]</p> | Your 5-Minute Guide to the FCC & Ownership Changes | false | https://poynter.org/news/your-5-minute-guide-fcc-ownership-changes | 2003-05-29 | 2least
| Your 5-Minute Guide to the FCC & Ownership Changes
<p />
<p>On Monday at 9:30 a.m., the Federal Communications Commission is scheduled to meet for its "2002 Biennial Regulatory Review" –- in other words, to consider proposed revisions of its ownership rules.</p>
<p>If you've been following this story (via <a href="" type="internal">Poynter's Convergence Chaser</a>, <a href="http://www.iwantmedia.com/consolidation" type="external">iwantmedia.com</a>, the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fcc-sg,1,6558950.storygallery" type="external">L.A. Times</a>, or elsewhere), you know the proposed changes are likely to cause shifts in the media landscape for journalists&#160;and news consumers. If you're just joining this program in progress, below is a list of the current rules (courtesy of the <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/dtaweb/home.asp" type="external">Center for Public Integrity</a>) and the proposed changes (courtesy of the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-fcc10may10,1,6492463.story" type="external">L.A. Times</a>). In other stories, we try to summarize for you who is supporting and opposing the various possibilities, and why. We'd&#160;like to hear what you think.</p>
<p>PROPOSED RULE CHANGESCurrent Rule: "Television broadcast companies may not buy newspapers in communities where they own stations."</p>
<p>Proposed Change: "A single company can own up to three television stations and one newspaper in large markets such as Los Angeles and New York." (L.A. Times)</p>
<p>Current Rule: "A television broadcast company may not own stations that reach more than 35 percent of the national audience."</p>
<p>Proposed Change: "Officials … will recommend allowing TV broadcasters to reach up to 45 percent of U.S. households rather than the current 35 percent." (L.A. Times)Current Rule: "A single company may own two television stations in a single market only if one or both of the stations is not rated among the top four and there will still be at least eight remaining independent stations after the acquisition."Proposed Change: "The staff report will recommend allowing TV station mergers, called duopolies, in small and mid-size markets, using a tiered system that permits consolidation in markets with at least six TV stations … In smaller markets, duopolies and TV-newspaper cross-ownership still will be disallowed to preserve diversity." (L.A. Times)RULES THAT WON'T BE CHANGEDThese rules are expected to remain as they are:</p>
<p>Also&#160;under discussion&#160;is <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-formula10feb10,1,1736042.story" type="external">a diversity index</a>. It is unclear whether&#160;any action will be taken on it&#160;on Monday.THE BOTTOM LINE</p>
<p>For journalists,&#160;one question is will the way you do your work (and who you do it for) change, and if so how? But for those who watch our newscasts, listen to us in the car, and buy our newspapers --&#160;and for the journalism that is our master --&#160;the real question is <a href="http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16002" type="external">whether democracy is being served</a>. It will be months, possibly years, before the answer is clear.</p>
<p>[ <a href="" type="internal">Does it matter to you who your boss is?</a> ]</p> | 3,822 |
<p>In <a href="" type="internal">Part I</a> of my answer to <a href="" type="internal">Dr. Winfrey’s piece</a>, I addressed the problem of treating Biblical stories of immigration as direct proof of the hypocrisy of White Evangelical Christians. Without first understanding each story’s historical context, whether or not the immigration occurred across strong national borders and what was required of the individuals to remain in their new locale, the accusation is forced and falls short of the mark.</p>
<p>That is not to say that Christians of all nationalities and groupings cannot learn much from the Biblical treatment of people less fortunate. The hypocrisy cuts across all boundaries and includes far more than just White Evangelical Christians.</p>
<p>Now I turn my attention to the accusation by Dr. Winfrey of White Evangelical Christians association with the NRA:</p>
<p>“The National Rifle Association (NRA), one of the largest political lobbying groups in Washington, D.C., advocates for minimal restrictions on gun ownership.”</p>
<p>This accusation is often repeated without examination — especially, in recent months, when a firearm is involved in fatal catastrophes. I’ve heard this accusation from Juan Williams (on “The Five”) as well from many others in the media as to why no “reasonable” gun control measures can be enacted. The media was so replete with this charge, I looked at the data.</p>
<p>All lobbying is a form of “rent seeking.” Lobbyists do this because they have something to gain either monetarily or through increased control (restriction of competition) or both. The US government, because of the power ceded to them by the populace, has tremendous amounts of money and power they can wield for their benefactors. Lobbyists go to the government because the Return on Investment (ROI) is better through lobbying than it is trying to make their money or influence, to steal from the 1979 Smith Barney ad, the “old fashioned way by earning it.”</p>
<p>The NRA certainly advocates for minimal restrictions on gun ownership. They were founded, however, to provide marksmanship programs. They are not the only pro-firearm organization but are the largest. According to a 2017 Pew Research study, 3 in 10 adults in the US own a firearm but only 19% of the firearm owners are members of the NRA.1 This means approximately 6% of US adults are NRA members.</p>
<p>The Pew Research Center says Whites lead firearm ownership with 49%, Blacks 32% and Hispanic’s 21%. Of these households, 47% have some college education. Rural American ownership is 58%, suburban 41% and Urban 29%. Government data shows a vast number of firearm homicides happen in specific urban neighborhoods.2 Suicide death by firearm lead all other firearm related deaths. Evangelical Christians cut across all the categories.3</p>
<p>For the record, I am not an NRA member. If the NRA is one of the biggest lobbyists, then they are and we can move on to White Evangelical Christians alleged support of this organization.</p>
<p>The NRA is a single issue PAC, with expenditures of 22 million in the 2015-2016 election cycle and 4.8 million so far in the 2017 – 2018 period as of Oct 31, 2017.4 Breaking down their expenditures to political parties or individuals, while most of their money goes to Republicans, some still goes to Democrats. The percentage to Democrats has been steadily decreasing since 1990 but it remains a non-zero amount. The data shows that during neither lobbying cycle is the NRA expenditures in the top twenty.</p>
<p>ActBlue has the largest expenditures across all PACs for 2015-2016, having spent 645 million. In the 2017-2018 cycle, ActBlue is still number one having spent 268 million. By comparison, they give no money to Republicans, being 100% dedicated to Democrats and their causes. The chart provided displays the top 10 PACs expenses across all committees1:</p>
<p>Looking at the data another way, here are the top 10 contributors to candidates with party breakdown:</p>
<p>The NRA isn’t even in the top 20 having provided approximately 1m to candidates. The only way the data can be parsed for the NRA to show up as major lobbyist is to list the top PAC’s by Total Independent Expenditures (indirect expenditures) for the 2015-2016 cycle, where they will show up 6th with 52.6m. Priorities USA/Priorities USA Action gave 133m primarily spending their money against Republicans (n.b. not to Democrats) which places them as #1. For ad context, Walt Disney Company (#1) spent 2.1b for media (for context) in the US in 2016.</p>
<p>Breaking this down by category comparing the NRA vs the #1 ranked:</p>
<p>The data does not support the claim that the NRA is one of the top lobbyists, certainly without qualification. Their independent expenditures put them in the top 10 as do their communication costs but those aren’t direct lobbying funds.</p>
<p>It should be noted that, similar to others, their Independent Expenditures and Communications are for negative ads rather than positive ones (which seems to be in line with what most are doing). They also gave money to Hillary Clinton.</p>
<p>Diligence is required to avoid confirmation bias. Yes, it takes some work. The charge against the NRA is hypocritical unless we change the definition of lobbying. At a minimum, it’s dishonest.</p>
<p>Malcolm X’s willingness to defend his family</p>
<p>Evangelical Christians have drawn the author’s scorn for disallowing immigration of Arabs because of a few terrorists. We agree.</p>
<p>The article, however, promotes judging 30% of America (or the 6% American NRA membership) by the actions of a few. You can’t have it both ways. If legislating out of fear is bad for Arab immigration, it’s bad for everything else.</p>
<p>In the 60’s, the Black Panthers started arming themselves to insure, among other things, their right to vote without reprisals. The NRA, backing then Governor Reagan in CA, supported the passage of the Mulford Act in 1967, direct legislation against this activity.5 The NRA was wrong to do so because they devalued Black’s rights. It wasn’t until 1977 they supported all individual’s rights. That change has enabled firebrands like Colion Noir6 and others to exist.</p>
<p>I join with Dr. Winfrey to decry lobbying at this level regardless of the issue or aim. If lobbying is a problem, then we need to address the source (i.e., the ROI from using the government as a personal bludgeon), not just the NRA’s participation in it. If we want people to stop killing each other, we need to focus on the source there, too.</p>
<p>Apart from suicide, it’s the predilection to solve our issues with violence and that applies, regretfully, to our government as well. Christians, not just white evangelical ones, should be leading here for they have a Biblical solution. It’s just not a governmental “bludgeon” one.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Footnotes:</p>
<p /> | Part 2: Hypocrisy, White Evangelicals, and the NRA, oh my! | false | http://natmonitor.com/2017/12/05/part-2-hypocrisy-white-evangelicals-and-the-nra-oh-my/ | 2017-12-05 | 3left-center
| Part 2: Hypocrisy, White Evangelicals, and the NRA, oh my!
<p>In <a href="" type="internal">Part I</a> of my answer to <a href="" type="internal">Dr. Winfrey’s piece</a>, I addressed the problem of treating Biblical stories of immigration as direct proof of the hypocrisy of White Evangelical Christians. Without first understanding each story’s historical context, whether or not the immigration occurred across strong national borders and what was required of the individuals to remain in their new locale, the accusation is forced and falls short of the mark.</p>
<p>That is not to say that Christians of all nationalities and groupings cannot learn much from the Biblical treatment of people less fortunate. The hypocrisy cuts across all boundaries and includes far more than just White Evangelical Christians.</p>
<p>Now I turn my attention to the accusation by Dr. Winfrey of White Evangelical Christians association with the NRA:</p>
<p>“The National Rifle Association (NRA), one of the largest political lobbying groups in Washington, D.C., advocates for minimal restrictions on gun ownership.”</p>
<p>This accusation is often repeated without examination — especially, in recent months, when a firearm is involved in fatal catastrophes. I’ve heard this accusation from Juan Williams (on “The Five”) as well from many others in the media as to why no “reasonable” gun control measures can be enacted. The media was so replete with this charge, I looked at the data.</p>
<p>All lobbying is a form of “rent seeking.” Lobbyists do this because they have something to gain either monetarily or through increased control (restriction of competition) or both. The US government, because of the power ceded to them by the populace, has tremendous amounts of money and power they can wield for their benefactors. Lobbyists go to the government because the Return on Investment (ROI) is better through lobbying than it is trying to make their money or influence, to steal from the 1979 Smith Barney ad, the “old fashioned way by earning it.”</p>
<p>The NRA certainly advocates for minimal restrictions on gun ownership. They were founded, however, to provide marksmanship programs. They are not the only pro-firearm organization but are the largest. According to a 2017 Pew Research study, 3 in 10 adults in the US own a firearm but only 19% of the firearm owners are members of the NRA.1 This means approximately 6% of US adults are NRA members.</p>
<p>The Pew Research Center says Whites lead firearm ownership with 49%, Blacks 32% and Hispanic’s 21%. Of these households, 47% have some college education. Rural American ownership is 58%, suburban 41% and Urban 29%. Government data shows a vast number of firearm homicides happen in specific urban neighborhoods.2 Suicide death by firearm lead all other firearm related deaths. Evangelical Christians cut across all the categories.3</p>
<p>For the record, I am not an NRA member. If the NRA is one of the biggest lobbyists, then they are and we can move on to White Evangelical Christians alleged support of this organization.</p>
<p>The NRA is a single issue PAC, with expenditures of 22 million in the 2015-2016 election cycle and 4.8 million so far in the 2017 – 2018 period as of Oct 31, 2017.4 Breaking down their expenditures to political parties or individuals, while most of their money goes to Republicans, some still goes to Democrats. The percentage to Democrats has been steadily decreasing since 1990 but it remains a non-zero amount. The data shows that during neither lobbying cycle is the NRA expenditures in the top twenty.</p>
<p>ActBlue has the largest expenditures across all PACs for 2015-2016, having spent 645 million. In the 2017-2018 cycle, ActBlue is still number one having spent 268 million. By comparison, they give no money to Republicans, being 100% dedicated to Democrats and their causes. The chart provided displays the top 10 PACs expenses across all committees1:</p>
<p>Looking at the data another way, here are the top 10 contributors to candidates with party breakdown:</p>
<p>The NRA isn’t even in the top 20 having provided approximately 1m to candidates. The only way the data can be parsed for the NRA to show up as major lobbyist is to list the top PAC’s by Total Independent Expenditures (indirect expenditures) for the 2015-2016 cycle, where they will show up 6th with 52.6m. Priorities USA/Priorities USA Action gave 133m primarily spending their money against Republicans (n.b. not to Democrats) which places them as #1. For ad context, Walt Disney Company (#1) spent 2.1b for media (for context) in the US in 2016.</p>
<p>Breaking this down by category comparing the NRA vs the #1 ranked:</p>
<p>The data does not support the claim that the NRA is one of the top lobbyists, certainly without qualification. Their independent expenditures put them in the top 10 as do their communication costs but those aren’t direct lobbying funds.</p>
<p>It should be noted that, similar to others, their Independent Expenditures and Communications are for negative ads rather than positive ones (which seems to be in line with what most are doing). They also gave money to Hillary Clinton.</p>
<p>Diligence is required to avoid confirmation bias. Yes, it takes some work. The charge against the NRA is hypocritical unless we change the definition of lobbying. At a minimum, it’s dishonest.</p>
<p>Malcolm X’s willingness to defend his family</p>
<p>Evangelical Christians have drawn the author’s scorn for disallowing immigration of Arabs because of a few terrorists. We agree.</p>
<p>The article, however, promotes judging 30% of America (or the 6% American NRA membership) by the actions of a few. You can’t have it both ways. If legislating out of fear is bad for Arab immigration, it’s bad for everything else.</p>
<p>In the 60’s, the Black Panthers started arming themselves to insure, among other things, their right to vote without reprisals. The NRA, backing then Governor Reagan in CA, supported the passage of the Mulford Act in 1967, direct legislation against this activity.5 The NRA was wrong to do so because they devalued Black’s rights. It wasn’t until 1977 they supported all individual’s rights. That change has enabled firebrands like Colion Noir6 and others to exist.</p>
<p>I join with Dr. Winfrey to decry lobbying at this level regardless of the issue or aim. If lobbying is a problem, then we need to address the source (i.e., the ROI from using the government as a personal bludgeon), not just the NRA’s participation in it. If we want people to stop killing each other, we need to focus on the source there, too.</p>
<p>Apart from suicide, it’s the predilection to solve our issues with violence and that applies, regretfully, to our government as well. Christians, not just white evangelical ones, should be leading here for they have a Biblical solution. It’s just not a governmental “bludgeon” one.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Footnotes:</p>
<p /> | 3,823 |
<p />
<p>While appearing as a guest on Fox News Saturday night, former Rep. Jason Chaffetz dropped a bombshell, telling Judge Jeanine Pirro that Attorney General Jeff Sessions refuses to pursue “major” cases involving former President Barack Obama or 2016 Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.</p>
<p>“Barack Obama and his administration did things that if we did we’d all be in jail right now,” Pirro said, highlighting her long legal career. “Now the Republicans are in power and I am not suggesting that the Party has anything to do with it, but when we see blatant obstruction of justice like we have seen in the Obama Administration – example, when you’ve got Eric Holder committing perjury and being held in contemp. You were Head of Government Oversight and Reform, correct? You guys held him in contempt, yes or no?”</p>
<p>“Yes, Yes,” Chaffetz said in response.</p>
<p>“Ok, why is he not being charged with a crime?” she asked.</p>
<p>“I can tell you that while I was in Congress and the Chairman of the Oversight Committee, I did go over and visit with Attorney General Sessions and it was one of the most frustrating discussions I had because whether it was the IRS, Fast and Furious, the email scandal that we went through, I did not see the Attorney General willing to just let Lady Justice administer justice and then follow through. I understood maybe the last six months of the Obama Administration,” he began.</p>
<p>“You spoke with Sessions on IRS, Fast and Furious. Did he give you a reason? Did he say he was presenting anything to a grand jury? Yes or no?” Pirro asked.</p>
<p>“No, he basically let me know he wasn’t going to pursue anything on the major cases,” Chaffetz said.</p>
<p>“So IRS, on the major cases? Are we talking about Hillary Clinton, because I haven’t even gotten to her yet,” Pirro said in a follow-up.</p>
<p>“Yes, the email scandal of Hillary Clinton. We had&#160; <a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-17/" type="external">Bryan Pagliano</a>. I issued a subpoena for him to appear before the Committee and he said “No”. He didn’t even show up. We issued another subpoena. The US Marshals served it. And you know in my world, if you’re in court, I guarantee you that a subpoena is not an optional activity. We wanted the Attorney General to prosecute him and he said ‘No’,” Chaffetz said.</p>
<p>Here’s video of the segment:</p>
<p />
<p>“Sessions is the SWAMP!&#160; He must go!” said a post at the <a href="http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/10/370402/" type="external">Gateway Pundit</a>.</p>
<p>Related:</p>
<p>If you haven’t checked out and liked our&#160; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ConservativeFiringLine?fref=ts" type="external">Facebook</a>&#160;page, please go&#160; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ConservativeFiringLine?fref=ts" type="external">here</a>&#160;and do so.</p>
<p>And if you’re as concerned about online censorship as we are, go&#160; <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Banned-Facebook-Enables-Militant-Islamic/dp/1944212221/" type="external">here</a>&#160;and order this book (Remember, half of what we earn will be <a href="" type="internal">donated to Hurricane Harvey relief</a>):</p> | Jason Chaffetz drops bombshell, says Sessions refuses to prosecute Obama, Clinton crimes — Video | true | http://conservativefiringline.com/jason-chaffetz-drops-bombshell-says-sessions-refuses-prosecute-obama-clinton-crimes-video/ | 2017-10-01 | 0right
| Jason Chaffetz drops bombshell, says Sessions refuses to prosecute Obama, Clinton crimes — Video
<p />
<p>While appearing as a guest on Fox News Saturday night, former Rep. Jason Chaffetz dropped a bombshell, telling Judge Jeanine Pirro that Attorney General Jeff Sessions refuses to pursue “major” cases involving former President Barack Obama or 2016 Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.</p>
<p>“Barack Obama and his administration did things that if we did we’d all be in jail right now,” Pirro said, highlighting her long legal career. “Now the Republicans are in power and I am not suggesting that the Party has anything to do with it, but when we see blatant obstruction of justice like we have seen in the Obama Administration – example, when you’ve got Eric Holder committing perjury and being held in contemp. You were Head of Government Oversight and Reform, correct? You guys held him in contempt, yes or no?”</p>
<p>“Yes, Yes,” Chaffetz said in response.</p>
<p>“Ok, why is he not being charged with a crime?” she asked.</p>
<p>“I can tell you that while I was in Congress and the Chairman of the Oversight Committee, I did go over and visit with Attorney General Sessions and it was one of the most frustrating discussions I had because whether it was the IRS, Fast and Furious, the email scandal that we went through, I did not see the Attorney General willing to just let Lady Justice administer justice and then follow through. I understood maybe the last six months of the Obama Administration,” he began.</p>
<p>“You spoke with Sessions on IRS, Fast and Furious. Did he give you a reason? Did he say he was presenting anything to a grand jury? Yes or no?” Pirro asked.</p>
<p>“No, he basically let me know he wasn’t going to pursue anything on the major cases,” Chaffetz said.</p>
<p>“So IRS, on the major cases? Are we talking about Hillary Clinton, because I haven’t even gotten to her yet,” Pirro said in a follow-up.</p>
<p>“Yes, the email scandal of Hillary Clinton. We had&#160; <a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-17/" type="external">Bryan Pagliano</a>. I issued a subpoena for him to appear before the Committee and he said “No”. He didn’t even show up. We issued another subpoena. The US Marshals served it. And you know in my world, if you’re in court, I guarantee you that a subpoena is not an optional activity. We wanted the Attorney General to prosecute him and he said ‘No’,” Chaffetz said.</p>
<p>Here’s video of the segment:</p>
<p />
<p>“Sessions is the SWAMP!&#160; He must go!” said a post at the <a href="http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/10/370402/" type="external">Gateway Pundit</a>.</p>
<p>Related:</p>
<p>If you haven’t checked out and liked our&#160; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ConservativeFiringLine?fref=ts" type="external">Facebook</a>&#160;page, please go&#160; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ConservativeFiringLine?fref=ts" type="external">here</a>&#160;and do so.</p>
<p>And if you’re as concerned about online censorship as we are, go&#160; <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Banned-Facebook-Enables-Militant-Islamic/dp/1944212221/" type="external">here</a>&#160;and order this book (Remember, half of what we earn will be <a href="" type="internal">donated to Hurricane Harvey relief</a>):</p> | 3,824 |
<p>Ultimate Fighting Championship President Dana White slammed actress Meryl Streep for her speech at Sunday night’s Golden Globes awards show, saying her criticism of mixed martial arts was “stupid” and “uneducated.”</p>
<p>“The last thing in the world I expect is an uppity 80-year-old lady to be in our demographic and love mixed martial arts,” Mr. White <a href="https://www.tmz.com/2017/01/09/dana-white-meryl-streep-mma-golden-globes/" type="external">told</a> TMZ.</p>
<p>Ms. Streep, 67, delivered a long speech Sunday night slamming President-elect Donald Trump after she accepted the Cecil B. DeMille Award.</p>
<p>“What is Hollywood anyway? It’s just a bunch of people from other places,” Ms. Streep <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/text-meryl-streeps-cecille-demille-award-speech-44644411" type="external">told</a> the audience. “Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners, and if we kick them all out, you’ll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts.”</p>
<p>Mr. White took umbrage at the actress’ characterization of MMA as not being “art.”</p>
<p>“Of course it’s an art,” he said. “I mean, these fighters, the men and women are so talented. They train their whole lives to become the best in the world.”</p>
<p>“Saying something stupid like that is like saying she’s not a talented actress, which she is, she’s a very talented actress,” he added.</p>
<p>Mr. White agreed with his TMZ interviewer that MMA is one of the most diverse sports out there.</p>
<p>“We have fighters from all over the world,” he said. “We do fights in tons of foreign countries. She’s not educated about the sport, and it was a completely uneducated comment.”</p>
<p>Mr. White isn’t the only big name in the industry to slam Ms. Streep for her comments.</p>
<p>MMA fighter Tamdan McCrory <a href="https://twitter.com/TheBarnCatMMA/status/818294429970788353" type="external">tweeted</a>, “[Expletive] Meryl Streep. Talks [expletive] about MMA then says ‘disrespect begets disrespect’. Typical hypocritical Hollywood liberal.”</p>
<p>UFC reporter Megan Olivi <a href="https://twitter.com/MeganOlivi/status/818302105140113408?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" type="external">tweeted</a>, “Really weird to see someone talk about not discriminating then basically discriminate against an entire group of skilled, hard working ppl.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the White House on Monday <a href="" type="internal">defended</a> Ms. Streep’s speech, with press secretary Josh Earnest calling it a “thoughtful, carefully considered message.”</p>
<p>Copyright © 2018 The Washington Times, LLC. <a href="" type="internal">Click here for reprint permission</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | UFC President Dana White slams Meryl Streep for ‘uneducated’ MMA criticism | true | http://washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jan/9/dana-white-ufc-president-slams-meryl-streep-for-un/ | 2017-01-09 | 0right
| UFC President Dana White slams Meryl Streep for ‘uneducated’ MMA criticism
<p>Ultimate Fighting Championship President Dana White slammed actress Meryl Streep for her speech at Sunday night’s Golden Globes awards show, saying her criticism of mixed martial arts was “stupid” and “uneducated.”</p>
<p>“The last thing in the world I expect is an uppity 80-year-old lady to be in our demographic and love mixed martial arts,” Mr. White <a href="https://www.tmz.com/2017/01/09/dana-white-meryl-streep-mma-golden-globes/" type="external">told</a> TMZ.</p>
<p>Ms. Streep, 67, delivered a long speech Sunday night slamming President-elect Donald Trump after she accepted the Cecil B. DeMille Award.</p>
<p>“What is Hollywood anyway? It’s just a bunch of people from other places,” Ms. Streep <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/text-meryl-streeps-cecille-demille-award-speech-44644411" type="external">told</a> the audience. “Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners, and if we kick them all out, you’ll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts.”</p>
<p>Mr. White took umbrage at the actress’ characterization of MMA as not being “art.”</p>
<p>“Of course it’s an art,” he said. “I mean, these fighters, the men and women are so talented. They train their whole lives to become the best in the world.”</p>
<p>“Saying something stupid like that is like saying she’s not a talented actress, which she is, she’s a very talented actress,” he added.</p>
<p>Mr. White agreed with his TMZ interviewer that MMA is one of the most diverse sports out there.</p>
<p>“We have fighters from all over the world,” he said. “We do fights in tons of foreign countries. She’s not educated about the sport, and it was a completely uneducated comment.”</p>
<p>Mr. White isn’t the only big name in the industry to slam Ms. Streep for her comments.</p>
<p>MMA fighter Tamdan McCrory <a href="https://twitter.com/TheBarnCatMMA/status/818294429970788353" type="external">tweeted</a>, “[Expletive] Meryl Streep. Talks [expletive] about MMA then says ‘disrespect begets disrespect’. Typical hypocritical Hollywood liberal.”</p>
<p>UFC reporter Megan Olivi <a href="https://twitter.com/MeganOlivi/status/818302105140113408?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" type="external">tweeted</a>, “Really weird to see someone talk about not discriminating then basically discriminate against an entire group of skilled, hard working ppl.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the White House on Monday <a href="" type="internal">defended</a> Ms. Streep’s speech, with press secretary Josh Earnest calling it a “thoughtful, carefully considered message.”</p>
<p>Copyright © 2018 The Washington Times, LLC. <a href="" type="internal">Click here for reprint permission</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | 3,825 |
<p>A Baptist preacher joined other community leaders June 5 in a Louisville, Ky., mosque for an&#160;interfaith service memorializing the boxing icon and world humanitarian Muhammad Ali.</p>
<p>“He was a miracle worker in the ring, where he used his fists violently to cut down opponents, but what set him apart was the way in which he poured out his heart through non-violent action and deeds to fight for a better world, and he indeed succeeded in making our world a better place,” Jason Crosby, pastor of <a href="http://chbcky.org/" type="external">Crescent Hill Baptist Church</a> in Louisville, said at the Louisville Islamic Center&#160;event honoring the champ who died Friday after a 32-year bout with Parkinson’s disease at age 74.</p>
<p>Crosby said news of the champion’s death brought back memories from his childhood of play sparring in the family garage with a neighborhood friend while pretending to be to the Louisville native and world heavyweight champ. Crosby, who was born in Louisville and raised in Covington, Ky., remembered delivering Ali’s trademark line: “I’m a bad man, but I’m the champ, and I’m still pretty.”</p>
<p>Jason Crosby</p>
<p>“He inspired me —&#160;a fellow Louisvillian, but he came from a very different walk of life —&#160;to love myself and to enjoy myself,” Crosby said. “I can’t imagine what that meant to young black boys in his hometown in West Louisville.”</p>
<p>“Talk about empowerment for a people. That gift was lost with his death.”</p>
<p>The interfaith service was one of a number of events in the city honoring the hometown hero who went from being one of the nation’s most polarizing figures to one of its most beloved. Crosby remembered as a teenager watching Ali light the Olympic torch at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta feeling “great pride to be a native of Louisville and to know that young people from this place can rise up to do incredible things.”</p>
<p>“Who is going to carry that torch?” Crosby wondered. “Who is now going to carry that light forward? If someone doesn’t, other voices will creep in and create a different narrative.”</p>
<p>“No one can fill those shoes,” he concluded. “They are too big to fill. No one can replace that heart. It was too strong. No one can replace that voice. It was too magnificent. But we together through events like this, continuing to build relationship with one another, that’s one small way we can continue to fulfill a dream and vision that he pursued and made a reality in this community and beyond. So may we go forth and carry the torch so that his legacy remains a part of our lives and a part of our world.”</p>
<p>Ali’s body returned to Louisville Sunday from Phoenix, where he died days after being hospitalized with a respiratory issue. The immediate family will hold a private ceremony Thursday. Friday morning an imam will lead a Muslim prayer followed by a motorcade and public service at the Yum! Center in downtown Louisville. Tickets for the event <a href="http://www.wdrb.com/story/32172453/update-tickets-for-muhammad-alis-friday-memorial-service-run-out-in-less-than-an-hour" type="external">ran out</a> quickly, but it will be <a href="http://alicenter.org/memorial-service/" type="external">webcast</a> live by the Muhammad Ali Center starting at 2 p.m.</p>
<p>Scheduled speakers include Kevin Cosby, senior pastor of St. Stephen Church, in Louisville and president of Simmons College of Kentucky. Cosby, a graduate of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, recently led his church to affiliate with the Kentucky Baptist Fellowship and launch a partnership with suburban churches and&#160;the&#160;state Cooperative Baptist Fellowship&#160;chapter to increase economic opportunities for African-Americans in West Louisville.</p> | Baptist pastor memorializes Muhammad Ali | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/baptist-pastor-memorializes-muhammad-ali/ | 3left-center
| Baptist pastor memorializes Muhammad Ali
<p>A Baptist preacher joined other community leaders June 5 in a Louisville, Ky., mosque for an&#160;interfaith service memorializing the boxing icon and world humanitarian Muhammad Ali.</p>
<p>“He was a miracle worker in the ring, where he used his fists violently to cut down opponents, but what set him apart was the way in which he poured out his heart through non-violent action and deeds to fight for a better world, and he indeed succeeded in making our world a better place,” Jason Crosby, pastor of <a href="http://chbcky.org/" type="external">Crescent Hill Baptist Church</a> in Louisville, said at the Louisville Islamic Center&#160;event honoring the champ who died Friday after a 32-year bout with Parkinson’s disease at age 74.</p>
<p>Crosby said news of the champion’s death brought back memories from his childhood of play sparring in the family garage with a neighborhood friend while pretending to be to the Louisville native and world heavyweight champ. Crosby, who was born in Louisville and raised in Covington, Ky., remembered delivering Ali’s trademark line: “I’m a bad man, but I’m the champ, and I’m still pretty.”</p>
<p>Jason Crosby</p>
<p>“He inspired me —&#160;a fellow Louisvillian, but he came from a very different walk of life —&#160;to love myself and to enjoy myself,” Crosby said. “I can’t imagine what that meant to young black boys in his hometown in West Louisville.”</p>
<p>“Talk about empowerment for a people. That gift was lost with his death.”</p>
<p>The interfaith service was one of a number of events in the city honoring the hometown hero who went from being one of the nation’s most polarizing figures to one of its most beloved. Crosby remembered as a teenager watching Ali light the Olympic torch at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta feeling “great pride to be a native of Louisville and to know that young people from this place can rise up to do incredible things.”</p>
<p>“Who is going to carry that torch?” Crosby wondered. “Who is now going to carry that light forward? If someone doesn’t, other voices will creep in and create a different narrative.”</p>
<p>“No one can fill those shoes,” he concluded. “They are too big to fill. No one can replace that heart. It was too strong. No one can replace that voice. It was too magnificent. But we together through events like this, continuing to build relationship with one another, that’s one small way we can continue to fulfill a dream and vision that he pursued and made a reality in this community and beyond. So may we go forth and carry the torch so that his legacy remains a part of our lives and a part of our world.”</p>
<p>Ali’s body returned to Louisville Sunday from Phoenix, where he died days after being hospitalized with a respiratory issue. The immediate family will hold a private ceremony Thursday. Friday morning an imam will lead a Muslim prayer followed by a motorcade and public service at the Yum! Center in downtown Louisville. Tickets for the event <a href="http://www.wdrb.com/story/32172453/update-tickets-for-muhammad-alis-friday-memorial-service-run-out-in-less-than-an-hour" type="external">ran out</a> quickly, but it will be <a href="http://alicenter.org/memorial-service/" type="external">webcast</a> live by the Muhammad Ali Center starting at 2 p.m.</p>
<p>Scheduled speakers include Kevin Cosby, senior pastor of St. Stephen Church, in Louisville and president of Simmons College of Kentucky. Cosby, a graduate of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, recently led his church to affiliate with the Kentucky Baptist Fellowship and launch a partnership with suburban churches and&#160;the&#160;state Cooperative Baptist Fellowship&#160;chapter to increase economic opportunities for African-Americans in West Louisville.</p> | 3,826 |
|
<p>Janine Jackson interviewed Nancy Altman about Trumpcare for the <a href="" type="internal">March 10, 2017, episode</a> of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.</p>
<p>Nancy Altman: “Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House, and other Republicans have been gunning for all these programs for decades. And now I think they see they have their chance.”</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">MP3 Link</a></p>
<p>Janine Jackson: “Far from seamless” was how the Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/house-leaders-brace-for-the-task-ahead-selling-obamacare-lite/2017/03/07/ab2f721e-02e5-11e7-ad5b-d22680e18d10_story.html?utm_term=.a727ae7c0854" type="external">described</a> the debut of House Republicans’ much vaunted—by them—replacement for the Affordable Care Act. Like others, this story was about how right-wing Republicans might present hurdles to the plan’s passage, because it’s too much like the dreaded Obamacare, and how they might be appeased.</p>
<p>So much coverage of healthcare is set in terms of the political process—who presents obstacles, what groups are being whistled to—that the specifics, the reality of how changes in policy could affect actual people, can sometimes get lost. And healthcare could hardly be a worse place for that to happen.</p>
<p>Here to help us see some of what’s going on with this GOP bill is Nancy Altman. She’s co-director of <a href="https://www.socialsecurityworks.org/" type="external">Social Security Works</a> and co-chair of the <a href="http://www.strengthensocialsecurity.org/" type="external">Strengthen Social Security</a> coalition and campaign. She joins us now by phone from Maryland. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Nancy Altman.</p>
<p>Nancy Altman: Thank you so much for having me.</p>
<p>JJ: It seems that in the media Medicare and Medicaid are mostly mentioned as a kind of in-one-breath tag-on to Social Security, when a story is giving a thumbnail of so-called “entitlements”; these programs are rarely center stage. I wonder if you could tell us about how this Republican plan, from what we know of it, would affect Medicare and Medicaid, and, along the way, remind us of what those programs do?</p>
<p>NA: The so-called Trumpcare, this new healthcare plan that the Republicans have just rolled out, is very destructive to both Medicare and Medicaid. The Republicans ran against the Affordable Care Act, the so-called Obamacare, but no one ran against Medicare and Medicaid, because the programs work very well and they’re very popular.</p>
<p>Both programs were enacted in 1965. The idea behind Medicare—it’s a part of Social Security—is that you cannot really be economically secure if you’re one illness away from bankruptcy. So Medicare provides basic health insurance for those 65 and over who are receiving Social Security.</p>
<p>Medicaid is intended as a low-income program, but it is the only part of our healthcare system that provides basic insurance for long-term care. So actually many seniors, many middle-class seniors, who find themselves in need of long-term nursing home care wind up relying on Medicaid.</p>
<p>So they are both programs that cover much of the Social Security beneficiary population. All three programs work very well; they’re very popular. And I should say one more thing, that Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House, and other Republicans have been gunning for all these programs for decades.</p>
<p>JJ: Right.</p>
<p>NA: And now I think they see they have their chance. So what this does is it basically destroys Medicaid. That was expanded under the Affordable Care Act. That expansion is going to be gone, but in addition they’re going to, instead of now having, if you’ve got that insurance and you need a medical procedure, it gets paid for, instead they’re going to do a kind of cousin of block-granting, where they’re going to give the states money and just say, OK, you take care of your own population. States often are strapped. It will be very hard to keep that coverage.</p>
<p>And for Medicare, they literally raid Medicare. They take about several hundred billion dollars out of Medicare and what they do is give very large tax breaks for the very wealthy.</p>
<p>JJ: Let me just add that Medicaid, listeners should know, besides seniors, of course, it’s also a main source of funding for a wide variety of disability services as well. People with disabilities, including older people who need attendants or even, you know, Ari Ne’eman wrote a <a href="https://talkpoverty.org/2017/02/07/trumps-plan-medicaid-decimate-services-people-disabilities/" type="external">piece</a> on Talk Poverty, talking about the 24-year-old with Down syndrome who gets a job coach, the six-year-old with a disability whose parents need support. Medicaid is also critical to people with disabilities and providing them more independence and freedom, that’s true.</p>
<p>NA: That’s exactly right. And to millions of children in this nation, too, who are low-income.</p>
<p>JJ: Right. Right.</p>
<p>NA: And Medicare also provides basic insurance for people with disabilities. So it’s seniors, which is why the AARP has come out against this bill, but, as you point out, it’s millions and millions of other Americans.</p>
<p>JJ: Right. Well, the Washington Post, that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/house-leaders-brace-for-the-task-ahead-selling-obamacare-lite/2017/03/07/ab2f721e-02e5-11e7-ad5b-d22680e18d10_story.html?utm_term=.a727ae7c0854" type="external">piece</a> had a source from Heritage who was talking about how this GOP plan isn’t good enough, because it doesn’t create a “free-market healthcare system.” So that’s one of the points on the continuum of conversation, is a system where poor people just die—because I don’t know what else that means. Now, some people may be ideologically OK with that, but for a lot of people, I think it fits with their understanding that we’re just in a situation of scarcity; we can’t afford a system that the government administers. That’s, if you would say, the big lie.</p>
<p>NA: That is the big lie. We are the wealthiest nation in the world, and we are at the wealthiest moment in our history. We’re wealthier than we were in 1935 when Social Security was enacted. We are wealthier now than we were in 1965 when Medicare and Medicaid were enacted. And you’re exactly right, the long-range plan for Medicare is to what they call “voucherize” it, which is basically to turn the clock back before 1965.</p>
<p>Before 1965, millions of seniors could not get health insurance at any price, because they had pre-existing conditions; they were just seen as too expensive. And those that could, had to pay huge mark-ups for health insurance, and that’s why we wound up getting Medicare. They want to turn this back to the private sector and let people just go out, give them some premium support to go out and to buy insurance and help pay for premiums, when that is just the wrong way to go.</p>
<p>JJ: I guess we have to push back, then, with a big truth, or a bigger vision. And I have seen some people saying, well, the fact that this plan is creating these kind of fissures, even among Republicans, for whatever reasons, but they think maybe that’s opening space to talk about single-payer….</p>
<p>NA: Medicare for All. Medicare was intended as a first step. In fact, there was a debate whether you first covered all children, because it’s much less expensive and they have a lifetime of health, or seniors, where, as I said, the need was dire…but they saw it as simply the first step. Even though Medicare covers the most expensive part of our population—seniors and people with disabilities—it is much more efficient than private-sector insurance, because it is universal for all people over age 65.</p>
<p>Other countries can provide all of their citizens with complete, affordable access to healthcare, and they have better health outcomes and they spend less than we do. If we expanded Medicare to for-All, and start it by simply lowering the age to 62, putting in a MediKids program, we would have a much more efficient program. And maybe that’s where we’re going, because that is a system that works.</p>
<p>JJ: Right. And just in terms of how we talk about it, it seems, maybe not “easy,” but straightforward. And then also: It’s estimated one in five Americans have some form of disability. Everybody’s going to get old if they’re lucky. And yet these show up as “interests” in the media conversation. There’s a New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/05/us/politics/health-care-law-obamacare-repeal-older-americans.html" type="external">piece</a>: “Repeal of Health Law Faces a New Hurdle: Older Americans.” There’s this frame of some against others, like it’s Lord of the Flies, as though we can’t think about healthcare from a whole-society viewpoint, which of course seems like the way to go.</p>
<p>NA: It is. I mean, this is really Washington at its worst, where families are interest groups, you have children against grandparents…. That is not how America works. Our grandparents are not better off if their grandchildren are not educated, and grandchildren are not better off if their grandparents can’t afford the basic necessities of life. So we are all in this together. It’s one of the strengths of all of these programs, Social Security and Medicare. The concept is: We all contribute and, as you say, we all hope to get old; if we have the misfortune of becoming disabled, we have these basic programs that are there for all of us; it unites us. And we are certainly wealthy enough, not only to afford these current programs, but to expand them.</p>
<p>JJ: We’ve been speaking with Nancy Altman. She’s co-director of the group <a href="https://www.socialsecurityworks.org/" type="external">Social Security Works</a> and co-author of the book Social Security Works: Why Social Security Isn’t Going Broke and How Expanding It Will Help Us. Nancy Altman, thank you very much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.</p>
<p>NA: Thank you.</p>
<p>Subscribe: <a href="" type="internal">Android</a> | <a href="" type="internal">RSS</a></p> | ‘Trumpcare Is Very Destructive to Both Medicare and Medicaid’ | true | http://fair.org/home/trumpcare-is-very-destructive-to-both-medicare-and-medicaid/ | 2017-03-15 | 4left
| ‘Trumpcare Is Very Destructive to Both Medicare and Medicaid’
<p>Janine Jackson interviewed Nancy Altman about Trumpcare for the <a href="" type="internal">March 10, 2017, episode</a> of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.</p>
<p>Nancy Altman: “Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House, and other Republicans have been gunning for all these programs for decades. And now I think they see they have their chance.”</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">MP3 Link</a></p>
<p>Janine Jackson: “Far from seamless” was how the Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/house-leaders-brace-for-the-task-ahead-selling-obamacare-lite/2017/03/07/ab2f721e-02e5-11e7-ad5b-d22680e18d10_story.html?utm_term=.a727ae7c0854" type="external">described</a> the debut of House Republicans’ much vaunted—by them—replacement for the Affordable Care Act. Like others, this story was about how right-wing Republicans might present hurdles to the plan’s passage, because it’s too much like the dreaded Obamacare, and how they might be appeased.</p>
<p>So much coverage of healthcare is set in terms of the political process—who presents obstacles, what groups are being whistled to—that the specifics, the reality of how changes in policy could affect actual people, can sometimes get lost. And healthcare could hardly be a worse place for that to happen.</p>
<p>Here to help us see some of what’s going on with this GOP bill is Nancy Altman. She’s co-director of <a href="https://www.socialsecurityworks.org/" type="external">Social Security Works</a> and co-chair of the <a href="http://www.strengthensocialsecurity.org/" type="external">Strengthen Social Security</a> coalition and campaign. She joins us now by phone from Maryland. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Nancy Altman.</p>
<p>Nancy Altman: Thank you so much for having me.</p>
<p>JJ: It seems that in the media Medicare and Medicaid are mostly mentioned as a kind of in-one-breath tag-on to Social Security, when a story is giving a thumbnail of so-called “entitlements”; these programs are rarely center stage. I wonder if you could tell us about how this Republican plan, from what we know of it, would affect Medicare and Medicaid, and, along the way, remind us of what those programs do?</p>
<p>NA: The so-called Trumpcare, this new healthcare plan that the Republicans have just rolled out, is very destructive to both Medicare and Medicaid. The Republicans ran against the Affordable Care Act, the so-called Obamacare, but no one ran against Medicare and Medicaid, because the programs work very well and they’re very popular.</p>
<p>Both programs were enacted in 1965. The idea behind Medicare—it’s a part of Social Security—is that you cannot really be economically secure if you’re one illness away from bankruptcy. So Medicare provides basic health insurance for those 65 and over who are receiving Social Security.</p>
<p>Medicaid is intended as a low-income program, but it is the only part of our healthcare system that provides basic insurance for long-term care. So actually many seniors, many middle-class seniors, who find themselves in need of long-term nursing home care wind up relying on Medicaid.</p>
<p>So they are both programs that cover much of the Social Security beneficiary population. All three programs work very well; they’re very popular. And I should say one more thing, that Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House, and other Republicans have been gunning for all these programs for decades.</p>
<p>JJ: Right.</p>
<p>NA: And now I think they see they have their chance. So what this does is it basically destroys Medicaid. That was expanded under the Affordable Care Act. That expansion is going to be gone, but in addition they’re going to, instead of now having, if you’ve got that insurance and you need a medical procedure, it gets paid for, instead they’re going to do a kind of cousin of block-granting, where they’re going to give the states money and just say, OK, you take care of your own population. States often are strapped. It will be very hard to keep that coverage.</p>
<p>And for Medicare, they literally raid Medicare. They take about several hundred billion dollars out of Medicare and what they do is give very large tax breaks for the very wealthy.</p>
<p>JJ: Let me just add that Medicaid, listeners should know, besides seniors, of course, it’s also a main source of funding for a wide variety of disability services as well. People with disabilities, including older people who need attendants or even, you know, Ari Ne’eman wrote a <a href="https://talkpoverty.org/2017/02/07/trumps-plan-medicaid-decimate-services-people-disabilities/" type="external">piece</a> on Talk Poverty, talking about the 24-year-old with Down syndrome who gets a job coach, the six-year-old with a disability whose parents need support. Medicaid is also critical to people with disabilities and providing them more independence and freedom, that’s true.</p>
<p>NA: That’s exactly right. And to millions of children in this nation, too, who are low-income.</p>
<p>JJ: Right. Right.</p>
<p>NA: And Medicare also provides basic insurance for people with disabilities. So it’s seniors, which is why the AARP has come out against this bill, but, as you point out, it’s millions and millions of other Americans.</p>
<p>JJ: Right. Well, the Washington Post, that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/house-leaders-brace-for-the-task-ahead-selling-obamacare-lite/2017/03/07/ab2f721e-02e5-11e7-ad5b-d22680e18d10_story.html?utm_term=.a727ae7c0854" type="external">piece</a> had a source from Heritage who was talking about how this GOP plan isn’t good enough, because it doesn’t create a “free-market healthcare system.” So that’s one of the points on the continuum of conversation, is a system where poor people just die—because I don’t know what else that means. Now, some people may be ideologically OK with that, but for a lot of people, I think it fits with their understanding that we’re just in a situation of scarcity; we can’t afford a system that the government administers. That’s, if you would say, the big lie.</p>
<p>NA: That is the big lie. We are the wealthiest nation in the world, and we are at the wealthiest moment in our history. We’re wealthier than we were in 1935 when Social Security was enacted. We are wealthier now than we were in 1965 when Medicare and Medicaid were enacted. And you’re exactly right, the long-range plan for Medicare is to what they call “voucherize” it, which is basically to turn the clock back before 1965.</p>
<p>Before 1965, millions of seniors could not get health insurance at any price, because they had pre-existing conditions; they were just seen as too expensive. And those that could, had to pay huge mark-ups for health insurance, and that’s why we wound up getting Medicare. They want to turn this back to the private sector and let people just go out, give them some premium support to go out and to buy insurance and help pay for premiums, when that is just the wrong way to go.</p>
<p>JJ: I guess we have to push back, then, with a big truth, or a bigger vision. And I have seen some people saying, well, the fact that this plan is creating these kind of fissures, even among Republicans, for whatever reasons, but they think maybe that’s opening space to talk about single-payer….</p>
<p>NA: Medicare for All. Medicare was intended as a first step. In fact, there was a debate whether you first covered all children, because it’s much less expensive and they have a lifetime of health, or seniors, where, as I said, the need was dire…but they saw it as simply the first step. Even though Medicare covers the most expensive part of our population—seniors and people with disabilities—it is much more efficient than private-sector insurance, because it is universal for all people over age 65.</p>
<p>Other countries can provide all of their citizens with complete, affordable access to healthcare, and they have better health outcomes and they spend less than we do. If we expanded Medicare to for-All, and start it by simply lowering the age to 62, putting in a MediKids program, we would have a much more efficient program. And maybe that’s where we’re going, because that is a system that works.</p>
<p>JJ: Right. And just in terms of how we talk about it, it seems, maybe not “easy,” but straightforward. And then also: It’s estimated one in five Americans have some form of disability. Everybody’s going to get old if they’re lucky. And yet these show up as “interests” in the media conversation. There’s a New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/05/us/politics/health-care-law-obamacare-repeal-older-americans.html" type="external">piece</a>: “Repeal of Health Law Faces a New Hurdle: Older Americans.” There’s this frame of some against others, like it’s Lord of the Flies, as though we can’t think about healthcare from a whole-society viewpoint, which of course seems like the way to go.</p>
<p>NA: It is. I mean, this is really Washington at its worst, where families are interest groups, you have children against grandparents…. That is not how America works. Our grandparents are not better off if their grandchildren are not educated, and grandchildren are not better off if their grandparents can’t afford the basic necessities of life. So we are all in this together. It’s one of the strengths of all of these programs, Social Security and Medicare. The concept is: We all contribute and, as you say, we all hope to get old; if we have the misfortune of becoming disabled, we have these basic programs that are there for all of us; it unites us. And we are certainly wealthy enough, not only to afford these current programs, but to expand them.</p>
<p>JJ: We’ve been speaking with Nancy Altman. She’s co-director of the group <a href="https://www.socialsecurityworks.org/" type="external">Social Security Works</a> and co-author of the book Social Security Works: Why Social Security Isn’t Going Broke and How Expanding It Will Help Us. Nancy Altman, thank you very much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.</p>
<p>NA: Thank you.</p>
<p>Subscribe: <a href="" type="internal">Android</a> | <a href="" type="internal">RSS</a></p> | 3,827 |
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<p>LAS CRUCES – The City Council in Las Cruces is scheduled to consider a proposed tax hike today.</p>
<p>The proposal is a response to a new law that will phase out the “hold harmless” payments the state currently makes to cities and counties.</p>
<p>The Las Cruces Sun-News reported that city officials are considering a three-eighths of 1 cent increase in gross receipts taxes. The increase would amount to 37.5 cents on a $100 purchase.</p>
<p>City officials say Las Cruces stands to lose about $8.5 million a year in hold stipends.</p>
<p>The proposed sales tax increase could generate as much as $8.2 million a year for the city and could grow through time if spending and the city’s population increases measurably.</p>
<p>AZTEC – Ten immigrants have been naturalized as U.S. citizens at an Aztec Ruins National Monument ceremony.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The Farmington Daily-Times reported that the newest citizens took an oath of allegiance Friday at the monument’s Great Kiva.</p>
<p>Christina Armijo, a chief U.S. district judge who presided over the ceremony, says the kiva was the spiritual and community center for the people who lived in the ruins in the 12th and 13th centuries.</p>
<p>The new citizens were from Canada, Ecuador, Honduras, Germany and Mexico.</p>
<p>The Aztec Ruins National Monument are part of ancestral pueblo structures named by settlers who mistakenly believed that they were built by the Aztecs from present-day Mexico.</p> | Around New Mexico | false | https://abqjournal.com/208770/208770.html | 2013-06-10 | 2least
| Around New Mexico
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<p />
<p>LAS CRUCES – The City Council in Las Cruces is scheduled to consider a proposed tax hike today.</p>
<p>The proposal is a response to a new law that will phase out the “hold harmless” payments the state currently makes to cities and counties.</p>
<p>The Las Cruces Sun-News reported that city officials are considering a three-eighths of 1 cent increase in gross receipts taxes. The increase would amount to 37.5 cents on a $100 purchase.</p>
<p>City officials say Las Cruces stands to lose about $8.5 million a year in hold stipends.</p>
<p>The proposed sales tax increase could generate as much as $8.2 million a year for the city and could grow through time if spending and the city’s population increases measurably.</p>
<p>AZTEC – Ten immigrants have been naturalized as U.S. citizens at an Aztec Ruins National Monument ceremony.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The Farmington Daily-Times reported that the newest citizens took an oath of allegiance Friday at the monument’s Great Kiva.</p>
<p>Christina Armijo, a chief U.S. district judge who presided over the ceremony, says the kiva was the spiritual and community center for the people who lived in the ruins in the 12th and 13th centuries.</p>
<p>The new citizens were from Canada, Ecuador, Honduras, Germany and Mexico.</p>
<p>The Aztec Ruins National Monument are part of ancestral pueblo structures named by settlers who mistakenly believed that they were built by the Aztecs from present-day Mexico.</p> | 3,828 |
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<p />
<p>12:05 p.m.</p>
<p>Radio: 1050 AM</p>
<p>Probables: Isotopes LHP Jonathan Sanchez (3-1, 5.87) vs. Zephyrs RHP Doug Mathis (5-7, 3.66)</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Sunday: Albuquerque’s offense awoke too late in a 3-2 loss to New Orleans in front of an announced crowd of 6,598 at Isotopes Park. Zephyrs starter Brian Flynn tossed seven shutout innings, and Jake Smolinski’s solo home run in the top of the ninth gave New Orleans a 3-0 lead. The Isotopes managed just four hits through eight innings. The ‘Topes made things interesting in the ninth when Justin Sellers hit a two-run double down the right-field line with no outs. He advanced to third on Brian Barden’s sacrifice bunt, but Zephyrs closer Chris Hatcher got John Baker to pop up and struck out Rusty Ryal to secure his 28th save. Rehabbing Dodgers right-hander Stephen Fife pitched six strong innings, allowing one unearned run on three hits with seven strikeouts, but ended up taking a tough-luck loss. This and that: Former ‘Topes reliever Steve Ames got his first major league call-up from Isotopes Park on Saturday night – to Miami. Ames was traded to the Marlins organization July 6 as part of the deal that brought Ricky Nolasco to the Dodgers. Sunday – Isotopes Parkzephyrs 3, isotopes 2</p>
<p>NEW ORLEANS ALBUQUERQUE</p>
<p>ab r h bi ab r h bi</p>
<p>Peterson cf 4 0 0 0 Gwynn lf 2 0 2 0</p>
<p>Velazquez ss 3 1 0 0 Angle cf 4 0 1 0</p>
<p>Brown 1b 4 0 2 0 Castellanos rf 4 0 0 0</p>
<p>Kouzmanoff 3b 4 0 0 0 Ortega p 0 0 0 0</p>
<p>Smolinski lf 4 2 2 1 Van Slyke 1b 3 1 1 0</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Jensen rf 3 0 0 1 Stewart 3b 3 0 0 0</p>
<p>Valaika 2b 2 0 0 0 Vasquez p 0 0 0 0</p>
<p>Skipworth c 3 0 1 0 Buss rf 1 1 1 0</p>
<p>Flynn p 2 0 0 0 Sellers ss 4 0 1 2</p>
<p>Mattison ph 1 0 0 0 Barden 2b-3b 2 0 0 0</p>
<p>Wall p 0 0 0 0 Baker c 4 0 0 0</p>
<p>Hatcher p 0 0 0 0 Fife p 2 0 0 0</p>
<p>0 0 0 0 Ryal 2b 2 0 0 0Totals 30 3 5 2 Totals 31 2 6 2</p>
<p>New Orleans 000 100 101 – 3</p>
<p>Albuquerque 000 000 002 – 2E – Castellanos, A (2). LOB – New Orleans 3, Albuquerque 7. 2B – Brown, J (16), Smolinski (12), Sellers (24). HR – Smolinski (8). S – Barden. SF: Jensen. IP H R ER BB SO</p>
<p>New Orleans</p>
<p>Flynn (W, 4-10) 7 4 0 0 2 7</p>
<p>Wall (H, 6) 1 0 0 0 0 1</p>
<p>Hatcher (S, 28) 1 2 2 2 1 1</p>
<p>Albuquerque</p>
<p>Fife (L, 1-2) 6 3 1 0 1 7</p>
<p>Vasquez 2 1 1 1 1 3</p>
<p>Ortega 1 1 1 1 0 0WP – Flynn, Wall, Vasquez. HBP: Gwynn (by Wall). T – 2:16. A – 5,598.</p> | 'Topes today | false | https://abqjournal.com/240075/topes-today-195.html | 2least
| 'Topes today
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<p />
<p>12:05 p.m.</p>
<p>Radio: 1050 AM</p>
<p>Probables: Isotopes LHP Jonathan Sanchez (3-1, 5.87) vs. Zephyrs RHP Doug Mathis (5-7, 3.66)</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Sunday: Albuquerque’s offense awoke too late in a 3-2 loss to New Orleans in front of an announced crowd of 6,598 at Isotopes Park. Zephyrs starter Brian Flynn tossed seven shutout innings, and Jake Smolinski’s solo home run in the top of the ninth gave New Orleans a 3-0 lead. The Isotopes managed just four hits through eight innings. The ‘Topes made things interesting in the ninth when Justin Sellers hit a two-run double down the right-field line with no outs. He advanced to third on Brian Barden’s sacrifice bunt, but Zephyrs closer Chris Hatcher got John Baker to pop up and struck out Rusty Ryal to secure his 28th save. Rehabbing Dodgers right-hander Stephen Fife pitched six strong innings, allowing one unearned run on three hits with seven strikeouts, but ended up taking a tough-luck loss. This and that: Former ‘Topes reliever Steve Ames got his first major league call-up from Isotopes Park on Saturday night – to Miami. Ames was traded to the Marlins organization July 6 as part of the deal that brought Ricky Nolasco to the Dodgers. Sunday – Isotopes Parkzephyrs 3, isotopes 2</p>
<p>NEW ORLEANS ALBUQUERQUE</p>
<p>ab r h bi ab r h bi</p>
<p>Peterson cf 4 0 0 0 Gwynn lf 2 0 2 0</p>
<p>Velazquez ss 3 1 0 0 Angle cf 4 0 1 0</p>
<p>Brown 1b 4 0 2 0 Castellanos rf 4 0 0 0</p>
<p>Kouzmanoff 3b 4 0 0 0 Ortega p 0 0 0 0</p>
<p>Smolinski lf 4 2 2 1 Van Slyke 1b 3 1 1 0</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Jensen rf 3 0 0 1 Stewart 3b 3 0 0 0</p>
<p>Valaika 2b 2 0 0 0 Vasquez p 0 0 0 0</p>
<p>Skipworth c 3 0 1 0 Buss rf 1 1 1 0</p>
<p>Flynn p 2 0 0 0 Sellers ss 4 0 1 2</p>
<p>Mattison ph 1 0 0 0 Barden 2b-3b 2 0 0 0</p>
<p>Wall p 0 0 0 0 Baker c 4 0 0 0</p>
<p>Hatcher p 0 0 0 0 Fife p 2 0 0 0</p>
<p>0 0 0 0 Ryal 2b 2 0 0 0Totals 30 3 5 2 Totals 31 2 6 2</p>
<p>New Orleans 000 100 101 – 3</p>
<p>Albuquerque 000 000 002 – 2E – Castellanos, A (2). LOB – New Orleans 3, Albuquerque 7. 2B – Brown, J (16), Smolinski (12), Sellers (24). HR – Smolinski (8). S – Barden. SF: Jensen. IP H R ER BB SO</p>
<p>New Orleans</p>
<p>Flynn (W, 4-10) 7 4 0 0 2 7</p>
<p>Wall (H, 6) 1 0 0 0 0 1</p>
<p>Hatcher (S, 28) 1 2 2 2 1 1</p>
<p>Albuquerque</p>
<p>Fife (L, 1-2) 6 3 1 0 1 7</p>
<p>Vasquez 2 1 1 1 1 3</p>
<p>Ortega 1 1 1 1 0 0WP – Flynn, Wall, Vasquez. HBP: Gwynn (by Wall). T – 2:16. A – 5,598.</p> | 3,829 |
|
<p>The long-range goal of many congregations is to turn their church into a museum. It is not intentional. It is unintentional. It is just that actions taken year after year migrates them away from thriving as a missional movement to existing as an institutionalized organization much like a museum.</p>
<p>They believe the pre-museum actions seem like the right thing to do. They fall prey to short-term thinking such as the following: We need that new building to keep and to attract youth. We need to refurbish the organ or install a new one. We need to revitalize our programs because they seem so comfortable to us, and worked so well in years past.</p>
<p>Our view of our pastor is one of chaplain. Therefore, as we get more older people we need to hire an associate chaplain. We have so many needs here that we cannot afford to give all of that money to missional engagement outside our congregation.</p>
<p>The more of these kinds of actions a congregation takes, the more they are winding their way up the steps to the front door of their museum. To illustrate this point, let us play the game, Morph Your Church into a Museum.</p>
<p>Here is how it works. Read each of the following statements. If a statement is true of your congregation, then give yourself 10 points. Once you reach 70 points, you are a museum. This does not mean your church ceases to exist, but only that it’s primary leadership function is one of being curators and docents in a museum.</p>
<p>1. We lack a truly positive and spiritual vision of the future toward which God is pulling our congregation. We are empowered more by the desire to achieve programmatic success and to be managed well, then we are to be on a spiritual and strategic journey into God’s future for us, and captivated by an ever clearer vision for our journey.</p>
<p>2. More than 80 percent of our annual operating or undesignated budget goes to support the direct and indirect costs of church staff, and buildings and grounds. This means we spend less than 20 percent of our budget on spiritual formation and missional engagement.</p>
<p>3. We spent an amount in a recent year greater than our annual operating or undesignated budget on refurbishing or buying and installing a new or used organ. We did this in spite of the fact that many people under 50 years old indicated they were not interested in an organ. It was primarily funded and enjoyed by those over 50 years old.</p>
<p>4. We built new or retrofitted an existing building on the fantasy of “If we build it they will come”. Our hope was to reach or retain a younger generation of people. We ignored the wisdom of having a strategy, then staffing it, and when it is successful and there is no other choice to provide a building to house it.</p>
<p>5. We refused to start a new worship service to reach a younger generation of people. Or, if we did, we scheduled it at a time they would not come, underfunded it, criticized it, and failed to pray for its success. Or, we started a new worship service so radically different from our current service that we were repulsed by it and ultimately sought to kill it.</p>
<p>6. We have a large endowment, and income from the endowment is more than 15 percent of our annual operating or undesignated budget. We realize this discourages the stewardship or generosity of our congregation, but we have become dependent on this passive income.</p>
<p>7. The average member of our congregation has been attending for at least 30 years. Many years ago we lost our zeal and effectiveness for attracting people into our congregation. Any new members are not from conversion growth, and seldom from biological growth. Only a trickle of transfer growth from other congregations provides new members. The number of new members is not enough to offset the loss of members by transferring out or death.</p>
<p>8. The most prominent picture hanging on a wall in the church is of a Sunday several decades ago when the sanctuary was full to overflowing for a special occasion in the life of the congregation. This picture demonstrates the most important aspirational core value of the church which the senior or solo pastor is expected to lead the church to achieve again.</p>
<p>9. The top stated priority of the congregation is to reach young adult households. The top unstated priority of the congregation is that young adult households will not be allowed to change the basic character and nature of the congregation.</p>
<p>10. One of these dates—1955, 1965, 1975, or 1985—represents the best years in the life of the congregation. It has now been at least a generation since the best years were experienced.</p>
<p>What is your score? What does it mean? Are you already a museum? If so, is there a clear way forward to once again function as a movement? Are you headed to becoming a museum? If so, what course corrections can you make right now?</p>
<p>What other statements would you add that may characterize congregations who are moving from movement to museum?</p> | Let’s play: morph your church into a museum | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/lets-play-morph-your-church-into-a-museum/ | 3left-center
| Let’s play: morph your church into a museum
<p>The long-range goal of many congregations is to turn their church into a museum. It is not intentional. It is unintentional. It is just that actions taken year after year migrates them away from thriving as a missional movement to existing as an institutionalized organization much like a museum.</p>
<p>They believe the pre-museum actions seem like the right thing to do. They fall prey to short-term thinking such as the following: We need that new building to keep and to attract youth. We need to refurbish the organ or install a new one. We need to revitalize our programs because they seem so comfortable to us, and worked so well in years past.</p>
<p>Our view of our pastor is one of chaplain. Therefore, as we get more older people we need to hire an associate chaplain. We have so many needs here that we cannot afford to give all of that money to missional engagement outside our congregation.</p>
<p>The more of these kinds of actions a congregation takes, the more they are winding their way up the steps to the front door of their museum. To illustrate this point, let us play the game, Morph Your Church into a Museum.</p>
<p>Here is how it works. Read each of the following statements. If a statement is true of your congregation, then give yourself 10 points. Once you reach 70 points, you are a museum. This does not mean your church ceases to exist, but only that it’s primary leadership function is one of being curators and docents in a museum.</p>
<p>1. We lack a truly positive and spiritual vision of the future toward which God is pulling our congregation. We are empowered more by the desire to achieve programmatic success and to be managed well, then we are to be on a spiritual and strategic journey into God’s future for us, and captivated by an ever clearer vision for our journey.</p>
<p>2. More than 80 percent of our annual operating or undesignated budget goes to support the direct and indirect costs of church staff, and buildings and grounds. This means we spend less than 20 percent of our budget on spiritual formation and missional engagement.</p>
<p>3. We spent an amount in a recent year greater than our annual operating or undesignated budget on refurbishing or buying and installing a new or used organ. We did this in spite of the fact that many people under 50 years old indicated they were not interested in an organ. It was primarily funded and enjoyed by those over 50 years old.</p>
<p>4. We built new or retrofitted an existing building on the fantasy of “If we build it they will come”. Our hope was to reach or retain a younger generation of people. We ignored the wisdom of having a strategy, then staffing it, and when it is successful and there is no other choice to provide a building to house it.</p>
<p>5. We refused to start a new worship service to reach a younger generation of people. Or, if we did, we scheduled it at a time they would not come, underfunded it, criticized it, and failed to pray for its success. Or, we started a new worship service so radically different from our current service that we were repulsed by it and ultimately sought to kill it.</p>
<p>6. We have a large endowment, and income from the endowment is more than 15 percent of our annual operating or undesignated budget. We realize this discourages the stewardship or generosity of our congregation, but we have become dependent on this passive income.</p>
<p>7. The average member of our congregation has been attending for at least 30 years. Many years ago we lost our zeal and effectiveness for attracting people into our congregation. Any new members are not from conversion growth, and seldom from biological growth. Only a trickle of transfer growth from other congregations provides new members. The number of new members is not enough to offset the loss of members by transferring out or death.</p>
<p>8. The most prominent picture hanging on a wall in the church is of a Sunday several decades ago when the sanctuary was full to overflowing for a special occasion in the life of the congregation. This picture demonstrates the most important aspirational core value of the church which the senior or solo pastor is expected to lead the church to achieve again.</p>
<p>9. The top stated priority of the congregation is to reach young adult households. The top unstated priority of the congregation is that young adult households will not be allowed to change the basic character and nature of the congregation.</p>
<p>10. One of these dates—1955, 1965, 1975, or 1985—represents the best years in the life of the congregation. It has now been at least a generation since the best years were experienced.</p>
<p>What is your score? What does it mean? Are you already a museum? If so, is there a clear way forward to once again function as a movement? Are you headed to becoming a museum? If so, what course corrections can you make right now?</p>
<p>What other statements would you add that may characterize congregations who are moving from movement to museum?</p> | 3,830 |
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<p>FILE - In this Sept. 11, 2015, file photo, a firefighter turns his head from flames of the Butte Fire burning near San Andreas, Calif. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection released a report Thursday, April 28, 2016, detailing the cause of the fire in Calaveras and Amador counties. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)</p>
<p>SAN FRANCISCO - California officials say they will seek more than $90 million in firefighting costs from Pacific Gas &amp; Electric Co. after finding that a deadly 2015 fire was sparked by a tree that came into contact with a power line.</p>
<p>The utility said it accepts the cause but says it is not clear that it was to blame for the tree failing.</p>
<p>The $90 million is the largest recovery sought by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, which released a report Thursday detailing the cause of the fire that scorched remote Calaveras and Amador counties, about 125 miles east of San Francisco.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The blaze that started Sept. 9 burned for three weeks, killing two people and destroying more than 900 structures, including about 550 homes. The 110-square-mile fire caused an estimated $300 million in insured losses and is the seventh-most destructive wildfire in state history.</p>
<p>Cal Fire said the state's largest utility and its contractors failed to provide proper maintenance after removing two gray pine trees from a stand in January 2015, exposing a weaker, skinnier interior tree.</p>
<p>The 44-foot-tall gray pine tree grew taller, seeking the sun, but it eventually slumped into a power line, according to the report.</p>
<p>But PG&amp;E said in a statement later Thursday that based on its own review "we do not believe it is clear what caused the tree to fail or that vegetation management practices fell short."</p>
<p>The state's finding did not surprise Steve Campora, a Sacramento attorney who represents roughly 900 people suing San Francisco-based PG&amp;E for fire-related losses. He said about 17 law firms throughout the state are representing about 1,800 people whose claims include loss of enjoyment of land and loss of treasured collections, including a telephone collection.</p>
<p>"One family has been on the property since 1862, and it burned. Luckily, the family home survived, but it burned 900 acres," he said.</p>
<p>In a statement, a PG&amp;E spokesman said the company was reviewing Thursday's report. "We cooperated fully with Cal Fire in its investigation on the source of the ignition for the Butte fire. We are committed to doing the right thing for our customers and will respond in the normal legal process," Matt Nauman said.</p>
<p>This is not the largest amount sought or recouped by an agency for wildfire costs. The U.S. Attorney's office that covers the eastern district of California collected $102 million from Union Pacific Railroad in 2008 for a wildfire that torched Plumas and Lassen counties in 2000.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The Calaveras County Board of Supervisors issued a statement Thursday saying it would seek "hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation" from the utility. The board said it will also ask the California Public Utilities Commission, which oversees the company, for an investigation and penalties.</p>
<p>Public Utilities Commission Chairman Michael Picker said last year that the utility continued to rack up accidents, some of them fatal, and questioned whether PG&amp;E lacked a culture of safety that made the utility's leadership accountable.</p>
<p>In 2010, a natural gas pipeline explosion rocked San Bruno, a suburb of San Francisco, killing eight people and destroying more than three dozen homes. The explosion resulted in a record $1.6 billion state penalty against the company.</p>
<p>Cal Fire has spent $400 million this fiscal year battling wildfires.</p>
<p>Until Thursday, the agency's largest civil recovery effort was for a pair of 2007 wildfires in San Diego County, Cal Fire spokeswoman Janet Upton said.</p>
<p>The state sought to recover $25.5 million and settled for just over $22 million.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>AP reporter Ellen Knickmeyer contributed to this report.</p> | California seeks $90 million from utility over wildfire | false | https://abqjournal.com/765725/california-seeks-90-million-from-utility-over-wildfire.html | 2least
| California seeks $90 million from utility over wildfire
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<p>FILE - In this Sept. 11, 2015, file photo, a firefighter turns his head from flames of the Butte Fire burning near San Andreas, Calif. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection released a report Thursday, April 28, 2016, detailing the cause of the fire in Calaveras and Amador counties. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)</p>
<p>SAN FRANCISCO - California officials say they will seek more than $90 million in firefighting costs from Pacific Gas &amp; Electric Co. after finding that a deadly 2015 fire was sparked by a tree that came into contact with a power line.</p>
<p>The utility said it accepts the cause but says it is not clear that it was to blame for the tree failing.</p>
<p>The $90 million is the largest recovery sought by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, which released a report Thursday detailing the cause of the fire that scorched remote Calaveras and Amador counties, about 125 miles east of San Francisco.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The blaze that started Sept. 9 burned for three weeks, killing two people and destroying more than 900 structures, including about 550 homes. The 110-square-mile fire caused an estimated $300 million in insured losses and is the seventh-most destructive wildfire in state history.</p>
<p>Cal Fire said the state's largest utility and its contractors failed to provide proper maintenance after removing two gray pine trees from a stand in January 2015, exposing a weaker, skinnier interior tree.</p>
<p>The 44-foot-tall gray pine tree grew taller, seeking the sun, but it eventually slumped into a power line, according to the report.</p>
<p>But PG&amp;E said in a statement later Thursday that based on its own review "we do not believe it is clear what caused the tree to fail or that vegetation management practices fell short."</p>
<p>The state's finding did not surprise Steve Campora, a Sacramento attorney who represents roughly 900 people suing San Francisco-based PG&amp;E for fire-related losses. He said about 17 law firms throughout the state are representing about 1,800 people whose claims include loss of enjoyment of land and loss of treasured collections, including a telephone collection.</p>
<p>"One family has been on the property since 1862, and it burned. Luckily, the family home survived, but it burned 900 acres," he said.</p>
<p>In a statement, a PG&amp;E spokesman said the company was reviewing Thursday's report. "We cooperated fully with Cal Fire in its investigation on the source of the ignition for the Butte fire. We are committed to doing the right thing for our customers and will respond in the normal legal process," Matt Nauman said.</p>
<p>This is not the largest amount sought or recouped by an agency for wildfire costs. The U.S. Attorney's office that covers the eastern district of California collected $102 million from Union Pacific Railroad in 2008 for a wildfire that torched Plumas and Lassen counties in 2000.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The Calaveras County Board of Supervisors issued a statement Thursday saying it would seek "hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation" from the utility. The board said it will also ask the California Public Utilities Commission, which oversees the company, for an investigation and penalties.</p>
<p>Public Utilities Commission Chairman Michael Picker said last year that the utility continued to rack up accidents, some of them fatal, and questioned whether PG&amp;E lacked a culture of safety that made the utility's leadership accountable.</p>
<p>In 2010, a natural gas pipeline explosion rocked San Bruno, a suburb of San Francisco, killing eight people and destroying more than three dozen homes. The explosion resulted in a record $1.6 billion state penalty against the company.</p>
<p>Cal Fire has spent $400 million this fiscal year battling wildfires.</p>
<p>Until Thursday, the agency's largest civil recovery effort was for a pair of 2007 wildfires in San Diego County, Cal Fire spokeswoman Janet Upton said.</p>
<p>The state sought to recover $25.5 million and settled for just over $22 million.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>AP reporter Ellen Knickmeyer contributed to this report.</p> | 3,831 |
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<p>MOUNTAIN VIEW, Colo. - Police in suburban Denver say an officer shot a driver armed with a shotgun during a traffic stop.</p>
<p>The shooting happened Sunday night after an officer from the town of Mountain View pulled the vehicle over in nearby Denver. Police say the man got out of the vehicle with the shotgun and the officer fired at him.</p>
<p>Police say the man was taken to a hospital with serious injuries. His name hasn't been released.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Police: Driver with shotgun shot by officer | false | https://abqjournal.com/690912/police-driver-with-shotgun-shot-by-officer.html | 2least
| Police: Driver with shotgun shot by officer
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>MOUNTAIN VIEW, Colo. - Police in suburban Denver say an officer shot a driver armed with a shotgun during a traffic stop.</p>
<p>The shooting happened Sunday night after an officer from the town of Mountain View pulled the vehicle over in nearby Denver. Police say the man got out of the vehicle with the shotgun and the officer fired at him.</p>
<p>Police say the man was taken to a hospital with serious injuries. His name hasn't been released.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | 3,832 |
|
<p />
<p>Not all personality <a href="https://www.recruiter.com/assessment.html" type="external">assessments Opens a New Window.</a> are created equal. Does the one you're using make the grade?</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Whether you're looking to hire and develop top performers, identify high-potential employees and future leaders, address performance issues, or build more collaborative and productive teams, personality assessments can be an invaluable tool. An effective assessment shines a light on people's intrinsic strengths, behavioral tendencies, and developmental pitfalls, enabling you to make more informed decisions about your human capital.</p>
<p>The challenge is choosing the right assessment. A good one can help transform your organization; a bad one is, at the very least, a waste of time and money. With so many options on the market — from pricier assessments that have been around for decades to inexpensive phone apps that arrived on the scene last week — how do business leaders sift through the clutter and find out what works?</p>
<p>The truth is that anyone can invest a few dollars in software and claim to be an "assessment company." If you're serious about transforming your organization into one that is more productive, forward-thinking, and profitable, here are seven points to consider to ensure you're using a viable assessment tool:</p>
<p>1. Work-Related Behaviors</p>
<p>Does your assessment specifically measure work-related behaviors, as opposed to general characteristics and styles?</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>There are so many fun assessments that reveal information about a person's style. This is often entertaining and helpful to know; however, the context of this information varies greatly depending on the job. For example, while a strong degree of accommodation is important in a customer service representative, it's a much less desirable trait for a collection agent who needs to be firm and persistent. An effective assessment measures traits that can predict someone's performance in the workplace behaviors relevant to a specific job, which can provide you with the critical insights you need to make informed decisions.</p>
<p>2. Validity</p>
<p>For the job-matching aspect of an assessment to be valid, your vendor should be taking measures to ensure the predictability and reliability of the tool is sound today and over time. This means conducting continuous research, evaluations, and revisions regarding the science behind the tool. A good assessment meets scientific standards for validity (showing that it really measures what it claims to measure). All of this should be validated against specific job families and job-related behaviors while accounting for changes in behavioral normative data over time.</p>
<p>Best practices in validation work include maintaining a technical manual that supports the veracity of the assessment's results. The technical manual should contain all of the data regarding the research behind the tool, including data about correlations for predictive reliability. Most experts would consider this to be the most important quality of a good preemployment and development assessment.</p>
<p>3. Versatility</p>
<p>Can the information gleaned from the report also offer insights that can be used for other phases of talent management, or is it only viable for single-use selection?</p>
<p>If your applicant is going to spend an hour or more completing a personality assessment, you should be gaining a multidimensional view of that person's motivations and inclinations. A versatile instrument not only measures a person's dynamics relative to a given position, but it can also be utilized to support coaching and development, team building, succession planning, and department or organizational engagements around performance improvement. The data can be used throughout the employee life cycle, without the employee having to spend valuable time completing further assessments.</p>
<p>4. Cognitive Measurement</p>
<p>Does your tool also measure how a person is inclined to approach problem solving?</p>
<p>Let's face it: All of the personality in the world is great, but if an assessment doesn't measure someone's problem-solving style, you will miss a fundamental component of job performance. In evaluating concrete vs. abstract thinking, a good assessment makes a valuable distinction regarding which assessee would be better at straightforward decisions and which would be more adept at tackling complex business issues. This data is valuable on its own, but it can become even more beneficial when it is combined with other key attributes to predict performance in broader competencies, such as business acumen and strategic thinking.</p>
<p>5. Compliance</p>
<p>When you are using any assessment for hiring, you want to know with 100 percent certainty that the results do not discriminate against any protected class. Top assessment companies do their own research and testing, and that includes evaluating their products for Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance to ensure their products never discriminate based on gender, race, age, or physical disability. Assessments used for selection in particular must be compliant with labor laws and regulatory guidelines.</p>
<p>6. Format</p>
<p>One of the biggest sources of skepticism toward personality assessments is the potential for fakability (a design flaw that allows an assessee to manipulate the answers so that the results are unduly favorable). While validity testing can help an assessment company ensure its instrument is consistent, proper construction is required to limit the potential for distortion. A <a href="https://www.psychometrictest.org.uk/ipsative-items/" type="external">semi-ipsative Opens a New Window.</a> (forced-choice) format yields far more accurate results than a simple <a href="https://www.simplypsychology.org/likert-scale.html" type="external">Likert-type scale Opens a New Window.</a>. Do not be fooled by assessments with overly rosy results: No human being can be the best of everything.</p>
<p>7. Duration</p>
<p>The length of an assessment is another factor that prevents a person from gaming the system. A brief assessment that only takes a few minutes to complete can be easily faked, which suggests it won't be very accurate. It is harder for individuals to consistently manipulate answers over time. Duration enhances consistency and accuracy of trait distribution, leading to more reliable results. A good assessment is long enough to obtain a detailed picture of an applicant's behavioral tendencies while still respecting the applicant's time and the speed of your business.</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>With assessment instruments, the accuracy of the data is critical both to making good talent-management decisions and to gaining commitment from your employees in their coaching and development. By ensuring that the tool you ultimately choose meets these seven fundamental standards, you will achieve better business results and, in the end, a far higher return on your investment.</p>
<p>Jacque Casoni is director, account development, at <a href="https://www.calipercorp.com/" type="external">Caliper Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | 7 Qualities of an Effective Personality Assessment | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/12/02/7-qualities-effective-personality-assessment.html | 2017-12-07 | 0right
| 7 Qualities of an Effective Personality Assessment
<p />
<p>Not all personality <a href="https://www.recruiter.com/assessment.html" type="external">assessments Opens a New Window.</a> are created equal. Does the one you're using make the grade?</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Whether you're looking to hire and develop top performers, identify high-potential employees and future leaders, address performance issues, or build more collaborative and productive teams, personality assessments can be an invaluable tool. An effective assessment shines a light on people's intrinsic strengths, behavioral tendencies, and developmental pitfalls, enabling you to make more informed decisions about your human capital.</p>
<p>The challenge is choosing the right assessment. A good one can help transform your organization; a bad one is, at the very least, a waste of time and money. With so many options on the market — from pricier assessments that have been around for decades to inexpensive phone apps that arrived on the scene last week — how do business leaders sift through the clutter and find out what works?</p>
<p>The truth is that anyone can invest a few dollars in software and claim to be an "assessment company." If you're serious about transforming your organization into one that is more productive, forward-thinking, and profitable, here are seven points to consider to ensure you're using a viable assessment tool:</p>
<p>1. Work-Related Behaviors</p>
<p>Does your assessment specifically measure work-related behaviors, as opposed to general characteristics and styles?</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>There are so many fun assessments that reveal information about a person's style. This is often entertaining and helpful to know; however, the context of this information varies greatly depending on the job. For example, while a strong degree of accommodation is important in a customer service representative, it's a much less desirable trait for a collection agent who needs to be firm and persistent. An effective assessment measures traits that can predict someone's performance in the workplace behaviors relevant to a specific job, which can provide you with the critical insights you need to make informed decisions.</p>
<p>2. Validity</p>
<p>For the job-matching aspect of an assessment to be valid, your vendor should be taking measures to ensure the predictability and reliability of the tool is sound today and over time. This means conducting continuous research, evaluations, and revisions regarding the science behind the tool. A good assessment meets scientific standards for validity (showing that it really measures what it claims to measure). All of this should be validated against specific job families and job-related behaviors while accounting for changes in behavioral normative data over time.</p>
<p>Best practices in validation work include maintaining a technical manual that supports the veracity of the assessment's results. The technical manual should contain all of the data regarding the research behind the tool, including data about correlations for predictive reliability. Most experts would consider this to be the most important quality of a good preemployment and development assessment.</p>
<p>3. Versatility</p>
<p>Can the information gleaned from the report also offer insights that can be used for other phases of talent management, or is it only viable for single-use selection?</p>
<p>If your applicant is going to spend an hour or more completing a personality assessment, you should be gaining a multidimensional view of that person's motivations and inclinations. A versatile instrument not only measures a person's dynamics relative to a given position, but it can also be utilized to support coaching and development, team building, succession planning, and department or organizational engagements around performance improvement. The data can be used throughout the employee life cycle, without the employee having to spend valuable time completing further assessments.</p>
<p>4. Cognitive Measurement</p>
<p>Does your tool also measure how a person is inclined to approach problem solving?</p>
<p>Let's face it: All of the personality in the world is great, but if an assessment doesn't measure someone's problem-solving style, you will miss a fundamental component of job performance. In evaluating concrete vs. abstract thinking, a good assessment makes a valuable distinction regarding which assessee would be better at straightforward decisions and which would be more adept at tackling complex business issues. This data is valuable on its own, but it can become even more beneficial when it is combined with other key attributes to predict performance in broader competencies, such as business acumen and strategic thinking.</p>
<p>5. Compliance</p>
<p>When you are using any assessment for hiring, you want to know with 100 percent certainty that the results do not discriminate against any protected class. Top assessment companies do their own research and testing, and that includes evaluating their products for Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance to ensure their products never discriminate based on gender, race, age, or physical disability. Assessments used for selection in particular must be compliant with labor laws and regulatory guidelines.</p>
<p>6. Format</p>
<p>One of the biggest sources of skepticism toward personality assessments is the potential for fakability (a design flaw that allows an assessee to manipulate the answers so that the results are unduly favorable). While validity testing can help an assessment company ensure its instrument is consistent, proper construction is required to limit the potential for distortion. A <a href="https://www.psychometrictest.org.uk/ipsative-items/" type="external">semi-ipsative Opens a New Window.</a> (forced-choice) format yields far more accurate results than a simple <a href="https://www.simplypsychology.org/likert-scale.html" type="external">Likert-type scale Opens a New Window.</a>. Do not be fooled by assessments with overly rosy results: No human being can be the best of everything.</p>
<p>7. Duration</p>
<p>The length of an assessment is another factor that prevents a person from gaming the system. A brief assessment that only takes a few minutes to complete can be easily faked, which suggests it won't be very accurate. It is harder for individuals to consistently manipulate answers over time. Duration enhances consistency and accuracy of trait distribution, leading to more reliable results. A good assessment is long enough to obtain a detailed picture of an applicant's behavioral tendencies while still respecting the applicant's time and the speed of your business.</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>With assessment instruments, the accuracy of the data is critical both to making good talent-management decisions and to gaining commitment from your employees in their coaching and development. By ensuring that the tool you ultimately choose meets these seven fundamental standards, you will achieve better business results and, in the end, a far higher return on your investment.</p>
<p>Jacque Casoni is director, account development, at <a href="https://www.calipercorp.com/" type="external">Caliper Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | 3,833 |
<p />
<p>Recent hacks of election data systems in at least two states have raised fear among lawmakers and intelligence officials that a foreign government is trying to seed doubt about — or even manipulate — the presidential race, renewing debate over when cyberattacks cross red lines and warrant a U.S. response.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Federal officials already are investigating cyberattacks at the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, believed to be the work of hackers tied to the Russian government. Trolling a private organization's emails is one thing, cyberexperts say, but breaching state election systems to undermine the integrity of the November ballot would be quite another.</p>
<p>"The mere access to those systems is incredibly concerning to me," said Sean Kanuck, former national intelligence officer for cyber issues at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. "I think that the manipulation of election data or voting systems would warrant a national security response."</p>
<p>No one has yet confirmed that data was actually manipulated. Law enforcement and intelligence officials are investigating the election-related breaches, but also are looking at the extent to which Russia could be involved in a disinformation campaign to diminish U.S. clout worldwide. Russian President Vladimir Putin says Moscow wasn't involved in the hacking of emails of the Democratic Party.</p>
<p>Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said last week he thinks it's unlikely that Russia is trying to influence the election. "I think maybe the Democrats are putting that out," he said on RT America, the U.S. partner of Kremlin-backed network Russia Today.</p>
<p>But Defense Secretary Ash Carter issued a public warning to Moscow last week while in Europe. "We will not ignore attempts to interfere with our democratic processes," Carter said. Asked later to elaborate, Carter said he was referring to Russia's use of hybrid warfare — "interference in the internal affairs of nations, short of war" — which he said is a concern across Europe.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Late last month, the FBI sent a "flash alert" to warn state officials to strengthen their election systems in light of evidence that hackers targeted data systems in two states. The FBI described a "compromise" of one elections board website and "attempted intrusion activities" in another state's system. The FBI didn't name the states, but state election websites in Illinois and Arizona experienced hack-related shutdowns in the parts of the websites that handle online voter registration.</p>
<p>Manipulating an election in the United States would be difficult, officials say, because there are thousands of electoral jurisdictions across the 50 states.</p>
<p>Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Thursday that the election system is "so decentralized, so vast ... it would very difficult to alter the count."</p>
<p>FBI Director James Comey agrees.</p>
<p>"The vote counting in this country tends to be kind of clunky," which is a blessing because it makes harder for hackers to infiltrate, Comey said. "It makes it more resilient and farther away from an actor who might be looking to crawl down a fiber-optic cable, and find there actually is no fiber optic cable — that it's actually some woman named Sally and a guy named Joe and they roll the thing (voting machine) over and pull out the punch cards," Comey said.</p>
<p>Such reassurances have not eased concern on Capitol Hill, yet reaction has been mixed.</p>
<p>Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada was "deeply shaken" after a half-hour briefing about Russian activities that he received at the FBI office in Las Vegas, according to an individual familiar with the briefing. The individual was not authorized to publicly discuss the briefing and spoke only on condition of anonymity.</p>
<p>An aide to another senator, who also was briefed, said what gave the lawmaker "pause" was that Russia might be meddling in the United States in the same way it has in Eastern Europe where it has a history of using cyberattacks to facilitate their political objectives.</p>
<p>Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said there is bipartisan concern about the "Russian government engaging in covert influence activities." He said a section of this year's intelligence authorization bill directs the president to set up an interagency committee to 'counter active measures by Russia to exert covert influence over peoples and governments.'"</p>
<p>Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said, however, that he's not surprised by the hacks.</p>
<p>"I just think people have been asleep," he said. "This is the challenge of going to digital records, digital voting. This is why it's imperative to keep paper voting."</p>
<p>How the U.S. should respond to cyberattacks is the subject of much debate.</p>
<p>John Carlin, assistant attorney general for national security at the Justice Department, described a three-pronged approach: figure out who's responsible, don't be afraid to take it public and routinely impose consequences.</p>
<p>Andrew McCabe, deputy director of the FBI, said each one of those steps presents challenges. "In terms of options for action, they are limited — very understandably sometimes — by international policy constraints, diplomatic challenges and the concern about the impact on partners and relationship with partners."</p>
<p>California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said each cyberattack will require a different U.S. response. In some cases, it could begin with "naming and shaming" responsible parties, he said. Other cases call for economic or other sanctions. When it comes to cyberattacks by North Korea, perhaps the U.S. should consider dropping public leaflets aimed at denouncing the repressive North Korean government, he said.</p>
<p>"I think the failure to act, the failure to establish any deterrent, the failure to even name responsible parties — particularly in the case of Russia — only invites further exploitation, further attacks and further effort to disrupt our elections," Schiff said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writer Alicia A. Caldwell contributed to this report.</p> | Election hacks raise fears of Russian influence | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2016/09/10/election-hacks-raise-fears-russian-influence.html | 2016-09-12 | 0right
| Election hacks raise fears of Russian influence
<p />
<p>Recent hacks of election data systems in at least two states have raised fear among lawmakers and intelligence officials that a foreign government is trying to seed doubt about — or even manipulate — the presidential race, renewing debate over when cyberattacks cross red lines and warrant a U.S. response.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Federal officials already are investigating cyberattacks at the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, believed to be the work of hackers tied to the Russian government. Trolling a private organization's emails is one thing, cyberexperts say, but breaching state election systems to undermine the integrity of the November ballot would be quite another.</p>
<p>"The mere access to those systems is incredibly concerning to me," said Sean Kanuck, former national intelligence officer for cyber issues at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. "I think that the manipulation of election data or voting systems would warrant a national security response."</p>
<p>No one has yet confirmed that data was actually manipulated. Law enforcement and intelligence officials are investigating the election-related breaches, but also are looking at the extent to which Russia could be involved in a disinformation campaign to diminish U.S. clout worldwide. Russian President Vladimir Putin says Moscow wasn't involved in the hacking of emails of the Democratic Party.</p>
<p>Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said last week he thinks it's unlikely that Russia is trying to influence the election. "I think maybe the Democrats are putting that out," he said on RT America, the U.S. partner of Kremlin-backed network Russia Today.</p>
<p>But Defense Secretary Ash Carter issued a public warning to Moscow last week while in Europe. "We will not ignore attempts to interfere with our democratic processes," Carter said. Asked later to elaborate, Carter said he was referring to Russia's use of hybrid warfare — "interference in the internal affairs of nations, short of war" — which he said is a concern across Europe.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Late last month, the FBI sent a "flash alert" to warn state officials to strengthen their election systems in light of evidence that hackers targeted data systems in two states. The FBI described a "compromise" of one elections board website and "attempted intrusion activities" in another state's system. The FBI didn't name the states, but state election websites in Illinois and Arizona experienced hack-related shutdowns in the parts of the websites that handle online voter registration.</p>
<p>Manipulating an election in the United States would be difficult, officials say, because there are thousands of electoral jurisdictions across the 50 states.</p>
<p>Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Thursday that the election system is "so decentralized, so vast ... it would very difficult to alter the count."</p>
<p>FBI Director James Comey agrees.</p>
<p>"The vote counting in this country tends to be kind of clunky," which is a blessing because it makes harder for hackers to infiltrate, Comey said. "It makes it more resilient and farther away from an actor who might be looking to crawl down a fiber-optic cable, and find there actually is no fiber optic cable — that it's actually some woman named Sally and a guy named Joe and they roll the thing (voting machine) over and pull out the punch cards," Comey said.</p>
<p>Such reassurances have not eased concern on Capitol Hill, yet reaction has been mixed.</p>
<p>Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada was "deeply shaken" after a half-hour briefing about Russian activities that he received at the FBI office in Las Vegas, according to an individual familiar with the briefing. The individual was not authorized to publicly discuss the briefing and spoke only on condition of anonymity.</p>
<p>An aide to another senator, who also was briefed, said what gave the lawmaker "pause" was that Russia might be meddling in the United States in the same way it has in Eastern Europe where it has a history of using cyberattacks to facilitate their political objectives.</p>
<p>Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said there is bipartisan concern about the "Russian government engaging in covert influence activities." He said a section of this year's intelligence authorization bill directs the president to set up an interagency committee to 'counter active measures by Russia to exert covert influence over peoples and governments.'"</p>
<p>Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said, however, that he's not surprised by the hacks.</p>
<p>"I just think people have been asleep," he said. "This is the challenge of going to digital records, digital voting. This is why it's imperative to keep paper voting."</p>
<p>How the U.S. should respond to cyberattacks is the subject of much debate.</p>
<p>John Carlin, assistant attorney general for national security at the Justice Department, described a three-pronged approach: figure out who's responsible, don't be afraid to take it public and routinely impose consequences.</p>
<p>Andrew McCabe, deputy director of the FBI, said each one of those steps presents challenges. "In terms of options for action, they are limited — very understandably sometimes — by international policy constraints, diplomatic challenges and the concern about the impact on partners and relationship with partners."</p>
<p>California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said each cyberattack will require a different U.S. response. In some cases, it could begin with "naming and shaming" responsible parties, he said. Other cases call for economic or other sanctions. When it comes to cyberattacks by North Korea, perhaps the U.S. should consider dropping public leaflets aimed at denouncing the repressive North Korean government, he said.</p>
<p>"I think the failure to act, the failure to establish any deterrent, the failure to even name responsible parties — particularly in the case of Russia — only invites further exploitation, further attacks and further effort to disrupt our elections," Schiff said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writer Alicia A. Caldwell contributed to this report.</p> | 3,834 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>The Thompson Ridge Fire near Jemez Springs in northern New Mexico in June 2013. (U.S. Forest Service/AP)</p>
<p>In and around Albuquerque, <a href="" type="internal">10,800 homeowners living in the wildland urban interface are at risk of fire</a>, my colleague Winthrop Quigley reports this morning:</p>
<p>The danger is very real, said Bernalillo County Fire Marshal Chris Gober. “It’s not a matter of if but when does the fire hit.”</p>
<p>“People have this sense it won’t happen in my backyard,” he said. “We haven’t had a fire in the Sandias or the East Mountain area for decades. We’ve been lucky. The time will come when there is a fire, and it will be a devastating fire.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | The scale of New Mexico fire risk | false | https://abqjournal.com/294133/the-scale-of-new-mexico-fire-risk.html | 2least
| The scale of New Mexico fire risk
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>The Thompson Ridge Fire near Jemez Springs in northern New Mexico in June 2013. (U.S. Forest Service/AP)</p>
<p>In and around Albuquerque, <a href="" type="internal">10,800 homeowners living in the wildland urban interface are at risk of fire</a>, my colleague Winthrop Quigley reports this morning:</p>
<p>The danger is very real, said Bernalillo County Fire Marshal Chris Gober. “It’s not a matter of if but when does the fire hit.”</p>
<p>“People have this sense it won’t happen in my backyard,” he said. “We haven’t had a fire in the Sandias or the East Mountain area for decades. We’ve been lucky. The time will come when there is a fire, and it will be a devastating fire.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | 3,835 |
|
<p>By Shoon LeiWinNaing and Simon Lewis</p>
<p>YANGON/COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (Reuters) – Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi said on Thursday her government was doing its best to protect everyone in the strife-torn state of Rakhine, as the estimated number of Rohingya Muslims who have fled to Bangladesh leapt by 18,000 in one day, to 164,000.</p>
<p>Suu Kyi did not refer specifically to the exodus of the minority Rohingya, which was sparked by insurgent attacks on Aug. 25 and an army counter-offensive, but said her administration was trying its best to take care of all citizens.</p>
<p>Western critics have accused Suu Kyi of not speaking out for the Rohingya, some 1.1 million people who have long complained of persecution and are seen by many in Buddhist-majority Myanmar as illegal migrants from Bangladesh.</p>
<p>Some have called for the Nobel Peace Prize she won in 1991 as a champion of democracy to be revoked.</p>
<p>“We have to take care of our citizens, we have to take care of everybody who is in our country, whether or not they are our citizens,” Suu Kyi said in comments to Reuters Television’s Indian partner, Asian News International.</p>
<p>“Of course, our resources are not as complete and adequate as we would like them to be but, still, we try our best and we want to make sure that everyone is entitled to the protection of the law,” she said during a visit by Indian Prime Narendra Modi to Yangon.</p>
<p>Suu Kyi on Tuesday blamed “terrorists” for “a huge iceberg of misinformation” on the strife in the northwestern state of Rakhine but made no mention of the Rohingya who have fled.</p>
<p>She has come under increasing pressure from countries with Muslim populations, and this week U.N. Security Council Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned there was a risk of ethnic cleansing in Myanmar that could destabilize the region.</p>
<p>Myanmar has said it is negotiating with China and Russia to ensure they block any Security Council censure over the crisis.</p>
<p>Suu Kyi said the situation in Rakhine has been difficult for many decades and so it was “a little unreasonable” to expect her administration, which has been in power for 18 months, to have resolved it already.</p>
<p>“WE NEED TO WIPE OUT TERRORISM”</p>
<p>Myanmar says its forces are fighting a legitimate campaign against terrorists responsible for a string of attacks on the police and army since last October. Officials blame Rohingya militants for killing non-Muslims and burning their homes.</p>
<p>“We need to wipe out the threat of the terrorism in those regions,” Ko Ko Hlaing, a presidential adviser of the previous government said on Thursday at a forum arranged by military-owned media to discuss the crisis.</p>
<p>He said rehabilitation and development are important and the citizenship issue must be settled, but the first priority needed to be “the detoxification of dangerous ideology of extremism”.</p>
<p>Suu Kyi’s spokesman, Zaw Htay, on Thursday posted what he said were “photos of Bengalis setting fire to their houses”.</p>
<p>The pictures of several sword-wielding women wearing headscarfs and men in Islamic prayer caps, or “Kufi”, setting a house on fire, which were published in one of the country’s leading newspapers, were also shared widely by the military.</p>
<p>“These photos showing that Bengalis are torching their houses emerge at a time when international media have made groundless accusations of setting fire to Bengali houses by the government security forces and the killings of Bengalis,” said the Eleven Media daily</p>
<p>But the photographs sparked controversy on social media with many people who identified themselves as Myanmar Muslims saying they appeared staged.</p>
<p>EXODUS COULD REACH 300,000</p>
<p>Rights monitors and Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh say the Myanmar army has been trying to force them out of Rakhine state with a campaign of arson and killings.</p>
<p>Boatloads of exhausted Rohingya continued to arrive in the Cox’s Bazar region of neighboring Bangladesh on Thursday. The latest estimate by U.N. workers operating there put arrivals in just 13 days at 164,000, up from 146,000 from the day before.</p>
<p>U.N. officials in Bangladesh now believe the total number of refugees from Myanmar since Aug. 25 could reach 300,000, said Dipayan Bhattacharyya, who is Bangladesh spokesman for the World Food Programme (WFP).</p>
<p>The surge of refugees – many sick or wounded – has strained the resources of aid agencies and communities already helping hundreds of thousands from previous spasms of violence in Myanmar. Many have no shelter, and aid agencies are racing to provide clean water, sanitation and food.</p>
<p>“Many refugees are stranded in no-man’s land between the border with Myanmar,” medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said in a statement.</p>
<p>“Even prior to the most recent influx, many Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh lived in unsafe, overcrowded and unhygienic conditions, with little protection from the elements.”</p>
<p>It said more nurses, midwives and doctors had been brought in to tackle violence-related injuries, severely infected wounds and obstetric complications.</p> | Suu Kyi says Myanmar trying to protect all citizens in strife-torn state | false | https://newsline.com/suu-kyi-says-myanmar-trying-to-protect-all-citizens-in-strife-torn-state/ | 2017-09-07 | 1right-center
| Suu Kyi says Myanmar trying to protect all citizens in strife-torn state
<p>By Shoon LeiWinNaing and Simon Lewis</p>
<p>YANGON/COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (Reuters) – Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi said on Thursday her government was doing its best to protect everyone in the strife-torn state of Rakhine, as the estimated number of Rohingya Muslims who have fled to Bangladesh leapt by 18,000 in one day, to 164,000.</p>
<p>Suu Kyi did not refer specifically to the exodus of the minority Rohingya, which was sparked by insurgent attacks on Aug. 25 and an army counter-offensive, but said her administration was trying its best to take care of all citizens.</p>
<p>Western critics have accused Suu Kyi of not speaking out for the Rohingya, some 1.1 million people who have long complained of persecution and are seen by many in Buddhist-majority Myanmar as illegal migrants from Bangladesh.</p>
<p>Some have called for the Nobel Peace Prize she won in 1991 as a champion of democracy to be revoked.</p>
<p>“We have to take care of our citizens, we have to take care of everybody who is in our country, whether or not they are our citizens,” Suu Kyi said in comments to Reuters Television’s Indian partner, Asian News International.</p>
<p>“Of course, our resources are not as complete and adequate as we would like them to be but, still, we try our best and we want to make sure that everyone is entitled to the protection of the law,” she said during a visit by Indian Prime Narendra Modi to Yangon.</p>
<p>Suu Kyi on Tuesday blamed “terrorists” for “a huge iceberg of misinformation” on the strife in the northwestern state of Rakhine but made no mention of the Rohingya who have fled.</p>
<p>She has come under increasing pressure from countries with Muslim populations, and this week U.N. Security Council Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned there was a risk of ethnic cleansing in Myanmar that could destabilize the region.</p>
<p>Myanmar has said it is negotiating with China and Russia to ensure they block any Security Council censure over the crisis.</p>
<p>Suu Kyi said the situation in Rakhine has been difficult for many decades and so it was “a little unreasonable” to expect her administration, which has been in power for 18 months, to have resolved it already.</p>
<p>“WE NEED TO WIPE OUT TERRORISM”</p>
<p>Myanmar says its forces are fighting a legitimate campaign against terrorists responsible for a string of attacks on the police and army since last October. Officials blame Rohingya militants for killing non-Muslims and burning their homes.</p>
<p>“We need to wipe out the threat of the terrorism in those regions,” Ko Ko Hlaing, a presidential adviser of the previous government said on Thursday at a forum arranged by military-owned media to discuss the crisis.</p>
<p>He said rehabilitation and development are important and the citizenship issue must be settled, but the first priority needed to be “the detoxification of dangerous ideology of extremism”.</p>
<p>Suu Kyi’s spokesman, Zaw Htay, on Thursday posted what he said were “photos of Bengalis setting fire to their houses”.</p>
<p>The pictures of several sword-wielding women wearing headscarfs and men in Islamic prayer caps, or “Kufi”, setting a house on fire, which were published in one of the country’s leading newspapers, were also shared widely by the military.</p>
<p>“These photos showing that Bengalis are torching their houses emerge at a time when international media have made groundless accusations of setting fire to Bengali houses by the government security forces and the killings of Bengalis,” said the Eleven Media daily</p>
<p>But the photographs sparked controversy on social media with many people who identified themselves as Myanmar Muslims saying they appeared staged.</p>
<p>EXODUS COULD REACH 300,000</p>
<p>Rights monitors and Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh say the Myanmar army has been trying to force them out of Rakhine state with a campaign of arson and killings.</p>
<p>Boatloads of exhausted Rohingya continued to arrive in the Cox’s Bazar region of neighboring Bangladesh on Thursday. The latest estimate by U.N. workers operating there put arrivals in just 13 days at 164,000, up from 146,000 from the day before.</p>
<p>U.N. officials in Bangladesh now believe the total number of refugees from Myanmar since Aug. 25 could reach 300,000, said Dipayan Bhattacharyya, who is Bangladesh spokesman for the World Food Programme (WFP).</p>
<p>The surge of refugees – many sick or wounded – has strained the resources of aid agencies and communities already helping hundreds of thousands from previous spasms of violence in Myanmar. Many have no shelter, and aid agencies are racing to provide clean water, sanitation and food.</p>
<p>“Many refugees are stranded in no-man’s land between the border with Myanmar,” medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said in a statement.</p>
<p>“Even prior to the most recent influx, many Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh lived in unsafe, overcrowded and unhygienic conditions, with little protection from the elements.”</p>
<p>It said more nurses, midwives and doctors had been brought in to tackle violence-related injuries, severely infected wounds and obstetric complications.</p> | 3,836 |
<p />
<p>Oh those Brits. We <a href="/riff_blog/archives/2008/12/11161_cavalcade_of_be.html" type="external">just established</a> that they really seem to like Kings of Leon, but it turns out some of their own most exciting musical subcultures give the police the willies. The UK Independent <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/how-form-696-could-pull-the-plug-on-the-capitals-music-scene-1028240.html" type="external">reports</a> that music venues are to be subjected to a “new piece of bureaucracy” called Form 696, an eight-page questionnaire asking for private information about performers as well as the “ethnic background” of the likely audience. Eh, on what grounds, constable?</p>
<p>The police say they need the information demanded on the eight-page Form 696, which runs to eight pages, so they can pinpoint which acts and venues attract troublemakers, and make sure venues are safe. … The scheme was introduced by the Metropolitan Police after incidents at live music concerts in 2006, some involving guns. In theory, it applies to any licensed premises where there is live entertainment, but Detective Chief Superintendent Richard Martin, head of the Met’s pubs and vice squad, said that in reality it will apply only to performances likely to draw large crowds.</p>
<p>The form actually gives hints about what kinds of music might raise eyebrows back at the station: in the question about the type of music featured, examples given are “bashment, R&amp;B, garage,” styles that all happened to emerge from the UK’s black community. But the best part of the story is the spokesman against Form 696: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feargal_Sharkey" type="external">Feargal Sharkey</a> (above right), the former lead singer of The Undertones, whose goofball only-in-England name and terrible, silly ’80s solo hit “A Good Heart” makes him one of my favorite random references. Anyway, Feargal (chuckle) says that Form 696’s focus on the black community is “disproportionate, unacceptable and damaging to live music.” He even <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/feargal-sharkey-when-we-rocked-the-kasbah-the-band-was-bigger-than-the-crowd-1028239.html" type="external">wrote an op-ed</a> about it. One Londoner said musicians would likely refuse to fill out the form anyway. We’ll see where this goes, but in the meantime, let’s watch a Monty Python sketch about British police using silly voices, and Feargal Sharkey’s video for “A Good Heart.”</p>
<p>Monty Python – Silly Voice Police Sketch</p>
<p />
<p>Feargal Sharkey – “A Good Heart”</p>
<p />
<p /> | British Police to Ask Music Venues for Ethnic Background of Audiences | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2008/12/british-police-ask-music-venues-ethnic-background-audiences/ | 2008-12-03 | 4left
| British Police to Ask Music Venues for Ethnic Background of Audiences
<p />
<p>Oh those Brits. We <a href="/riff_blog/archives/2008/12/11161_cavalcade_of_be.html" type="external">just established</a> that they really seem to like Kings of Leon, but it turns out some of their own most exciting musical subcultures give the police the willies. The UK Independent <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/how-form-696-could-pull-the-plug-on-the-capitals-music-scene-1028240.html" type="external">reports</a> that music venues are to be subjected to a “new piece of bureaucracy” called Form 696, an eight-page questionnaire asking for private information about performers as well as the “ethnic background” of the likely audience. Eh, on what grounds, constable?</p>
<p>The police say they need the information demanded on the eight-page Form 696, which runs to eight pages, so they can pinpoint which acts and venues attract troublemakers, and make sure venues are safe. … The scheme was introduced by the Metropolitan Police after incidents at live music concerts in 2006, some involving guns. In theory, it applies to any licensed premises where there is live entertainment, but Detective Chief Superintendent Richard Martin, head of the Met’s pubs and vice squad, said that in reality it will apply only to performances likely to draw large crowds.</p>
<p>The form actually gives hints about what kinds of music might raise eyebrows back at the station: in the question about the type of music featured, examples given are “bashment, R&amp;B, garage,” styles that all happened to emerge from the UK’s black community. But the best part of the story is the spokesman against Form 696: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feargal_Sharkey" type="external">Feargal Sharkey</a> (above right), the former lead singer of The Undertones, whose goofball only-in-England name and terrible, silly ’80s solo hit “A Good Heart” makes him one of my favorite random references. Anyway, Feargal (chuckle) says that Form 696’s focus on the black community is “disproportionate, unacceptable and damaging to live music.” He even <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/feargal-sharkey-when-we-rocked-the-kasbah-the-band-was-bigger-than-the-crowd-1028239.html" type="external">wrote an op-ed</a> about it. One Londoner said musicians would likely refuse to fill out the form anyway. We’ll see where this goes, but in the meantime, let’s watch a Monty Python sketch about British police using silly voices, and Feargal Sharkey’s video for “A Good Heart.”</p>
<p>Monty Python – Silly Voice Police Sketch</p>
<p />
<p>Feargal Sharkey – “A Good Heart”</p>
<p />
<p /> | 3,837 |
<p>News Corp and Australian telecom company Telstra Corp Ltd. announced plans Thursday to merge their jointly-owned pay television company, Foxtel, with Fox Sports Australia, in a move that could set up an eventual initial public offering.</p>
<p>If approved, the deal would result in News Corp controlling 65% of the new company, and Telstra owning the remaining 35% of what would be one of the largest pay-TV, sports and entertainment outlets in Australia, the companies said.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>"The proposed restructuring of Foxtel and Fox Sports will unlock value for News Corp shareholders and provide a clearer vision into the depth and strength of our Australian assets," said News Corp Chief Executive Robert Thomson.</p>
<p>The companies expect the deal to be completed in the first half of 2018. Approval will largely rest with the Australian Competition &amp; Consumer Commission, though other regulators also are likely to have input.</p>
<p>In a statement, News Corp, which owns The Wall Street Journal, said the deal would leave the new company in a stronger position for a potential initial public offering in the future.</p>
<p>For News Corp, the company said the deal also would allow it to consolidate the earnings of the new company into its financial statements, which would result in a more diversified mix of revenue and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. That could help the company reduce its reliance on newspaper properties hit by weakness in advertising.</p>
<p>In its latest fiscal year, which ended June 30, News Corp reported Ebitda of $885 million, 47% of which came from its newspaper properties and 37% from its digital real-estate business. Foxtel's Ebitda came in at $568 million in the same period.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>News Corp shares were up 0.8% in early-afternoon trading.</p>
<p>Write to Lukas I. Alpert at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>August 17, 2017 14:33 ET (18:33 GMT)</p> | Foxtel, Fox Sports Australia to Merge | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/08/17/foxtel-fox-sports-australia-to-merge.html | 2017-08-17 | 0right
| Foxtel, Fox Sports Australia to Merge
<p>News Corp and Australian telecom company Telstra Corp Ltd. announced plans Thursday to merge their jointly-owned pay television company, Foxtel, with Fox Sports Australia, in a move that could set up an eventual initial public offering.</p>
<p>If approved, the deal would result in News Corp controlling 65% of the new company, and Telstra owning the remaining 35% of what would be one of the largest pay-TV, sports and entertainment outlets in Australia, the companies said.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>"The proposed restructuring of Foxtel and Fox Sports will unlock value for News Corp shareholders and provide a clearer vision into the depth and strength of our Australian assets," said News Corp Chief Executive Robert Thomson.</p>
<p>The companies expect the deal to be completed in the first half of 2018. Approval will largely rest with the Australian Competition &amp; Consumer Commission, though other regulators also are likely to have input.</p>
<p>In a statement, News Corp, which owns The Wall Street Journal, said the deal would leave the new company in a stronger position for a potential initial public offering in the future.</p>
<p>For News Corp, the company said the deal also would allow it to consolidate the earnings of the new company into its financial statements, which would result in a more diversified mix of revenue and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. That could help the company reduce its reliance on newspaper properties hit by weakness in advertising.</p>
<p>In its latest fiscal year, which ended June 30, News Corp reported Ebitda of $885 million, 47% of which came from its newspaper properties and 37% from its digital real-estate business. Foxtel's Ebitda came in at $568 million in the same period.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>News Corp shares were up 0.8% in early-afternoon trading.</p>
<p>Write to Lukas I. Alpert at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>August 17, 2017 14:33 ET (18:33 GMT)</p> | 3,838 |
<p>AP: WASHINGTON – Six former heads of the Environmental Protection Agency — five Republicans and one Democrat — accused the Bush administration Wednesday of neglecting global warming and other environmental problems.</p>
<p>“I don’t think there’s a commitment in this administration,” said Bill Ruckelshaus, who was EPA’s first administrator when the agency opened its doors in 1970 under President Nixon and headed it again under President Reagan in the 1980s. | <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060119/ap_on_go_ot/global_warming;_ylt=Ah9IouwJTvgy1EolWmD0rF2yFz4D;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--" type="external">story</a></p> | Six Ex-EPA Chiefs Slam Bush on Global Warming | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/six-ex-epa-chiefs-slam-bush-on-global-warming/ | 2006-01-19 | 4left
| Six Ex-EPA Chiefs Slam Bush on Global Warming
<p>AP: WASHINGTON – Six former heads of the Environmental Protection Agency — five Republicans and one Democrat — accused the Bush administration Wednesday of neglecting global warming and other environmental problems.</p>
<p>“I don’t think there’s a commitment in this administration,” said Bill Ruckelshaus, who was EPA’s first administrator when the agency opened its doors in 1970 under President Nixon and headed it again under President Reagan in the 1980s. | <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060119/ap_on_go_ot/global_warming;_ylt=Ah9IouwJTvgy1EolWmD0rF2yFz4D;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--" type="external">story</a></p> | 3,839 |
<p>JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Friday afternoon's drawing of the Missouri Lottery's "Pick 4 Midday" game were:</p>
<p>8-9-5-2</p>
<p>(eight, nine, five, two)</p>
<p>JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Friday afternoon's drawing of the Missouri Lottery's "Pick 4 Midday" game were:</p>
<p>8-9-5-2</p>
<p>(eight, nine, five, two)</p> | Winning numbers drawn in 'Pick 4 Midday' game | false | https://apnews.com/amp/d32b3cec492d43919885e8ec6cc26715 | 2018-01-19 | 2least
| Winning numbers drawn in 'Pick 4 Midday' game
<p>JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Friday afternoon's drawing of the Missouri Lottery's "Pick 4 Midday" game were:</p>
<p>8-9-5-2</p>
<p>(eight, nine, five, two)</p>
<p>JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Friday afternoon's drawing of the Missouri Lottery's "Pick 4 Midday" game were:</p>
<p>8-9-5-2</p>
<p>(eight, nine, five, two)</p> | 3,840 |
<p />
<p>If Republicans successfully pass tax reform, U.S. companies could use the resulting cash windfall to make investments they have been holding out on, including in automation, market experts say.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>“We would see a variety of investments get made that CEOs and CFOs have been holding back on,” Matt Litfin, a portfolio manager of the Columbia Acorn fund at Columbia Threadneedle Investments, told FOX Business. “One of the higher … quicker payback investments that companies have been looking at are [in] automation.”</p>
<p>In addition to automation, Litfin expects corporations to invest in accelerated acquisition activity, share buybacks and new manufacturing capabilities.</p>
<p>Eric Marshall, a portfolio manager with Hodges Capital, told FOX Business that investing in technology and automation will be corporate executives’ first move, as they seek to maximize the productivity of their existing employee base. This could come at the expense of hiring new workers.</p>
<p>“It’s going to be disruptive but it can be a positive and a negative,” he said. “Each employee becomes more productive [which means she is] worth more. However, we may need fewer employees.”</p>
<p>As a result, Hodges expects the future labor force will require higher-skilled employees, as automation could weed out a greater proportion of lower-skilled positions.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>For the U.S. economy as a whole, automation could lead to a boost in growth because it might encourage companies to bring production back onshore, one of President Donald Trump’s main tax reform objectives.</p>
<p>“You’re balancing labor productivity and labor costs and I think we’ve seen a 30-year trend toward off-shoring and sending jobs overseas, in Asia specifically … A lot of times automation allows companies to bring their manufacturing [back onshore],” he said, adding that while there may be fewer jobs on the factory floor, at least the factory is in the United States.</p>
<p>As the stock market continues to hover near record-highs, Litfin said if the Republican Party fails to deliver on tax reform, that could derail the current momentum. On the other hand, Marshall said Wall Street is still skeptical about whether anything will get done in Washington after getting burned on infrastructure and health care.</p>
<p>“I think that all year we’ve gotten used to the volatility from Capitol Hill,” he said. “I don’t think the market has fully priced in the prospects for tax reform.”</p>
<p>On Friday, National Economic Director Gary Cohn told FOX Business the administration is working every day to craft a bill that will garner enough support from lawmakers to pass both chambers of Congress before the end of the year.</p>
<p>Tax reform cleared a small hurdle on Thursday when the House of Representatives approved the budget resolution for fiscal year 2018. The measure is expected to be put up for a vote in the Senate later this month.</p>
<p>The budget contains the reconciliation mandate for tax reform, which will allow the Republican Party to use the fast-track process when it votes to approve the legislation later this year. It also sets aside money for tax cuts. In a statement released Thursday, Trump applauded the GOP’s efforts, calling it “a pathway to fix our rigged and burdensome tax code.”</p>
<p>On Thursday, a source with knowledge of the matter told FOX Business that the budget resolution is expected to pass both chambers in late October or early November, after which the GOP will introduce the tax reform bill for discussion.</p> | US companies might use tax reform profits to invest in automation, experts say | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/10/09/us-companies-might-use-tax-reform-profits-to-invest-in-automation-experts-say.html | 2017-10-09 | 0right
| US companies might use tax reform profits to invest in automation, experts say
<p />
<p>If Republicans successfully pass tax reform, U.S. companies could use the resulting cash windfall to make investments they have been holding out on, including in automation, market experts say.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>“We would see a variety of investments get made that CEOs and CFOs have been holding back on,” Matt Litfin, a portfolio manager of the Columbia Acorn fund at Columbia Threadneedle Investments, told FOX Business. “One of the higher … quicker payback investments that companies have been looking at are [in] automation.”</p>
<p>In addition to automation, Litfin expects corporations to invest in accelerated acquisition activity, share buybacks and new manufacturing capabilities.</p>
<p>Eric Marshall, a portfolio manager with Hodges Capital, told FOX Business that investing in technology and automation will be corporate executives’ first move, as they seek to maximize the productivity of their existing employee base. This could come at the expense of hiring new workers.</p>
<p>“It’s going to be disruptive but it can be a positive and a negative,” he said. “Each employee becomes more productive [which means she is] worth more. However, we may need fewer employees.”</p>
<p>As a result, Hodges expects the future labor force will require higher-skilled employees, as automation could weed out a greater proportion of lower-skilled positions.</p>
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<p>For the U.S. economy as a whole, automation could lead to a boost in growth because it might encourage companies to bring production back onshore, one of President Donald Trump’s main tax reform objectives.</p>
<p>“You’re balancing labor productivity and labor costs and I think we’ve seen a 30-year trend toward off-shoring and sending jobs overseas, in Asia specifically … A lot of times automation allows companies to bring their manufacturing [back onshore],” he said, adding that while there may be fewer jobs on the factory floor, at least the factory is in the United States.</p>
<p>As the stock market continues to hover near record-highs, Litfin said if the Republican Party fails to deliver on tax reform, that could derail the current momentum. On the other hand, Marshall said Wall Street is still skeptical about whether anything will get done in Washington after getting burned on infrastructure and health care.</p>
<p>“I think that all year we’ve gotten used to the volatility from Capitol Hill,” he said. “I don’t think the market has fully priced in the prospects for tax reform.”</p>
<p>On Friday, National Economic Director Gary Cohn told FOX Business the administration is working every day to craft a bill that will garner enough support from lawmakers to pass both chambers of Congress before the end of the year.</p>
<p>Tax reform cleared a small hurdle on Thursday when the House of Representatives approved the budget resolution for fiscal year 2018. The measure is expected to be put up for a vote in the Senate later this month.</p>
<p>The budget contains the reconciliation mandate for tax reform, which will allow the Republican Party to use the fast-track process when it votes to approve the legislation later this year. It also sets aside money for tax cuts. In a statement released Thursday, Trump applauded the GOP’s efforts, calling it “a pathway to fix our rigged and burdensome tax code.”</p>
<p>On Thursday, a source with knowledge of the matter told FOX Business that the budget resolution is expected to pass both chambers in late October or early November, after which the GOP will introduce the tax reform bill for discussion.</p> | 3,841 |
<p>(Removes repeated word in penultimate para)</p>
<p>By Sandrine Bradley</p>
<p>LONDON, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Five UK banks are facing heavy losses on loans to Carillion, after irreconcilable differences between the company, its lenders and the government pushed the UK construction and services group into liquidation on Monday, sources said.</p>
<p>Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), HSBC, Santander, Lloyds and Barclays are among the most heavily exposed after providing £140m of emergency loans in September 2017 and are also lenders on a £790m revolving credit facility.</p>
<p>Those two loans make up the bulk of Carillion Plc’s £1.6bn committed debt facilities, along with £350m of private placements, around £170m of convertible bonds, a £112m Schuldschein loan and £45m of bilateral loans.</p>
<p>“These (five) banks have massive exposure to Carillion. They face high provisions in the next quarter,” a restructuring adviser said.</p>
<p>Barclays has further exposure after providing one of two bilateral loans totalling £45m with Germany’s Helaba Bank. Barclays declined to comment.</p>
<p>Six banks, including RBS, HSBC, Santander and Lloyds, also provided another £350m of early prepayment facilities to Carillion’s operating company, a banking source said.</p>
<p>These facilities allowed the banks to pay suppliers directly and then gave Carillion 120 days to repay lenders.</p>
<p>“They (the banks) have now lost that money in all probability,” the banking source said.</p>
<p>Lloyds and HSBC declined to comment. RBS was not immediately available for comment.</p>
<p>At the time of its collapse, Carillion had used £100m of the £140m emergency loans that were put in place in September 2017 after July’s profit warning.</p>
<p>The facilities comprised a £40m senior secured revolving facility that matured on April 27 2018 which was fully drawn, and a £100m senior unsecured revolving facility, which was £60m drawn and had a maturity of January 1 2019.</p>
<p>Carillion’s £790m revolving credit, which was signed in November 2015, was also fully drawn at the time of its collapse, several sources said.</p> DEADLOCKED TALKS
<p>The five UK banks were in last-minute talks to give Carillion a further £100m-175m of short-term loans, two restructuring advisers said, to fund the company while a debt restructuring plan was finalised and implemented.</p>
<p>The short-term loans would have been refinanced by a £360m cash injection as part of a debt restructuring agreement that would have converted all of Carillion Plc’s existing debt into equity, several sources said.</p>
<p>Carillion held a meeting with creditors on January 10 to discuss its business plan and said that it needed at least £360m to sustain its business going forward.</p>
<p>Lenders said, however, that they were unable to commit funding without government support in the form of money, guarantees or the government taking back some contracts.</p>
<p>“Lenders’ support was contingent on government support. If they had that support they would have lent further money – maybe not the entire £360m but some money,” a second restructuring adviser said.</p>
<p>RBS, Santander and Lloyds were not willing to extend further funding after the government refused that support last weekend, a second banking source said.</p>
<p>HSBC and Barclays were willing to give Carillion another week before Carillion’s board applied to the high court for liquidation on Monday, he added.</p>
<p>Although some lenders were aware that Carillion’s finances were not sustainable without government support as early as December, creditors were optimistic of getting a deal done.</p>
<p>Lenders were expecting to agree a debt restructuring in the first quarter, before a six-month debt waiver expired in April, which would be implemented in the second quarter.</p>
<p>“We were very hopeful to get a deal done, it is very disappointing,” a third restructuring adviser said.</p>
<p>Editing by Tessa Walsh</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>LONDON (Reuters) - Britain’s biggest carmaker Jaguar Land Rover ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TAMO.NS" type="external">TAMO.NS</a>) will cut around 1,000 jobs and production at two of its English factories due to a fall in sales caused by uncertainty around Brexit and confusion over diesel policy, a source told Reuters.</p> FILE PHOTO: New Land Rover cars are seen in a parking lot at the Jaguar Land Rover plant at Halewood in Liverpool, northern England, September 12 , 2016. REUTERS/Phil Noble/File Photo
<p>Output will be cut at its central English Solihull and Castle Bromwich plants, affecting some 1,000 agency workers, the source said.</p>
<p>A spokesman at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) declined to comment on the number of jobs which would be lost but the firm said it would be making changes to its output plans.</p>
<p>“In light of the continuing headwinds impacting the car industry, we are making some adjustments to our production schedules and the level of agency staff,” the company said in a statement.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TAMO.NS" type="external">Tata Motors Ltd</a> 357.05 TAMO.NS National Stock Exchange of India -1.35 (-0.38%) TAMO.NS
<p>It is not renewing the contracts of a number of agency staff at the Solihull site and would be informing staff on Monday of its plans for the 2018-19 financial year.</p>
<p>In January, the firm said it would temporarily reduce production at its other British plant of Halewood later this year in response to weakening demand due to Brexit and tax hikes on diesel cars but did not detail any job losses.</p>
<p>Jaguar sales are down 26 percent so far this year whilst Land Rover demand dropped 20 percent in its home market as buyers shun diesel, concerned over planned tax rises and possible bans and restrictions in several countries.</p>
<p>“It’s been obvious to everyone that sales have been dropping,” the source said.</p>
<p>British new car registrations have been falling for a year which the car industry body has partly blamed on weakening consumer confidence in the wake of the Brexit vote, after record demand in 2015 and 2016.</p>
<p>Editing by Stephen Addison</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>LONDON (Reuters) - Rolls-Royce ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=RR.L" type="external">RR.L</a>) requires more money and more inspections to fix problems with Trent 1000 engines on Boeing ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BA.N" type="external">BA.N</a>) 787 Dreamliner planes, leading to further disruption for airlines and testing relations between Rolls and its customers.</p> FILE PHOTO: A view of one of two Rolls Royce Trent 1000 engines of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner during a media tour of the aircraft ahead of the Singapore Airshow in Singapore February 12, 2012. REUTERS/Edgar Su/File Photo
<p>Problems with engine turbine blades wearing out sooner than expected have hampered a restructuring program prompted by the engineering company’s declining older engine program and plunging demand for oil equipment.</p>
<p>It said on Friday that more regular inspections are required and would lead “to higher than previously guided cash costs being incurred during 2018”.</p>
<p>“We sincerely regret the disruption this will cause to our customers,” CEO Warren East said in a statement.</p>
<p>Airlines have already been forced to alter schedules or lease other aircraft, but the latest issues could be more far-reaching.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-rolls-royce-hldg-engines-regulators/regulators-eye-new-measures-after-rolls-royce-trent-1000-glitches-source-idUSKBN1HK1PZ" type="external">Regulators eye new measures after Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 glitches: source</a>
<p>The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) plans to reduce the amount of time the affected planes can fly on a single engine after a failure of the other. The time limit would drop as low as 140 minutes, compared with the current window of 330 minutes, a source familiar with the plans said.</p>
<p>This effectively curtails operations across oceans or remote areas.</p>
<p>The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) will also order increased inspections of affected engines in line with actions outlined by Rolls-Royce. Currently inspections must be carried out after every 200 flight cycles.</p>
<p>The two advisories are due to be issued on Friday, the source said.</p>
<p>Rolls said it would reprioritize spending to mitigate the costs and kept its 2018 free cash flow guidance unchanged at about 450 million pounds ($643 million), give or take 100 million pounds.</p>
<p>Shares in Rolls, one of the biggest names in British manufacturing, were down 1.3 percent by 1251 GMT.</p>
<p>It announced the need for stepped up inspections after liaising with authorities over a separate issue with the compressor on Trent 1000 Package C series engines. Rolls said there were 380 such engines in service.</p>
<p>Boeing said that about 25 percent of the Dreamliners flying were powered by the engine and it was deploying support teams to help to manage service disruptions.</p>
<p>General Electric ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GE.N" type="external">GE.N</a>) engines used on some Boeing 787 Dreamliners are not affected.</p> ENGINE SHORTAGES
<p>The need to inspect and repair Trent 1000 engines has led to an industry-wide shortage.</p>
<p>CEO East said Rolls was working with Boeing and airlines to minimize the disruption.</p>
<p>“Our team of technical experts and service engineers is working around the clock to ensure we return them to full service as soon as possible,” he said.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=RR.L" type="external">Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC</a> 866.8 RR.L London Stock Exchange -14.40 (-1.63%) RR.L BA.N GE.N ICAG.L 9202.T
<p>Norwegian Air, which has the engines in 15 of its 27 Boeing 787s, said it hopes to have inspected all of its engines before May 26 and that it had already found one problem that required an engine to be replaced.</p>
<p>“It’s disappointing and frustrating that our new aircraft don’t work the way they are supposed to,” spokesman Lasse Sandaker-Nilsen said, adding that it had canceled a flight from Paris to New York next week as a result.</p>
<p>“We have an ongoing dialogue with both Boeing and Rolls-Royce and we have been told this problem has their full attention.”</p>
<p>Virgin Atlantic [VA.UL] has up to four 787s grounded at any one time while it sources replacement engines with Rolls and has also leased three Airbus A330-200s to help to cover its flying program.</p>
<p>A Virgin spokeswoman said it had been aware of the increased inspections announced on Friday and that the cover it had in place would be sufficient.</p>
<p>British Airways ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ICAG.L" type="external">ICAG.L</a>), Japan’s ANA ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=9202.T" type="external">9202.T</a>), Air New Zealand ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AIR.NZ" type="external">AIR.NZ</a>) and Thai Airways, which also use Trent 1000 engines, were not available for immediate comment.</p>
<p>Scoot, a budget carrier owned by Singapore Airlines ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SIAL.SI" type="external">SIAL.SI</a>), said it expected some impact on operations.</p>
<p>In December the EASA ordered airlines to replace some Trent 1000 engines.</p>
<p>In March, Rolls said the cash hit from the problem should peak at 340 million pounds in 2018 before falling in 2019.</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Tim Hepher, Joachim Dagenborg, Victoria Bryan, and Jamie Freed; Editing by David Goodman and Jason Neely</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wells Fargo &amp; Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WFC.N" type="external">WFC.N</a>) believes the U.S. government, rather than banks, should set rules to promote gun safety, its finance chief said on Friday.</p> FILE PHOTO: A Wells Fargo branch is seen in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois, U.S., February 10, 2015. REUTERS/Jim Young/File Photo
<p>The No. 3 U.S. lender has been talking to customers who legally manufacture firearms, but is “not currently setting policy in our extension of credit,” Chief Financial Officer John Shrewsberry said during a call with reporters.</p>
<p>Major financial firms have been under pressure from gun-control activists to limit their support for firearms makers and retailers since 17 people died in a school shooting in Florida in February.</p>
<p>Citigroup Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=C.N" type="external">C.N</a>), for instance, last month slapped restrictions on new clients in the retail sector who sell guns, such as having the retailers require customers to pass background checks.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WFC.N" type="external">Wells Fargo &amp; Co</a> 50.89 WFC.N New York Stock Exchange -1.81 (-3.43%) WFC.N C.N BAC.N
<p>In addition, Bank of America ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BAC.N" type="external">BAC.N</a>) plans to stop lending to companies that make military-style firearms for civilians, a Bank of America executive said this week.</p>
<p>However, Wells Fargo believes solutions should come from the government, Shrewsberry said.</p>
<p>“The best way to make progress on these issues is through the political and legislative process,” he said. “In the meantime, Wells Fargo is engaging our customers that legally manufacture firearms and other stakeholders on what we can do together to promote better gun safety in our communities.”</p>
<p>Wells Fargo, based in San Francisco, has been reaching out to clients in the consumer firearms industry to make sure they hear input the bank has received from other customers, investors, employees and citizens, according to materials provided by a spokesman.</p>
<p>The bank also routinely analyzes customers from a risk-management perspective, suggesting that its relationship with gunmaker clients could change in the future.</p>
<p>Reporting by Lauren Tara LaCapra in New York and Ross Kerber in Boston; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Richard Chang</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>MEXICO CITY/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. trade negotiators have significantly softened their demands to increase regional automotive content under a reworked NAFTA trade pact in an effort to move more quickly towards a deal in the next few weeks, auto industry executives said on Friday.</p> FILE PHOTO: Eduardo Solis, President of the Mexican Automotive Industry Association (AMIA), speaks during an interview with Reuters in Mexico City, Mexico May 22, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso/File Photo
<p>A deal on automotive content rules would remove one of the biggest sticking points in talks to update the 24-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement.</p>
<p>The Trump administration had initially demanded that North American-built vehicles contain 85 percent content made in NAFTA countries by value, up from the current 62.5 percent, along with half the value coming from the United States - levels that Canada, Mexico and automotive groups had said was unworkable.</p>
<p>But this has been cut by 10 percentage points, and the U.S. specific percentage demand dropped, industry officials said.</p>
<p>“The U.S. put on the table 75 percent instead of 85 percent for the regional content value of the vehicle and its core components,” said Eduardo Solis, head of Mexico’s AMIA automotive industry association.</p>
<p>“All of this is being carefully analyzed and specific questions are being asked during this round of the U.S. negotiators (in charge of) rules of origin,” Solis said in a statement.</p>
<p>The 75 percent regional content is for major components such as engines, drivetrains, axles, suspensions and body panels. Aluminum and steel would go into a bucket of other parts and materials requiring 70 percent regional content, while a third bucket of lesser parts would require 65 percent regional content.</p>
<p>“From the parts manufacturer perspective this is a significant step in the right direction, compared to where we were,” said Ann Wilson, head of government affairs at the Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Association.</p>
<p>“But it does appear that this will creates significantly more paperwork for smaller suppliers to have to certify their parts,” Wilson added. “I think there’s a lot of room yet to improve this.”</p>
<p>Negotiators from the three nations were due to discuss the new U.S. proposals at talks this week in Washington. Talks on rules of origin were due to take place on both Friday and Saturday, according to a schedule seen by Reuters.</p>
<p>A senior union leader who spoke to the Canadian negotiating team on Friday said the talks were progressing slowly.</p>
<p>“We really still are far, far, far away on the issues that are keeping us apart and frankly there has been very little discussion on them this week,” Unifor President Jerry Dias told Canada’s CTV network, citing the U.S. stance on dispute resolution and labor standards.</p>
<p>U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has been pushing for a deal-in-principle on NAFTA in the next few weeks as the Mexico’s presidential election campaign officially gets underway. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he thought negotiators were “pretty close” to a deal, but that he was in no hurry for a conclusion.</p>
<p>“Unless the United States makes some meaningful major changes in the short term, for anybody to think this is getting done by the end of April is pushing their luck,” said Dias.</p>
<p>U.S. negotiators had also recently floated the idea that 40 percent of automotive production must occur in areas paying wages of between $16 to $19 per hour. Some auto industry officials briefed on the U.S. plan said the latest version would require an average wage rate of $16 an hour for a finished vehicle.</p>
<p>Setting wage minimum wage thresholds for the auto industry could benefit the United States and Canada, whose trade unions say that lower Mexican pay has prompted manufacturing capacity to move south of the Rio Grande.</p>
<p>Talks to rework NAFTA, which underpins $1.2 trillion in annual trade, began last year after President Donald Trump took office promising to abandon the 1994 agreement if it could not be reworked to better serve American interests.</p>
<p>Reporting by Anthony Esposito and David Lawder; Additional reporting by David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Cynthia Osterman</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | REFILE-LPC-UK banks bear the brunt of Carillion's collapse Jaguar Land Rover to cut output and jobs due to Brexit, diesel slump: source Rolls-Royce and airlines grapple with further Dreamliner engine issues Wells Fargo CFO says government, not banks, should set gun policy U.S. lowers NAFTA key auto content demand: auto executives | false | https://reuters.com/article/carillion-loans/refile-lpc-uk-banks-bear-the-brunt-of-carillions-collapse-idUSL8N1PB5KH | 2018-01-18 | 2least
| REFILE-LPC-UK banks bear the brunt of Carillion's collapse Jaguar Land Rover to cut output and jobs due to Brexit, diesel slump: source Rolls-Royce and airlines grapple with further Dreamliner engine issues Wells Fargo CFO says government, not banks, should set gun policy U.S. lowers NAFTA key auto content demand: auto executives
<p>(Removes repeated word in penultimate para)</p>
<p>By Sandrine Bradley</p>
<p>LONDON, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Five UK banks are facing heavy losses on loans to Carillion, after irreconcilable differences between the company, its lenders and the government pushed the UK construction and services group into liquidation on Monday, sources said.</p>
<p>Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), HSBC, Santander, Lloyds and Barclays are among the most heavily exposed after providing £140m of emergency loans in September 2017 and are also lenders on a £790m revolving credit facility.</p>
<p>Those two loans make up the bulk of Carillion Plc’s £1.6bn committed debt facilities, along with £350m of private placements, around £170m of convertible bonds, a £112m Schuldschein loan and £45m of bilateral loans.</p>
<p>“These (five) banks have massive exposure to Carillion. They face high provisions in the next quarter,” a restructuring adviser said.</p>
<p>Barclays has further exposure after providing one of two bilateral loans totalling £45m with Germany’s Helaba Bank. Barclays declined to comment.</p>
<p>Six banks, including RBS, HSBC, Santander and Lloyds, also provided another £350m of early prepayment facilities to Carillion’s operating company, a banking source said.</p>
<p>These facilities allowed the banks to pay suppliers directly and then gave Carillion 120 days to repay lenders.</p>
<p>“They (the banks) have now lost that money in all probability,” the banking source said.</p>
<p>Lloyds and HSBC declined to comment. RBS was not immediately available for comment.</p>
<p>At the time of its collapse, Carillion had used £100m of the £140m emergency loans that were put in place in September 2017 after July’s profit warning.</p>
<p>The facilities comprised a £40m senior secured revolving facility that matured on April 27 2018 which was fully drawn, and a £100m senior unsecured revolving facility, which was £60m drawn and had a maturity of January 1 2019.</p>
<p>Carillion’s £790m revolving credit, which was signed in November 2015, was also fully drawn at the time of its collapse, several sources said.</p> DEADLOCKED TALKS
<p>The five UK banks were in last-minute talks to give Carillion a further £100m-175m of short-term loans, two restructuring advisers said, to fund the company while a debt restructuring plan was finalised and implemented.</p>
<p>The short-term loans would have been refinanced by a £360m cash injection as part of a debt restructuring agreement that would have converted all of Carillion Plc’s existing debt into equity, several sources said.</p>
<p>Carillion held a meeting with creditors on January 10 to discuss its business plan and said that it needed at least £360m to sustain its business going forward.</p>
<p>Lenders said, however, that they were unable to commit funding without government support in the form of money, guarantees or the government taking back some contracts.</p>
<p>“Lenders’ support was contingent on government support. If they had that support they would have lent further money – maybe not the entire £360m but some money,” a second restructuring adviser said.</p>
<p>RBS, Santander and Lloyds were not willing to extend further funding after the government refused that support last weekend, a second banking source said.</p>
<p>HSBC and Barclays were willing to give Carillion another week before Carillion’s board applied to the high court for liquidation on Monday, he added.</p>
<p>Although some lenders were aware that Carillion’s finances were not sustainable without government support as early as December, creditors were optimistic of getting a deal done.</p>
<p>Lenders were expecting to agree a debt restructuring in the first quarter, before a six-month debt waiver expired in April, which would be implemented in the second quarter.</p>
<p>“We were very hopeful to get a deal done, it is very disappointing,” a third restructuring adviser said.</p>
<p>Editing by Tessa Walsh</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>LONDON (Reuters) - Britain’s biggest carmaker Jaguar Land Rover ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TAMO.NS" type="external">TAMO.NS</a>) will cut around 1,000 jobs and production at two of its English factories due to a fall in sales caused by uncertainty around Brexit and confusion over diesel policy, a source told Reuters.</p> FILE PHOTO: New Land Rover cars are seen in a parking lot at the Jaguar Land Rover plant at Halewood in Liverpool, northern England, September 12 , 2016. REUTERS/Phil Noble/File Photo
<p>Output will be cut at its central English Solihull and Castle Bromwich plants, affecting some 1,000 agency workers, the source said.</p>
<p>A spokesman at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) declined to comment on the number of jobs which would be lost but the firm said it would be making changes to its output plans.</p>
<p>“In light of the continuing headwinds impacting the car industry, we are making some adjustments to our production schedules and the level of agency staff,” the company said in a statement.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TAMO.NS" type="external">Tata Motors Ltd</a> 357.05 TAMO.NS National Stock Exchange of India -1.35 (-0.38%) TAMO.NS
<p>It is not renewing the contracts of a number of agency staff at the Solihull site and would be informing staff on Monday of its plans for the 2018-19 financial year.</p>
<p>In January, the firm said it would temporarily reduce production at its other British plant of Halewood later this year in response to weakening demand due to Brexit and tax hikes on diesel cars but did not detail any job losses.</p>
<p>Jaguar sales are down 26 percent so far this year whilst Land Rover demand dropped 20 percent in its home market as buyers shun diesel, concerned over planned tax rises and possible bans and restrictions in several countries.</p>
<p>“It’s been obvious to everyone that sales have been dropping,” the source said.</p>
<p>British new car registrations have been falling for a year which the car industry body has partly blamed on weakening consumer confidence in the wake of the Brexit vote, after record demand in 2015 and 2016.</p>
<p>Editing by Stephen Addison</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>LONDON (Reuters) - Rolls-Royce ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=RR.L" type="external">RR.L</a>) requires more money and more inspections to fix problems with Trent 1000 engines on Boeing ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BA.N" type="external">BA.N</a>) 787 Dreamliner planes, leading to further disruption for airlines and testing relations between Rolls and its customers.</p> FILE PHOTO: A view of one of two Rolls Royce Trent 1000 engines of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner during a media tour of the aircraft ahead of the Singapore Airshow in Singapore February 12, 2012. REUTERS/Edgar Su/File Photo
<p>Problems with engine turbine blades wearing out sooner than expected have hampered a restructuring program prompted by the engineering company’s declining older engine program and plunging demand for oil equipment.</p>
<p>It said on Friday that more regular inspections are required and would lead “to higher than previously guided cash costs being incurred during 2018”.</p>
<p>“We sincerely regret the disruption this will cause to our customers,” CEO Warren East said in a statement.</p>
<p>Airlines have already been forced to alter schedules or lease other aircraft, but the latest issues could be more far-reaching.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-rolls-royce-hldg-engines-regulators/regulators-eye-new-measures-after-rolls-royce-trent-1000-glitches-source-idUSKBN1HK1PZ" type="external">Regulators eye new measures after Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 glitches: source</a>
<p>The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) plans to reduce the amount of time the affected planes can fly on a single engine after a failure of the other. The time limit would drop as low as 140 minutes, compared with the current window of 330 minutes, a source familiar with the plans said.</p>
<p>This effectively curtails operations across oceans or remote areas.</p>
<p>The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) will also order increased inspections of affected engines in line with actions outlined by Rolls-Royce. Currently inspections must be carried out after every 200 flight cycles.</p>
<p>The two advisories are due to be issued on Friday, the source said.</p>
<p>Rolls said it would reprioritize spending to mitigate the costs and kept its 2018 free cash flow guidance unchanged at about 450 million pounds ($643 million), give or take 100 million pounds.</p>
<p>Shares in Rolls, one of the biggest names in British manufacturing, were down 1.3 percent by 1251 GMT.</p>
<p>It announced the need for stepped up inspections after liaising with authorities over a separate issue with the compressor on Trent 1000 Package C series engines. Rolls said there were 380 such engines in service.</p>
<p>Boeing said that about 25 percent of the Dreamliners flying were powered by the engine and it was deploying support teams to help to manage service disruptions.</p>
<p>General Electric ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GE.N" type="external">GE.N</a>) engines used on some Boeing 787 Dreamliners are not affected.</p> ENGINE SHORTAGES
<p>The need to inspect and repair Trent 1000 engines has led to an industry-wide shortage.</p>
<p>CEO East said Rolls was working with Boeing and airlines to minimize the disruption.</p>
<p>“Our team of technical experts and service engineers is working around the clock to ensure we return them to full service as soon as possible,” he said.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=RR.L" type="external">Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC</a> 866.8 RR.L London Stock Exchange -14.40 (-1.63%) RR.L BA.N GE.N ICAG.L 9202.T
<p>Norwegian Air, which has the engines in 15 of its 27 Boeing 787s, said it hopes to have inspected all of its engines before May 26 and that it had already found one problem that required an engine to be replaced.</p>
<p>“It’s disappointing and frustrating that our new aircraft don’t work the way they are supposed to,” spokesman Lasse Sandaker-Nilsen said, adding that it had canceled a flight from Paris to New York next week as a result.</p>
<p>“We have an ongoing dialogue with both Boeing and Rolls-Royce and we have been told this problem has their full attention.”</p>
<p>Virgin Atlantic [VA.UL] has up to four 787s grounded at any one time while it sources replacement engines with Rolls and has also leased three Airbus A330-200s to help to cover its flying program.</p>
<p>A Virgin spokeswoman said it had been aware of the increased inspections announced on Friday and that the cover it had in place would be sufficient.</p>
<p>British Airways ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ICAG.L" type="external">ICAG.L</a>), Japan’s ANA ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=9202.T" type="external">9202.T</a>), Air New Zealand ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AIR.NZ" type="external">AIR.NZ</a>) and Thai Airways, which also use Trent 1000 engines, were not available for immediate comment.</p>
<p>Scoot, a budget carrier owned by Singapore Airlines ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SIAL.SI" type="external">SIAL.SI</a>), said it expected some impact on operations.</p>
<p>In December the EASA ordered airlines to replace some Trent 1000 engines.</p>
<p>In March, Rolls said the cash hit from the problem should peak at 340 million pounds in 2018 before falling in 2019.</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Tim Hepher, Joachim Dagenborg, Victoria Bryan, and Jamie Freed; Editing by David Goodman and Jason Neely</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wells Fargo &amp; Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WFC.N" type="external">WFC.N</a>) believes the U.S. government, rather than banks, should set rules to promote gun safety, its finance chief said on Friday.</p> FILE PHOTO: A Wells Fargo branch is seen in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois, U.S., February 10, 2015. REUTERS/Jim Young/File Photo
<p>The No. 3 U.S. lender has been talking to customers who legally manufacture firearms, but is “not currently setting policy in our extension of credit,” Chief Financial Officer John Shrewsberry said during a call with reporters.</p>
<p>Major financial firms have been under pressure from gun-control activists to limit their support for firearms makers and retailers since 17 people died in a school shooting in Florida in February.</p>
<p>Citigroup Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=C.N" type="external">C.N</a>), for instance, last month slapped restrictions on new clients in the retail sector who sell guns, such as having the retailers require customers to pass background checks.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WFC.N" type="external">Wells Fargo &amp; Co</a> 50.89 WFC.N New York Stock Exchange -1.81 (-3.43%) WFC.N C.N BAC.N
<p>In addition, Bank of America ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BAC.N" type="external">BAC.N</a>) plans to stop lending to companies that make military-style firearms for civilians, a Bank of America executive said this week.</p>
<p>However, Wells Fargo believes solutions should come from the government, Shrewsberry said.</p>
<p>“The best way to make progress on these issues is through the political and legislative process,” he said. “In the meantime, Wells Fargo is engaging our customers that legally manufacture firearms and other stakeholders on what we can do together to promote better gun safety in our communities.”</p>
<p>Wells Fargo, based in San Francisco, has been reaching out to clients in the consumer firearms industry to make sure they hear input the bank has received from other customers, investors, employees and citizens, according to materials provided by a spokesman.</p>
<p>The bank also routinely analyzes customers from a risk-management perspective, suggesting that its relationship with gunmaker clients could change in the future.</p>
<p>Reporting by Lauren Tara LaCapra in New York and Ross Kerber in Boston; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Richard Chang</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>MEXICO CITY/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. trade negotiators have significantly softened their demands to increase regional automotive content under a reworked NAFTA trade pact in an effort to move more quickly towards a deal in the next few weeks, auto industry executives said on Friday.</p> FILE PHOTO: Eduardo Solis, President of the Mexican Automotive Industry Association (AMIA), speaks during an interview with Reuters in Mexico City, Mexico May 22, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso/File Photo
<p>A deal on automotive content rules would remove one of the biggest sticking points in talks to update the 24-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement.</p>
<p>The Trump administration had initially demanded that North American-built vehicles contain 85 percent content made in NAFTA countries by value, up from the current 62.5 percent, along with half the value coming from the United States - levels that Canada, Mexico and automotive groups had said was unworkable.</p>
<p>But this has been cut by 10 percentage points, and the U.S. specific percentage demand dropped, industry officials said.</p>
<p>“The U.S. put on the table 75 percent instead of 85 percent for the regional content value of the vehicle and its core components,” said Eduardo Solis, head of Mexico’s AMIA automotive industry association.</p>
<p>“All of this is being carefully analyzed and specific questions are being asked during this round of the U.S. negotiators (in charge of) rules of origin,” Solis said in a statement.</p>
<p>The 75 percent regional content is for major components such as engines, drivetrains, axles, suspensions and body panels. Aluminum and steel would go into a bucket of other parts and materials requiring 70 percent regional content, while a third bucket of lesser parts would require 65 percent regional content.</p>
<p>“From the parts manufacturer perspective this is a significant step in the right direction, compared to where we were,” said Ann Wilson, head of government affairs at the Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Association.</p>
<p>“But it does appear that this will creates significantly more paperwork for smaller suppliers to have to certify their parts,” Wilson added. “I think there’s a lot of room yet to improve this.”</p>
<p>Negotiators from the three nations were due to discuss the new U.S. proposals at talks this week in Washington. Talks on rules of origin were due to take place on both Friday and Saturday, according to a schedule seen by Reuters.</p>
<p>A senior union leader who spoke to the Canadian negotiating team on Friday said the talks were progressing slowly.</p>
<p>“We really still are far, far, far away on the issues that are keeping us apart and frankly there has been very little discussion on them this week,” Unifor President Jerry Dias told Canada’s CTV network, citing the U.S. stance on dispute resolution and labor standards.</p>
<p>U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has been pushing for a deal-in-principle on NAFTA in the next few weeks as the Mexico’s presidential election campaign officially gets underway. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he thought negotiators were “pretty close” to a deal, but that he was in no hurry for a conclusion.</p>
<p>“Unless the United States makes some meaningful major changes in the short term, for anybody to think this is getting done by the end of April is pushing their luck,” said Dias.</p>
<p>U.S. negotiators had also recently floated the idea that 40 percent of automotive production must occur in areas paying wages of between $16 to $19 per hour. Some auto industry officials briefed on the U.S. plan said the latest version would require an average wage rate of $16 an hour for a finished vehicle.</p>
<p>Setting wage minimum wage thresholds for the auto industry could benefit the United States and Canada, whose trade unions say that lower Mexican pay has prompted manufacturing capacity to move south of the Rio Grande.</p>
<p>Talks to rework NAFTA, which underpins $1.2 trillion in annual trade, began last year after President Donald Trump took office promising to abandon the 1994 agreement if it could not be reworked to better serve American interests.</p>
<p>Reporting by Anthony Esposito and David Lawder; Additional reporting by David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Cynthia Osterman</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | 3,842 |
<p>There is not much to admire about Montana Senator Max Baucus. Since his career began back in 1989, he has done little to earn the respect of his constituents. His convictions are hollow. His soul is vacant. Old Max is just another Washington bureaucrat driven by the almighty dollar.</p>
<p>On February 25 Max invited himself to a meeting in Fernie, British Columbia to voice his opposition to a coal mine proposal of which he claims will “have no economic benefits only environmental consequences — for Montana.” Needless to say he wasn’t welcome.</p>
<p>Over a hundred angry residents came out to voice their opposition to Baucus’ unannounced visit. “I’d like to tell you sir, that you’re actually not welcome here,” huffed Bill Bennett who is a member of a local legislative assembly. “I’ve read what you’ve said over the past 25 years about Canada. You don’t want our softwood in the States. You don’t want our beef. Now you have something against our coal mining.”</p>
<p>At first glance it may seem that Baucus may be taking on the right enemies for a change. The mining project Baucus opposes has already begun in the Upper Flathead Valley, north of the Montana border in Canada. Potential pollutants from the mine could very well make their way into the north fork of the Flathead River, which flows into Montana’s scenic Glacier National Park.</p>
<p>For this Baucus is correct: The mine could cause irreversible harm to Montana’s environment. However Baucus may well have ulterior motives for standing up against the mining outfit.</p>
<p>Canadian based Cline Mining, which is behind the project, has recently moved their business practice back to British Columbia. The company was forced to end its prospecting in Zimbabwe, which it had been drilling in for years, because of political unrest in the country. Now the company has set up shop in BC where it is hopes to sell its coal, which is used for making steel, on the international market.</p>
<p>Surely Senator Baucus is not excited. In 2002, as he ran for reelection, he pulled in over $200,000 from the Electric Utilities and Mining industries, which was the seventh highest among US senators at the time. The contributions from these industries were likely the reason Baucus was the only Democratic Senator to vote against the Clean Power Act that same year. The act had been vigorously opposed by the coal industry as well as the electric utilities industry because it would have regulated the emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury, and most notably — carbon dioxide.</p>
<p>Baucus’ opposition to Cline’s international aspirations is likely due to his hope that he can protect the American coal companies that fatten his campaign coffers. His resistance is certainly not the result of any sort of environmental ethic. Sure Max has stood up against oil drilling along the gorgeous Rocky Mountain Front, but throughout his lackluster career he has had few other qualms with any damaging mining practices.</p>
<p>Like most good Democrats, Max does oppose drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge, yet the smarmy Senator voted for George W. Bush’s devastating energy plan. He also voted “no” on defunding renewable energy sources, and has taken thousands of dollars from Halliburton. And this is just the tip of the ice berg, (one of the few that doesn’t happen to be shrinking at the time).</p>
<p>Mining for Max Baucus is also a family affair. As Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn reported in the Washington Post in 1995:</p>
<p>[In the summer of 1994] Phelps Dodge, the mining colossus, announced it would soon begin work on what it heralded as the largest open-pit gold mine in North America. The mine, dubbed the Seven Up-Pete, will be located in the headwaters of the Blackfoot River, where it tumbles out of the Scapegoat Wilderness to join the Lander’s Fork nearly a billion tons of dirt and rocks will be gouged and blasted out, crushed, dumped into heaps, and then saturated by water laced with cyanide, a process that leaches small flecks of gold from tons of rock. Already, exploratory excavations at the site have resulted in the dumping of millions of gallons of arsenic and lead-contaminated water into the Blackfoot River.</p>
<p>Phelps Dodge and its partner, Canyon Resources, expect to gross $4 billion from the mine. If the price of gold rises, the haul may soar to as much as $10 billion … Part of the land alongside the Blackfoot now scheduled for extinction by the mine belongs to the Sieben Company, an 80,000-acre sheep ranch owned by the Baucus family. The Baucus clan now stands to make a great deal of money, since the Sieben Ranch will take home 5 percent of the value of any minerals extracted from their land …</p>
<p>Baucus has since sold his share of Sieben, but the Senator still lists the land as an asset on his US Senate Financial Disclosure Report. And it is unknown how much he’s made from the gold mine, or from the selling of his stake. Yet the land is still in his family’s control.</p>
<p>So is Max Baucus even a bit concerned about the environmental impacts of the mining project he is now opposing in Canada? Not a chance.</p>
<p>Senator Baucus, like most of our elected officials, is looking for the big pay off. His principles are attached to the dollar sign. Unfortunately for Canadian based Cline Mining, they have little to offer the Montana Senator. Indeed they would be better off to move to the US where Max could work for — instead of against — their interests.</p>
<p>JOSHUA FRANK, a native of Montana, is the author of the forthcoming book, <a href="" type="internal">Left Out!: How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush</a>, to be released in early 2005 by Common Courage Press. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | The Trials of Max Baucus | true | https://counterpunch.org/2005/03/05/the-trials-of-max-baucus/ | 2005-03-05 | 4left
| The Trials of Max Baucus
<p>There is not much to admire about Montana Senator Max Baucus. Since his career began back in 1989, he has done little to earn the respect of his constituents. His convictions are hollow. His soul is vacant. Old Max is just another Washington bureaucrat driven by the almighty dollar.</p>
<p>On February 25 Max invited himself to a meeting in Fernie, British Columbia to voice his opposition to a coal mine proposal of which he claims will “have no economic benefits only environmental consequences — for Montana.” Needless to say he wasn’t welcome.</p>
<p>Over a hundred angry residents came out to voice their opposition to Baucus’ unannounced visit. “I’d like to tell you sir, that you’re actually not welcome here,” huffed Bill Bennett who is a member of a local legislative assembly. “I’ve read what you’ve said over the past 25 years about Canada. You don’t want our softwood in the States. You don’t want our beef. Now you have something against our coal mining.”</p>
<p>At first glance it may seem that Baucus may be taking on the right enemies for a change. The mining project Baucus opposes has already begun in the Upper Flathead Valley, north of the Montana border in Canada. Potential pollutants from the mine could very well make their way into the north fork of the Flathead River, which flows into Montana’s scenic Glacier National Park.</p>
<p>For this Baucus is correct: The mine could cause irreversible harm to Montana’s environment. However Baucus may well have ulterior motives for standing up against the mining outfit.</p>
<p>Canadian based Cline Mining, which is behind the project, has recently moved their business practice back to British Columbia. The company was forced to end its prospecting in Zimbabwe, which it had been drilling in for years, because of political unrest in the country. Now the company has set up shop in BC where it is hopes to sell its coal, which is used for making steel, on the international market.</p>
<p>Surely Senator Baucus is not excited. In 2002, as he ran for reelection, he pulled in over $200,000 from the Electric Utilities and Mining industries, which was the seventh highest among US senators at the time. The contributions from these industries were likely the reason Baucus was the only Democratic Senator to vote against the Clean Power Act that same year. The act had been vigorously opposed by the coal industry as well as the electric utilities industry because it would have regulated the emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury, and most notably — carbon dioxide.</p>
<p>Baucus’ opposition to Cline’s international aspirations is likely due to his hope that he can protect the American coal companies that fatten his campaign coffers. His resistance is certainly not the result of any sort of environmental ethic. Sure Max has stood up against oil drilling along the gorgeous Rocky Mountain Front, but throughout his lackluster career he has had few other qualms with any damaging mining practices.</p>
<p>Like most good Democrats, Max does oppose drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge, yet the smarmy Senator voted for George W. Bush’s devastating energy plan. He also voted “no” on defunding renewable energy sources, and has taken thousands of dollars from Halliburton. And this is just the tip of the ice berg, (one of the few that doesn’t happen to be shrinking at the time).</p>
<p>Mining for Max Baucus is also a family affair. As Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn reported in the Washington Post in 1995:</p>
<p>[In the summer of 1994] Phelps Dodge, the mining colossus, announced it would soon begin work on what it heralded as the largest open-pit gold mine in North America. The mine, dubbed the Seven Up-Pete, will be located in the headwaters of the Blackfoot River, where it tumbles out of the Scapegoat Wilderness to join the Lander’s Fork nearly a billion tons of dirt and rocks will be gouged and blasted out, crushed, dumped into heaps, and then saturated by water laced with cyanide, a process that leaches small flecks of gold from tons of rock. Already, exploratory excavations at the site have resulted in the dumping of millions of gallons of arsenic and lead-contaminated water into the Blackfoot River.</p>
<p>Phelps Dodge and its partner, Canyon Resources, expect to gross $4 billion from the mine. If the price of gold rises, the haul may soar to as much as $10 billion … Part of the land alongside the Blackfoot now scheduled for extinction by the mine belongs to the Sieben Company, an 80,000-acre sheep ranch owned by the Baucus family. The Baucus clan now stands to make a great deal of money, since the Sieben Ranch will take home 5 percent of the value of any minerals extracted from their land …</p>
<p>Baucus has since sold his share of Sieben, but the Senator still lists the land as an asset on his US Senate Financial Disclosure Report. And it is unknown how much he’s made from the gold mine, or from the selling of his stake. Yet the land is still in his family’s control.</p>
<p>So is Max Baucus even a bit concerned about the environmental impacts of the mining project he is now opposing in Canada? Not a chance.</p>
<p>Senator Baucus, like most of our elected officials, is looking for the big pay off. His principles are attached to the dollar sign. Unfortunately for Canadian based Cline Mining, they have little to offer the Montana Senator. Indeed they would be better off to move to the US where Max could work for — instead of against — their interests.</p>
<p>JOSHUA FRANK, a native of Montana, is the author of the forthcoming book, <a href="" type="internal">Left Out!: How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush</a>, to be released in early 2005 by Common Courage Press. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | 3,843 |
<p>Photo by Neil Ward | <a href="" type="internal">CC BY 2.0</a></p>
<p>When I learned of the death of Kamal al-Assar, a few years ago, I was baffled. He was only in his 40s. I remember him in his prime, a young rebel, leading the neighborhood youth, armed with rocks and slingshots, in a hopeless battle against the Israeli army. Understandably, we lost, but we won something far more valuable than a military victory. We reclaimed our identity.</p>
<p>At every anniversary of the First Palestinian Intifada, a popular uprising that placed the Palestinian people firmly on the map of world consciousness, I think of all the friends and neighbors I have lost, and those I have left behind. The image of Ra’ed Mu’anis, in particular, haunts me. When an Israeli sniper’s bullet plunged into his throat, he ran across the neighborhood to find help before he collapsed at the graffiti-washed walls of my house.</p>
<p>“Freedom. Dignity. Revolution,” was written in large red letters on the wall, a pronouncement signed by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.</p>
<p>Only later I learned that Kamal was the one who carried Ra’ed out of the firing zone. But it was too late. Ra’ed, a skinny and feeble teenager, with a distinct black mark on his forehead had bled alone at the steps of my home. When he was buried, hundreds of refugees descended on the Martyrs Graveyard. They carried Palestinian flags and chanted for the Intifada and the long-coveted freedom. Ra’ed’s mother was too weakened by her grief to join the procession. His father tried to stay strong, but wept uncontrollably instead.</p>
<p>Kamal was revitalized by the Intifada. When the uprising broke out, he emerged from his own solitude. Life made sense once again.</p>
<p>For him, as for me and many of our generation, the Intifada was not a political event. It was an act of personal – as much as collective – liberation: the ability to articulate who we were at a time when all seemed lost. The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) languished in Tunisia after being forced to leave Lebanon in 1982. Arab governments seemed to have lost interest in Palestine altogether. Israel emerged triumphant and invincible.</p>
<p>And we – those living under protracted military occupation – felt completely abandoned.</p>
<p>When, on December 8, 1987, thousands took to the streets of Jabaliya Refugee Camp, the Gaza Strip’s largest and poorest camp, the timing and the location of their uprising was most fitting, rational and necessary. Earlier on that day, an Israeli truck had run over a row of cars carrying Palestinian laborers, killing four young men. For Jabaliya, as with the rest of Palestine, it was the last straw.</p>
<p>Responding to the chants and pleas of the Jabaliya mourners, the refugees in my refugee camp – Nuseirat – marched to the Israeli military barracks, known as the ‘tents’, where hundreds of soldiers had tormented my camp’s residents for years.</p>
<p>In the morning of December 9, thousands of Nuseirat youth took to the streets and vowed to avenge the innocent blood of the Jabaliya victims of the previous day. They swung large flags made of silky fabric that swayed beautifully in Gaza’s salty air and, as the momentum grew and they became intoxicated by their own collective chants, they marched to the ‘tents’ where the soldiers were uneasily perched on the tops of watchtowers, hiding behind their binoculars and automatic machine guns.</p>
<p>Within minutes, a war had started and a third generation of refugee-camp-born fellahin peasants stood fearlessly against a well-equipped army that was visibly gripped by fear and confusion. The soldiers wounded many that day and several children were killed.</p>
<p>Kamal was on the frontlines. He waved the largest flag, chanting the loudest, threw rocks the furthest and incessantly urged young men not to retreat.</p>
<p>Kamal hated school as well as his teachers. To him they seemed so docile, adhering to the rules of the occupier which decreed that Palestinians not teach their own history, so that the fellahin were denied even the right to remember who they were or where they came from. The Intifada was the paradigm shift that offered an alternative – however temporary, however chaotic – to the methodical humiliation of life under occupation.</p>
<p>Within hours, Kamal felt liberated. He was no longer tucked away in a dark room reading the works of Marx and Gramsci. He was in the streets of Nuseirat fashioning his own utopia.</p>
<p>The Intifada was that transformational period that saved a generation from being entirely lost, and Palestine from being forgotten. It offered a new world, that of solidarity, camaraderie and wild youth who needed no one to speak on their behalf.</p>
<p>Within weeks of bloody clashes in which hundreds of youth fell dead or wounded, the nature of the Intifada became clearer. On one hand, it was a popular struggle of civil disobedience, mass protests, commercial and labor strikes, refusal to pay taxes and so on. On the other hand, militant cells of refugee youth were beginning to organize and leave their mark, as well.</p>
<p>The militancy of the Intifada did not become apparent until later, when the repression by the Israeli government grew more violent. Under the banner of the ‘Iron Fist’ campaign, a new Israeli stratagem was devised, that of the ‘broken bones’ policy. Once captured, youth had their hands and legs broken by soldiers in a systematic and heartless manner. In my neighborhood, children with casts and crutches seemed to outnumber those without.</p>
<p>Kamal was eventually detained from his home. He attempted to escape but the entire neighborhood was teeming with soldiers, who arrived at night as they always do. They commenced the torturous rite in his living room, as his mother – the resilient, Tamam – shoved her body between him and the ruthless men.</p>
<p>When Kamal regained consciousness, he found himself in a small cell, with thick, unwashed walls that felt cold and foreign. He spent most of his prison time in the torture chamber. His survival was itself nothing less than a miracle.</p>
<p>When the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, officially ending the Intifada, Kamal’s generation felt betrayed. Nothing good came out of that ‘peace’, except that a few rich Palestinians grew even richer.</p>
<p>Kamal died a few years ago. I learned that his revolution never ceased. He became a teacher, laboring to reconstruct the history of his people at a local Gaza university. His mother, now an old refugee in Nuseirat is still heartbroken over her son’s death. She told me that Kamal’s wounds and physical ailments from prison never healed.</p>
<p>Kamal was a martyr, she told me. Perhaps the last martyr in an uprising that was not meant to liberate land, but liberate people from the idea that they were meant to exist as perpetual victims; and it did.</p> | The ‘Last Martyr’: Who Killed Kamal Al-Assar? | true | https://counterpunch.org/2017/12/12/the-last-martyr-who-killed-kamal-al-assar/ | 2017-12-12 | 4left
| The ‘Last Martyr’: Who Killed Kamal Al-Assar?
<p>Photo by Neil Ward | <a href="" type="internal">CC BY 2.0</a></p>
<p>When I learned of the death of Kamal al-Assar, a few years ago, I was baffled. He was only in his 40s. I remember him in his prime, a young rebel, leading the neighborhood youth, armed with rocks and slingshots, in a hopeless battle against the Israeli army. Understandably, we lost, but we won something far more valuable than a military victory. We reclaimed our identity.</p>
<p>At every anniversary of the First Palestinian Intifada, a popular uprising that placed the Palestinian people firmly on the map of world consciousness, I think of all the friends and neighbors I have lost, and those I have left behind. The image of Ra’ed Mu’anis, in particular, haunts me. When an Israeli sniper’s bullet plunged into his throat, he ran across the neighborhood to find help before he collapsed at the graffiti-washed walls of my house.</p>
<p>“Freedom. Dignity. Revolution,” was written in large red letters on the wall, a pronouncement signed by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.</p>
<p>Only later I learned that Kamal was the one who carried Ra’ed out of the firing zone. But it was too late. Ra’ed, a skinny and feeble teenager, with a distinct black mark on his forehead had bled alone at the steps of my home. When he was buried, hundreds of refugees descended on the Martyrs Graveyard. They carried Palestinian flags and chanted for the Intifada and the long-coveted freedom. Ra’ed’s mother was too weakened by her grief to join the procession. His father tried to stay strong, but wept uncontrollably instead.</p>
<p>Kamal was revitalized by the Intifada. When the uprising broke out, he emerged from his own solitude. Life made sense once again.</p>
<p>For him, as for me and many of our generation, the Intifada was not a political event. It was an act of personal – as much as collective – liberation: the ability to articulate who we were at a time when all seemed lost. The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) languished in Tunisia after being forced to leave Lebanon in 1982. Arab governments seemed to have lost interest in Palestine altogether. Israel emerged triumphant and invincible.</p>
<p>And we – those living under protracted military occupation – felt completely abandoned.</p>
<p>When, on December 8, 1987, thousands took to the streets of Jabaliya Refugee Camp, the Gaza Strip’s largest and poorest camp, the timing and the location of their uprising was most fitting, rational and necessary. Earlier on that day, an Israeli truck had run over a row of cars carrying Palestinian laborers, killing four young men. For Jabaliya, as with the rest of Palestine, it was the last straw.</p>
<p>Responding to the chants and pleas of the Jabaliya mourners, the refugees in my refugee camp – Nuseirat – marched to the Israeli military barracks, known as the ‘tents’, where hundreds of soldiers had tormented my camp’s residents for years.</p>
<p>In the morning of December 9, thousands of Nuseirat youth took to the streets and vowed to avenge the innocent blood of the Jabaliya victims of the previous day. They swung large flags made of silky fabric that swayed beautifully in Gaza’s salty air and, as the momentum grew and they became intoxicated by their own collective chants, they marched to the ‘tents’ where the soldiers were uneasily perched on the tops of watchtowers, hiding behind their binoculars and automatic machine guns.</p>
<p>Within minutes, a war had started and a third generation of refugee-camp-born fellahin peasants stood fearlessly against a well-equipped army that was visibly gripped by fear and confusion. The soldiers wounded many that day and several children were killed.</p>
<p>Kamal was on the frontlines. He waved the largest flag, chanting the loudest, threw rocks the furthest and incessantly urged young men not to retreat.</p>
<p>Kamal hated school as well as his teachers. To him they seemed so docile, adhering to the rules of the occupier which decreed that Palestinians not teach their own history, so that the fellahin were denied even the right to remember who they were or where they came from. The Intifada was the paradigm shift that offered an alternative – however temporary, however chaotic – to the methodical humiliation of life under occupation.</p>
<p>Within hours, Kamal felt liberated. He was no longer tucked away in a dark room reading the works of Marx and Gramsci. He was in the streets of Nuseirat fashioning his own utopia.</p>
<p>The Intifada was that transformational period that saved a generation from being entirely lost, and Palestine from being forgotten. It offered a new world, that of solidarity, camaraderie and wild youth who needed no one to speak on their behalf.</p>
<p>Within weeks of bloody clashes in which hundreds of youth fell dead or wounded, the nature of the Intifada became clearer. On one hand, it was a popular struggle of civil disobedience, mass protests, commercial and labor strikes, refusal to pay taxes and so on. On the other hand, militant cells of refugee youth were beginning to organize and leave their mark, as well.</p>
<p>The militancy of the Intifada did not become apparent until later, when the repression by the Israeli government grew more violent. Under the banner of the ‘Iron Fist’ campaign, a new Israeli stratagem was devised, that of the ‘broken bones’ policy. Once captured, youth had their hands and legs broken by soldiers in a systematic and heartless manner. In my neighborhood, children with casts and crutches seemed to outnumber those without.</p>
<p>Kamal was eventually detained from his home. He attempted to escape but the entire neighborhood was teeming with soldiers, who arrived at night as they always do. They commenced the torturous rite in his living room, as his mother – the resilient, Tamam – shoved her body between him and the ruthless men.</p>
<p>When Kamal regained consciousness, he found himself in a small cell, with thick, unwashed walls that felt cold and foreign. He spent most of his prison time in the torture chamber. His survival was itself nothing less than a miracle.</p>
<p>When the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, officially ending the Intifada, Kamal’s generation felt betrayed. Nothing good came out of that ‘peace’, except that a few rich Palestinians grew even richer.</p>
<p>Kamal died a few years ago. I learned that his revolution never ceased. He became a teacher, laboring to reconstruct the history of his people at a local Gaza university. His mother, now an old refugee in Nuseirat is still heartbroken over her son’s death. She told me that Kamal’s wounds and physical ailments from prison never healed.</p>
<p>Kamal was a martyr, she told me. Perhaps the last martyr in an uprising that was not meant to liberate land, but liberate people from the idea that they were meant to exist as perpetual victims; and it did.</p> | 3,844 |
<p>In a new paper entitled " <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w21958?sy=958" type="external">Global Cycles: Capital Flows, Commodities, and Sovereign Defaults, 1815-2015 Opens a New Window.</a>," Carmen Reinhart, Vincent Reinhart and Christoph Trebesch looked at the historical connection between capital flow, commodity prices and economic crises.</p>
<p>According to the authors, the recent slumps in commodity prices and capital flows are connected to the boom in both areas from 1999 to 2011, and they could ultimately lead to a series of global economic crises.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>According to the paper, many emerging market economies are currently experiencing double bursts in both commodity prices and capital inflows, a development that has historically led to economic crises.</p>
<p>While not all capital inflow cycles ended with a global wave of new debt crises, all the major spikes in sovereign defaults came [on] the heels of surges in capital inflows, especially those followed by double busts in capital and commodity markets, the authors explained.</p>
<p>Related Link: <a href="http://www.benzinga.com/analyst-ratings/analyst-color/16/03/6797799/analyst-warns-use-stock-rally-to-sell-recession-odds-now#ixzz41xDpDcTw" type="external">Analyst Warns: Use Stock Rally To Sell, Recession Odds Now 33% Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p>The table below shows a comparison between the latest cycle in commodity prices and global capital flows and other cycles in recent history.</p>
<p>Perhaps emerging market economies are more resilient this time around, the authors conclude. But perhaps the protracted nature of the downturn in international conditions has yet to take its cumulative toll.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>So far this year, the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Indx (ETF) (NYSE:EEM) is up 1.8 percent.</p>
<p>Disclosure: The author holds no position in the stocks mentioned.</p>
<p>Image Credit: <a href="https://pixabay.com/en/pennies-coins-currency-money-411675/" type="external">Public Domain Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p>2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.</p> | Simultaneous Capital Flows, Commodities Declines Led Economic Crashes Before; It May Be Happening Again | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/03/04/simultaneous-capital-flows-commodities-declines-led-economic-crashes-before-it.html | 2016-03-04 | 0right
| Simultaneous Capital Flows, Commodities Declines Led Economic Crashes Before; It May Be Happening Again
<p>In a new paper entitled " <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w21958?sy=958" type="external">Global Cycles: Capital Flows, Commodities, and Sovereign Defaults, 1815-2015 Opens a New Window.</a>," Carmen Reinhart, Vincent Reinhart and Christoph Trebesch looked at the historical connection between capital flow, commodity prices and economic crises.</p>
<p>According to the authors, the recent slumps in commodity prices and capital flows are connected to the boom in both areas from 1999 to 2011, and they could ultimately lead to a series of global economic crises.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>According to the paper, many emerging market economies are currently experiencing double bursts in both commodity prices and capital inflows, a development that has historically led to economic crises.</p>
<p>While not all capital inflow cycles ended with a global wave of new debt crises, all the major spikes in sovereign defaults came [on] the heels of surges in capital inflows, especially those followed by double busts in capital and commodity markets, the authors explained.</p>
<p>Related Link: <a href="http://www.benzinga.com/analyst-ratings/analyst-color/16/03/6797799/analyst-warns-use-stock-rally-to-sell-recession-odds-now#ixzz41xDpDcTw" type="external">Analyst Warns: Use Stock Rally To Sell, Recession Odds Now 33% Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p>The table below shows a comparison between the latest cycle in commodity prices and global capital flows and other cycles in recent history.</p>
<p>Perhaps emerging market economies are more resilient this time around, the authors conclude. But perhaps the protracted nature of the downturn in international conditions has yet to take its cumulative toll.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>So far this year, the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Indx (ETF) (NYSE:EEM) is up 1.8 percent.</p>
<p>Disclosure: The author holds no position in the stocks mentioned.</p>
<p>Image Credit: <a href="https://pixabay.com/en/pennies-coins-currency-money-411675/" type="external">Public Domain Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p>2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.</p> | 3,845 |
<p>After terminating his second stint as California’s governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger will be looking for a fourth act in life. The movie-star-turned-politician told reporters in Italy, “I am not going to run for anything else.” So what’s next? Environmental activist? Hummer salesman? Judge on Project Runway?</p>
<p>Term limits prevent Schwarzenegger from running for governor again, although his <a href="http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollTrack.aspx?g=f298166f-5e01-41ff-8e79-ee7303f9ec07" type="external">22 percent</a> approval rating might have had something to say in the matter. — PZS</p>
<p>AP via Yahoo:</p>
<p>“I have never labeled myself as a politician, so I am not going to run for anything else,” Schwarzenegger told reporters in Milan on Tuesday.</p>
<p />
<p>Schwarzenegger, a Republican, is restricted by California law from seeking a third term as governor when his tenure expires at the end of 2010. He has previously indicated that the only other political office he would be interested in seeking is president, and he can’t run because he was born in Austria.</p>
<p><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091118/ap_on_re_eu/eu_schwarzenegger_europe" type="external">Read more</a></p> | Schwarzenegger Says Hasta la Vista, Baby, to Politics | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/schwarzenegger-says-hasta-la-vista-baby-to-politics/ | 2009-11-19 | 4left
| Schwarzenegger Says Hasta la Vista, Baby, to Politics
<p>After terminating his second stint as California’s governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger will be looking for a fourth act in life. The movie-star-turned-politician told reporters in Italy, “I am not going to run for anything else.” So what’s next? Environmental activist? Hummer salesman? Judge on Project Runway?</p>
<p>Term limits prevent Schwarzenegger from running for governor again, although his <a href="http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollTrack.aspx?g=f298166f-5e01-41ff-8e79-ee7303f9ec07" type="external">22 percent</a> approval rating might have had something to say in the matter. — PZS</p>
<p>AP via Yahoo:</p>
<p>“I have never labeled myself as a politician, so I am not going to run for anything else,” Schwarzenegger told reporters in Milan on Tuesday.</p>
<p />
<p>Schwarzenegger, a Republican, is restricted by California law from seeking a third term as governor when his tenure expires at the end of 2010. He has previously indicated that the only other political office he would be interested in seeking is president, and he can’t run because he was born in Austria.</p>
<p><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091118/ap_on_re_eu/eu_schwarzenegger_europe" type="external">Read more</a></p> | 3,846 |
<p>HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hong Kong will cut company profits tax to 8.25 percent for the first HK$2 million of earnings, Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam said in her maiden policy address on Wednesday in which she laid out some of her priorities for the next five years.</p>
<p>The Hong Kong leader also said she would address the city’s astronomical housing prices by seeking to increase land supply and launch a new housing scheme to help families buy flats.</p>
<p>Hong Kong property prices, already amongst the world’s highest, have continued to rise over the past year despite the government implementing a raft of cooling measures.</p>
<p>Since taking office on July 1, Hong Kong’s first female leader has sought to heal social divisions amid growing tensions with China, and to forge a softer and more socially engaged leadership style than her predecessor, the staunchly pro-Beijing Leung Chun-ying.</p>
<p>(This story has been refiled to clarify figure in first paragraph refers to Hong Kong dollars.)</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> | Hong Kong leader says to cut taxes, ease housing crunch in maiden policy address | false | https://newsline.com/hong-kong-leader-says-to-cut-taxes-ease-housing-crunch-in-maiden-policy-address/ | 2017-10-11 | 1right-center
| Hong Kong leader says to cut taxes, ease housing crunch in maiden policy address
<p>HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hong Kong will cut company profits tax to 8.25 percent for the first HK$2 million of earnings, Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam said in her maiden policy address on Wednesday in which she laid out some of her priorities for the next five years.</p>
<p>The Hong Kong leader also said she would address the city’s astronomical housing prices by seeking to increase land supply and launch a new housing scheme to help families buy flats.</p>
<p>Hong Kong property prices, already amongst the world’s highest, have continued to rise over the past year despite the government implementing a raft of cooling measures.</p>
<p>Since taking office on July 1, Hong Kong’s first female leader has sought to heal social divisions amid growing tensions with China, and to forge a softer and more socially engaged leadership style than her predecessor, the staunchly pro-Beijing Leung Chun-ying.</p>
<p>(This story has been refiled to clarify figure in first paragraph refers to Hong Kong dollars.)</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> | 3,847 |
<p>Jeb Golinkin <a href="http://theweek.com/article/index/237904/the-morally-serious-argument-of-the-pro-gun-lobby" type="external">acknowledges</a> the "quasi-Hobbesian" arguments advanced by gun rights advocates.</p>
<p>[T]hese are morally serious objections that ought not be parodied or dismissed without consideration. In light of all of the illegal weapons that all sides concede are out there, ought the government be able to tell individuals that they may not carry weapons to protect themselves when it has not shown the capacity to stop the madmen, even if it means that the madmen themselves are on some level empowered? It's a hard question to which there are no easy or obvious answers.</p> | The Morally Serious Arguments from Gun Proponents | true | https://thedailybeast.com/the-morally-serious-arguments-from-gun-proponents | 2018-10-03 | 4left
| The Morally Serious Arguments from Gun Proponents
<p>Jeb Golinkin <a href="http://theweek.com/article/index/237904/the-morally-serious-argument-of-the-pro-gun-lobby" type="external">acknowledges</a> the "quasi-Hobbesian" arguments advanced by gun rights advocates.</p>
<p>[T]hese are morally serious objections that ought not be parodied or dismissed without consideration. In light of all of the illegal weapons that all sides concede are out there, ought the government be able to tell individuals that they may not carry weapons to protect themselves when it has not shown the capacity to stop the madmen, even if it means that the madmen themselves are on some level empowered? It's a hard question to which there are no easy or obvious answers.</p> | 3,848 |
<p>In his new book, “Brazil’s Dance With the Devil: The World Cup, The Olympics and the Fight for Democracy,” sportswriter Dave Zirin tackles the growing unrest in Brazil in which thousands of police officers have joined bus drivers for day two of a massive strike in São Paulo, just weeks before the World Cup — one of the sports world’s biggest spectacles — is set to begin.</p>
<p>“Democracy Now!” <a href="http://www.democracynow.org./2014/5/22/brazils_dance_with_the_devil_dave" type="external">reports</a> Thursday:</p>
<p>Meanwhile, more than ten thousand people have occupied a lot next to one of the arenas that will host the World Cup’s opening match. They call their protest, “The People’s Cup” and are opposing the nearly half a billion dollars spent on the stadium, even as their communities lack adequate hospitals and schools. Demonstrations throughout the country have called attention to similar concerns. Zirin joins us to discuss the protests rocking Brazil, as well as the biggest sporting controversy in the United States — the NBA’s attempt to oust owner Donald Sterling over his racist comments about African Americans. Zirin is a sports columnist for The Nation magazine and host of Edge of Sports Radio on Sirius/XM.</p>
<p>‘Democracy Now!’:— Posted by <a href="" type="internal">Alexander Reed Kelly</a>.</p>
<p /> | The People’s Revolt Challenging 2014 World Cup | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/the-peoples-revolt-challenging-2014-world-cup/ | 2014-05-22 | 4left
| The People’s Revolt Challenging 2014 World Cup
<p>In his new book, “Brazil’s Dance With the Devil: The World Cup, The Olympics and the Fight for Democracy,” sportswriter Dave Zirin tackles the growing unrest in Brazil in which thousands of police officers have joined bus drivers for day two of a massive strike in São Paulo, just weeks before the World Cup — one of the sports world’s biggest spectacles — is set to begin.</p>
<p>“Democracy Now!” <a href="http://www.democracynow.org./2014/5/22/brazils_dance_with_the_devil_dave" type="external">reports</a> Thursday:</p>
<p>Meanwhile, more than ten thousand people have occupied a lot next to one of the arenas that will host the World Cup’s opening match. They call their protest, “The People’s Cup” and are opposing the nearly half a billion dollars spent on the stadium, even as their communities lack adequate hospitals and schools. Demonstrations throughout the country have called attention to similar concerns. Zirin joins us to discuss the protests rocking Brazil, as well as the biggest sporting controversy in the United States — the NBA’s attempt to oust owner Donald Sterling over his racist comments about African Americans. Zirin is a sports columnist for The Nation magazine and host of Edge of Sports Radio on Sirius/XM.</p>
<p>‘Democracy Now!’:— Posted by <a href="" type="internal">Alexander Reed Kelly</a>.</p>
<p /> | 3,849 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>Paisley Park, his massive, gleaming white studio and performance complex, was turned into a museum soon after his death on April 21, 2016. A “celebration” planned there for April 20-23 with panel discussions, concerts and tours is mostly sold out. But don’t worry, there’s plenty more to see.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>PAISLEY PARK</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>This is a must, even if it’s just a drive-by to see the sprawling place rise up from the flatlands in Chanhassen, an easy 20-mile drive from downtown Minneapolis. Guided tours average 70 minutes and include rooms where Prince created some of his biggest hits. The museum is a work in progress, with a recently added room displaying costumes and other artifacts from his “Lovesexy” album and tour.</p>
<p>Optional add-ons include a VIP tour of extra rooms, a photo opportunity, Friday night dance party and Sunday brunch featuring some of his favorite foods.</p>
<p>Much has been made of Prince’s Paisley Park-shaped urn. It was moved from the main atrium at the family’s request to a frosted high-walled fixture above a little kitchen where he sometimes watched TV.</p>
<p>Photos and video are strictly prohibited on all tours.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>FIRST AVENUE &amp; 7TH ST. ENTRY</p>
<p>This downtown club in a former Greyhound bus depot remains a mecca for Prince fans and an indie rock hot spot. There are guided tours, though most were sold out ahead of the April 21st anniversary. A separate entrance and fee gets you inside the club where Prince played several times, including his first time in 1981 when it was called Sam’s and in 1983 when he unveiled a longer version of his ballad “Purple Rain.” That gig was recorded, including the mega-hit that became his signature and other songs used in the film.</p>
<p>Brick walls outside are adorned with painted, white stars for other artists who played there. Prince’s star stands out in gold.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>ELECTRIC FETUS</p>
<p>Prince frequented the Electric Fetus record store. He visited just days before he died, on Record Store Day, April 16, tweeting: “FETUS, THANX 4 THE TUNES! ROCKED STEVIE’S TALKING BOOK ALL THE WAY HOME! #RecordStoreDay,” to which Electric Fetus replied: “Thanks 4 coming in today and for supporting indie record stores year-round!”</p>
<p>His final tweet, April 18, was another nod to Electric Fetus, promoting the written program for his “Piano &amp; Microphone” tour. The tweet displayed the program’s cover and said, simply: “electricfetus.com.”</p>
<p>When the store opened in 1968, National Lampoon magazine singled it out for the worst name of a business. But it remains an indie mecca for audiophiles — including vinyl-lovers — and drew grieving fans when Prince died.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>PRINCE MURALS</p>
<p>There are some beauties.</p>
<p>Downtown near 10th Street and Marquette Avenue, a five-story, white-painted wall of musical notes is where Prince shot some of his first publicity photos at age 18. At the time, it was home to Schmitt Music Company, which sold sheet music, pianos and organs. The musical notes are from a piece for piano by French composer Maurice Ravel.</p>
<p>Not far from Paisley Park, at Chanhassen Cinema, 570 Market St., is a huge purple portrait of Prince by muralist Graham Hoete. He told WCCO-TV he did it at the request of Minnesotans who saw photos of a Prince mural he painted in Sydney, Australia, where he lived.</p>
<p>Another purple portrait, complete with a white dove like the ones Prince kept at Paisley, was created by Bloomington, Minnesota, graffiti artist Rock “Cyfi” Martinez. It’s in an alley on one wall of the Sencha Tea Bar, 2601 Hennepin Ave. S., in the funky Uptown district Prince shouted out in song.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>PURPLE RAIN HOUSE</p>
<p>Prince’s famous Purple House residence in the woods of Lake Riley in Chanhassen was bulldozed more than a decade ago, but the simple “Purple Rain” home used in the movie stands, empty and a bit worse for wear. Head to 3420 Snelling Ave. in Minneapolis’ Longfellow neighborhood for a look at the outside. Prince never lived here but his character “The Kid” came of age within its walls in the 1984 film. Some purple flowers were tucked into the mailbox on a recent visit.</p>
<p>Other Prince-related houses are around, as are some of his old schools, studios where he recorded and other hangouts. The Minnesota History Center will display one of Prince’s purple outfits from “Purple Rain” and handwritten lyrics to an unreleased song during the anniversary week. The city’s visitor’s bureau has compiled a map.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>GRAFFITI BRIDGE</p>
<p>The famous marked-up railroad crossing from “Graffiti Bridge,” his 1990 sequel to “Purple Rain,” was replaced in 1991 by a popular bicycle and running path in suburban Eden Prairie. The bridge — covered with messages dating to the 1960s — had a heady, counterculture feel. The movie led Prince fans to add their own graffiti. But the replacement bike path is pristine.</p>
<p>After Prince’s death, devastated fans left farewell messages in black marker and purple spray paint on a highway underpass near Paisley Park, using the “love” symbol he created for himself. Getting there is tricky. Cross the busy highway leading to Paisley Park at the exit side of the parking lot, look for a West 78th Street sign and turn toward a walking path. The tunnel is marked Riley Creek.</p> | A Minneapolis-area Prince pilgrimage a year after his death | false | https://abqjournal.com/982879/a-minneapolis-area-prince-pilgrimage-a-year-after-his-death.html | 2017-04-05 | 2least
| A Minneapolis-area Prince pilgrimage a year after his death
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>Paisley Park, his massive, gleaming white studio and performance complex, was turned into a museum soon after his death on April 21, 2016. A “celebration” planned there for April 20-23 with panel discussions, concerts and tours is mostly sold out. But don’t worry, there’s plenty more to see.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>PAISLEY PARK</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>This is a must, even if it’s just a drive-by to see the sprawling place rise up from the flatlands in Chanhassen, an easy 20-mile drive from downtown Minneapolis. Guided tours average 70 minutes and include rooms where Prince created some of his biggest hits. The museum is a work in progress, with a recently added room displaying costumes and other artifacts from his “Lovesexy” album and tour.</p>
<p>Optional add-ons include a VIP tour of extra rooms, a photo opportunity, Friday night dance party and Sunday brunch featuring some of his favorite foods.</p>
<p>Much has been made of Prince’s Paisley Park-shaped urn. It was moved from the main atrium at the family’s request to a frosted high-walled fixture above a little kitchen where he sometimes watched TV.</p>
<p>Photos and video are strictly prohibited on all tours.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>FIRST AVENUE &amp; 7TH ST. ENTRY</p>
<p>This downtown club in a former Greyhound bus depot remains a mecca for Prince fans and an indie rock hot spot. There are guided tours, though most were sold out ahead of the April 21st anniversary. A separate entrance and fee gets you inside the club where Prince played several times, including his first time in 1981 when it was called Sam’s and in 1983 when he unveiled a longer version of his ballad “Purple Rain.” That gig was recorded, including the mega-hit that became his signature and other songs used in the film.</p>
<p>Brick walls outside are adorned with painted, white stars for other artists who played there. Prince’s star stands out in gold.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>ELECTRIC FETUS</p>
<p>Prince frequented the Electric Fetus record store. He visited just days before he died, on Record Store Day, April 16, tweeting: “FETUS, THANX 4 THE TUNES! ROCKED STEVIE’S TALKING BOOK ALL THE WAY HOME! #RecordStoreDay,” to which Electric Fetus replied: “Thanks 4 coming in today and for supporting indie record stores year-round!”</p>
<p>His final tweet, April 18, was another nod to Electric Fetus, promoting the written program for his “Piano &amp; Microphone” tour. The tweet displayed the program’s cover and said, simply: “electricfetus.com.”</p>
<p>When the store opened in 1968, National Lampoon magazine singled it out for the worst name of a business. But it remains an indie mecca for audiophiles — including vinyl-lovers — and drew grieving fans when Prince died.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>PRINCE MURALS</p>
<p>There are some beauties.</p>
<p>Downtown near 10th Street and Marquette Avenue, a five-story, white-painted wall of musical notes is where Prince shot some of his first publicity photos at age 18. At the time, it was home to Schmitt Music Company, which sold sheet music, pianos and organs. The musical notes are from a piece for piano by French composer Maurice Ravel.</p>
<p>Not far from Paisley Park, at Chanhassen Cinema, 570 Market St., is a huge purple portrait of Prince by muralist Graham Hoete. He told WCCO-TV he did it at the request of Minnesotans who saw photos of a Prince mural he painted in Sydney, Australia, where he lived.</p>
<p>Another purple portrait, complete with a white dove like the ones Prince kept at Paisley, was created by Bloomington, Minnesota, graffiti artist Rock “Cyfi” Martinez. It’s in an alley on one wall of the Sencha Tea Bar, 2601 Hennepin Ave. S., in the funky Uptown district Prince shouted out in song.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>PURPLE RAIN HOUSE</p>
<p>Prince’s famous Purple House residence in the woods of Lake Riley in Chanhassen was bulldozed more than a decade ago, but the simple “Purple Rain” home used in the movie stands, empty and a bit worse for wear. Head to 3420 Snelling Ave. in Minneapolis’ Longfellow neighborhood for a look at the outside. Prince never lived here but his character “The Kid” came of age within its walls in the 1984 film. Some purple flowers were tucked into the mailbox on a recent visit.</p>
<p>Other Prince-related houses are around, as are some of his old schools, studios where he recorded and other hangouts. The Minnesota History Center will display one of Prince’s purple outfits from “Purple Rain” and handwritten lyrics to an unreleased song during the anniversary week. The city’s visitor’s bureau has compiled a map.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>GRAFFITI BRIDGE</p>
<p>The famous marked-up railroad crossing from “Graffiti Bridge,” his 1990 sequel to “Purple Rain,” was replaced in 1991 by a popular bicycle and running path in suburban Eden Prairie. The bridge — covered with messages dating to the 1960s — had a heady, counterculture feel. The movie led Prince fans to add their own graffiti. But the replacement bike path is pristine.</p>
<p>After Prince’s death, devastated fans left farewell messages in black marker and purple spray paint on a highway underpass near Paisley Park, using the “love” symbol he created for himself. Getting there is tricky. Cross the busy highway leading to Paisley Park at the exit side of the parking lot, look for a West 78th Street sign and turn toward a walking path. The tunnel is marked Riley Creek.</p> | 3,850 |
<p>ST. LOUIS (AP) — The restaurant chain Steak 'n Shake alleges in a lawsuit that a former suburban St. Louis employee falsely claimed on Facebook that she found worms in a hamburger patty.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/steak-n-shake-sues-ex-employee-over-viral-facebook-post/article_e195822e-0220-5d58-8b0d-510032d00071.html" type="external">The St. Louis Post-Dispatch</a> reports that the federal suit was filed Wednesday. It says Melissa White claimed she found "worms" in a patty she planned to cook for herself Jan. 5 at the Florissant restaurant.</p>
<p>The suit says managers as well as a health inspector checked and found no worms.</p>
<p>White left the store but told a table of patrons, then later posted a picture of the patty on Facebook, claiming she had been fired and no one checked the meat.</p>
<p>The post was shared thousands of times.</p>
<p>The suit seeks unspecified damages and removal of the Facebook post.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, <a href="http://www.stltoday.com" type="external">http://www.stltoday.com</a></p>
<p>ST. LOUIS (AP) — The restaurant chain Steak 'n Shake alleges in a lawsuit that a former suburban St. Louis employee falsely claimed on Facebook that she found worms in a hamburger patty.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/steak-n-shake-sues-ex-employee-over-viral-facebook-post/article_e195822e-0220-5d58-8b0d-510032d00071.html" type="external">The St. Louis Post-Dispatch</a> reports that the federal suit was filed Wednesday. It says Melissa White claimed she found "worms" in a patty she planned to cook for herself Jan. 5 at the Florissant restaurant.</p>
<p>The suit says managers as well as a health inspector checked and found no worms.</p>
<p>White left the store but told a table of patrons, then later posted a picture of the patty on Facebook, claiming she had been fired and no one checked the meat.</p>
<p>The post was shared thousands of times.</p>
<p>The suit seeks unspecified damages and removal of the Facebook post.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, <a href="http://www.stltoday.com" type="external">http://www.stltoday.com</a></p> | Steak 'n Shake sues employee over claim of worms in meat | false | https://apnews.com/amp/bac53ebf8cdb41cdaf8eccb254f818c2 | 2018-01-18 | 2least
| Steak 'n Shake sues employee over claim of worms in meat
<p>ST. LOUIS (AP) — The restaurant chain Steak 'n Shake alleges in a lawsuit that a former suburban St. Louis employee falsely claimed on Facebook that she found worms in a hamburger patty.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/steak-n-shake-sues-ex-employee-over-viral-facebook-post/article_e195822e-0220-5d58-8b0d-510032d00071.html" type="external">The St. Louis Post-Dispatch</a> reports that the federal suit was filed Wednesday. It says Melissa White claimed she found "worms" in a patty she planned to cook for herself Jan. 5 at the Florissant restaurant.</p>
<p>The suit says managers as well as a health inspector checked and found no worms.</p>
<p>White left the store but told a table of patrons, then later posted a picture of the patty on Facebook, claiming she had been fired and no one checked the meat.</p>
<p>The post was shared thousands of times.</p>
<p>The suit seeks unspecified damages and removal of the Facebook post.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, <a href="http://www.stltoday.com" type="external">http://www.stltoday.com</a></p>
<p>ST. LOUIS (AP) — The restaurant chain Steak 'n Shake alleges in a lawsuit that a former suburban St. Louis employee falsely claimed on Facebook that she found worms in a hamburger patty.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/steak-n-shake-sues-ex-employee-over-viral-facebook-post/article_e195822e-0220-5d58-8b0d-510032d00071.html" type="external">The St. Louis Post-Dispatch</a> reports that the federal suit was filed Wednesday. It says Melissa White claimed she found "worms" in a patty she planned to cook for herself Jan. 5 at the Florissant restaurant.</p>
<p>The suit says managers as well as a health inspector checked and found no worms.</p>
<p>White left the store but told a table of patrons, then later posted a picture of the patty on Facebook, claiming she had been fired and no one checked the meat.</p>
<p>The post was shared thousands of times.</p>
<p>The suit seeks unspecified damages and removal of the Facebook post.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, <a href="http://www.stltoday.com" type="external">http://www.stltoday.com</a></p> | 3,851 |
<p>In the course of investigating the private charter plane usage by former HHS Secretary Tom Price, questions surrounding the participation of Kellyanne Conway in the use of private air travel have surfaced.</p>
<p>Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Elijah Cummings (D-MD), has requested information from the White House on how many flights Conway took and to what destinations, while accompanying Price to conventions and meetings about the opioid crisis in America.</p>
<p>Price resigned from his position in the Trump administration after racking up expenditures in excess of a million dollars on private and government air travel. Price has vowed to repay the government for flights which coincided with personal trips that were initially paid for out of government coffers. The total on those is reported at approximately $52,000 and Cummings has requested a copy of the check written by Price when it is received.</p>
<p>Cummings, in a letter to Conway that was obtained by <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/top-democrat-questions-kellyanne-conways-air-travel/story?id=50277532" type="external">ABC News</a>, asked:</p>
<p>‘Despite the fact that you joined Secretary Price on several of these flights, you have not made any similar public statements indicating whether your own actions were appropriate, whether you will continue to take such flights at taxpayer expense in the future, or whether you plan to personally repay the taxpayers for the cost of your seats on these flights.’</p>
<p>Price wasn’t the only person that was abusing private air travel in the Trump administration. Also under investigation are&#160;Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin,&#160;Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke,&#160;and Treasury Secretary&#160;Steven Mnuchin. Conway comes under scrutiny because of her travel with Price.</p>
<p>In an attempt to stop the misuse of government and private air travel, the White House has enacted new procedures for approval of all private air travel. According to a memo from Mick Mulvaney, White House budget director, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly now must sign off on any travel by agency administrators that utilize private chartered or government air travel. In the memo, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/top-democrat-questions-kellyanne-conways-air-travel/story?id=50277532" type="external">Mulvaney wrote</a>:</p>
<p>‘Every penny we spend comes from the taxpayer. We thus owe it to the taxpayer to work as hard managing that money wisely as the taxpayer must do to earn it in the first place.’</p>
<p>Although it is good to see a proactive approach being taken, after the fact, one must wonder if it is not “too little, too late.”</p>
<p>There have been almost constant scandals plaguing the Trump administration since before the election results were tallied. This first volley of investigations is just the tip of the iceberg. Coupled with the ongoing investigations into collusion with Russia before and after the election and inauguration, Trump will probably go down in history as the most scandalous president in American history.</p>
<p />
<p>Featured image from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVs7QhRXTfw" type="external">YouTube</a> video</p> | JUST IN: House Oversight Committee Investigating Kellyanne Conway (DETAILS) | true | http://bipartisanreport.com/2017/10/04/just-in-house-oversight-committee-investigating-kellyanne-conway-details/ | 2017-10-04 | 4left
| JUST IN: House Oversight Committee Investigating Kellyanne Conway (DETAILS)
<p>In the course of investigating the private charter plane usage by former HHS Secretary Tom Price, questions surrounding the participation of Kellyanne Conway in the use of private air travel have surfaced.</p>
<p>Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Elijah Cummings (D-MD), has requested information from the White House on how many flights Conway took and to what destinations, while accompanying Price to conventions and meetings about the opioid crisis in America.</p>
<p>Price resigned from his position in the Trump administration after racking up expenditures in excess of a million dollars on private and government air travel. Price has vowed to repay the government for flights which coincided with personal trips that were initially paid for out of government coffers. The total on those is reported at approximately $52,000 and Cummings has requested a copy of the check written by Price when it is received.</p>
<p>Cummings, in a letter to Conway that was obtained by <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/top-democrat-questions-kellyanne-conways-air-travel/story?id=50277532" type="external">ABC News</a>, asked:</p>
<p>‘Despite the fact that you joined Secretary Price on several of these flights, you have not made any similar public statements indicating whether your own actions were appropriate, whether you will continue to take such flights at taxpayer expense in the future, or whether you plan to personally repay the taxpayers for the cost of your seats on these flights.’</p>
<p>Price wasn’t the only person that was abusing private air travel in the Trump administration. Also under investigation are&#160;Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin,&#160;Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke,&#160;and Treasury Secretary&#160;Steven Mnuchin. Conway comes under scrutiny because of her travel with Price.</p>
<p>In an attempt to stop the misuse of government and private air travel, the White House has enacted new procedures for approval of all private air travel. According to a memo from Mick Mulvaney, White House budget director, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly now must sign off on any travel by agency administrators that utilize private chartered or government air travel. In the memo, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/top-democrat-questions-kellyanne-conways-air-travel/story?id=50277532" type="external">Mulvaney wrote</a>:</p>
<p>‘Every penny we spend comes from the taxpayer. We thus owe it to the taxpayer to work as hard managing that money wisely as the taxpayer must do to earn it in the first place.’</p>
<p>Although it is good to see a proactive approach being taken, after the fact, one must wonder if it is not “too little, too late.”</p>
<p>There have been almost constant scandals plaguing the Trump administration since before the election results were tallied. This first volley of investigations is just the tip of the iceberg. Coupled with the ongoing investigations into collusion with Russia before and after the election and inauguration, Trump will probably go down in history as the most scandalous president in American history.</p>
<p />
<p>Featured image from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVs7QhRXTfw" type="external">YouTube</a> video</p> | 3,852 |
<p>Two weeks after the scandal broke, NBC Nightly News on Friday night became the first broadcast network morning or evening news program to inform viewers about " <a href="http://newsbusters.org/issues-events-groups/political-scandals/climategate" type="external">ClimateGate</a>," but only in the most cursory manner as correspondent Anne Thompson, a long-time ally of the environmental left, despaired the e-mails may end up "giving politicians from coal and oil-producing states another reason to delay taking action to reduce emissions. The government's leading scientist told Congress there is no time to lose." Anchor Brian Williams had teased: "ClimateGate, they're calling it. A new scandal over global warming and it's burning up the Internet. Have the books been cooked on climate change?" But neither Williams nor Thompson ever again used the "ClimateGate" term as Thompson's story assured viewers the threat remains while she saw - not a major scientific scandal - but merely how "those who doubt that manmade greenhouse gases are changing the climate say" the e-mails "show climate scientists massaging data and suppressing studies by those who disagree." Thompson, who in 2007 declared "the scientific debate is no longer over society's role in global warming. It is now a matter of degrees," allowed soundbites from a Republican Congressman and Patrick Michaels of the Cato Institute, but countered with how "25 leading U.S. scientists accused climate change opponents of misrepresenting the e-mails' significance" and, after a clip of left-wing activist Michael Oppenheimer, she fretted over how, as quoted above, the e-mails will "delay" vital action. Thompson concluded with NOAA's administrator: "Climate change is not a theory. It is a documented set of observations about the world."(The Media Research Center on Friday issued a press release mocking the network silence on ClimateGate: " <a href="" type="internal">Day Fourteen and Counting</a>.") Immediately following Thompson's defense of global warming hysteria, Williams noted "snow today in Houston, Texas" which "weather experts say...is the earliest snowfall on record in that city." Williams:</p>
<p>And there's weather in the news tonight. Snow today in Houston, Texas. Weather experts say it is the earliest snowfall on record in that city. As much as four inches fell in some places, snarling travel. And in a city on the Gulf of Mexico with no salt spreaders, Houstonians are being warned to stay indoors tonight as it gets colder there. Already a big mess at the airport. A lot of preemptively cancelled flights.</p>
<p>President Obama didn't go far enough for Thompson when he addressed the UN in September, <a href="" type="internal">as reported in a BiasAlert post</a>:</p>
<p>Reporter Anne Thompson wistfully recalled that "when Barack Obama became President, many in the world hoped the U.S. would take a leadership role in stopping climate change" and so "that led to big expectations for today's speech - expectations that were quickly dashed." Thompson asserted "the world wanted to hear President Obama make a commitment to specific cuts in carbon dioxide emissions. Instead of action, it got talk" and, in the ultimate insult a journalist can deliver, she rued how Obama had "one line that sounded a lot like his predecessor, George W. Bush, who refused to agree to emission cuts without similar actions from India and China."</p>
<p>An August 16, 2007 CyberAlert item, " <a href="" type="internal">NBC News Joins Newsweek in Smearing Global Warming 'Deniers</a>,'" recounted:</p>
<p>Reporter Anne Thompson began her crusading piece with "In Denial" on screen over video of the Cato Institute's Patrick Michaels. She fretted about "interest groups fueled by powerful companies, including oil giant ExxonMobil." Citing the far-left Union of Concerned Scientists, she highlighted their claim that "ExxonMobil gave almost $16 million over seven years to denier groups, including the Competitive Enterprise Institute."....</p>
<p>Touting Michael Oppenheimer as an expert, whom NBC identified only as an "atmospheric scientist" with Princeton University, Thompson asserted that "climate experts say whether hired guns or honest dissenters, deniers are confusing the issue and delaying solutions." Oppenheimer, who NBC failed to note is "science adviser" to the left-wing Environmental Defense organization, ominously warned: "This is a problem that needs to be attended to very soon, immediately, or else it threatens to get out of control." Thompson's conclusion echoed: "The scientific debate is no longer over society's role in global warming. It is now a matter of degrees."</p>
<p>The MRC's Brad Wilmouth corrected the closed-captioning against the video to provide this transcript of the story on the Friday, December 4 NBC Nightly News:</p>
<p>BRIAN WILLIAMS: There was a surprising announcement just a short time ago from the White House. President Obama has changed his plans, now says he won't attend the beginning of that U.N. conference on climate change next week in Copenhagen. Instead, he'll attend at the end of the conference when leaders from China and India will be there. And, as the world prepares to tackle this issue, there's a new scandal that's burning up the Net these days. It began with emails that were stolen, and the scandal has to do with climate change. Our chief environmental affairs correspondent, Anne Thompson, has our report.</p>
<p>ANNE THOMPSON: The hottest debate in the blogosphere is about changes in the earth's atmosphere and what stolen emails reveal about some data supporting global warming. Those who doubt that manmade greenhouse gases are changing the climate say these e-mails from Britain's University of East Anglia show climate scientists massaging data and suppressing studies by those who disagree. That's led to angry headlines on both sides of the Atlantic, and angry politicians.</p>
<p>REP. JAMES SENSENBRENNER (R-WI): It's junk science, and it is a part of a massive international scientific fraud.</p>
<p>THOMPSON: The uproar is having an impact. The United Nations today said it would investigate the emails, but did not back away from the science that led it to determine man is responsible for global warming. Still, critics say the emails show catastrophic predictions of countries and people devastated by warming need to be reconsidered.</p>
<p>PATRICK MICHAELS, CATO INSTITUTE: There are clear problems with these records that deserve investigation, and not providing them to people because they're, quote, "going to find something wrong with it," is just not the way we're supposed to do science.</p>
<p>THOMPSON: Today, in a letter to Congress, 25 leading U.S. scientists accused climate change opponents of misrepresenting the emails' significance.</p>
<p>PROFESSOR MICHAEL OPPENHEIMER, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: I think the e-mail scandal is being used as a political side show to deflect interest in actually dealing with climate change. I think, in that regard, it will fail.</p>
<p>THOMPSON: Even more than in Copenhagen, some think the e-mails will have the greatest impact in Washington, giving politicians from coal and oil-producing states another reason to delay taking action to reduce emissions. The government's leading scientist told Congress there is no time to lose.</p>
<p>JANE LUBCHENCO, NOAA ADMINISTRATOR: I emphasize that climate change is not a theory. It is a documented set of observations about the world.</p>
<p>THOMPSON: An ever-changing world still debating how much it is changing. Anne Thompson, NBC News, New York.</p>
<p>MSNBC.com <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/ns/nightly_news#34281922" type="external">video of the story</a>. - Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center</p> | NBC Nightly News Takes Up ClimateGate, But Frets It Could 'Delay Taking Action' | true | http://mrc.org/biasalert/2009/20091205022418.aspx | 2009-12-05 | 0right
| NBC Nightly News Takes Up ClimateGate, But Frets It Could 'Delay Taking Action'
<p>Two weeks after the scandal broke, NBC Nightly News on Friday night became the first broadcast network morning or evening news program to inform viewers about " <a href="http://newsbusters.org/issues-events-groups/political-scandals/climategate" type="external">ClimateGate</a>," but only in the most cursory manner as correspondent Anne Thompson, a long-time ally of the environmental left, despaired the e-mails may end up "giving politicians from coal and oil-producing states another reason to delay taking action to reduce emissions. The government's leading scientist told Congress there is no time to lose." Anchor Brian Williams had teased: "ClimateGate, they're calling it. A new scandal over global warming and it's burning up the Internet. Have the books been cooked on climate change?" But neither Williams nor Thompson ever again used the "ClimateGate" term as Thompson's story assured viewers the threat remains while she saw - not a major scientific scandal - but merely how "those who doubt that manmade greenhouse gases are changing the climate say" the e-mails "show climate scientists massaging data and suppressing studies by those who disagree." Thompson, who in 2007 declared "the scientific debate is no longer over society's role in global warming. It is now a matter of degrees," allowed soundbites from a Republican Congressman and Patrick Michaels of the Cato Institute, but countered with how "25 leading U.S. scientists accused climate change opponents of misrepresenting the e-mails' significance" and, after a clip of left-wing activist Michael Oppenheimer, she fretted over how, as quoted above, the e-mails will "delay" vital action. Thompson concluded with NOAA's administrator: "Climate change is not a theory. It is a documented set of observations about the world."(The Media Research Center on Friday issued a press release mocking the network silence on ClimateGate: " <a href="" type="internal">Day Fourteen and Counting</a>.") Immediately following Thompson's defense of global warming hysteria, Williams noted "snow today in Houston, Texas" which "weather experts say...is the earliest snowfall on record in that city." Williams:</p>
<p>And there's weather in the news tonight. Snow today in Houston, Texas. Weather experts say it is the earliest snowfall on record in that city. As much as four inches fell in some places, snarling travel. And in a city on the Gulf of Mexico with no salt spreaders, Houstonians are being warned to stay indoors tonight as it gets colder there. Already a big mess at the airport. A lot of preemptively cancelled flights.</p>
<p>President Obama didn't go far enough for Thompson when he addressed the UN in September, <a href="" type="internal">as reported in a BiasAlert post</a>:</p>
<p>Reporter Anne Thompson wistfully recalled that "when Barack Obama became President, many in the world hoped the U.S. would take a leadership role in stopping climate change" and so "that led to big expectations for today's speech - expectations that were quickly dashed." Thompson asserted "the world wanted to hear President Obama make a commitment to specific cuts in carbon dioxide emissions. Instead of action, it got talk" and, in the ultimate insult a journalist can deliver, she rued how Obama had "one line that sounded a lot like his predecessor, George W. Bush, who refused to agree to emission cuts without similar actions from India and China."</p>
<p>An August 16, 2007 CyberAlert item, " <a href="" type="internal">NBC News Joins Newsweek in Smearing Global Warming 'Deniers</a>,'" recounted:</p>
<p>Reporter Anne Thompson began her crusading piece with "In Denial" on screen over video of the Cato Institute's Patrick Michaels. She fretted about "interest groups fueled by powerful companies, including oil giant ExxonMobil." Citing the far-left Union of Concerned Scientists, she highlighted their claim that "ExxonMobil gave almost $16 million over seven years to denier groups, including the Competitive Enterprise Institute."....</p>
<p>Touting Michael Oppenheimer as an expert, whom NBC identified only as an "atmospheric scientist" with Princeton University, Thompson asserted that "climate experts say whether hired guns or honest dissenters, deniers are confusing the issue and delaying solutions." Oppenheimer, who NBC failed to note is "science adviser" to the left-wing Environmental Defense organization, ominously warned: "This is a problem that needs to be attended to very soon, immediately, or else it threatens to get out of control." Thompson's conclusion echoed: "The scientific debate is no longer over society's role in global warming. It is now a matter of degrees."</p>
<p>The MRC's Brad Wilmouth corrected the closed-captioning against the video to provide this transcript of the story on the Friday, December 4 NBC Nightly News:</p>
<p>BRIAN WILLIAMS: There was a surprising announcement just a short time ago from the White House. President Obama has changed his plans, now says he won't attend the beginning of that U.N. conference on climate change next week in Copenhagen. Instead, he'll attend at the end of the conference when leaders from China and India will be there. And, as the world prepares to tackle this issue, there's a new scandal that's burning up the Net these days. It began with emails that were stolen, and the scandal has to do with climate change. Our chief environmental affairs correspondent, Anne Thompson, has our report.</p>
<p>ANNE THOMPSON: The hottest debate in the blogosphere is about changes in the earth's atmosphere and what stolen emails reveal about some data supporting global warming. Those who doubt that manmade greenhouse gases are changing the climate say these e-mails from Britain's University of East Anglia show climate scientists massaging data and suppressing studies by those who disagree. That's led to angry headlines on both sides of the Atlantic, and angry politicians.</p>
<p>REP. JAMES SENSENBRENNER (R-WI): It's junk science, and it is a part of a massive international scientific fraud.</p>
<p>THOMPSON: The uproar is having an impact. The United Nations today said it would investigate the emails, but did not back away from the science that led it to determine man is responsible for global warming. Still, critics say the emails show catastrophic predictions of countries and people devastated by warming need to be reconsidered.</p>
<p>PATRICK MICHAELS, CATO INSTITUTE: There are clear problems with these records that deserve investigation, and not providing them to people because they're, quote, "going to find something wrong with it," is just not the way we're supposed to do science.</p>
<p>THOMPSON: Today, in a letter to Congress, 25 leading U.S. scientists accused climate change opponents of misrepresenting the emails' significance.</p>
<p>PROFESSOR MICHAEL OPPENHEIMER, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: I think the e-mail scandal is being used as a political side show to deflect interest in actually dealing with climate change. I think, in that regard, it will fail.</p>
<p>THOMPSON: Even more than in Copenhagen, some think the e-mails will have the greatest impact in Washington, giving politicians from coal and oil-producing states another reason to delay taking action to reduce emissions. The government's leading scientist told Congress there is no time to lose.</p>
<p>JANE LUBCHENCO, NOAA ADMINISTRATOR: I emphasize that climate change is not a theory. It is a documented set of observations about the world.</p>
<p>THOMPSON: An ever-changing world still debating how much it is changing. Anne Thompson, NBC News, New York.</p>
<p>MSNBC.com <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/ns/nightly_news#34281922" type="external">video of the story</a>. - Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center</p> | 3,853 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>HOUSTON - A Texas jury has convicted a 21-year-old Houston man of capital murder in the 2012 fatal shooting of a man over a pair of Air Jordan sneakers the man had just bought.</p>
<p>A Harris County jury deliberated about two hours Friday before convicting Neal Bland in the killing of 21-year-old Joshua Woods. Bland automatically received a sentence of life imprisonment without parole since prosecutors did not seek the death penalty.</p>
<p>Woods was sitting in a car Dec. 21, 2012, with a pair of newly purchased, newly released Air Jordan XI "Bred" sneakers that retailed for $185 when some armed men approached.</p>
<p>The car's driver ran and was uninjured. Prosecutors say Bland shot Woods, who then tried to drive away but crashed between two houses. He died at a hospital.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Houston man convicted, gets life in slaying over Air Jordans | false | https://abqjournal.com/719359/houston-man-convicted-gets-life-in-slaying-over-air-jordans.html | 2least
| Houston man convicted, gets life in slaying over Air Jordans
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>HOUSTON - A Texas jury has convicted a 21-year-old Houston man of capital murder in the 2012 fatal shooting of a man over a pair of Air Jordan sneakers the man had just bought.</p>
<p>A Harris County jury deliberated about two hours Friday before convicting Neal Bland in the killing of 21-year-old Joshua Woods. Bland automatically received a sentence of life imprisonment without parole since prosecutors did not seek the death penalty.</p>
<p>Woods was sitting in a car Dec. 21, 2012, with a pair of newly purchased, newly released Air Jordan XI "Bred" sneakers that retailed for $185 when some armed men approached.</p>
<p>The car's driver ran and was uninjured. Prosecutors say Bland shot Woods, who then tried to drive away but crashed between two houses. He died at a hospital.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | 3,854 |
|
<p />
<p />
<p>To everyone disappointed and upset by Cruz's defeat last night (and that includes me):</p>
<p>If we do not rally behind the GOP nominee, *this* is what we will be getting for the next eight years.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-goodenough/wh-navy-seal-was-killed-combat-not-combat-mission" type="external">Via CNS News:</a></p>
<p>A Navy SEAL killed during an Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL) attack in Iraq was "killed in combat," White House press secretary Josh Earnest acknowledged Tuesday, but was "not in a combat mission."</p>
<p>The serviceman, identified as Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Charlie Keating IV, was the third member of the U.S. armed forces to be killed in combat since President Obama sent troops back into Iraq to advise, train and equip local forces, three years after the formal U.S. withdrawal was completed.</p>
<p>Keating was killed when ISIS attacked a Kurdish peshmerga position some two or three miles behind the front line in northern Iraq, according to the Pentagon.</p>
<p>"This is an individual who is not in a combat mission, but he was in a dangerous place," Earnest told a daily briefing. "And his position came under - under attack. He was armed, trained and prepared to defend himself."</p>
<p>"Unfortunately, he was killed. And he was killed in combat, but that was not a part of his mission," he continued. "His mission was specifically to offer advice and assistance to those Iraqi forces that were fighting for their own country."?.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Via CBS News.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>****************************************************</p>
<p />
<p /> | true | http://tammybruce.com/2016/05/wh-doublespeak-navy-seal-was-killed-in-combat-but-not-in-a-combat-mission.html | 0right
|
<p />
<p />
<p>To everyone disappointed and upset by Cruz's defeat last night (and that includes me):</p>
<p>If we do not rally behind the GOP nominee, *this* is what we will be getting for the next eight years.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-goodenough/wh-navy-seal-was-killed-combat-not-combat-mission" type="external">Via CNS News:</a></p>
<p>A Navy SEAL killed during an Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL) attack in Iraq was "killed in combat," White House press secretary Josh Earnest acknowledged Tuesday, but was "not in a combat mission."</p>
<p>The serviceman, identified as Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Charlie Keating IV, was the third member of the U.S. armed forces to be killed in combat since President Obama sent troops back into Iraq to advise, train and equip local forces, three years after the formal U.S. withdrawal was completed.</p>
<p>Keating was killed when ISIS attacked a Kurdish peshmerga position some two or three miles behind the front line in northern Iraq, according to the Pentagon.</p>
<p>"This is an individual who is not in a combat mission, but he was in a dangerous place," Earnest told a daily briefing. "And his position came under - under attack. He was armed, trained and prepared to defend himself."</p>
<p>"Unfortunately, he was killed. And he was killed in combat, but that was not a part of his mission," he continued. "His mission was specifically to offer advice and assistance to those Iraqi forces that were fighting for their own country."?.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Via CBS News.</p>
<p />
<p />
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<p /> | 3,855 |
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<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Transcript of an interview on Australia’s Dateline on SBC.</p>
<p>A few days ago, the US Senate Armed Services Committee voted to repeal a long-standing ban on the development of small nuclear bombs—so called mini nukes. For 10 years the US has abided by an international moratorium on the testing of nuclear weapons—another international convention now likely to go up in smoke. Tonight’s guest, Richard Butler, has had a long involvement in nuclear disarmament issues. Perhaps better known as the former chief weapons inspector in Iraq, most of his career was spent in helping to forge the international anti-nuclear conventions—including a spell as Australia’s Ambassador for Disarmament.</p>
<p>MARK DAVIS: Richard Butler, the US Armed Services Committee has just passed a motion supporting the development of what they’re calling mini nukes. Does this signal the beginning of another arms race? How serious should we take it?</p>
<p>RICHARD BUTLER, FORMER UN CHIEF ARMS INSPECTOR: I can’t overstate the seriousness of it. It is absolutely shocking. If this becomes the policy of the United States Government, if it passes through the Congress and the Bush Administration, which wants it to be the policy, if it implements it, it will involve the United States walking away from, tearing up, solemn obligations that it’s made for 30 years now under international law, and on which the world relies—an obligation to progressively reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world so that they don’t spread to other countries. Instead of honouring that obligation, this would involve tearing it up, walking away from it and, in fact, making new nuclear weapons, going in exactly the opposite direction.</p>
<p>MARK DAVIS: Well, it’s pretty dramatic departure from—I think we all thought that nuclear proliferation was behind it. Who’s pushing for this?</p>
<p>RICHARD BUTLER: The Bush Administration. It’s been clear now for about two years that George W. Bush and the people around him want to have nuclear weapons in the regular battlefield arsenal of the United States armed forces. No more a question of nuclear weapons simply being there to deter what was the Soviet Union, the big scale intercontinental stuff. The question of whether that really worked or not is something we probably haven’t got time to talk about. But for the whole of the period of nuclear weapons since the end of the Second World War, their stated purpose was for deterrence, mutual assured destruction, the outcome of which was supposed to be that therefore they would never be used. They would just deter each other. Now, the Bush Administration wants to have nuclear weapons in the regular battlefield arsenal of its armed forces in order to use them in the same way that they’d use a conventional artillery piece, a conventional missile, an ordinary cannon. That’s what they want to do and they’re the ones pushing for it.</p>
<p>MARK DAVIS: Well, they have an argument for that, of course, is that this now has a strategic use with limited fallout, for use against terrorist groups or rogue states where otherwise a lot of troops would be lost in taking that position. There is a certain logic…</p>
<p>RICHARD BUTLER: There’s none. I’m sorry to interrupt you, but it’s just profound nonsense. Look, even Colin Powell, who’s now Secretary of State, when he was in charge of the United States armed forces wrote in his main book about his experiences as a military commander that when he was in charge in Europe, he dreaded, he dreaded that the order would come from Washington to use nuclear weapons on the battlefield, tactical rather than strategic nuclear weapons. He said there in his book—and everyone knows this, Mark—they are useless and dangerous. All they do is escalate. There is nothing that you can’t achieve with today’s high precision conventional weapons that would require you to go, to take that step, to cross what is called the nuclear threshold and use nuclear weapons. If you cross that threshold, you enter into weapons of mass destruction, you transform the battlefield into a place where the other side can do the same and, look, the fundamental irony of the situation we’re dealing with here is that we have just witnessed the United States go to Iraq to remove Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, and it is now itself proposing to acquire new weapons of mass destruction. It makes no sense in logic, in politics, in proliferation terms and it makes no sense on the battlefield. There is nothing that needs to be achieved on the battlefield today that can’t be achieved with conventional non-nuclear, non-mass destruction weapons.</p>
<p>MARK DAVIS: Well, at the moment, it’s passed a committee stage which is significant in itself, but from your discussions with US officials and your contacts in the States, how far up the food chain is this likely to progress? Are we being overly dramatic in even talking about it now?</p>
<p>RICHARD BUTLER: No, I find it pretty astonishing that people haven’t been talking about it already, that’s why I welcome being with you here tonight and congratulate you for doing it. Because you see, Mark, we are witnessing a profound change in the way in which the world has been run since the Second World War. A cornerstone of that world has been the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a bit of a mouthful, but that’s the treaty that states—that those who have nuclear weapons will progressively get rid of them and those who do not have them, will never get them. So that we’ll come one day to a point where no-one will have nuclear weapons. The United States and the other four official nuclear weapons powers, the five of them, are obligated under that treaty to progressively reduce. Now, if the United States goes ahead and does what is being planned, and walks away from that obligation and, in fact, starts to make new nuclear weapons, I promise you, Mark, it will be the end of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty that we extended a few years ago to be indefinite in the life of humankind—after 30 years of operation, it was extended in 1995 to be indefinite—and the elemental bargain there is that those who don’t have them won’t get them, and those who do have them will get rid of them. And if the United States does this, people will walk away from that treaty, we’ll see—you saw what India and Pakistan did, we know what Israel has done, we know what Iran is looking for, North Korea, it will spread, because you cannot say to another country “It’s OK for me to have nuclear weapons because my security is so important…”</p>
<p>MARK DAVIS: But that’s the point, isn’t it?</p>
<p>RICHARD BUTLER: “..but you can’t.”</p>
<p>MARK DAVIS: That’s exactly what America is doing now. What does it do for the authority of the American voice to talk to North Korea, to talk to Iran about nuclear weapons?</p>
<p>RICHARD BUTLER: It trashes it. It trashes it. This administration in Washington is honestly asking other human beings to believe that American security is so precious, that it can have in its possession whatever weapons of mass destruction it might want, but others can’t. You know, I heard that argument for years. I’ve worked on this subject for over a quarter of a century. I heard it for years, in particular in India. I’ve written a book about it. And the Indians were quite compelling, saying “We can’t accept that somehow American security is more important than ours. We’ve got China on our border with nuclear weapons, they’ve attacked us several times. We can’t accept the basic inequity that is involved in that position.” The United States is about to bring that inequity to a height and it will have nothing to say, nothing that it can credibly say to any other country—“You may not have these weapons”—or indeed to a terrorist group, if it itself walks away from what it has solemnly promised under international law. I welcome your calling attention to this. People must debate this. This is a very serious move.</p>
<p>MARK DAVIS: Under the various treaties, nuclear non-proliferation and the test ban treaties, what are the consequences for a country that either walks away from or breaks the terms of that treaty?</p>
<p>RICHARD BUTLER: What is supposed to be the consequence is that the International Atomic Energy Agency will report to the Security Council that a country—in this case North Korea recently did it—has walked away from its obligation and asked the Security Council, who has the political and military muscle, allegedly, to deal with it, to go to that country and say “You’re breaking the law, this has to stop or else.” Now…</p>
<p>MARK DAVIS: So is that going to happen to America?</p>
<p>RICHARD BUTLER: It’s not going to happen at all! It won’t happen because the way in which the Security Council was trashed on trying to get it support for the invasion of Iraq, this wasn’t obtained, and under international law that invasion therefore is outside the law, some would say plainly illegal. But in very practical terms I ask you, what capacity has the United States now to go to the Security Council and say “Let’s all collectively deal with this threat to security, the country X is about to acquire nuclear weapons.” It’s got no capacity, because of its own double standard on nuclear weapons and because of the way in which the Security Council was abused on the way into Iraq. The Security Council, in this sense, is lying somewhat in ruins, at precisely the time that we need it.</p>
<p>MARK DAVIS: Well, I guess you’d have to say clearly the Americans don’t care what the consequences of a treaty…</p>
<p>RICHARD BUTLER: You’re dead right.</p>
<p>MARK DAVIS: But what do you do now?</p>
<p>RICHARD BUTLER: Well, I’ve talked to senior members of the Bush Administration and if the viewing public are asking “Well, why are they behaving this way?” Well, one can say they’re just plainly selfish or this is the consequence of September 11 and so on. Not really. It’s this—this administration has a view of the special character of the United States, the singular and exclusive character that is new. I’ve talked to them about it and they make this plain. They say “We are the sole super power, we’re therefore the exceptional country, we’re outside of international law. Others have to obey the law and obey the rules, but we don’t.” I mean, I’m not making that up. If they were sitting here tonight, Mark, the people I’ve talked with would readily agree. They’d say “Yeah, that’s right, that’s who we are. We are the exceptional country and we don’t have to obey the law because we’re different.” Now, that’s where this is proceeding from. And I ask you to recognise what happens when the most powerful country, the same as the most powerful people within a domestic society, consider themselves to be above the law. What happens? Citizens, or countries, decide that the law itself is no good and that’s what will happen in the nuclear area.</p>
<p>MARK DAVIS: Well, while I have you here I’ll get you to put your Iraq hat on for a moment. Are you surprised that the Americans haven’t found any weapons of mass destruction so far?</p>
<p>RICHARD BUTLER: No, I’m not, Mark. There’s no doubt that unaccounted for weapons existed when Saddam threw me and my team out in 1998 and, indeed, when Hans Blix, my successor, made his last reports. But I think what we are seeing now is the very strong possibility that towards the end, just before the war began, Iraq either began to destroy those weapons or moved them out possibly to Syria. Destroyed them in the way that it started, you’ll remember, to destroy the al-Samoud missile, in the belief that the weapons wouldn’t be of any further use to them and it would be better for their case if they could say—if no weapons were able to be discovered.</p>
<p>MARK DAVIS: I mean, this is the incredible point, I suppose. We’ve just invaded a country, we’ve killed thousands of people and, despicable as Saddam Hussein may have been, he was probably telling the truth.</p>
<p>RICHARD BUTLER: We need to know that, that’s what I’m saying. It could well be that at that point, immediately prior to the war when they lodged their 12,000 page document, that we may discover they were telling the truth in the sense that at that time they did destroy those extant weapons. We need to know what the facts are to know whether the weapons of mass destruction justification for the invasion was real or not. It’s very, very important. We have four people—the US has four key people in custody now—General Saddi, General Rashid, Tariq Aziz and Dr Germ, Rihab Taha. They know exactly what the facts are. We need to know what they’re saying. We need to know on what basis they’re being interrogated. We need the truth about those weapons, Iraq’s programs, did they give them to terrorists, for example, as has sometimes been claimed. We need the truth behind an invasion and occupation by the United States, and its friends, of Iraq.</p>
<p>Richard Butler, we’ll have to leave it there but thanks for joining Dateline.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | An Interview with Richard Butler | true | https://counterpunch.org/2003/05/16/an-interview-with-richard-butler/ | 2003-05-16 | 4left
| An Interview with Richard Butler
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Transcript of an interview on Australia’s Dateline on SBC.</p>
<p>A few days ago, the US Senate Armed Services Committee voted to repeal a long-standing ban on the development of small nuclear bombs—so called mini nukes. For 10 years the US has abided by an international moratorium on the testing of nuclear weapons—another international convention now likely to go up in smoke. Tonight’s guest, Richard Butler, has had a long involvement in nuclear disarmament issues. Perhaps better known as the former chief weapons inspector in Iraq, most of his career was spent in helping to forge the international anti-nuclear conventions—including a spell as Australia’s Ambassador for Disarmament.</p>
<p>MARK DAVIS: Richard Butler, the US Armed Services Committee has just passed a motion supporting the development of what they’re calling mini nukes. Does this signal the beginning of another arms race? How serious should we take it?</p>
<p>RICHARD BUTLER, FORMER UN CHIEF ARMS INSPECTOR: I can’t overstate the seriousness of it. It is absolutely shocking. If this becomes the policy of the United States Government, if it passes through the Congress and the Bush Administration, which wants it to be the policy, if it implements it, it will involve the United States walking away from, tearing up, solemn obligations that it’s made for 30 years now under international law, and on which the world relies—an obligation to progressively reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world so that they don’t spread to other countries. Instead of honouring that obligation, this would involve tearing it up, walking away from it and, in fact, making new nuclear weapons, going in exactly the opposite direction.</p>
<p>MARK DAVIS: Well, it’s pretty dramatic departure from—I think we all thought that nuclear proliferation was behind it. Who’s pushing for this?</p>
<p>RICHARD BUTLER: The Bush Administration. It’s been clear now for about two years that George W. Bush and the people around him want to have nuclear weapons in the regular battlefield arsenal of the United States armed forces. No more a question of nuclear weapons simply being there to deter what was the Soviet Union, the big scale intercontinental stuff. The question of whether that really worked or not is something we probably haven’t got time to talk about. But for the whole of the period of nuclear weapons since the end of the Second World War, their stated purpose was for deterrence, mutual assured destruction, the outcome of which was supposed to be that therefore they would never be used. They would just deter each other. Now, the Bush Administration wants to have nuclear weapons in the regular battlefield arsenal of its armed forces in order to use them in the same way that they’d use a conventional artillery piece, a conventional missile, an ordinary cannon. That’s what they want to do and they’re the ones pushing for it.</p>
<p>MARK DAVIS: Well, they have an argument for that, of course, is that this now has a strategic use with limited fallout, for use against terrorist groups or rogue states where otherwise a lot of troops would be lost in taking that position. There is a certain logic…</p>
<p>RICHARD BUTLER: There’s none. I’m sorry to interrupt you, but it’s just profound nonsense. Look, even Colin Powell, who’s now Secretary of State, when he was in charge of the United States armed forces wrote in his main book about his experiences as a military commander that when he was in charge in Europe, he dreaded, he dreaded that the order would come from Washington to use nuclear weapons on the battlefield, tactical rather than strategic nuclear weapons. He said there in his book—and everyone knows this, Mark—they are useless and dangerous. All they do is escalate. There is nothing that you can’t achieve with today’s high precision conventional weapons that would require you to go, to take that step, to cross what is called the nuclear threshold and use nuclear weapons. If you cross that threshold, you enter into weapons of mass destruction, you transform the battlefield into a place where the other side can do the same and, look, the fundamental irony of the situation we’re dealing with here is that we have just witnessed the United States go to Iraq to remove Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, and it is now itself proposing to acquire new weapons of mass destruction. It makes no sense in logic, in politics, in proliferation terms and it makes no sense on the battlefield. There is nothing that needs to be achieved on the battlefield today that can’t be achieved with conventional non-nuclear, non-mass destruction weapons.</p>
<p>MARK DAVIS: Well, at the moment, it’s passed a committee stage which is significant in itself, but from your discussions with US officials and your contacts in the States, how far up the food chain is this likely to progress? Are we being overly dramatic in even talking about it now?</p>
<p>RICHARD BUTLER: No, I find it pretty astonishing that people haven’t been talking about it already, that’s why I welcome being with you here tonight and congratulate you for doing it. Because you see, Mark, we are witnessing a profound change in the way in which the world has been run since the Second World War. A cornerstone of that world has been the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a bit of a mouthful, but that’s the treaty that states—that those who have nuclear weapons will progressively get rid of them and those who do not have them, will never get them. So that we’ll come one day to a point where no-one will have nuclear weapons. The United States and the other four official nuclear weapons powers, the five of them, are obligated under that treaty to progressively reduce. Now, if the United States goes ahead and does what is being planned, and walks away from that obligation and, in fact, starts to make new nuclear weapons, I promise you, Mark, it will be the end of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty that we extended a few years ago to be indefinite in the life of humankind—after 30 years of operation, it was extended in 1995 to be indefinite—and the elemental bargain there is that those who don’t have them won’t get them, and those who do have them will get rid of them. And if the United States does this, people will walk away from that treaty, we’ll see—you saw what India and Pakistan did, we know what Israel has done, we know what Iran is looking for, North Korea, it will spread, because you cannot say to another country “It’s OK for me to have nuclear weapons because my security is so important…”</p>
<p>MARK DAVIS: But that’s the point, isn’t it?</p>
<p>RICHARD BUTLER: “..but you can’t.”</p>
<p>MARK DAVIS: That’s exactly what America is doing now. What does it do for the authority of the American voice to talk to North Korea, to talk to Iran about nuclear weapons?</p>
<p>RICHARD BUTLER: It trashes it. It trashes it. This administration in Washington is honestly asking other human beings to believe that American security is so precious, that it can have in its possession whatever weapons of mass destruction it might want, but others can’t. You know, I heard that argument for years. I’ve worked on this subject for over a quarter of a century. I heard it for years, in particular in India. I’ve written a book about it. And the Indians were quite compelling, saying “We can’t accept that somehow American security is more important than ours. We’ve got China on our border with nuclear weapons, they’ve attacked us several times. We can’t accept the basic inequity that is involved in that position.” The United States is about to bring that inequity to a height and it will have nothing to say, nothing that it can credibly say to any other country—“You may not have these weapons”—or indeed to a terrorist group, if it itself walks away from what it has solemnly promised under international law. I welcome your calling attention to this. People must debate this. This is a very serious move.</p>
<p>MARK DAVIS: Under the various treaties, nuclear non-proliferation and the test ban treaties, what are the consequences for a country that either walks away from or breaks the terms of that treaty?</p>
<p>RICHARD BUTLER: What is supposed to be the consequence is that the International Atomic Energy Agency will report to the Security Council that a country—in this case North Korea recently did it—has walked away from its obligation and asked the Security Council, who has the political and military muscle, allegedly, to deal with it, to go to that country and say “You’re breaking the law, this has to stop or else.” Now…</p>
<p>MARK DAVIS: So is that going to happen to America?</p>
<p>RICHARD BUTLER: It’s not going to happen at all! It won’t happen because the way in which the Security Council was trashed on trying to get it support for the invasion of Iraq, this wasn’t obtained, and under international law that invasion therefore is outside the law, some would say plainly illegal. But in very practical terms I ask you, what capacity has the United States now to go to the Security Council and say “Let’s all collectively deal with this threat to security, the country X is about to acquire nuclear weapons.” It’s got no capacity, because of its own double standard on nuclear weapons and because of the way in which the Security Council was abused on the way into Iraq. The Security Council, in this sense, is lying somewhat in ruins, at precisely the time that we need it.</p>
<p>MARK DAVIS: Well, I guess you’d have to say clearly the Americans don’t care what the consequences of a treaty…</p>
<p>RICHARD BUTLER: You’re dead right.</p>
<p>MARK DAVIS: But what do you do now?</p>
<p>RICHARD BUTLER: Well, I’ve talked to senior members of the Bush Administration and if the viewing public are asking “Well, why are they behaving this way?” Well, one can say they’re just plainly selfish or this is the consequence of September 11 and so on. Not really. It’s this—this administration has a view of the special character of the United States, the singular and exclusive character that is new. I’ve talked to them about it and they make this plain. They say “We are the sole super power, we’re therefore the exceptional country, we’re outside of international law. Others have to obey the law and obey the rules, but we don’t.” I mean, I’m not making that up. If they were sitting here tonight, Mark, the people I’ve talked with would readily agree. They’d say “Yeah, that’s right, that’s who we are. We are the exceptional country and we don’t have to obey the law because we’re different.” Now, that’s where this is proceeding from. And I ask you to recognise what happens when the most powerful country, the same as the most powerful people within a domestic society, consider themselves to be above the law. What happens? Citizens, or countries, decide that the law itself is no good and that’s what will happen in the nuclear area.</p>
<p>MARK DAVIS: Well, while I have you here I’ll get you to put your Iraq hat on for a moment. Are you surprised that the Americans haven’t found any weapons of mass destruction so far?</p>
<p>RICHARD BUTLER: No, I’m not, Mark. There’s no doubt that unaccounted for weapons existed when Saddam threw me and my team out in 1998 and, indeed, when Hans Blix, my successor, made his last reports. But I think what we are seeing now is the very strong possibility that towards the end, just before the war began, Iraq either began to destroy those weapons or moved them out possibly to Syria. Destroyed them in the way that it started, you’ll remember, to destroy the al-Samoud missile, in the belief that the weapons wouldn’t be of any further use to them and it would be better for their case if they could say—if no weapons were able to be discovered.</p>
<p>MARK DAVIS: I mean, this is the incredible point, I suppose. We’ve just invaded a country, we’ve killed thousands of people and, despicable as Saddam Hussein may have been, he was probably telling the truth.</p>
<p>RICHARD BUTLER: We need to know that, that’s what I’m saying. It could well be that at that point, immediately prior to the war when they lodged their 12,000 page document, that we may discover they were telling the truth in the sense that at that time they did destroy those extant weapons. We need to know what the facts are to know whether the weapons of mass destruction justification for the invasion was real or not. It’s very, very important. We have four people—the US has four key people in custody now—General Saddi, General Rashid, Tariq Aziz and Dr Germ, Rihab Taha. They know exactly what the facts are. We need to know what they’re saying. We need to know on what basis they’re being interrogated. We need the truth about those weapons, Iraq’s programs, did they give them to terrorists, for example, as has sometimes been claimed. We need the truth behind an invasion and occupation by the United States, and its friends, of Iraq.</p>
<p>Richard Butler, we’ll have to leave it there but thanks for joining Dateline.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | 3,856 |
<p>U.S. President Donald Trump said on Twitter on Sunday that the United States was considering cutting trade to any country doing business with North Korea.</p>
<p>The United States is considering, in addition to other options, stopping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea.</p>
<p>— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/904377075049656322" type="external">September 3, 2017</a></p>
<p>North Korea said it had tested an advanced hydrogen bomb for a long-range missile on Sunday, setting off a manmade earthquake near the test.&#160;</p> | Trump: US Considering Global Trade Embargo on NKorea | false | https://newsline.com/trump-us-considering-global-trade-embargo-on-nkorea/ | 2017-09-03 | 1right-center
| Trump: US Considering Global Trade Embargo on NKorea
<p>U.S. President Donald Trump said on Twitter on Sunday that the United States was considering cutting trade to any country doing business with North Korea.</p>
<p>The United States is considering, in addition to other options, stopping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea.</p>
<p>— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/904377075049656322" type="external">September 3, 2017</a></p>
<p>North Korea said it had tested an advanced hydrogen bomb for a long-range missile on Sunday, setting off a manmade earthquake near the test.&#160;</p> | 3,857 |
<p>By Jinny Henson</p>
<p>If not already, pretty soon the sun screen-shined SUV seats will be covered in permission slips, after-school snacks and random articles of clothing shucked en route to after school activities. The Road-Pro 12-Volt Slow Cooker you plug into your cigarette lighter will start looking good as nano seconds count in the carpool relay.</p>
<p>So as we prepare for the year, before we get lost in a Sharpie high, let’s get real for two minutes. I give you a few sanity-savers in shorthand:</p>
<p>1. Expect that your child will fail gloriously at least once this year. And guess what? So will you.</p>
<p>After selling a kidney to pay for her private tumbling lessons, your daughter may try out and not make the cheerleading squad when eight of her BFF’s do.</p>
<p>Your son could run for student body president and despite a $75 Sam’s Club vat of beef jerky adorned with the slogan, “Don’t be a JERK, Vote Ben for Prez!” he may lose. Using a speech you convinced him to let you tweak no less. Yes, that will leave a mark.</p>
<p>Your little guy will perhaps by God’s grace squeak out a C in Chemistry, which you know full well means that he will most likely not get into the college of his choosing.</p>
<p>You may have a toddler who is invited to leave preschool because of biting, or a 19-year-old son invited to leave the university for the same reason.</p>
<p>The great news? You probably will lay an egg of your own this school year.</p>
<p>You will go MIA: Missing the awards ceremony where your child is named student of the year. You will only remember this when your friends text you pictures after the fact. These pictures may or may not include your child with furrowed brow feverishly searching the crowd for your face.</p>
<p>The passion with which you volunteer to be snack mom in August outstrips your memory in November. If you do somehow miraculously remember, your snack will contain trace amounts of tree nuts sending at least one child searching for an <a href="https://www.epipen.com/about-epipen/how-to-use-epipen" type="external">EpiPen</a>. (Don’t ask me how scary this is or how I know. Snack moms everywhere: please use caution.)</p>
<p>Or, the mother of all sins: You forget to submit pictures for the yearend slide show. Of course the mom who assembles the whole shebang is certain that the 14th and 39th picture contain a forearm, pony tail or t-shirt most likely belonging to your child. Which makes everything way better.</p>
<p>Parents, even bringing your A game most of the time: You. Will. Seriously. Blow. It. Embrace this reality now and prepare in advance to grace yourself and your child.&#160;</p>
<p>2. Expect that your child will not be included in every single social event which occurs and do not have a panic attack about it. Your child smells your social anxiety, don’t stink-bomb your issues on the innocent.</p>
<p>Barring the mean-girl phenomenon, most of the time it is an oversight rather than a personal attack when your child is excluded. Mercifully, as kids age their birthday parties shrink in number present (or else none of us would survive to grandparenthood.) With fewer children being invited, often it is a numbers game rather than an intentional affront.</p>
<p>Nothing ruins a weekend like seeing four of your child’s buddies piling into a car with overnight bags after school on Friday. Or even more hurtful, them seeing the fun they are missing on Instagram. Just remember how fluid relationship dynamics are when you are 12, choose a fun activity of your own to do and take away the phone for the night if need be. As a parent you cannot make up for the hurt of peers but you can model how to shoulder disappointment gracefully. And get a dog.</p>
<p>Unfortunately we parents can suffer from “PKSD,” or Post Kickball Stress Disorder from childhood: being excluded, chosen last, being called fat, skinny, stupid or brainy. One in every 10 parents actually ate the paste in kindergarten. We all have our stuff, right? Too often we see our kids as people kits we try to perfectly construct as better versions of ourselves. If we are honest, at times the drive to ensure our kids are included stems from our own need for acceptance.</p>
<p>For every child there will come a time when they are the odd person out; such is the rhythm of life on Earth. Perhaps without that vital lesson they would not know empathy for others as they desperately need to. When this hurtful yet normal part of childhood occurs, train yourself to look for things in your life which are going right to thank God for. Disappointment is inevitable but what we do with it is up to us.</p>
<p>3. Remember that if you do this parenting gig right you work yourself out of a job.</p>
<p>I was floored recently as I saw a dad coaching his daughter through the process of making a waffle at the breakfast bar. She looked to be a bright 11-year-old, engaged in conversation about the bike race they would participate in the next day.</p>
<p>So the Father read the laminated waffle directions like he is Annie Sullivan pressing the letters W-A-T-E-R into the hand of Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker. She waited impishly on his every directive, insecurely followed orders and appeared afraid to fail. Chances are this young lady was more than capable of cranking out a waffle but she was simply not trusted with the task. We cannot expect a switch to flip at 18 and our children suddenly have great judgment when they have had limited experience using theirs. Let them burn a waffle at 11.</p>
<p>Envision your life in 20 years. Now envision your couch. Now envision your grown child eating your Ben &amp; Jerry’s, watching your TV on that couch. None of us truly see this as a beautiful outcome, do we? The thought perhaps is radical, but when we prepare the way for the child rather than the child for the way, we provide a false sense of the reality they will face.</p>
<p>Trust your children to handle their business as much as you possibly can. Sure, some children require more supervision than others to reach their full potential but start small this year and curtail the hovering. It will liberate you and train your child to be more self-sufficient. To be fair, in a calm conversation let the kids know that you expect them to be responsible for their “job” — schoolwork and extracurriculars. Then the hard part: let them struggle. The S-word, I know, but it is really, really important part of their growth as a person.</p>
<p>4. Pray.</p>
<p>As Oswald Chambers said, “It is not so much that prayer changes things but prayer changes me and I change things.” When we pray, we release the death grip we have on something when really we have no control upon it whatsoever. Prayer transforms our vision.</p>
<p>Prayer is a tool for me to reach out and focus on God who lasts forever rather than my problems which thankfully will not. Just silently contemplating the hugeness of God brings a breath of perspective I desperately need. When the desire to helicopter is strong, as is my desire for action, prayer is the action I need to take. It slows me down, tempers my emotion and gives me fresh eyes for the challenge at hand.</p>
<p>So as the summer fades from view and school hits like a monsoon, pace yourself, grace yourself, ditch the helicoptering and pray.</p> | Parenting cheat notes for a great school year | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/parenting-cheat-notes-for-a-great-school-year/ | 3left-center
| Parenting cheat notes for a great school year
<p>By Jinny Henson</p>
<p>If not already, pretty soon the sun screen-shined SUV seats will be covered in permission slips, after-school snacks and random articles of clothing shucked en route to after school activities. The Road-Pro 12-Volt Slow Cooker you plug into your cigarette lighter will start looking good as nano seconds count in the carpool relay.</p>
<p>So as we prepare for the year, before we get lost in a Sharpie high, let’s get real for two minutes. I give you a few sanity-savers in shorthand:</p>
<p>1. Expect that your child will fail gloriously at least once this year. And guess what? So will you.</p>
<p>After selling a kidney to pay for her private tumbling lessons, your daughter may try out and not make the cheerleading squad when eight of her BFF’s do.</p>
<p>Your son could run for student body president and despite a $75 Sam’s Club vat of beef jerky adorned with the slogan, “Don’t be a JERK, Vote Ben for Prez!” he may lose. Using a speech you convinced him to let you tweak no less. Yes, that will leave a mark.</p>
<p>Your little guy will perhaps by God’s grace squeak out a C in Chemistry, which you know full well means that he will most likely not get into the college of his choosing.</p>
<p>You may have a toddler who is invited to leave preschool because of biting, or a 19-year-old son invited to leave the university for the same reason.</p>
<p>The great news? You probably will lay an egg of your own this school year.</p>
<p>You will go MIA: Missing the awards ceremony where your child is named student of the year. You will only remember this when your friends text you pictures after the fact. These pictures may or may not include your child with furrowed brow feverishly searching the crowd for your face.</p>
<p>The passion with which you volunteer to be snack mom in August outstrips your memory in November. If you do somehow miraculously remember, your snack will contain trace amounts of tree nuts sending at least one child searching for an <a href="https://www.epipen.com/about-epipen/how-to-use-epipen" type="external">EpiPen</a>. (Don’t ask me how scary this is or how I know. Snack moms everywhere: please use caution.)</p>
<p>Or, the mother of all sins: You forget to submit pictures for the yearend slide show. Of course the mom who assembles the whole shebang is certain that the 14th and 39th picture contain a forearm, pony tail or t-shirt most likely belonging to your child. Which makes everything way better.</p>
<p>Parents, even bringing your A game most of the time: You. Will. Seriously. Blow. It. Embrace this reality now and prepare in advance to grace yourself and your child.&#160;</p>
<p>2. Expect that your child will not be included in every single social event which occurs and do not have a panic attack about it. Your child smells your social anxiety, don’t stink-bomb your issues on the innocent.</p>
<p>Barring the mean-girl phenomenon, most of the time it is an oversight rather than a personal attack when your child is excluded. Mercifully, as kids age their birthday parties shrink in number present (or else none of us would survive to grandparenthood.) With fewer children being invited, often it is a numbers game rather than an intentional affront.</p>
<p>Nothing ruins a weekend like seeing four of your child’s buddies piling into a car with overnight bags after school on Friday. Or even more hurtful, them seeing the fun they are missing on Instagram. Just remember how fluid relationship dynamics are when you are 12, choose a fun activity of your own to do and take away the phone for the night if need be. As a parent you cannot make up for the hurt of peers but you can model how to shoulder disappointment gracefully. And get a dog.</p>
<p>Unfortunately we parents can suffer from “PKSD,” or Post Kickball Stress Disorder from childhood: being excluded, chosen last, being called fat, skinny, stupid or brainy. One in every 10 parents actually ate the paste in kindergarten. We all have our stuff, right? Too often we see our kids as people kits we try to perfectly construct as better versions of ourselves. If we are honest, at times the drive to ensure our kids are included stems from our own need for acceptance.</p>
<p>For every child there will come a time when they are the odd person out; such is the rhythm of life on Earth. Perhaps without that vital lesson they would not know empathy for others as they desperately need to. When this hurtful yet normal part of childhood occurs, train yourself to look for things in your life which are going right to thank God for. Disappointment is inevitable but what we do with it is up to us.</p>
<p>3. Remember that if you do this parenting gig right you work yourself out of a job.</p>
<p>I was floored recently as I saw a dad coaching his daughter through the process of making a waffle at the breakfast bar. She looked to be a bright 11-year-old, engaged in conversation about the bike race they would participate in the next day.</p>
<p>So the Father read the laminated waffle directions like he is Annie Sullivan pressing the letters W-A-T-E-R into the hand of Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker. She waited impishly on his every directive, insecurely followed orders and appeared afraid to fail. Chances are this young lady was more than capable of cranking out a waffle but she was simply not trusted with the task. We cannot expect a switch to flip at 18 and our children suddenly have great judgment when they have had limited experience using theirs. Let them burn a waffle at 11.</p>
<p>Envision your life in 20 years. Now envision your couch. Now envision your grown child eating your Ben &amp; Jerry’s, watching your TV on that couch. None of us truly see this as a beautiful outcome, do we? The thought perhaps is radical, but when we prepare the way for the child rather than the child for the way, we provide a false sense of the reality they will face.</p>
<p>Trust your children to handle their business as much as you possibly can. Sure, some children require more supervision than others to reach their full potential but start small this year and curtail the hovering. It will liberate you and train your child to be more self-sufficient. To be fair, in a calm conversation let the kids know that you expect them to be responsible for their “job” — schoolwork and extracurriculars. Then the hard part: let them struggle. The S-word, I know, but it is really, really important part of their growth as a person.</p>
<p>4. Pray.</p>
<p>As Oswald Chambers said, “It is not so much that prayer changes things but prayer changes me and I change things.” When we pray, we release the death grip we have on something when really we have no control upon it whatsoever. Prayer transforms our vision.</p>
<p>Prayer is a tool for me to reach out and focus on God who lasts forever rather than my problems which thankfully will not. Just silently contemplating the hugeness of God brings a breath of perspective I desperately need. When the desire to helicopter is strong, as is my desire for action, prayer is the action I need to take. It slows me down, tempers my emotion and gives me fresh eyes for the challenge at hand.</p>
<p>So as the summer fades from view and school hits like a monsoon, pace yourself, grace yourself, ditch the helicoptering and pray.</p> | 3,858 |
|
<p>Early&#160;Sunday morning in Karachi, a small, eclectic crowd converged at <a href="http://www.t2f.biz" type="external">The Second Floor</a> (T2F), the iconic coffee shop and cultural hub founded by my young friend Sabeen Mahmud in 2007.</p>
<p>This time, we weren't there to participate in a cutting-edge arts event, but to join Sabeen’s mother, Mahenaz, in planting a baby amaltas — a yellow-flowering native tree — in the grassy divider near the traffic light where Sabeen was killed last year.</p>
<p>“I have been dreaming of this moment for months,” Mahenaz told me serenely, smiling. “Every spring it will flower in memory of Sabeen.”</p>
<p />
<p>Mahenaz Mahmud was also injured in the murder of her daughter.</p>
<p>Beena Sarwar</p>
<p>Mahenaz had been in the passenger seat next to her only child, going home after an event at T2F on April 24, 2015. Their driver was in the back seat — Sabeen often preferred to drive herself. As the vehicle stopped at a red light before turning onto the grandly named Sun Set Boulevard, two young men on a motorcycle drew up by the car — “too close for comfort,” remembers Mahenaz.</p>
<p>The pillion rider raised a hand holding a 9mm pistol and fired five shots directly at Sabeen’s head and chest. Within seconds, the motorcycle vanished. Sabeen died instantly. A bullet that passed through her arm hit her mother. Another ricocheted in the car and got lodged in Mahenaz’s back, where it remains as a permanent reminder of her loss.</p>
<p>The amaltas is being planted near a gray flagstone inscribed with Sabeen’s name, in elegant Urdu calligraphy and in English, as well as the years she walked this Earth, 1974-2015. One by one, led by Mahenaz, Sabeen’s friends put fistfuls of earth into the tree bed, just as many had done at her grave a year ago — a symbolic ritual at Muslim funerals. Dust to dust.</p>
<p />
<p>Friends and family plant the memroial to Sabeen, who was killed in Karachi in 2015.</p>
<p>Beena Sarwar</p>
<p>After watering the tree, we walked back to T2F. White sheets covered the floor, with colorful bolster pillows against the red brick walls of the cool interior. A long table against the back wall looked festive, laden with T2F’s&#160;mugs, a big flask of hot water, plates,&#160;sandwiches and coffeecake brought by Sabeen’s friends.</p>
<p>Walking in, Mahenaz stopped to take in the scene, then smiled and thanked the old man who had set it up. Mamoo&#160;(uncle) is what she respectfully calls the white-bearded Mir Daad, who has worked for her for the past 30 years. He was also Mamoo to Sabeen, and to all the T2F community.</p>
<p>Mamoo is among the thousands of internal migrants who flock to what is now one of the world’s largest cities, with a population of more than 23 million, seeking work. A city that never sleeps. A city that Sabeen passionately loved, with its sprawling concrete jungles, undulating shoreline along the Arabian Sea, flowering trees and indomitable spirit.</p>
<p>Mamoo hails from a village near the garrison town of Abbottabad, now infamous as Osama bin Laden’s hideout, some 740 miles north of Karachi. He told me quietly that he had known Sabeen since she was 12.</p>
<p>T2F is where Sabeen’s funeral procession began last year — as Mahenaz said, it was her home and the T2F community was her family.</p>
<p />
<p>White sheets covered the floor at T2F during the memorial service.</p>
<p>Beena Sarwar</p>
<p>Then too, Mamoo spread white sheets on the floor, like people do at their homes when friends and relatives come to pray for a departed soul.</p>
<p>At T2F on Sunday morning, at Mahenaz’s request, those gathered shared stories about Sabeen. But why does Sabeen matter? She was not only an icon of the progressive and democratic ideals toward&#160;which Pakistan should aspire, but also provided a platform and a space for others sharing these aspirations.</p>
<p>How does Mahenaz keep going? Because she knows that Sabeen would hate for her to give up.</p>
<p>“Yes,” she said. “That is what keeps me going.”</p>
<p>Sabeen’s inclusive vision and respect for all life made T2F not just a safe space for Karachi’s English-speaking, Westernized youth, but also for its bun kababs — those from more traditional backgrounds with less exposure to the West, but who share those aspirations.</p>
<p>One of them is a young lawyer who became a social and political activist, Mohammad Jibran Nasir. Nasir <a href="http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/34118/to-sabeen-with-love-a-human-platform-for-dreams-and-aspiration/" type="external">wrote a moving testament</a>&#160;to Sabeen’s enabling vision and proactive approach.</p>
<p>As Sabeen wrote in an essay titled "Creative Karachi," having “an open mind and an open-door policy” had allowed the T2F community to “fulfill dreams beyond my wildest imagination."</p>
<p>“I’ve never known a space in Pakistan to be so inclusive of class, gender, sexuality, religion, ethnicity, and cultural scope,” <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/27/sabeen-mahmud-as-wide-as-love/" type="external">wrote the novelist Uzma Aslam Khan</a>. “Her death cannot mean the end of the dream she made real: An inclusive public space where it is possible to evolve — regardless of your background and beliefs, or who you know and don’t know.”</p>
<p>The mix of people was evident at the buzzing, two-day Creative Karachi Festival (#CKH2016) held in her memory earlier this month. People young and old from around the city thronged the sprawling grounds of the Alliance Française, braving a heat wave. About 10 p.m. on Sunday, the time Sabeen was shot dead last year, there was a moment of silence for her. Soon afterward, Zoe Viccaji, one of Pakistan’s top fusion artists, rocked the concert venue. She was among more than 150 artists who contributed their time and skills to the festival.</p>
<p>The event at the French cultural center&#160;took me back to the 1980s when Alliance Française and the Goethe Institut were two safe spaces in Pakistan for political dissent and activism expressed through cultural activities&#160;— street theatre, seminars, discussions — during the military dictatorship of Gen. Zia ul Haq. Pakistan was then a frontline state in the US Cold War against the Soviet Union&#160;in Afghanistan.</p>
<p>The Mujahideen unleashed in those years morphed over time into various other militant groups, including al-Qaeda and the Taliban.</p>
<p>In Pakistan, religiously&#160;motivated militants&#160;are linked with criminal gangs around the country — gunrunners, kidnappers, land and drug mafias&#160;and murderers for hire. A young business school graduate who <a href="http://tribune.com.pk/story/889452/arrested-safoora-attack-mastermind-confesses-to-sabeen-mahmuds-murder/" type="external">has confessed to killing Sabeen</a> has also confessed to various other murders.&#160;</p>
<p>Since 2007, T2F was a space for political activism and cultural expression, like Alliance Française and the Goethe Institut were in the Zia years.&#160;Sabeen’s friend&#160;Marvi Mazhar, a conservation architect&#160;who now runs T2F, <a href="http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/news/art-matters-remembering-sabeen-mahmud/413081" type="external">says&#160;closing it down would have been like a second death in the city</a>.</p>
<p>The risks remain, because, as activist and environmentalist Tofiq Pasha put it, “every now and then, they&#160;slap us down to tell us to stay within our boundaries.” The festival for Sabeen took place in the enclosed, secured premises of Alliance Française, not in a public park.</p>
<p>Sabeen matters because she gives people the courage to carry on despite the risks. As she famously said, “Fear is just a line in your head — you can choose which side you want to be on."</p>
<p>There are no real spaces anywhere for those who challenge the status quo, added another activist friend, Amima Sayeed, pointing to the US. She recalled Noam Chomsky talking about how dissenting voices are forced to stay within their boundaries, and how Chomsky’s own voice is marginalized, “allowed to speak at alternative&#160;platforms, but never really given any mainstream space.”</p>
<p>What Sabeen reminds us to do is to determinedly keep claiming our spaces and to refuse to accept the status quo.</p>
<p><a href="http://sabeenmahmudfoundation.org/" type="external">See the different projects</a>, including T2F, that Sabeen started.&#160;</p>
<p>Writer Bina Shah has <a href="https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/DHA_Administration_Changing_Street_Name_to_Sabeen_Mahmud_Street/?wh=368744" type="external">launched an effort</a> to get a street in Karachi named after Sabeen.</p> | Remembering a Pakistani woman who died because she wanted everyone to have a space to speak freely | false | https://pri.org/stories/2016-04-28/remembering-pakistani-woman-who-died-because-she-wanted-everyone-have-space-speak | 2016-04-28 | 3left-center
| Remembering a Pakistani woman who died because she wanted everyone to have a space to speak freely
<p>Early&#160;Sunday morning in Karachi, a small, eclectic crowd converged at <a href="http://www.t2f.biz" type="external">The Second Floor</a> (T2F), the iconic coffee shop and cultural hub founded by my young friend Sabeen Mahmud in 2007.</p>
<p>This time, we weren't there to participate in a cutting-edge arts event, but to join Sabeen’s mother, Mahenaz, in planting a baby amaltas — a yellow-flowering native tree — in the grassy divider near the traffic light where Sabeen was killed last year.</p>
<p>“I have been dreaming of this moment for months,” Mahenaz told me serenely, smiling. “Every spring it will flower in memory of Sabeen.”</p>
<p />
<p>Mahenaz Mahmud was also injured in the murder of her daughter.</p>
<p>Beena Sarwar</p>
<p>Mahenaz had been in the passenger seat next to her only child, going home after an event at T2F on April 24, 2015. Their driver was in the back seat — Sabeen often preferred to drive herself. As the vehicle stopped at a red light before turning onto the grandly named Sun Set Boulevard, two young men on a motorcycle drew up by the car — “too close for comfort,” remembers Mahenaz.</p>
<p>The pillion rider raised a hand holding a 9mm pistol and fired five shots directly at Sabeen’s head and chest. Within seconds, the motorcycle vanished. Sabeen died instantly. A bullet that passed through her arm hit her mother. Another ricocheted in the car and got lodged in Mahenaz’s back, where it remains as a permanent reminder of her loss.</p>
<p>The amaltas is being planted near a gray flagstone inscribed with Sabeen’s name, in elegant Urdu calligraphy and in English, as well as the years she walked this Earth, 1974-2015. One by one, led by Mahenaz, Sabeen’s friends put fistfuls of earth into the tree bed, just as many had done at her grave a year ago — a symbolic ritual at Muslim funerals. Dust to dust.</p>
<p />
<p>Friends and family plant the memroial to Sabeen, who was killed in Karachi in 2015.</p>
<p>Beena Sarwar</p>
<p>After watering the tree, we walked back to T2F. White sheets covered the floor, with colorful bolster pillows against the red brick walls of the cool interior. A long table against the back wall looked festive, laden with T2F’s&#160;mugs, a big flask of hot water, plates,&#160;sandwiches and coffeecake brought by Sabeen’s friends.</p>
<p>Walking in, Mahenaz stopped to take in the scene, then smiled and thanked the old man who had set it up. Mamoo&#160;(uncle) is what she respectfully calls the white-bearded Mir Daad, who has worked for her for the past 30 years. He was also Mamoo to Sabeen, and to all the T2F community.</p>
<p>Mamoo is among the thousands of internal migrants who flock to what is now one of the world’s largest cities, with a population of more than 23 million, seeking work. A city that never sleeps. A city that Sabeen passionately loved, with its sprawling concrete jungles, undulating shoreline along the Arabian Sea, flowering trees and indomitable spirit.</p>
<p>Mamoo hails from a village near the garrison town of Abbottabad, now infamous as Osama bin Laden’s hideout, some 740 miles north of Karachi. He told me quietly that he had known Sabeen since she was 12.</p>
<p>T2F is where Sabeen’s funeral procession began last year — as Mahenaz said, it was her home and the T2F community was her family.</p>
<p />
<p>White sheets covered the floor at T2F during the memorial service.</p>
<p>Beena Sarwar</p>
<p>Then too, Mamoo spread white sheets on the floor, like people do at their homes when friends and relatives come to pray for a departed soul.</p>
<p>At T2F on Sunday morning, at Mahenaz’s request, those gathered shared stories about Sabeen. But why does Sabeen matter? She was not only an icon of the progressive and democratic ideals toward&#160;which Pakistan should aspire, but also provided a platform and a space for others sharing these aspirations.</p>
<p>How does Mahenaz keep going? Because she knows that Sabeen would hate for her to give up.</p>
<p>“Yes,” she said. “That is what keeps me going.”</p>
<p>Sabeen’s inclusive vision and respect for all life made T2F not just a safe space for Karachi’s English-speaking, Westernized youth, but also for its bun kababs — those from more traditional backgrounds with less exposure to the West, but who share those aspirations.</p>
<p>One of them is a young lawyer who became a social and political activist, Mohammad Jibran Nasir. Nasir <a href="http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/34118/to-sabeen-with-love-a-human-platform-for-dreams-and-aspiration/" type="external">wrote a moving testament</a>&#160;to Sabeen’s enabling vision and proactive approach.</p>
<p>As Sabeen wrote in an essay titled "Creative Karachi," having “an open mind and an open-door policy” had allowed the T2F community to “fulfill dreams beyond my wildest imagination."</p>
<p>“I’ve never known a space in Pakistan to be so inclusive of class, gender, sexuality, religion, ethnicity, and cultural scope,” <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/27/sabeen-mahmud-as-wide-as-love/" type="external">wrote the novelist Uzma Aslam Khan</a>. “Her death cannot mean the end of the dream she made real: An inclusive public space where it is possible to evolve — regardless of your background and beliefs, or who you know and don’t know.”</p>
<p>The mix of people was evident at the buzzing, two-day Creative Karachi Festival (#CKH2016) held in her memory earlier this month. People young and old from around the city thronged the sprawling grounds of the Alliance Française, braving a heat wave. About 10 p.m. on Sunday, the time Sabeen was shot dead last year, there was a moment of silence for her. Soon afterward, Zoe Viccaji, one of Pakistan’s top fusion artists, rocked the concert venue. She was among more than 150 artists who contributed their time and skills to the festival.</p>
<p>The event at the French cultural center&#160;took me back to the 1980s when Alliance Française and the Goethe Institut were two safe spaces in Pakistan for political dissent and activism expressed through cultural activities&#160;— street theatre, seminars, discussions — during the military dictatorship of Gen. Zia ul Haq. Pakistan was then a frontline state in the US Cold War against the Soviet Union&#160;in Afghanistan.</p>
<p>The Mujahideen unleashed in those years morphed over time into various other militant groups, including al-Qaeda and the Taliban.</p>
<p>In Pakistan, religiously&#160;motivated militants&#160;are linked with criminal gangs around the country — gunrunners, kidnappers, land and drug mafias&#160;and murderers for hire. A young business school graduate who <a href="http://tribune.com.pk/story/889452/arrested-safoora-attack-mastermind-confesses-to-sabeen-mahmuds-murder/" type="external">has confessed to killing Sabeen</a> has also confessed to various other murders.&#160;</p>
<p>Since 2007, T2F was a space for political activism and cultural expression, like Alliance Française and the Goethe Institut were in the Zia years.&#160;Sabeen’s friend&#160;Marvi Mazhar, a conservation architect&#160;who now runs T2F, <a href="http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/news/art-matters-remembering-sabeen-mahmud/413081" type="external">says&#160;closing it down would have been like a second death in the city</a>.</p>
<p>The risks remain, because, as activist and environmentalist Tofiq Pasha put it, “every now and then, they&#160;slap us down to tell us to stay within our boundaries.” The festival for Sabeen took place in the enclosed, secured premises of Alliance Française, not in a public park.</p>
<p>Sabeen matters because she gives people the courage to carry on despite the risks. As she famously said, “Fear is just a line in your head — you can choose which side you want to be on."</p>
<p>There are no real spaces anywhere for those who challenge the status quo, added another activist friend, Amima Sayeed, pointing to the US. She recalled Noam Chomsky talking about how dissenting voices are forced to stay within their boundaries, and how Chomsky’s own voice is marginalized, “allowed to speak at alternative&#160;platforms, but never really given any mainstream space.”</p>
<p>What Sabeen reminds us to do is to determinedly keep claiming our spaces and to refuse to accept the status quo.</p>
<p><a href="http://sabeenmahmudfoundation.org/" type="external">See the different projects</a>, including T2F, that Sabeen started.&#160;</p>
<p>Writer Bina Shah has <a href="https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/DHA_Administration_Changing_Street_Name_to_Sabeen_Mahmud_Street/?wh=368744" type="external">launched an effort</a> to get a street in Karachi named after Sabeen.</p> | 3,859 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>FILE – This Aug. 9, 2011 file photo shows a Wall Street street sign near the New York Stock Exchange, in New York. The British pound jumped and world stock benchmarks rose Friday Sept. 19, 2014 as Scotland voted to stay part of the United Kingdom, avoiding a messy breakup that could have roiled financial markets. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)</p>
<p>NEW YORK — With Wall Street focused on the debut of Alibaba Group, the stock market drifted into the weekend and major indexes ended little changed.</p>
<p>Investors watched as the Chinese e-commerce giant surged 38 percent Friday, in its first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Alibaba gained $25.89 to end at $93.89.</p>
<p>By the end of the day, the Standard &amp; Poor’s 500 index fell less than a point, a sliver of a percent, to 2,010.40. It finished with its best weekly gain in a month.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Alibaba lined up its initial public offering of stock at $68 a share the day before, raising $21.8 billion from investors. That vaulted Alibaba to the top tier of technology companies in terms of market value. It’s bigger than Amazon.com but smaller than the titans of tech, Apple and Google.</p>
<p>“We know there’s a lot of demand from institutional and retail investors, so it’s not a surprise to see it rally that quickly,” said JJ Kinahan, chief strategist at TD Ameritrade, the online brokerage.</p>
<p>Alibaba was the big story Friday, but the rest of the week belonged to the Federal Reserve. At the end of a two-day meeting on Wednesday, the Fed issued a statement saying that it planned to keep its benchmark lending rate low. Some investors had earlier voiced concerns that the Fed might be in a bigger hurry to hike rates.</p>
<p>“Janet Yellen (the Fed’s chairwoman) told people exactly what they wanted to hear,” Kinahan said.</p>
<p>Encouraged, investors sent stocks to record highs this week. The S&amp;P 500 index has now climbed 9 percent in 2014, better than the average gain for a full year.</p>
<p>In other trading Friday, the Dow Jones industrial average edged up 13.75 points, or 0.1 percent, to close at 17,279.74. The Nasdaq composite fell 13.64 points, or 0.3 percent, to 4,579.79.</p>
<p>German business-software company SAP announced plans to buy Concur Technologies for $7.4 billion. Concur’s stock jumped $19.02, or 18 percent, to $126.82.</p>
<p>Oracle’s stock slumped after the announcement late Thursday that Larry Ellison, the tech company’s billionaire founder, is stepping down as CEO after 37 years. Ellison remains the company’s biggest shareholder. Oracle’s stock fell $1.75, or 4 percent, to $39.80.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.58 percent, from 2.62 percent late Thursday.</p>
<p>Britain’s main index rose slightly after voters in Scotland rejected a referendum to break from the U.K. Some warned that if Scotland left, uncertainty over the future value of the British pound and government debt would have shaken the U.K economy.</p>
<p>Britain’s FTSE 100 advanced 0.3 percent. France’s CAC 40 slipped 0.1 percent, and Germany’s DAX was flat.</p>
<p>Elsewhere, Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumped 1.6 percent as the yen’s weakness gave a boost to companies that rely on exports.</p>
<p>In commodities trading, precious and industrial metals fell, extending their losses for the week. Gold dropped $10.30 to settle at $1,216.60 an ounce. Silver sank 67 cents to $17.84 an ounce. Copper was unchanged at $3.09 a pound.</p>
<p>Oil fell 66 cents to $92.41 a barrel as the dollar gained strength. Oil trades in dollars, so a stronger dollar makes oil more expensive to traders holding other currencies.</p>
<p>Brent crude, a benchmark for international oils imported by many U.S. refineries, rose 69 cents, to $98.39 a barrel in London.</p>
<p>In other futures trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange:</p>
<p>— Wholesale gasoline rose 5 cents to $2.611 a gallon</p>
<p>— Heating oil was flat at $2.717 a gallon</p>
<p>— Natural gas fell 7.3 cents to $3.837 per 1,000 cubic feet</p>
<p>———————————————————————</p>
<p>AB Business Writer Kelvin Chan contributed from Hong Kong</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Stock indexes end mixed after Alibaba debuts | false | https://abqjournal.com/465201/stock-indexes-end-mixed-after-alibaba-debuts.html | 2014-09-19 | 2least
| Stock indexes end mixed after Alibaba debuts
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>FILE – This Aug. 9, 2011 file photo shows a Wall Street street sign near the New York Stock Exchange, in New York. The British pound jumped and world stock benchmarks rose Friday Sept. 19, 2014 as Scotland voted to stay part of the United Kingdom, avoiding a messy breakup that could have roiled financial markets. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)</p>
<p>NEW YORK — With Wall Street focused on the debut of Alibaba Group, the stock market drifted into the weekend and major indexes ended little changed.</p>
<p>Investors watched as the Chinese e-commerce giant surged 38 percent Friday, in its first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Alibaba gained $25.89 to end at $93.89.</p>
<p>By the end of the day, the Standard &amp; Poor’s 500 index fell less than a point, a sliver of a percent, to 2,010.40. It finished with its best weekly gain in a month.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Alibaba lined up its initial public offering of stock at $68 a share the day before, raising $21.8 billion from investors. That vaulted Alibaba to the top tier of technology companies in terms of market value. It’s bigger than Amazon.com but smaller than the titans of tech, Apple and Google.</p>
<p>“We know there’s a lot of demand from institutional and retail investors, so it’s not a surprise to see it rally that quickly,” said JJ Kinahan, chief strategist at TD Ameritrade, the online brokerage.</p>
<p>Alibaba was the big story Friday, but the rest of the week belonged to the Federal Reserve. At the end of a two-day meeting on Wednesday, the Fed issued a statement saying that it planned to keep its benchmark lending rate low. Some investors had earlier voiced concerns that the Fed might be in a bigger hurry to hike rates.</p>
<p>“Janet Yellen (the Fed’s chairwoman) told people exactly what they wanted to hear,” Kinahan said.</p>
<p>Encouraged, investors sent stocks to record highs this week. The S&amp;P 500 index has now climbed 9 percent in 2014, better than the average gain for a full year.</p>
<p>In other trading Friday, the Dow Jones industrial average edged up 13.75 points, or 0.1 percent, to close at 17,279.74. The Nasdaq composite fell 13.64 points, or 0.3 percent, to 4,579.79.</p>
<p>German business-software company SAP announced plans to buy Concur Technologies for $7.4 billion. Concur’s stock jumped $19.02, or 18 percent, to $126.82.</p>
<p>Oracle’s stock slumped after the announcement late Thursday that Larry Ellison, the tech company’s billionaire founder, is stepping down as CEO after 37 years. Ellison remains the company’s biggest shareholder. Oracle’s stock fell $1.75, or 4 percent, to $39.80.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.58 percent, from 2.62 percent late Thursday.</p>
<p>Britain’s main index rose slightly after voters in Scotland rejected a referendum to break from the U.K. Some warned that if Scotland left, uncertainty over the future value of the British pound and government debt would have shaken the U.K economy.</p>
<p>Britain’s FTSE 100 advanced 0.3 percent. France’s CAC 40 slipped 0.1 percent, and Germany’s DAX was flat.</p>
<p>Elsewhere, Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumped 1.6 percent as the yen’s weakness gave a boost to companies that rely on exports.</p>
<p>In commodities trading, precious and industrial metals fell, extending their losses for the week. Gold dropped $10.30 to settle at $1,216.60 an ounce. Silver sank 67 cents to $17.84 an ounce. Copper was unchanged at $3.09 a pound.</p>
<p>Oil fell 66 cents to $92.41 a barrel as the dollar gained strength. Oil trades in dollars, so a stronger dollar makes oil more expensive to traders holding other currencies.</p>
<p>Brent crude, a benchmark for international oils imported by many U.S. refineries, rose 69 cents, to $98.39 a barrel in London.</p>
<p>In other futures trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange:</p>
<p>— Wholesale gasoline rose 5 cents to $2.611 a gallon</p>
<p>— Heating oil was flat at $2.717 a gallon</p>
<p>— Natural gas fell 7.3 cents to $3.837 per 1,000 cubic feet</p>
<p>———————————————————————</p>
<p>AB Business Writer Kelvin Chan contributed from Hong Kong</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | 3,860 |
<p>Dallas Willard’s death in May has given us a chance to think about his substantial legacy, and his contribution to the wonderful trend of turning the core evangelical conversation toward discipleship and life in the Kingdom.</p>
<p>Only 30 years ago, the heart of our discussion was on “church growth.” Now we talk about living in the Kingdom of God; that is a giant step in the right direction. As Reggie McNeal has put it, the missional scorecard has changed.</p>
<p />
<p>Willard did this by naming the gospel in distinction to false or incomplete gospels. He distinguished discipleship in the way of Jesus with other sorts of discipleship.&#160; In an interview, he said,</p>
<p>&#160;“In our country, on the theological right, discipleship came to mean training people to win souls. And on the left, it came to mean social action — protesting, serving soup lines, doing social deeds. Both of them left out character formation. Spiritual formation in a Christian tradition answers a specific human question: What kind of person am I going to be? It is the process of establishing the character of Christ in the person. That's all it is. You are taking on the character of Christ in a process of discipleship to him under the direction of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. It isn’t anything new, because Christians have been in this business forever.”</p>
<p>Willard likened spiritual formation to education. He was fond of saying that we all get an education; it’s just a matter of which education we get. We are all brainwashed; it’s just a matter of choosing what washes our brains.</p>
<p>In redirecting our thinking, Willard repositioned us for life in a culture where the place of the church in society is not what it was only 60 (or even 30) years ago. Being a soul-winner or social actionist can be discouraging and increasingly unfruitful when congregations are no longer valued in culture. But being a disciple of Jesus whose life is being transformed into Christlikeness? That can happen anywhere and at any time, regardless of larger cultural currents.</p>
<p>And that is incredibly good news.</p>
<p>John Chandler is leader of the <a href="http://www.spencenetwork.org/" type="external">Spence Network</a>. Follow the Spence Network on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SpenceNetwork?fref=ts" type="external">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/SpenceNetwork" type="external">Twitter</a>.</p> | TRENDING: Spiritual formation and malformations | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/trendingspiritualformationandmalformations/ | 3left-center
| TRENDING: Spiritual formation and malformations
<p>Dallas Willard’s death in May has given us a chance to think about his substantial legacy, and his contribution to the wonderful trend of turning the core evangelical conversation toward discipleship and life in the Kingdom.</p>
<p>Only 30 years ago, the heart of our discussion was on “church growth.” Now we talk about living in the Kingdom of God; that is a giant step in the right direction. As Reggie McNeal has put it, the missional scorecard has changed.</p>
<p />
<p>Willard did this by naming the gospel in distinction to false or incomplete gospels. He distinguished discipleship in the way of Jesus with other sorts of discipleship.&#160; In an interview, he said,</p>
<p>&#160;“In our country, on the theological right, discipleship came to mean training people to win souls. And on the left, it came to mean social action — protesting, serving soup lines, doing social deeds. Both of them left out character formation. Spiritual formation in a Christian tradition answers a specific human question: What kind of person am I going to be? It is the process of establishing the character of Christ in the person. That's all it is. You are taking on the character of Christ in a process of discipleship to him under the direction of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. It isn’t anything new, because Christians have been in this business forever.”</p>
<p>Willard likened spiritual formation to education. He was fond of saying that we all get an education; it’s just a matter of which education we get. We are all brainwashed; it’s just a matter of choosing what washes our brains.</p>
<p>In redirecting our thinking, Willard repositioned us for life in a culture where the place of the church in society is not what it was only 60 (or even 30) years ago. Being a soul-winner or social actionist can be discouraging and increasingly unfruitful when congregations are no longer valued in culture. But being a disciple of Jesus whose life is being transformed into Christlikeness? That can happen anywhere and at any time, regardless of larger cultural currents.</p>
<p>And that is incredibly good news.</p>
<p>John Chandler is leader of the <a href="http://www.spencenetwork.org/" type="external">Spence Network</a>. Follow the Spence Network on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SpenceNetwork?fref=ts" type="external">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/SpenceNetwork" type="external">Twitter</a>.</p> | 3,861 |
|
<p>We learned Wednesday of the death of a luminary in the world of classical music.</p>
<p>American pianist Van Cliburn.</p>
<p>He was 78, and died in his home state of Texas.</p>
<p>He gained renown after winning the prestigious Tchaikovsky piano competition in Moscow in 1958.</p>
<p>When he went there, the Cold War was raging.</p>
<p>But with his triumph at the competition, Van Cliburn helped bring about a brief thaw in US-Soviet relations.</p>
<p>Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Vladimir Frumkin, a musicologist and journalist based in Washington, DC, who writes about Russian classical and popular music.</p> | Remembering Classical Music Luminary Van Cliburn | false | https://pri.org/stories/2013-02-27/remembering-classical-music-luminary-van-cliburn | 2013-02-27 | 3left-center
| Remembering Classical Music Luminary Van Cliburn
<p>We learned Wednesday of the death of a luminary in the world of classical music.</p>
<p>American pianist Van Cliburn.</p>
<p>He was 78, and died in his home state of Texas.</p>
<p>He gained renown after winning the prestigious Tchaikovsky piano competition in Moscow in 1958.</p>
<p>When he went there, the Cold War was raging.</p>
<p>But with his triumph at the competition, Van Cliburn helped bring about a brief thaw in US-Soviet relations.</p>
<p>Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Vladimir Frumkin, a musicologist and journalist based in Washington, DC, who writes about Russian classical and popular music.</p> | 3,862 |
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Language is a powerful yet deceptive thing. It can be used to convey someone’s plight and it can also be used to hide unpalatable sordid deeds. Nowhere are words adulterated more for political ends than in Israel and Palestine today. It is no secret that Israel employs a legion of well-funded propagandists, and it also relies on self-appointed members of the press–the pro bono apologists, who serve the same purpose. Just like the lopsided imbalance of military power, the means to command and change language rests primarily with pro-Israeli propagandists. Their language obfuscates and exculpates Israel’s actions against a basically defenseless population; it perpetuates the injustices and contributes to a continuation of Israel’s occupation and theft of more land.</p>
<p>To make sense of the situation and to peer through the fog, a fraction of the post-Oslo commonly abused terms are translated in this glossary.</p>
<p>Abused Terms</p>
<p>Administrative detention</p>
<p>Imprisonment without charges, trial, sometimes without legal representation, for undefined terms. Imprisonment usually takes place in prisons and even in a concentration camp in the Negev desert.</p>
<p>Bilateral negotiations</p>
<p>Confiscation of land. Israel confiscates/steals land, and to legalize its claims it engages in “bilateral negotiations.” There have been no bilateral negotiations about Palestinian claims pertaining to land inside the Green line.</p>
<p>Bypass road network</p>
<p>Exclusive Israeli-only roads carving up the West Bank and Gaza — the concrete manifestation of the policy to divide and rule. All Palestinian property within an arbitrary range of the road is bulldozed, all trees uprooted. Bypass refers to the fact that the roads avoid Palestinian towns.</p>
<p>Caught in crossfire</p>
<p>Deliberate Killing</p>
<p>Check points</p>
<p>Choke points strangulating Palestinian economic activity by closing roads and not letting any Palestinians pass without lengthy and often unnecessary humiliating personal searches.</p>
<p>Clashes</p>
<p>An unequal contest.Clashes suggest that two equal forces are slugging it out, but the Israelis happen to have one of the most powerful armies in the world.</p>
<p>Closed military area</p>
<p>A demarcation for the press and observers to stay out so that they won’t witness the depredations of the occupation forces.</p>
<p>Closure</p>
<p>Siege and curfew. Curfew is implemented for weeks on end thereby creating an end to normal life for all innocent civilians.</p>
<p>Cycle of violence</p>
<p>Disproportionate violence. “It suggests, at best, two equal sides, never that the Palestinians are resisting violent oppression with violence.” John Pilger, New Statesman, July 1, 02.</p>
<p>“Yes, there is a cycle and the violence is disproportionate, but what is missing is the context. Why is there violence at all? The standard refrain, when it is rarely mentioned, is there is “hatred” on both sides. But since Israelis are like us (fun loving and child hugging) and we don’t think of ourselves as hate-filled, then it must be the other side, the Arabs, who are hateful. Add the history of persecution of Jews into the mix, and what you have is a cycle of violence based on Arab hatred of the Jews. Presto, we arrive at the Israeli propaganda line.” Nabeel Abraham.</p>
<p>Democracy</p>
<p>Chauvinist ethnocracy. During the apartheid years in South Africa Whites also claimed to have a democracy and were rightly ridiculed for this posturing. Israel isn’t much different, and its political system cannot be praised or labelled “democracy” due to its systematic oppression of others. Democracy is inclusive; the Israeli political system excludes a large portion of the population. Israel is the only country making a distinction between citizenship and nationality. Thus Palestinians living in Israel have an Israeli citizenship, and an “Arab” nationality. Democracy applies to the Jewish nationals, not to the citizens of the state. There are Arab members of the Knesset, but their rights are curtailed in the Jewish state. Palestinians in the occupied territories have zero democratic rights although they are forced to pay some taxes to Israel–a case of taxation without representation.</p>
<p>Demographic factors</p>
<p>“Israeli newspeak for keeping the Arabs from outnumbering Israeli Jews.” –Nabeel Abraham</p>
<p>Deportation</p>
<p>Expulsion or exile. The dictionary definition of deportation: banishment of an undesirable person to their native land. Given that Palestinians are natives, thus legal residents, their expulsion is an imposed exile. Furthermore, the term deportation implies that the Israelis are just pursuing legal procedures. The dubious nature of the appeals process and the simultaneous demolition of the victims’ homes contravene the Geneva Convention.</p>
<p>Disproportionate response</p>
<p>Harshest admonishment uttered by the US gov’t in response to Israeli bombings or assassinations. By implication a “proportionate” response–killing less people–is acceptable. The complicating factor of the usual Israeli actions is the press coverage. However, “proportional” responses are ignored.</p>
<p>Disputed territories</p>
<p>Occupied territories. Curiously enough this term was coined by the US gov’t under Clinton. Language reflects policy preference and the nature of the US “mediators”. (see honest broker)</p>
<p>Facts on the ground</p>
<p>Settlements. At best they are considered bargaining chips, at worst they are considered immutable.</p>
<p>Final status negotiation</p>
<p>Chimera. The Oslo framework stipulated negotiations dealing with matters of substance and most important to solve the conflict. Note these negotiations are always in the future. Current negotiations deal mostly with issues of interest to Israel, e.g., security, confiscation of more land (see bypass road network).</p>
<p>Generous offer</p>
<p>Demand for surrender. Anything that the Israelis offer is generous, and should be accepted. The Camp David II “generous offer” amounted to an offer of a fraction of the West Bank and Gaza, no control over borders, limited removal of settlements, and no sovereignty, yet this was supposed to be generous. In good faith negotiations the parties have a right to refuse an offer without admonishment.</p>
<p>Green Zones</p>
<p>Palestinians out. “Zoned areas in the Israeli-occupied Arab residential areas of the territories which are protected allegedly for environmental reasons. A legal sleight of hand to prevent Arab development.” –Nabeel Abraham</p>
<p>Hamas</p>
<p>Catch all opposition group. An Islamic opposition group fostered by the Israeli secret services during the first intifada. Its purpose was to undermine the support for the PLO. Since then it has become an effective opposition force opposed to Arafat’s sell out. Anyone voicing criticism of the “peace process” is automatically classed as a Hamas supporter. Several leading intellectuals who objected to Arafat’s shoddy approach to negotiations earned themselves a Hamas label by both Israelis and the Palestinian “authority”.</p>
<p>Held in detention</p>
<p>Hostages. Practice that became common during the first intifada whereby Israeli occupation forces imprison family members of wanted persons. Several Lebanese hostages have languished in prison without charge, trial, and with no prospect for release. Shaykh Ubayd has been held for more than 13 years. They are held even though the Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon has come to a partial end.</p>
<p>Honest broker</p>
<p>The United States. The country supplying Israel with most of its weapons and giving no-strings-attached economic handouts–several billion dollars every year not counting forgiven loans.</p>
<p>Incursion</p>
<p>Attack. “The latest euphemism, ‘incursion’, is from the vocabulary of lies coined in Vietnam. It means assaulting human beings with tanks and planes.” John Pilger, New Statesman, July 1, 02.</p>
<p>Instilling hatred</p>
<p>Palestinian News, Education. Describing the consequences of occupation to its own population. The term “instilling hatred” is used to describe any Palestinian news or information, and forms the justification to bomb Palestinian TV and radio stations, and even target individuals linked to some schools. Also a justification to remove accreditation of all Palestinian journalists. Israelis find it galling to be called assassins, thieves, and occupiers. Palestinians are not allowed to convey their experience to others. Palestinian existence is criminalized, and so is their voice.</p>
<p>Israeli Defense Forces, IDF</p>
<p>Occupation Forces. I “D” F confers some legitimacy, but it is a misplaced respect for a fully equipped army of occupation.</p>
<p>Israeli-side</p>
<p>the “Israeli side”. Today’s euphemism for the occupation forces. Azmi Bishara, July 25, 2002, Al Ahram A curious adoption of a euphemism by both Israelis and the Palestinian “authority”.</p>
<p>Leverage</p>
<p>Offers you can’t refuse. “In essence, Israel holds most of the ‘cards’ and its willingness to use the population as hostages, coercing the Palestinian leadership to accede to ever more onerous demands.” Dr. Majed Nassar</p>
<p>Israeli desire to determine the outcome of negotiations on the basis of balance of power instead of a balance of justice.</p>
<p>Man of Peace</p>
<p>War Criminal.</p>
<p>Militants</p>
<p>Resistance. Western media cannot portray the Palestinian resistance as military because this label obviously doesn’t apply. Instead they use “militants” also conveying the impression of armed gangs, and therefore easier to justify Israeli assassinations. (see targeted killings)</p>
<p>Moderate physical pressure</p>
<p>Torture. Israel is the only country in the world where torture is legal and used routinely.</p>
<p>Natural growth</p>
<p>Subsidized settlement expansion. Justification to continue expanding settlements. Every time demands are made for Israel to stop building settlements on occupied land, its retort is that expansion of existing settlements must continue to accommodate “natural growth”, i.e., the subsidized stream of immigrant colonialists. Many of the settlements have a large percentage of empty housing, bringing into question the need for further expansion.</p>
<p>Neighbor practice</p>
<p>Human shields “The use of a local resident as a ‘human shield’ is a war crime. That was confirmed, on live television, by a senior reserve officer, the former president of the highest military court. The Fourth Geneva Convention expressly forbids the use of ‘protected persons’ (as the convention calls inhabitants of an occupied territory) for such purpose. This practice, like the practice of compelling Palestinian neighbors to tour buildings suspected of being booby-trapped, is similar to the killing of hostages in retaliation for resistance actions It was disclosed that this is a widely-used method, which has even been given a regular military appellation: ‘neighbor practice’. Not long ago the army promised the Supreme Court to give up the practice [but] had no intention at all of fulfilling the promise.” –Uri Avnery, Palestine Chronicle, Aug. 19, 02</p>
<p>Neighborhood</p>
<p>Settlement. Israelis and their apologists insist that Gilo is just another neighborhood of Jerusalem. The fact is that it is built on illegally confiscated occupied land–thus a settlement.</p>
<p>No building permit</p>
<p>Order for destruction. An excuse to demolish Palestinian homes. Israeli buildings built without a permit are issued with one retroactively and are spared. No Israeli-owned home has ever been demolished for lacking a permit. Palestinians cannot in general obtain building permits.</p>
<p>Operation X</p>
<p>Another attack. Military operations are given names to make them more palatable–it is a military marketing gimmick. Any journalist referring to an attack on refugee camps by the operation’s name is in the very least not trying to be objective.</p>
<p>Peace process.</p>
<p>[Note that Ariel Sharon’s pronunciation of this is closer to “piss process.” He seldom refers to “peace” as an outcome. He is always in favor of the peace process, but not peace.] Ruse to placate world opinion. A perpetual process not intended to reach any conclusion. A means for Israelis to gain time and consolidate their hold on the occupied territories by expanding the “facts on the ground”, i.e., the settlements. From their viewpoint, the longer the negotiations leading to endless haggle the better. Occasionally, if negotiations are advancing, they may need a timely disruption, e.g., hold an election and it is time to start the negotiations all over again!</p>
<p>Pending investigation</p>
<p>Case closed. Of 25 Israeli army investigations in the past 22 months, six were closed without a result; others have yet to be completed. “The army hardly ever opens investigations into cases of unlawful killing,” says Lior Yavne, Btselem’s spokesman. “The army is basically conducting a policy of impunity. Soldiers realize they can do anything they want and they will not face problems.” –Marie Colvin, “Cruel death of a West Bank local hero”, Sunday Times, July 21, 02</p>
<p>Phased withdrawal</p>
<p>Grudging Israeli pullout of occupying forces over the area it chooses, on a timescale it determines, and only after it obtains guarantees that the local population will be policed to its satisfaction. No settlements are ever dismantled, only areas where the cost of occupation has become too high.</p>
<p>Proof of residency</p>
<p>ID confiscation. Palestinian residents of Jerusalem are often asked to show their ID papers to prove their residency rights. Often police confiscate the identity papers, and thereby these people lose their right of residency. It often leads to the families in question being split up and losing their homes. The victims of this bureaucratic “transfer” policy number in the thousands. ID papers are generally not reissued–the victims cannot prove their residency because the papers were confiscated. Photocopies of ID papers aren’t considered valid proof to reissue documents.</p>
<p>Reform process</p>
<p>Satrap selection. Political transformation that delivers the collaborators with Israelis and Americans. Any politician signing up to this must accept to oppress their own population to comply with Israeli/US demands. Arafat had signed on, but couldn’t deliver.</p>
<p>Removing cover</p>
<p>Pretext to flatten homes, clear agricultural fields, trees, and so on. Making a lunar landscape out of the West Bank and Gaza.</p>
<p>Restraint</p>
<p>Kinder/Gentler Aggression. “If this is the latest Israeli military spin, the reality for Palestinians is that even ‘restraint’ by the Israeli army is enough to make their lives miserable. The army may no longer be destroying vast chunks of Palestinian cities, but it continues to terrify Palestinian civilians by indiscriminate shooting. The army still sends tanks and troops into Palestinian towns for forays of several days, as it did in Jenin last week, or for a single night as it did twice in the northern part of the Gaza strip. Curfews are slapped on or lifted without notice, making life for all Palestinians unpredictable and humiliating.” Jonathan Steele, The Guardian, August 9, 02.</p>
<p>Retaliation, or Israelis never initiate violence, they always respond.</p>
<p>State terror, or wholesale violence. The actions taken as reprisals are: (1) collective punishment on targets unrelated to the original action, and (2) totally out of proportion to the original action. On both accounts the actions are in contravention of the Geneva Conventions. Several times Israel has wrecked ceasefire agreements by assassinations or deliberate actions meant to aggravate the situation.</p>
<p>Right of Return</p>
<p>Bringing in your people to displace us. “We regard it as morally wrong that this legal entitlement should be bestowed on us while the very people who should have most right to a genuine ‘return’, having been forced or terrorised into fleeing, are excluded.” letter by British Jews renouncing their “right of return”, The Guardian, Aug. 8, 02.</p>
<p>The “right of return” requires a determination to drive out the native population–it is all in the name of creating lebensraum.</p>
<p>Rocks</p>
<p>Stones. Palestinians throw stones at soldiers in tanks and armored vehicles–it is a symbol of defiance and resistance.</p>
<p>Security</p>
<p>Their security. Demand that the occupiers not be attacked, and that the violence not spill over into Israel proper. Security always refers to the safety of Israelis, it never refers to Palestinian concerns.</p>
<p>Settlements</p>
<p>The stolen land. Jews-only garrison villages built on violently confiscated Palestinian land. The purpose of the settlements is to make a permanent claim to the land, and impede the formation of a Palestinian State. These garrison villages always appear on Israeli maps, whereas the Palestinian villages whose land was confiscated for the same settlements disappear from the maps.</p>
<p>Strongholds, nests of terror</p>
<p>Refugee camps, home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, mostly refugees from villages conquered by Israelis.</p>
<p>Suspicion</p>
<p>Grounds for imprisonment or assassination. ” to say nothing of many thousands of ‘suspects’ rounded-up and still imprisoned by Israeli soldiers” Edward Said, Punishment by Detail, Aug. 8, 02. (see administrative detention)</p>
<p>Targeted killings</p>
<p>Assassination where a military commander plays the role of judge, jury, and executioner. It lists as a war crime under the Geneva Conventions where the occupier has a duty towards the captive population.</p>
<p>“Nobody asks whether all these people killed were in fact terrorists, or proved to be terrorists, or were about to become terrorists.” Edward Said, Punishment by Detail, Aug. 8, 02.</p>
<p>Terrorism</p>
<p>Retail violence, resistance. An oppressed population has a right to resist and use violence when there is no alternative. Its violence is labeled “terrorism”, and judged to be illegitimate. Israeli violence is always found to have redeeming characteristics. (see retaliation)</p>
<p>Town planning</p>
<p>“A euphemism for replacing Arabs by Jews, reminiscent of some uses of ‘urban planning’ in the United States.” Noam Chomsky in The New Intifada.</p>
<p>Transfer</p>
<p>The obscene euphemism for ethnic cleansing (which is itself a euphemism).</p>
<p>Unconfirmed reports</p>
<p>Accounts of Israeli forces’ depredations. Reports are only confirmed when either Israelis say so or when “Western” journalists report them. Palestinian accounts of events don’t count to substantiate a report, and at best are ascribed the “alleged” adjective.</p>
<p>Paul de Rooij lives in London, can be reached at <a href="" type="internal">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Glossary of Occupation | true | https://counterpunch.org/2002/09/12/glossary-of-occupation/ | 2002-09-12 | 4left
| Glossary of Occupation
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Language is a powerful yet deceptive thing. It can be used to convey someone’s plight and it can also be used to hide unpalatable sordid deeds. Nowhere are words adulterated more for political ends than in Israel and Palestine today. It is no secret that Israel employs a legion of well-funded propagandists, and it also relies on self-appointed members of the press–the pro bono apologists, who serve the same purpose. Just like the lopsided imbalance of military power, the means to command and change language rests primarily with pro-Israeli propagandists. Their language obfuscates and exculpates Israel’s actions against a basically defenseless population; it perpetuates the injustices and contributes to a continuation of Israel’s occupation and theft of more land.</p>
<p>To make sense of the situation and to peer through the fog, a fraction of the post-Oslo commonly abused terms are translated in this glossary.</p>
<p>Abused Terms</p>
<p>Administrative detention</p>
<p>Imprisonment without charges, trial, sometimes without legal representation, for undefined terms. Imprisonment usually takes place in prisons and even in a concentration camp in the Negev desert.</p>
<p>Bilateral negotiations</p>
<p>Confiscation of land. Israel confiscates/steals land, and to legalize its claims it engages in “bilateral negotiations.” There have been no bilateral negotiations about Palestinian claims pertaining to land inside the Green line.</p>
<p>Bypass road network</p>
<p>Exclusive Israeli-only roads carving up the West Bank and Gaza — the concrete manifestation of the policy to divide and rule. All Palestinian property within an arbitrary range of the road is bulldozed, all trees uprooted. Bypass refers to the fact that the roads avoid Palestinian towns.</p>
<p>Caught in crossfire</p>
<p>Deliberate Killing</p>
<p>Check points</p>
<p>Choke points strangulating Palestinian economic activity by closing roads and not letting any Palestinians pass without lengthy and often unnecessary humiliating personal searches.</p>
<p>Clashes</p>
<p>An unequal contest.Clashes suggest that two equal forces are slugging it out, but the Israelis happen to have one of the most powerful armies in the world.</p>
<p>Closed military area</p>
<p>A demarcation for the press and observers to stay out so that they won’t witness the depredations of the occupation forces.</p>
<p>Closure</p>
<p>Siege and curfew. Curfew is implemented for weeks on end thereby creating an end to normal life for all innocent civilians.</p>
<p>Cycle of violence</p>
<p>Disproportionate violence. “It suggests, at best, two equal sides, never that the Palestinians are resisting violent oppression with violence.” John Pilger, New Statesman, July 1, 02.</p>
<p>“Yes, there is a cycle and the violence is disproportionate, but what is missing is the context. Why is there violence at all? The standard refrain, when it is rarely mentioned, is there is “hatred” on both sides. But since Israelis are like us (fun loving and child hugging) and we don’t think of ourselves as hate-filled, then it must be the other side, the Arabs, who are hateful. Add the history of persecution of Jews into the mix, and what you have is a cycle of violence based on Arab hatred of the Jews. Presto, we arrive at the Israeli propaganda line.” Nabeel Abraham.</p>
<p>Democracy</p>
<p>Chauvinist ethnocracy. During the apartheid years in South Africa Whites also claimed to have a democracy and were rightly ridiculed for this posturing. Israel isn’t much different, and its political system cannot be praised or labelled “democracy” due to its systematic oppression of others. Democracy is inclusive; the Israeli political system excludes a large portion of the population. Israel is the only country making a distinction between citizenship and nationality. Thus Palestinians living in Israel have an Israeli citizenship, and an “Arab” nationality. Democracy applies to the Jewish nationals, not to the citizens of the state. There are Arab members of the Knesset, but their rights are curtailed in the Jewish state. Palestinians in the occupied territories have zero democratic rights although they are forced to pay some taxes to Israel–a case of taxation without representation.</p>
<p>Demographic factors</p>
<p>“Israeli newspeak for keeping the Arabs from outnumbering Israeli Jews.” –Nabeel Abraham</p>
<p>Deportation</p>
<p>Expulsion or exile. The dictionary definition of deportation: banishment of an undesirable person to their native land. Given that Palestinians are natives, thus legal residents, their expulsion is an imposed exile. Furthermore, the term deportation implies that the Israelis are just pursuing legal procedures. The dubious nature of the appeals process and the simultaneous demolition of the victims’ homes contravene the Geneva Convention.</p>
<p>Disproportionate response</p>
<p>Harshest admonishment uttered by the US gov’t in response to Israeli bombings or assassinations. By implication a “proportionate” response–killing less people–is acceptable. The complicating factor of the usual Israeli actions is the press coverage. However, “proportional” responses are ignored.</p>
<p>Disputed territories</p>
<p>Occupied territories. Curiously enough this term was coined by the US gov’t under Clinton. Language reflects policy preference and the nature of the US “mediators”. (see honest broker)</p>
<p>Facts on the ground</p>
<p>Settlements. At best they are considered bargaining chips, at worst they are considered immutable.</p>
<p>Final status negotiation</p>
<p>Chimera. The Oslo framework stipulated negotiations dealing with matters of substance and most important to solve the conflict. Note these negotiations are always in the future. Current negotiations deal mostly with issues of interest to Israel, e.g., security, confiscation of more land (see bypass road network).</p>
<p>Generous offer</p>
<p>Demand for surrender. Anything that the Israelis offer is generous, and should be accepted. The Camp David II “generous offer” amounted to an offer of a fraction of the West Bank and Gaza, no control over borders, limited removal of settlements, and no sovereignty, yet this was supposed to be generous. In good faith negotiations the parties have a right to refuse an offer without admonishment.</p>
<p>Green Zones</p>
<p>Palestinians out. “Zoned areas in the Israeli-occupied Arab residential areas of the territories which are protected allegedly for environmental reasons. A legal sleight of hand to prevent Arab development.” –Nabeel Abraham</p>
<p>Hamas</p>
<p>Catch all opposition group. An Islamic opposition group fostered by the Israeli secret services during the first intifada. Its purpose was to undermine the support for the PLO. Since then it has become an effective opposition force opposed to Arafat’s sell out. Anyone voicing criticism of the “peace process” is automatically classed as a Hamas supporter. Several leading intellectuals who objected to Arafat’s shoddy approach to negotiations earned themselves a Hamas label by both Israelis and the Palestinian “authority”.</p>
<p>Held in detention</p>
<p>Hostages. Practice that became common during the first intifada whereby Israeli occupation forces imprison family members of wanted persons. Several Lebanese hostages have languished in prison without charge, trial, and with no prospect for release. Shaykh Ubayd has been held for more than 13 years. They are held even though the Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon has come to a partial end.</p>
<p>Honest broker</p>
<p>The United States. The country supplying Israel with most of its weapons and giving no-strings-attached economic handouts–several billion dollars every year not counting forgiven loans.</p>
<p>Incursion</p>
<p>Attack. “The latest euphemism, ‘incursion’, is from the vocabulary of lies coined in Vietnam. It means assaulting human beings with tanks and planes.” John Pilger, New Statesman, July 1, 02.</p>
<p>Instilling hatred</p>
<p>Palestinian News, Education. Describing the consequences of occupation to its own population. The term “instilling hatred” is used to describe any Palestinian news or information, and forms the justification to bomb Palestinian TV and radio stations, and even target individuals linked to some schools. Also a justification to remove accreditation of all Palestinian journalists. Israelis find it galling to be called assassins, thieves, and occupiers. Palestinians are not allowed to convey their experience to others. Palestinian existence is criminalized, and so is their voice.</p>
<p>Israeli Defense Forces, IDF</p>
<p>Occupation Forces. I “D” F confers some legitimacy, but it is a misplaced respect for a fully equipped army of occupation.</p>
<p>Israeli-side</p>
<p>the “Israeli side”. Today’s euphemism for the occupation forces. Azmi Bishara, July 25, 2002, Al Ahram A curious adoption of a euphemism by both Israelis and the Palestinian “authority”.</p>
<p>Leverage</p>
<p>Offers you can’t refuse. “In essence, Israel holds most of the ‘cards’ and its willingness to use the population as hostages, coercing the Palestinian leadership to accede to ever more onerous demands.” Dr. Majed Nassar</p>
<p>Israeli desire to determine the outcome of negotiations on the basis of balance of power instead of a balance of justice.</p>
<p>Man of Peace</p>
<p>War Criminal.</p>
<p>Militants</p>
<p>Resistance. Western media cannot portray the Palestinian resistance as military because this label obviously doesn’t apply. Instead they use “militants” also conveying the impression of armed gangs, and therefore easier to justify Israeli assassinations. (see targeted killings)</p>
<p>Moderate physical pressure</p>
<p>Torture. Israel is the only country in the world where torture is legal and used routinely.</p>
<p>Natural growth</p>
<p>Subsidized settlement expansion. Justification to continue expanding settlements. Every time demands are made for Israel to stop building settlements on occupied land, its retort is that expansion of existing settlements must continue to accommodate “natural growth”, i.e., the subsidized stream of immigrant colonialists. Many of the settlements have a large percentage of empty housing, bringing into question the need for further expansion.</p>
<p>Neighbor practice</p>
<p>Human shields “The use of a local resident as a ‘human shield’ is a war crime. That was confirmed, on live television, by a senior reserve officer, the former president of the highest military court. The Fourth Geneva Convention expressly forbids the use of ‘protected persons’ (as the convention calls inhabitants of an occupied territory) for such purpose. This practice, like the practice of compelling Palestinian neighbors to tour buildings suspected of being booby-trapped, is similar to the killing of hostages in retaliation for resistance actions It was disclosed that this is a widely-used method, which has even been given a regular military appellation: ‘neighbor practice’. Not long ago the army promised the Supreme Court to give up the practice [but] had no intention at all of fulfilling the promise.” –Uri Avnery, Palestine Chronicle, Aug. 19, 02</p>
<p>Neighborhood</p>
<p>Settlement. Israelis and their apologists insist that Gilo is just another neighborhood of Jerusalem. The fact is that it is built on illegally confiscated occupied land–thus a settlement.</p>
<p>No building permit</p>
<p>Order for destruction. An excuse to demolish Palestinian homes. Israeli buildings built without a permit are issued with one retroactively and are spared. No Israeli-owned home has ever been demolished for lacking a permit. Palestinians cannot in general obtain building permits.</p>
<p>Operation X</p>
<p>Another attack. Military operations are given names to make them more palatable–it is a military marketing gimmick. Any journalist referring to an attack on refugee camps by the operation’s name is in the very least not trying to be objective.</p>
<p>Peace process.</p>
<p>[Note that Ariel Sharon’s pronunciation of this is closer to “piss process.” He seldom refers to “peace” as an outcome. He is always in favor of the peace process, but not peace.] Ruse to placate world opinion. A perpetual process not intended to reach any conclusion. A means for Israelis to gain time and consolidate their hold on the occupied territories by expanding the “facts on the ground”, i.e., the settlements. From their viewpoint, the longer the negotiations leading to endless haggle the better. Occasionally, if negotiations are advancing, they may need a timely disruption, e.g., hold an election and it is time to start the negotiations all over again!</p>
<p>Pending investigation</p>
<p>Case closed. Of 25 Israeli army investigations in the past 22 months, six were closed without a result; others have yet to be completed. “The army hardly ever opens investigations into cases of unlawful killing,” says Lior Yavne, Btselem’s spokesman. “The army is basically conducting a policy of impunity. Soldiers realize they can do anything they want and they will not face problems.” –Marie Colvin, “Cruel death of a West Bank local hero”, Sunday Times, July 21, 02</p>
<p>Phased withdrawal</p>
<p>Grudging Israeli pullout of occupying forces over the area it chooses, on a timescale it determines, and only after it obtains guarantees that the local population will be policed to its satisfaction. No settlements are ever dismantled, only areas where the cost of occupation has become too high.</p>
<p>Proof of residency</p>
<p>ID confiscation. Palestinian residents of Jerusalem are often asked to show their ID papers to prove their residency rights. Often police confiscate the identity papers, and thereby these people lose their right of residency. It often leads to the families in question being split up and losing their homes. The victims of this bureaucratic “transfer” policy number in the thousands. ID papers are generally not reissued–the victims cannot prove their residency because the papers were confiscated. Photocopies of ID papers aren’t considered valid proof to reissue documents.</p>
<p>Reform process</p>
<p>Satrap selection. Political transformation that delivers the collaborators with Israelis and Americans. Any politician signing up to this must accept to oppress their own population to comply with Israeli/US demands. Arafat had signed on, but couldn’t deliver.</p>
<p>Removing cover</p>
<p>Pretext to flatten homes, clear agricultural fields, trees, and so on. Making a lunar landscape out of the West Bank and Gaza.</p>
<p>Restraint</p>
<p>Kinder/Gentler Aggression. “If this is the latest Israeli military spin, the reality for Palestinians is that even ‘restraint’ by the Israeli army is enough to make their lives miserable. The army may no longer be destroying vast chunks of Palestinian cities, but it continues to terrify Palestinian civilians by indiscriminate shooting. The army still sends tanks and troops into Palestinian towns for forays of several days, as it did in Jenin last week, or for a single night as it did twice in the northern part of the Gaza strip. Curfews are slapped on or lifted without notice, making life for all Palestinians unpredictable and humiliating.” Jonathan Steele, The Guardian, August 9, 02.</p>
<p>Retaliation, or Israelis never initiate violence, they always respond.</p>
<p>State terror, or wholesale violence. The actions taken as reprisals are: (1) collective punishment on targets unrelated to the original action, and (2) totally out of proportion to the original action. On both accounts the actions are in contravention of the Geneva Conventions. Several times Israel has wrecked ceasefire agreements by assassinations or deliberate actions meant to aggravate the situation.</p>
<p>Right of Return</p>
<p>Bringing in your people to displace us. “We regard it as morally wrong that this legal entitlement should be bestowed on us while the very people who should have most right to a genuine ‘return’, having been forced or terrorised into fleeing, are excluded.” letter by British Jews renouncing their “right of return”, The Guardian, Aug. 8, 02.</p>
<p>The “right of return” requires a determination to drive out the native population–it is all in the name of creating lebensraum.</p>
<p>Rocks</p>
<p>Stones. Palestinians throw stones at soldiers in tanks and armored vehicles–it is a symbol of defiance and resistance.</p>
<p>Security</p>
<p>Their security. Demand that the occupiers not be attacked, and that the violence not spill over into Israel proper. Security always refers to the safety of Israelis, it never refers to Palestinian concerns.</p>
<p>Settlements</p>
<p>The stolen land. Jews-only garrison villages built on violently confiscated Palestinian land. The purpose of the settlements is to make a permanent claim to the land, and impede the formation of a Palestinian State. These garrison villages always appear on Israeli maps, whereas the Palestinian villages whose land was confiscated for the same settlements disappear from the maps.</p>
<p>Strongholds, nests of terror</p>
<p>Refugee camps, home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, mostly refugees from villages conquered by Israelis.</p>
<p>Suspicion</p>
<p>Grounds for imprisonment or assassination. ” to say nothing of many thousands of ‘suspects’ rounded-up and still imprisoned by Israeli soldiers” Edward Said, Punishment by Detail, Aug. 8, 02. (see administrative detention)</p>
<p>Targeted killings</p>
<p>Assassination where a military commander plays the role of judge, jury, and executioner. It lists as a war crime under the Geneva Conventions where the occupier has a duty towards the captive population.</p>
<p>“Nobody asks whether all these people killed were in fact terrorists, or proved to be terrorists, or were about to become terrorists.” Edward Said, Punishment by Detail, Aug. 8, 02.</p>
<p>Terrorism</p>
<p>Retail violence, resistance. An oppressed population has a right to resist and use violence when there is no alternative. Its violence is labeled “terrorism”, and judged to be illegitimate. Israeli violence is always found to have redeeming characteristics. (see retaliation)</p>
<p>Town planning</p>
<p>“A euphemism for replacing Arabs by Jews, reminiscent of some uses of ‘urban planning’ in the United States.” Noam Chomsky in The New Intifada.</p>
<p>Transfer</p>
<p>The obscene euphemism for ethnic cleansing (which is itself a euphemism).</p>
<p>Unconfirmed reports</p>
<p>Accounts of Israeli forces’ depredations. Reports are only confirmed when either Israelis say so or when “Western” journalists report them. Palestinian accounts of events don’t count to substantiate a report, and at best are ascribed the “alleged” adjective.</p>
<p>Paul de Rooij lives in London, can be reached at <a href="" type="internal">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | 3,863 |
<p>The last time we checked on the Dakota Access Pipeline, recovery crews were digging through <a href="" type="internal">mountains of garbage</a> left by protesters and trying to find families for the <a href="" type="internal">dogs abandoned at the Standing Rock site</a>by the evicted eco-activists.</p>
<p>President Trump put <a href="" type="internal">his pen to work</a>, which moved both the Dakota and Keystone pipelines forward. the US <a href="" type="internal">State Department is putting</a> the finishing touches on a permit for Keystone’s international structure.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/21/dakota-access-pipeline-vandals-sought-for-burning-/" type="external">South Dakota and Iowa authorities are investigating the vandalism of</a> the almost operational Dakota Access Pipeline.</p>
<p />
<p>The next activists who try to burn a hole through the Dakota Access pipeline may find that carbon pollution is the least of their problems.</p>
<p>The $3.8 billion project is expected to begin running oil this week, as authorities investigate two separate incidents of vandalism in Iowa and South Dakota involving holes torched in pipes located at above-ground valve sites.</p>
<p>No oil was flowing through the pipes, but if there had been, the consequences could have been disastrous, said Brigham A. McCown, former acting administrator of the Pipeline &amp; Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.</p>
<p>“If they had tried to utilize a torch to burn through the sidewall, they would have likely ignited the oil inside and been killed instantly,” said Mr. McCown, now an infrastructure consultant. “This is a serious safety issue and cannot be justified under any basis. Those responsible should face severe criminal penalties.”</p>
<p>The vandals may not be versed enough in real science to have realized that fuel, oxygen and an ignition source would have completed the fire triangle, leading to instantaneous global warming…for them.</p>
<p>The South Dakota Department of Criminal Investigations indicated it was considering the incident as an act of felony vandalism. <a href="http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/crime-and-courts/2017/03/21/vandal-damages-dakota-access-pipeline-iowa/99467172/" type="external">Iowa officials were weighing charges</a> of first-degree criminal mischief for anyone they determine was involved in the attack.</p>
<p>Environmental activists who were involved in disrupting some oil pipeline operations in four states last year to protest the construction now <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/03/21/environment-activists-deny-attacking-dakota-access-pipeline.html" type="external">claim they aren’t responsible</a> for the recent attacks.</p>
<p>The remarks came in response to allegations that Texas-based Dakota Access developer Energy Transfer Partners made in court documents late Monday. The company said there have been “recent coordinated physical attacks along the pipeline that pose threats to life, physical safety and the environment,” but did not say who was responsible for those alleged attacks.</p>
<p>…Jay O’Hara with the Climate Disobedience Center told the AP that Climate Direct Action wasn’t involved in any attacks against the pipeline, and he wasn’t aware of anyone claiming responsibility.</p>
<p>The pipeline is poised to begin <a href="http://www.kalb.com/content/news/Dakota-Access-pipeline-could-be-moving-oil-soon-415584223.html" type="external">moving oil early next week</a>.</p>
<p>The company is finishing up construction under the Lake Oahe Missouri River reservoir in North Dakota – the last piece of work for the $3.8 billion pipeline to move North Dakota oil to a shipping point in Illinois.</p>
<p>…Oil already is in parts of the line leading up to the lake. ETP says in court documents it’s likely to put oil under the lake next week.</p>
<p>Spokeswoman Vicki Granado said it would take about three weeks to get the oil to Illinois. At that point the pipeline would be considered fully operational.</p>
<p>The pipelines are will minimize the potential for transportation-related spillage, and their construction will do far more the save the environment than the garbage-infused, “Burning Man” protests and the vandalism.</p> | Vandals burn holes in Dakota Access Pipeline | true | http://legalinsurrection.com/2017/03/vandals-burn-holes-in-dakota-access-pipeline/ | 2017-03-25 | 0right
| Vandals burn holes in Dakota Access Pipeline
<p>The last time we checked on the Dakota Access Pipeline, recovery crews were digging through <a href="" type="internal">mountains of garbage</a> left by protesters and trying to find families for the <a href="" type="internal">dogs abandoned at the Standing Rock site</a>by the evicted eco-activists.</p>
<p>President Trump put <a href="" type="internal">his pen to work</a>, which moved both the Dakota and Keystone pipelines forward. the US <a href="" type="internal">State Department is putting</a> the finishing touches on a permit for Keystone’s international structure.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/21/dakota-access-pipeline-vandals-sought-for-burning-/" type="external">South Dakota and Iowa authorities are investigating the vandalism of</a> the almost operational Dakota Access Pipeline.</p>
<p />
<p>The next activists who try to burn a hole through the Dakota Access pipeline may find that carbon pollution is the least of their problems.</p>
<p>The $3.8 billion project is expected to begin running oil this week, as authorities investigate two separate incidents of vandalism in Iowa and South Dakota involving holes torched in pipes located at above-ground valve sites.</p>
<p>No oil was flowing through the pipes, but if there had been, the consequences could have been disastrous, said Brigham A. McCown, former acting administrator of the Pipeline &amp; Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.</p>
<p>“If they had tried to utilize a torch to burn through the sidewall, they would have likely ignited the oil inside and been killed instantly,” said Mr. McCown, now an infrastructure consultant. “This is a serious safety issue and cannot be justified under any basis. Those responsible should face severe criminal penalties.”</p>
<p>The vandals may not be versed enough in real science to have realized that fuel, oxygen and an ignition source would have completed the fire triangle, leading to instantaneous global warming…for them.</p>
<p>The South Dakota Department of Criminal Investigations indicated it was considering the incident as an act of felony vandalism. <a href="http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/crime-and-courts/2017/03/21/vandal-damages-dakota-access-pipeline-iowa/99467172/" type="external">Iowa officials were weighing charges</a> of first-degree criminal mischief for anyone they determine was involved in the attack.</p>
<p>Environmental activists who were involved in disrupting some oil pipeline operations in four states last year to protest the construction now <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/03/21/environment-activists-deny-attacking-dakota-access-pipeline.html" type="external">claim they aren’t responsible</a> for the recent attacks.</p>
<p>The remarks came in response to allegations that Texas-based Dakota Access developer Energy Transfer Partners made in court documents late Monday. The company said there have been “recent coordinated physical attacks along the pipeline that pose threats to life, physical safety and the environment,” but did not say who was responsible for those alleged attacks.</p>
<p>…Jay O’Hara with the Climate Disobedience Center told the AP that Climate Direct Action wasn’t involved in any attacks against the pipeline, and he wasn’t aware of anyone claiming responsibility.</p>
<p>The pipeline is poised to begin <a href="http://www.kalb.com/content/news/Dakota-Access-pipeline-could-be-moving-oil-soon-415584223.html" type="external">moving oil early next week</a>.</p>
<p>The company is finishing up construction under the Lake Oahe Missouri River reservoir in North Dakota – the last piece of work for the $3.8 billion pipeline to move North Dakota oil to a shipping point in Illinois.</p>
<p>…Oil already is in parts of the line leading up to the lake. ETP says in court documents it’s likely to put oil under the lake next week.</p>
<p>Spokeswoman Vicki Granado said it would take about three weeks to get the oil to Illinois. At that point the pipeline would be considered fully operational.</p>
<p>The pipelines are will minimize the potential for transportation-related spillage, and their construction will do far more the save the environment than the garbage-infused, “Burning Man” protests and the vandalism.</p> | 3,864 |
<p />
<p>New Hampshire voters came home last night to find an alarming warning&#160;in their mailboxes. Voting for Democrat Maggie Hassan in her Senate race against incumbent Sen. Kelly Ayotte, they were told, would essentially mean voting for terrorists to target their children. The large glossy mailer warns on the front that radical Islamic terrorists are searching for their next city to target:</p>
<p>Where did the money come from to create the provocative mailer?&#160;We’ll probably never know. According to the fine print at the bottom, the mailer was sent by One Nation, a politically active 501(c)(4) nonprofit, also known as a dark money group. According to the nonpartisan <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2015/05/roves-new-group-isnt-new-and-that-could-be-the-point/" type="external">Center for Responsive Politics</a>, One Nation was taken over earlier this year by operatives from American Crossroads, Karl Rove’s outside money operation.</p>
<p>Federal Election Commission records show that One Nation paid about $44,000 for the mailer, but as a nonprofit organization, One Nation will never have to disclose who donated the money to fund the mailer. It’s not clear whether One Nation has sent similar mailings in other states, though FEC records show the group is spending money on mailers in <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/itemizer/filing/1112525/schedule/f57" type="external">Nevada</a>, <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/itemizer/filing/1112524/schedule/f57" type="external">Indiana</a>, and <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/itemizer/filing/1110349/schedule/f57" type="external">North Carolina</a>.</p>
<p /> | Karl Rove’s Group Injects Scare Tactics Into New Hampshire Senate Race | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/karl-rove-scare-tactics-new-hampshire-senate-hassan/ | 2016-10-25 | 4left
| Karl Rove’s Group Injects Scare Tactics Into New Hampshire Senate Race
<p />
<p>New Hampshire voters came home last night to find an alarming warning&#160;in their mailboxes. Voting for Democrat Maggie Hassan in her Senate race against incumbent Sen. Kelly Ayotte, they were told, would essentially mean voting for terrorists to target their children. The large glossy mailer warns on the front that radical Islamic terrorists are searching for their next city to target:</p>
<p>Where did the money come from to create the provocative mailer?&#160;We’ll probably never know. According to the fine print at the bottom, the mailer was sent by One Nation, a politically active 501(c)(4) nonprofit, also known as a dark money group. According to the nonpartisan <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2015/05/roves-new-group-isnt-new-and-that-could-be-the-point/" type="external">Center for Responsive Politics</a>, One Nation was taken over earlier this year by operatives from American Crossroads, Karl Rove’s outside money operation.</p>
<p>Federal Election Commission records show that One Nation paid about $44,000 for the mailer, but as a nonprofit organization, One Nation will never have to disclose who donated the money to fund the mailer. It’s not clear whether One Nation has sent similar mailings in other states, though FEC records show the group is spending money on mailers in <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/itemizer/filing/1112525/schedule/f57" type="external">Nevada</a>, <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/itemizer/filing/1112524/schedule/f57" type="external">Indiana</a>, and <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/itemizer/filing/1110349/schedule/f57" type="external">North Carolina</a>.</p>
<p /> | 3,865 |
<p>Now, we're no doctor, and we don't even play one on TV.</p>
<p>But conspiracy theories are swirling around the worldwide interwebs about Sen. John McCain and the Arizona Republican's recent — and sudden — surgery.</p>
<p>Some reports say McCain had a five centimeter blood clot just behind his left eye removed via what's called a "minimally invasive craniotomy with an eyebrow incision."</p>
<p>Sounds pretty simple, right? And the reason for the sudden surgery? No biggie. The clot was found in a routine examination which McCain, now 80 years old, has regularly.</p>
<p>Then there's this: McCain underwent brain surgery. Once in his brain, doctors removed a blood clot "in or near the left frontal lobe of the brain," <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/mccain-s-recovery-brain-surgery-shouldn-t-be-taken-lightly-n783861" type="external">NBC reports</a>. "While there are no clear medical reports on the precise location of McCain's clot, the area is very important to memory, right-sided movement, behavior and our ability to produce language."</p>
<p>The Drudge Report headlined a story with this: "PAPER: McCain blood clot could have caused bizarre behavior..." The <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4704048/Explained-John-McCain-s-skull-surgery.html" type="external">Daily Mail</a> story cites that due to "the senator's confused questioning of ex-FBI head James Comey in June, a number of people have expressed concern for McCain's mental health and are wondering if the clot could have been affecting him in that way."</p>
<p>Cue Dr. Milton Wolf, who isn't a brain surgeon but is a board-certified diagnostic radiologist in Kansas.</p>
<p>And the doctor doubted that the clot was "found" during a routine exam.</p>
<p>He also slapped the press.</p>
<p>Again, we don't know. But we do know that McCain's office was less than forthright when staff put out a statement that said the senator "underwent a procedure to remove a blood clot from above his left eye on Friday, July 14 at Mayo Clinic Hospital in Phoenix."</p>
<p>And we did look up just what a "craniotomy" is. It's "a surgical operation in which a bone flap is temporarily removed from the skull to access the brain."</p>
<p>And even though we're not a doctor, we're pretty sure that's a lot more serious than a little "eyebrow incision."</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>UPDATE: Late Wednesday, McCain's office released this statement from the Mayo Clinic:</p>
<p>“On Friday, July 14, Sen. John McCain underwent a procedure to remove a blood clot from above his left eye at Mayo Clinic Hospital in Phoenix. Subsequent tissue pathology revealed that a primary brain tumor known as a glioblastoma was associated with the blood clot.</p>
<p>“Scanning done since the procedure (a minimally invasive craniotomy with an eyebrow incision) shows that the tissue of concern was completely resected by imaging criteria.</p>
<p>“The Senator and his family are reviewing further treatment options with his Mayo Clinic care team. Treatment options may include a combination of chemotherapy and radiation.</p>
<p>“The Senator’s doctors say he is recovering from his surgery ‘amazingly well’ and his underlying health is excellent.”</p>
<p>The office of Senator John McCain also released the following statement:</p>
<p>“Senator McCain appreciates the outpouring of support he has received over the last few days. He is in good spirits as he continues to recover at home with his family in Arizona. He is grateful to the doctors and staff at Mayo Clinic for their outstanding care, and is confident that any future treatment will be effective. Further consultations with Senator McCain's Mayo Clinic care team will indicate when he will return to the United States Senate.”</p> | Conspiracy Theories Abound About John McCain's Mysterious Sudden Surgery | true | https://dailywire.com/news/18755/conspiracy-theories-abound-about-john-mccains-joseph-curl | 2017-07-19 | 0right
| Conspiracy Theories Abound About John McCain's Mysterious Sudden Surgery
<p>Now, we're no doctor, and we don't even play one on TV.</p>
<p>But conspiracy theories are swirling around the worldwide interwebs about Sen. John McCain and the Arizona Republican's recent — and sudden — surgery.</p>
<p>Some reports say McCain had a five centimeter blood clot just behind his left eye removed via what's called a "minimally invasive craniotomy with an eyebrow incision."</p>
<p>Sounds pretty simple, right? And the reason for the sudden surgery? No biggie. The clot was found in a routine examination which McCain, now 80 years old, has regularly.</p>
<p>Then there's this: McCain underwent brain surgery. Once in his brain, doctors removed a blood clot "in or near the left frontal lobe of the brain," <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/mccain-s-recovery-brain-surgery-shouldn-t-be-taken-lightly-n783861" type="external">NBC reports</a>. "While there are no clear medical reports on the precise location of McCain's clot, the area is very important to memory, right-sided movement, behavior and our ability to produce language."</p>
<p>The Drudge Report headlined a story with this: "PAPER: McCain blood clot could have caused bizarre behavior..." The <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4704048/Explained-John-McCain-s-skull-surgery.html" type="external">Daily Mail</a> story cites that due to "the senator's confused questioning of ex-FBI head James Comey in June, a number of people have expressed concern for McCain's mental health and are wondering if the clot could have been affecting him in that way."</p>
<p>Cue Dr. Milton Wolf, who isn't a brain surgeon but is a board-certified diagnostic radiologist in Kansas.</p>
<p>And the doctor doubted that the clot was "found" during a routine exam.</p>
<p>He also slapped the press.</p>
<p>Again, we don't know. But we do know that McCain's office was less than forthright when staff put out a statement that said the senator "underwent a procedure to remove a blood clot from above his left eye on Friday, July 14 at Mayo Clinic Hospital in Phoenix."</p>
<p>And we did look up just what a "craniotomy" is. It's "a surgical operation in which a bone flap is temporarily removed from the skull to access the brain."</p>
<p>And even though we're not a doctor, we're pretty sure that's a lot more serious than a little "eyebrow incision."</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>UPDATE: Late Wednesday, McCain's office released this statement from the Mayo Clinic:</p>
<p>“On Friday, July 14, Sen. John McCain underwent a procedure to remove a blood clot from above his left eye at Mayo Clinic Hospital in Phoenix. Subsequent tissue pathology revealed that a primary brain tumor known as a glioblastoma was associated with the blood clot.</p>
<p>“Scanning done since the procedure (a minimally invasive craniotomy with an eyebrow incision) shows that the tissue of concern was completely resected by imaging criteria.</p>
<p>“The Senator and his family are reviewing further treatment options with his Mayo Clinic care team. Treatment options may include a combination of chemotherapy and radiation.</p>
<p>“The Senator’s doctors say he is recovering from his surgery ‘amazingly well’ and his underlying health is excellent.”</p>
<p>The office of Senator John McCain also released the following statement:</p>
<p>“Senator McCain appreciates the outpouring of support he has received over the last few days. He is in good spirits as he continues to recover at home with his family in Arizona. He is grateful to the doctors and staff at Mayo Clinic for their outstanding care, and is confident that any future treatment will be effective. Further consultations with Senator McCain's Mayo Clinic care team will indicate when he will return to the United States Senate.”</p> | 3,866 |
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<p>WASHINGTON — What is middle class?</p>
<p>President Donald Trump and Republican leaders are promoting their tax-cutting plan as needed relief for the stressed American middle class and a catalyst for job creation.</p>
<p>Democrats say they’re the ones looking out for the middle class, by fighting against proposed tax cuts that would benefit big companies and the wealthy but hurt the average American. It’s not easy to exactly define this middle class, whose members are championed and courted for their votes by both sides. Lawmakers and experts have differing views on the numbers.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The Tax Policy Center sets its “middle quintile” — third slice of five — of household income, including tax-exempt employee benefits like health insurance, at $48,300 to $85,600 a year. But be careful about calling that middle class, it says — there’s no formal definition.</p>
<p>Other experts see the middle-income range at around $44,000 to $72,000 (middle quintile), or $72,000 to $112,000 (fourth quintile, both based on 2015 data).</p>
<p>At the high end, Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama, as candidates, defined middle class as earning up to $250,000 a year. That raised eyebrows because it’s in about the top 5 percent of incomes, and the two Democrats had pledged not to raise taxes on the middle class.</p>
<p>The median, or midpoint, U.S. household income was $57,617 last year, according to the Census Bureau.</p>
<p>Trump, in his rallying pitches for the far-reaching tax overhaul that is his main legislative priority, sounds the theme constantly. “We will cut taxes for hard-working, middle-class families,” he pledges. “It is time to ignite America’s middle-class miracle once again.”</p>
<p>To fill middle-class stockpots, Trump is promising that the tax cuts would bring a $4,000 or $5,000 pay raise annually for the average family. Skeptical tax experts and Democrats say the claim is based on fuzzy math.</p>
<p>Pro-tax cut troops have fanned out to middle-class neighborhoods around the country with a message to voters on their doorsteps: slashing taxes for corporations would unleash an economic bonanza. The resulting new jobs, faster growth and ample pay raises would help them and everyone else, the residents are told.</p>
<p>“That sort of trickle-down … is a very hard message,” says James Thurber, professor and founder of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University. “Because of the burden of governing, they (the Republicans) have a problem having an effective messaging system.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>For the opposition Democrats, on the other hand, “It’s easier to have a clear message here that the tax plan would hurt the middle class and the working class,” Thurber suggested.</p>
<p>The nearly $6 trillion tax plan calls for cutting the corporate tax rate from 36 percent to 20 percent, reduced taxes for most individuals, and doubling the standard deduction used by most average Americans to $12,000 for individuals and $24,000 for families. The number of tax brackets would shrink from seven to three or four, with respective tax rates of 12 percent, 25 percent, 35 percent and to be determined. Inheritance taxes on multimillion-dollar estates would be repealed.</p>
<p>The middle-class family could take advantage of a heftier child tax credit and the extra money that could come from the bigger standard deduction.</p>
<p>But there are too many holes in the spare nine-page plan, like the income levels tied to each tax bracket and what might happen to other deductions used by middle-class people, to know how it actually would affect individual taxpayers and families.</p>
<p>A chief architect of the plan, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Kevin Brady, was pressed by reporters this past week: Will it truly help the middle class? Can the Republicans guarantee that everyone will get a break, that no ordinary person will end up paying more?</p>
<p>“The elevator goes down at every (income) level. … I can guarantee that every American will be better off,” said Brady, R-Texas. He acknowledged, though, “It could be that a singular exception exists.”</p>
<p>But mainly Brady’s answer was stay tuned: The proposed income levels to correspond with each tax bracket will soon be revealed.</p>
<p>That’s where the math comes in. Under the current regime of seven brackets, the biggest group of U.S. taxpayers (about 30 percent) falls in the second-lowest bracket, paying a 15 percent tax rate. An individual with taxable annual income between $9,325 and $37,950 is in that group. Because it’s the largest group, some might consider it as standing in for the middle class.</p>
<p>Some critics of the Republican plan say that because it would eliminate the 15 percent bracket, some people who’ve been taxed at 15 percent could be pushed into the next higher bracket, 25 percent.</p>
<p>That’s not yet known, says Daniel Berger, a research associate at the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution. It totally depends on where the plan masters set the income levels.</p>
<p>“It’s theoretically possible that everyone in the 15 percent bracket would go to the lower bracket, the higher bracket, or they would split between the two,” Berger said.</p>
<p>Jared Walczak, a senior policy analyst at the conservative Tax Foundation, notes that an earlier Republican plan floated last year set the 25 percent tax rate for the same income level as currently, $37,950 to $91,900. If the new plan kept that income range unchanged or raised the bottom amount for the 25 percent rate, no one now paying 15 percent would be pushed into a higher rate, Walczak said.</p> | Hard to define America’s middle class, courted by both sides | false | https://abqjournal.com/1084596/hard-to-define-americas-middle-class-courted-by-both-sides.html | 2017-10-28 | 2least
| Hard to define America’s middle class, courted by both sides
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<p>WASHINGTON — What is middle class?</p>
<p>President Donald Trump and Republican leaders are promoting their tax-cutting plan as needed relief for the stressed American middle class and a catalyst for job creation.</p>
<p>Democrats say they’re the ones looking out for the middle class, by fighting against proposed tax cuts that would benefit big companies and the wealthy but hurt the average American. It’s not easy to exactly define this middle class, whose members are championed and courted for their votes by both sides. Lawmakers and experts have differing views on the numbers.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The Tax Policy Center sets its “middle quintile” — third slice of five — of household income, including tax-exempt employee benefits like health insurance, at $48,300 to $85,600 a year. But be careful about calling that middle class, it says — there’s no formal definition.</p>
<p>Other experts see the middle-income range at around $44,000 to $72,000 (middle quintile), or $72,000 to $112,000 (fourth quintile, both based on 2015 data).</p>
<p>At the high end, Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama, as candidates, defined middle class as earning up to $250,000 a year. That raised eyebrows because it’s in about the top 5 percent of incomes, and the two Democrats had pledged not to raise taxes on the middle class.</p>
<p>The median, or midpoint, U.S. household income was $57,617 last year, according to the Census Bureau.</p>
<p>Trump, in his rallying pitches for the far-reaching tax overhaul that is his main legislative priority, sounds the theme constantly. “We will cut taxes for hard-working, middle-class families,” he pledges. “It is time to ignite America’s middle-class miracle once again.”</p>
<p>To fill middle-class stockpots, Trump is promising that the tax cuts would bring a $4,000 or $5,000 pay raise annually for the average family. Skeptical tax experts and Democrats say the claim is based on fuzzy math.</p>
<p>Pro-tax cut troops have fanned out to middle-class neighborhoods around the country with a message to voters on their doorsteps: slashing taxes for corporations would unleash an economic bonanza. The resulting new jobs, faster growth and ample pay raises would help them and everyone else, the residents are told.</p>
<p>“That sort of trickle-down … is a very hard message,” says James Thurber, professor and founder of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University. “Because of the burden of governing, they (the Republicans) have a problem having an effective messaging system.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>For the opposition Democrats, on the other hand, “It’s easier to have a clear message here that the tax plan would hurt the middle class and the working class,” Thurber suggested.</p>
<p>The nearly $6 trillion tax plan calls for cutting the corporate tax rate from 36 percent to 20 percent, reduced taxes for most individuals, and doubling the standard deduction used by most average Americans to $12,000 for individuals and $24,000 for families. The number of tax brackets would shrink from seven to three or four, with respective tax rates of 12 percent, 25 percent, 35 percent and to be determined. Inheritance taxes on multimillion-dollar estates would be repealed.</p>
<p>The middle-class family could take advantage of a heftier child tax credit and the extra money that could come from the bigger standard deduction.</p>
<p>But there are too many holes in the spare nine-page plan, like the income levels tied to each tax bracket and what might happen to other deductions used by middle-class people, to know how it actually would affect individual taxpayers and families.</p>
<p>A chief architect of the plan, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Kevin Brady, was pressed by reporters this past week: Will it truly help the middle class? Can the Republicans guarantee that everyone will get a break, that no ordinary person will end up paying more?</p>
<p>“The elevator goes down at every (income) level. … I can guarantee that every American will be better off,” said Brady, R-Texas. He acknowledged, though, “It could be that a singular exception exists.”</p>
<p>But mainly Brady’s answer was stay tuned: The proposed income levels to correspond with each tax bracket will soon be revealed.</p>
<p>That’s where the math comes in. Under the current regime of seven brackets, the biggest group of U.S. taxpayers (about 30 percent) falls in the second-lowest bracket, paying a 15 percent tax rate. An individual with taxable annual income between $9,325 and $37,950 is in that group. Because it’s the largest group, some might consider it as standing in for the middle class.</p>
<p>Some critics of the Republican plan say that because it would eliminate the 15 percent bracket, some people who’ve been taxed at 15 percent could be pushed into the next higher bracket, 25 percent.</p>
<p>That’s not yet known, says Daniel Berger, a research associate at the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution. It totally depends on where the plan masters set the income levels.</p>
<p>“It’s theoretically possible that everyone in the 15 percent bracket would go to the lower bracket, the higher bracket, or they would split between the two,” Berger said.</p>
<p>Jared Walczak, a senior policy analyst at the conservative Tax Foundation, notes that an earlier Republican plan floated last year set the 25 percent tax rate for the same income level as currently, $37,950 to $91,900. If the new plan kept that income range unchanged or raised the bottom amount for the 25 percent rate, no one now paying 15 percent would be pushed into a higher rate, Walczak said.</p> | 3,867 |
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<p />
<p>Permit approvals are dramatically low and the bureau appears to be struggling, New Mexico Oil and Gas Association spokesman Wally Drangmeister told the Carlsbad Current-Argus that ( <a href="http://bit.ly/2i355GC)." type="external">http://bit.ly/2i355GC).</a></p>
<p>“Anything that slows down new wells is a problem,” he said.</p>
<p>Sheila Mallory of the bureau’s state office says officials are trying to address complaints locally.</p>
<p>“They’re really concerned with the bugs in the system,” Mallory said. “We have heard those concerns and try to address them on the local level. We are working with the industry to address those challenges.”</p>
<p>Bureau Director Neil Kornze said in a news release that several updated processes in the oil and gas program will make experiences more efficient for the bureau and industry.</p>
<p>The online process is intended to reduce wait times.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“It’s no secret in this industry that we have been criticized in the past for the length of time it takes to get a permit,” said Beverly Winston, a spokeswoman for the national bureau. “This will provide more certainty for the operators.”</p>
<p>Winston said it will take years to update the entire system, but that once it’s fully modernized, well data and history will be available to operators.</p>
<p>“Having a better exchange of data will make the potential developments better,” Winston said. “It’s a use on public land and we want it to be safe.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: Carlsbad Current-Argus, <a href="http://www.currentargus.com/" type="external">http://www.currentargus.com/</a></p> | BLM fields complaints over online drilling applications | false | https://abqjournal.com/915325/bureau-fields-complaints-over-online-drilling-applications.html | 2least
| BLM fields complaints over online drilling applications
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>Permit approvals are dramatically low and the bureau appears to be struggling, New Mexico Oil and Gas Association spokesman Wally Drangmeister told the Carlsbad Current-Argus that ( <a href="http://bit.ly/2i355GC)." type="external">http://bit.ly/2i355GC).</a></p>
<p>“Anything that slows down new wells is a problem,” he said.</p>
<p>Sheila Mallory of the bureau’s state office says officials are trying to address complaints locally.</p>
<p>“They’re really concerned with the bugs in the system,” Mallory said. “We have heard those concerns and try to address them on the local level. We are working with the industry to address those challenges.”</p>
<p>Bureau Director Neil Kornze said in a news release that several updated processes in the oil and gas program will make experiences more efficient for the bureau and industry.</p>
<p>The online process is intended to reduce wait times.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“It’s no secret in this industry that we have been criticized in the past for the length of time it takes to get a permit,” said Beverly Winston, a spokeswoman for the national bureau. “This will provide more certainty for the operators.”</p>
<p>Winston said it will take years to update the entire system, but that once it’s fully modernized, well data and history will be available to operators.</p>
<p>“Having a better exchange of data will make the potential developments better,” Winston said. “It’s a use on public land and we want it to be safe.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: Carlsbad Current-Argus, <a href="http://www.currentargus.com/" type="external">http://www.currentargus.com/</a></p> | 3,868 |
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<p />
<p>The fourth annual event took place Friday and Saturday at Haynes Park.</p>
<p>“It was a great turnout, and we had great weather,” said event coordinator Rachel Dollens.</p>
<p>Alex Mirabal won the Miss Oktoberfest competition to become the face of next year’s event in advertising.</p>
<p>Unlike in past years, the contest wasn’t a fundraiser. Competitors collected votes for the best costume, had a stein-holding contest, navigated an obstacle course with a tray full of drinks and gave speeches.Mirabal stood out by giving her speech in German before translating it in English, Dollens said.</p>
<p>Las Cazuela’s Brewery, Kaktus Brewing Company, Santa Fe Brewing Company and Turtle Mountain Brewing Company sold their beverages in the beer tent.Entertainment featured German music and dancing, and an occasional big-band tune.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Café Bella Coffee ran a car show, various vendors sold food and novelties and children could play on inflatable jumpers or have their faces painted.</p>
<p>A total of 5K people attend Oktoberfestival over two days</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Observer—ARGEN DUNCAN photos</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | A total of 5K people attend Oktoberfestival over two days | false | https://abqjournal.com/467606/a-total-of-5k-people-attend-oktoberfestival-over-two-days.html | 2least
| A total of 5K people attend Oktoberfestival over two days
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>The fourth annual event took place Friday and Saturday at Haynes Park.</p>
<p>“It was a great turnout, and we had great weather,” said event coordinator Rachel Dollens.</p>
<p>Alex Mirabal won the Miss Oktoberfest competition to become the face of next year’s event in advertising.</p>
<p>Unlike in past years, the contest wasn’t a fundraiser. Competitors collected votes for the best costume, had a stein-holding contest, navigated an obstacle course with a tray full of drinks and gave speeches.Mirabal stood out by giving her speech in German before translating it in English, Dollens said.</p>
<p>Las Cazuela’s Brewery, Kaktus Brewing Company, Santa Fe Brewing Company and Turtle Mountain Brewing Company sold their beverages in the beer tent.Entertainment featured German music and dancing, and an occasional big-band tune.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Café Bella Coffee ran a car show, various vendors sold food and novelties and children could play on inflatable jumpers or have their faces painted.</p>
<p>A total of 5K people attend Oktoberfestival over two days</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Observer—ARGEN DUNCAN photos</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | 3,869 |
|
<p>Brent Walker can see the U.S. Capitol and the U.S. Supreme Court building when he arrives at work. And that’s appropriate since he often finds himself heading over to those two buildings, as well as the White House and other government buildings in Washington.</p>
<p>Walker serves as executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, making him a key voice for Baptists in the nation’s capital. Working for the BJC for 27 years, Walker remains passionate about religious liberty and the heritage Baptists have in that area.</p>
<p>“Religious liberty has always been precious for Baptists,” said Walker, <a href="" type="internal">who will retire</a> at the end of the year.&#160;“We were born in a fight for religious liberty 400-plus years ago. And we’ve been at it ever since. So it really is in our DNA. It should inform our thinking — even now when in many parts of our country we’re in the majority.”</p>
<p>Religious liberty is for everyone, he said.</p>
<p>“If anyone’s religious liberty is denied, everyone’s — including ours — is threatened.,” he said.</p>
<p>Brent Walker</p>
<p>The BJC, now celebrating its 80th year, represents 15 Baptist bodies across the nation. Member groups include the American Baptist Churches USA, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Churchnet.</p>
<p>BJC staff members file briefs with the Supreme Court, pressure congressional members on legislation, offer testimony in governmental hearings, work with the White House and governmental agencies and educate Baptists and others on the importance of religious liberty and “how separation of church and state helps protect religious liberty for all.”</p>
<p>Walker sees a mixed picture as he considers recent trends in religious liberty legislation and court decisions. In some areas — like protecting church autonomy and free exercise — he generally likes what he sees.</p>
<p>In other areas, especially with the no establishment clause, he remains concerned.</p>
<p>“I don’t think we understand the importance of not having government promote religion,” he said. “The [Supreme] Court has gotten pretty squishy.”</p>
<p>The BJC’s position is clear: government shouldn’t subsidize churches, period, he added.</p>
<p>“We stand up for historic Baptist principles and First Amendment principles,” Walker said.</p>
<p>In other cases, Christians have “sometimes gone too far at the state level” by passing laws that “tilt the playing field” in their favor. He emphasized the need for “careful balancing” and looking for “a both/and solution” when considering the rights of various peoples in society.</p>
<p>One of the ways the BJC works to educate about religious liberty is through its annual Walter B. and Kay W. Shurden Lectures on Religious Liberty and Separation of Church and State.</p>
<p>Molly T. Marshall</p>
<p>Molly Marshall, president of Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Shawnee, Kan., gave the 2016 lectures on the campus of Bethel College in St. Paul, Minn.</p>
<p>In the United States, she said, “we’re going through a seismic shift in religious ethos” which sparks “fear of religious pluralism.” Even in a pluralistic society, Marshall said, Baptists must work to protect everyone’s religion.</p>
<p>“Religious liberty is an essential part of the freedom and the dignity of humans,” Marshall said. “As Christians, we must learn to live out our faith with humility and with generosity.”</p>
<p>Marshall said she fears the current political campaign has not been helpful, noting “reckless speech in a time of growing religious pluralism” only further stokes fear.</p>
<p>“The shrill rhetoric of public discourse does not serve the common good,” she added. “As a Baptist, I get very nervous when the political realm speaks too much about religion.”</p>
<p>International religious liberty</p>
<p>Baptists should also care about religious liberty around the world, Marshall said.</p>
<p>She pointed to the nation of Myanmar, where Central has a partnership and is thus a place she frequently visits. Christians in Myanmar represent a minority and live in a land where the government favors another religion, Buddhism.</p>
<p>Marshall noted several problematic laws, including requiring people to convert religions to get approval, making it difficult for Buddhist women to marry outside the faith and obstacles to building religious buildings.</p>
<p>“Baptists have made religious liberty a hallmark of our faith and it matters that we stand with other Baptists, especially those in Myanmar who face severe constriction of free exercise,” she said.</p>
<p>Elijah Brown</p>
<p>Elijah Brown agrees with Marshall’s plea. He serves as the executive vice president of the 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative, an organization that focuses on issues of international persecution and religious liberty.</p>
<p>Brown noted that more than 77 percent of the world — or more than 5 billion people — “continue to live in contexts of religious discrimination, marginalization and persecution.”</p>
<p>Places where the 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative has worked recently include Iraq, Nigeria, Hong Kong and Ethiopia.</p>
<p>“As the most globally diffuse religion, Christians are the most persecuted faith community worldwide and face restriction, discrimination or persecution in over 60 countries,” he added. “On average, 20 Christians are martyred every day.”</p>
<p>Brown and his organization do not merely advocate for Christians, but also work to advance religious liberty rights for other persecuted religious groups.</p>
<p>“Practically from the beginning, Baptists have championed religious freedom, and that religious freedom applied not just to Christians but for all people in all places of all religions,” he said.</p>
<p>Brown also sees religious liberty as beneficial to society overall.</p>
<p>“Religious freedom is vital to building democratic societies,” he said. “Human rights and religious freedom allows people to exchange ideas and to build society by persuasion rather than by manipulation or force.</p>
<p>“Religious freedom builds a deep respect for human dignity and the value of every individual’s conscience,” he added. “Where religious freedom and human rights are emphasized, the temptation to extremism is brought down.”</p>
<p>— This story appeared originally at <a href="http://www.wordandway.org/news/missions/item/3536-baptists-advocate-for-religious-liberty-in-d-c-and-around-the-globe" type="external">wordandway.org</a>.</p> | After 30 years, advocate still sees need to step up for religious freedom | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/after-30-years-advocate-still-sees-need-to-step-up-for-religious-freedom/ | 3left-center
| After 30 years, advocate still sees need to step up for religious freedom
<p>Brent Walker can see the U.S. Capitol and the U.S. Supreme Court building when he arrives at work. And that’s appropriate since he often finds himself heading over to those two buildings, as well as the White House and other government buildings in Washington.</p>
<p>Walker serves as executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, making him a key voice for Baptists in the nation’s capital. Working for the BJC for 27 years, Walker remains passionate about religious liberty and the heritage Baptists have in that area.</p>
<p>“Religious liberty has always been precious for Baptists,” said Walker, <a href="" type="internal">who will retire</a> at the end of the year.&#160;“We were born in a fight for religious liberty 400-plus years ago. And we’ve been at it ever since. So it really is in our DNA. It should inform our thinking — even now when in many parts of our country we’re in the majority.”</p>
<p>Religious liberty is for everyone, he said.</p>
<p>“If anyone’s religious liberty is denied, everyone’s — including ours — is threatened.,” he said.</p>
<p>Brent Walker</p>
<p>The BJC, now celebrating its 80th year, represents 15 Baptist bodies across the nation. Member groups include the American Baptist Churches USA, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Churchnet.</p>
<p>BJC staff members file briefs with the Supreme Court, pressure congressional members on legislation, offer testimony in governmental hearings, work with the White House and governmental agencies and educate Baptists and others on the importance of religious liberty and “how separation of church and state helps protect religious liberty for all.”</p>
<p>Walker sees a mixed picture as he considers recent trends in religious liberty legislation and court decisions. In some areas — like protecting church autonomy and free exercise — he generally likes what he sees.</p>
<p>In other areas, especially with the no establishment clause, he remains concerned.</p>
<p>“I don’t think we understand the importance of not having government promote religion,” he said. “The [Supreme] Court has gotten pretty squishy.”</p>
<p>The BJC’s position is clear: government shouldn’t subsidize churches, period, he added.</p>
<p>“We stand up for historic Baptist principles and First Amendment principles,” Walker said.</p>
<p>In other cases, Christians have “sometimes gone too far at the state level” by passing laws that “tilt the playing field” in their favor. He emphasized the need for “careful balancing” and looking for “a both/and solution” when considering the rights of various peoples in society.</p>
<p>One of the ways the BJC works to educate about religious liberty is through its annual Walter B. and Kay W. Shurden Lectures on Religious Liberty and Separation of Church and State.</p>
<p>Molly T. Marshall</p>
<p>Molly Marshall, president of Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Shawnee, Kan., gave the 2016 lectures on the campus of Bethel College in St. Paul, Minn.</p>
<p>In the United States, she said, “we’re going through a seismic shift in religious ethos” which sparks “fear of religious pluralism.” Even in a pluralistic society, Marshall said, Baptists must work to protect everyone’s religion.</p>
<p>“Religious liberty is an essential part of the freedom and the dignity of humans,” Marshall said. “As Christians, we must learn to live out our faith with humility and with generosity.”</p>
<p>Marshall said she fears the current political campaign has not been helpful, noting “reckless speech in a time of growing religious pluralism” only further stokes fear.</p>
<p>“The shrill rhetoric of public discourse does not serve the common good,” she added. “As a Baptist, I get very nervous when the political realm speaks too much about religion.”</p>
<p>International religious liberty</p>
<p>Baptists should also care about religious liberty around the world, Marshall said.</p>
<p>She pointed to the nation of Myanmar, where Central has a partnership and is thus a place she frequently visits. Christians in Myanmar represent a minority and live in a land where the government favors another religion, Buddhism.</p>
<p>Marshall noted several problematic laws, including requiring people to convert religions to get approval, making it difficult for Buddhist women to marry outside the faith and obstacles to building religious buildings.</p>
<p>“Baptists have made religious liberty a hallmark of our faith and it matters that we stand with other Baptists, especially those in Myanmar who face severe constriction of free exercise,” she said.</p>
<p>Elijah Brown</p>
<p>Elijah Brown agrees with Marshall’s plea. He serves as the executive vice president of the 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative, an organization that focuses on issues of international persecution and religious liberty.</p>
<p>Brown noted that more than 77 percent of the world — or more than 5 billion people — “continue to live in contexts of religious discrimination, marginalization and persecution.”</p>
<p>Places where the 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative has worked recently include Iraq, Nigeria, Hong Kong and Ethiopia.</p>
<p>“As the most globally diffuse religion, Christians are the most persecuted faith community worldwide and face restriction, discrimination or persecution in over 60 countries,” he added. “On average, 20 Christians are martyred every day.”</p>
<p>Brown and his organization do not merely advocate for Christians, but also work to advance religious liberty rights for other persecuted religious groups.</p>
<p>“Practically from the beginning, Baptists have championed religious freedom, and that religious freedom applied not just to Christians but for all people in all places of all religions,” he said.</p>
<p>Brown also sees religious liberty as beneficial to society overall.</p>
<p>“Religious freedom is vital to building democratic societies,” he said. “Human rights and religious freedom allows people to exchange ideas and to build society by persuasion rather than by manipulation or force.</p>
<p>“Religious freedom builds a deep respect for human dignity and the value of every individual’s conscience,” he added. “Where religious freedom and human rights are emphasized, the temptation to extremism is brought down.”</p>
<p>— This story appeared originally at <a href="http://www.wordandway.org/news/missions/item/3536-baptists-advocate-for-religious-liberty-in-d-c-and-around-the-globe" type="external">wordandway.org</a>.</p> | 3,870 |
|
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s trip to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, next week is now in flux because of the federal government shutdown, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said on Saturday.</p> U.S. President Donald Trump arrives to speak at the annual March for Life rally, taking place on the National Mall, from the White House Rose Garden in Washington, U.S., January 19, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
<p>Trump already canceled a weekend trip to his Florida resort after a funding impasse in Congress shut down the federal government on Saturday.</p>
<p>“The president will not be going to Florida now and we’re taking Davos, both from the president’s perspective and the Cabinet perspective, on a day by day basis,” Mulvaney said.</p>
<p>Reporting by David Brunnstrom and David Chance; Writing by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Bill Trott</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer asked a federal judge on Monday to force adult film star Stormy Daniels to use arbitration to settle a dispute over an agreement to keep quiet about a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump.</p>
<p>Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, last month sued Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal attorney, to be released from the non-disclosure agreement she signed in October 2016 in exchange for $130,000.</p>
<p>The White House has denied that Trump had sex with Daniels. Cohen has said he paid Daniels out of his own pocket.</p>
<p>In Monday’s court filing in Los Angeles, Brent Blakely, Cohen’s attorney, argued the agreement included a provision that any disputes over it be settled through arbitration, as opposed to open court.</p>
<p>Federal law “dictates that this motion be granted, and that Clifford be compelled to arbitration, as she knowingly and voluntarily agreed to do,” Blakely wrote.</p>
<p>Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, said the matter should be settled in open court.</p>
<p>“We will vigorously oppose the just-filed motion by Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen to have this case decided in a secret arbitration, in a private conference room, purposely hidden from the American public,” Avenatti said in a statement.</p>
<p>Last week, U.S. District Judge S. James Otero ruled that a request by Daniels to depose Trump and Cohen was premature because they had yet to formally request that she arbitrate her claims.</p>
<p>Avenatti has argued that the non-disclosure agreement is invalid because Trump never signed it. But in Monday’s filing Blakely responded that the language of the agreement did not specify that Trump, using the pseudonym David Dennison, needed to sign it for the agreement to be binding.</p>
<p>Blakely also argued that Daniels accepted the $130,000 and did not dispute the agreement for 16 months even though Trump had not signed it.</p> Stormy Daniels, an adult film star and director whose real name is Stephanie Clifford is interviewed by Anderson Cooper of CBS News' 60 Minutes program in early March 2018, in a still image from video provided March 25, 2018. CBSNews/60 MINUTES/Handout via REUTERS.
<p>Daniels has said she and Trump had sex once in 2006 but that they kept in touch for a period of time.</p>
<p>A former Playboy model, Karen McDougal, has described having a 10-month affair with Trump starting the same year, which the White House has said Trump denies. Trump was married to his wife Melania at the time.</p>
<p>Reporting by Eric Beech in Washington; Additional reporting by Karen Freifeld; Editing by Lisa Shumaker</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>TULSA, Okla./OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - Sign-carrying Oklahoma teachers walked off the job for a second day on Tuesday, staging boisterous rallies in front of lawmakers and closing hundreds of public schools across the state as they demanded higher pay and more money for education in the latest U.S. labor action by educators.</p>
<p>Hundreds of teachers crowded into the state capitol rotunda in Oklahoma City, chanting “fund our schools” and “we’re not leaving” as they lobbied lawmakers to pass a tax package that would raise another $200 million for schools.</p>
<p>Teachers, parents and students staged sympathy rallies around the state and some 70 public school districts were forced to suspend classes on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Teachers’ union officials estimated 30,000 educators were off the job in Oklahoma on Tuesday and that classes were canceled for some 500,000 of the state’s 700,000 public school students - similar to the numbers in Monday’s walkout.</p>
<p>The protests reflected rising discontent after years of sluggish or declining public school spending in Oklahoma, which ranked 47th among the 50 U.S. states in per-student expenditure, and 48th in average teacher salaries in 2016, according to the National Education Association.</p>
<p>The walkouts follow a two-week job action in West Virginia that prompted lawmakers to raise teachers’ pay. Educators in Kentucky also staged demonstrations against years of stagnant or reduced budgets by a Republican-controlled legislature. Most returned to their classrooms or scheduled spring break holidays on Tuesday. Teachers in Arizona have threatened similar job actions.</p>
<p>In Tulsa, Frederick Smitherman, 48, who teaches eighth grade at Will Rogers Early College Junior High School, joined teachers, parents and students in a satellite protest on Tuesday.</p>
<p>“We all pay taxes and expect our legislators to do what we voted them in to do,” Smitherman said. “What else are teachers supposed to do besides yell and scream? We can vote them out but voting one out just brings a bad one in instead.”</p>
<p>Oklahoma’s first major tax hike in a quarter century was approved by legislators last week and signed into law by Governor Mary Fallin - a $450 million revenue package intended to raise teachers’ salaries by about $6,100 a year and avert a strike.</p>
<p>Teachers said that package wasn’t good enough and demanded lawmakers reverse spending cuts that have forced some districts to impose four-day school weeks. The $200 million package they were lobbying for on Tuesday would increase hotel and capital gains taxes.</p> Teachers rally outside of the state Capitol on the second day of a teacher walkout to demand higher pay and more funding for education in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S., April 3, 2018. REUTERS/Nick Oxford
<p>“Lawmakers have left significant funding on the table – funding that has bipartisan support but is being held up for political reasons,” the Oklahoma Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, said in a statement.</p>
<p>Oklahoma secondary school teachers had an annual mean wage of $42,460 as of May 2016, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The minimum salary for a first-year teacher was $31,600, state data showed.</p>
<p>American high school teachers are paid about two-thirds of what other professionals with college degrees earn, ahead of only the Slovak Republic and Czech Republic among 28 developed nations, according to a 2017 report by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which groups 35 industrialized countries.</p>
<p>The Oklahoma strikes on Monday coincided with a second day of walkouts by several thousand teachers in Kentucky after legislators there passed a bill imposing new limits on the state’s underfunded public employee pension system.</p> Slideshow (13 Images)
<p>Poppy Kelley, 47, a French teacher at Thomas Edison Preparatory High School in Tulsa with 23 years of teaching experience, said boosts in spending were needed for school facilities, books and supplies as well as teacher salaries.</p>
<p>“Oklahoma kids for a decade are so used to not having enough or having to make do that they don’t know what ‘enough’ looks like,” Kelley said. “They want textbooks. They want chairs. They want tables that don’t have a bent leg. They want proper technology in the classrooms.”</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas, Jonathan Allen in New York and Ian Simpson in Washington, D.C.; Writing by Scott Malone and Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Bill Trott</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - A group of U.S. states and cities sued the Trump administration to stop it from asking people filling out 2020 census forms whether they are citizens.</p> FILE PHOTO: An attendee holds her new country's flag and her naturalization papers as she is sworn in during a U.S. citizenship ceremony in Los Angeles, U.S., July 18, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo
<p>The lawsuit by 17 states, Washington D.C. and six cities challenged what they called last week’s “unconstitutional and arbitrary” decision by the U.S. Department of Commerce, which oversees the Census Bureau, to add the citizenship question.</p>
<p>It was also a fresh challenge to what New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, at a press conference announcing the lawsuit, called the administration’s “anti-immigrant animus.”</p>
<p>All of the states bringing the case have Democratic attorneys general.</p>
<p>They were joined by New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Providence, Rhode Island, which all have Democratic mayors, and the U.S. Conference of Mayors.</p>
<p>Another state, California, filed a similar lawsuit last week.</p>
<p>Asked to comment, a U.S. Department of Justice spokeswoman in an email referred to Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ April 2 statement lamenting how California’s “meritless” lawsuit forced it to litigate whether the government deserves an “accurate count of who can legally vote in our federal elections.”</p>
<p>The U.S. Constitution mandates a decennial census, which is used to determine the drawing of political boundaries, the allocation of seats in Congress and at the state and local level, and the annual distribution of about $700 billion of federal funds.</p>
<p>Critics of the citizenship question say it might dissuade immigrants, and perhaps many citizens, from being counted, with a disproportionate impact on Democratic-leaning states.</p>
<p>Supporters, including Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, say the question will help the country enforce the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965.</p>
<p>A citizenship question has not appeared on the decennial census form since 1950.</p>
<p>The lawsuit accused the Trump Administration of violating the Constitution’s requirement for an “actual enumeration” of the “whole number of persons” every 10 years.</p>
<p>At the press conference, Schneiderman called the citizenship question a “blatant effort” by the administration to prevent the Census Bureau from doing its job.</p>
<p>“This is an affront to our national ideals,” Schneiderman said. “This is an affront to the Constitution.”</p>
<p>The lawsuit said adding the question could particularly exacerbate undercounting of the fast-growing Hispanic population, after an estimated 1.54 percent undercount in 2010.</p>
<p>It said the question would add fuel to a threat made in Congressional testimony last June by Thomas Homan, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.</p>
<p>The lawsuit quoted Homan as saying undocumented immigrants “should be uncomfortable. You should look over your shoulder. And you need to be worried.”</p>
<p>Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Additional reporting by Makini Brice in Washington, D.C.; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Richard Chang</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Several Silicon Valley leaders called for increased gun control on Tuesday afternoon after a woman at the headquarters of YouTube shot and wounded three people before taking her own life.</p> Police officers and crime scene markers are seen at Youtube headquarters following an active shooter situation in San Bruno, California, U.S., April 3, 2018. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage
<p>Tech companies have largely avoided the topic of gun control in the United States, but they have previously pushed for progressive stances on other hot-topic issues, ranging from climate change to same-sex marriage and comprehensive immigration reform. At least three major chief executives took up gun control after the shooting.</p>
<p>“We can’t keep being reactive to this, thinking and praying it won’t happen again at our schools, jobs, or our community spots,” tweeted Twitter Inc and Square Inc CEO Jack Dorsey. “It’s beyond time to evolve our policies.”</p>
<p>Joining Dorsey were Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] CEO Dara Khosrowshahi and Box Inc CEO Aaron Levie, who respectively sent tweets on Tuesday saying #EndGunViolence and #NeverAgain, two Twitter hashtags commonly used by proponents of gun control.</p>
<p>“On behalf of the team at @Uber, sending support to everyone @YouTube and @Google, and gratitude to the heroic first responders,” Khosrowshahi tweeted. “Another tragedy that should push us again to #EndGunViolence”</p>
<p>Emergency calls reporting gunfire in San Bruno, California, at the headquarters of Alphabet Inc’s YouTube began to pour in early Tuesday afternoon, according to the city of San Bruno. Authorities have not released the identities of the suspected shooter or the victims.</p>
<p>The tweets on Thursday could be an indication that Silicon Valley may soon weigh in on the epidemic of mass killings by firearms in the United States.</p>
<p>“Incredibly sad to see the YouTube shooting today,” Levie tweeted. “Our thoughts are with our Google friends and their families. #NeverAgain”</p>
<p>Sundar Pichai and Susan Wojcicki, the CEOs of Google and YouTube respectively, also issued statements on Tuesday while avoiding the topic of gun control.</p>
<p>“There are no words to describe how horrible it was to have an active shooter @YouTube today,” Wojcicki said. “Our deepest gratitude to law enforcement &amp; first responders for their rapid response. Our hearts go out to all those injured &amp; impacted today. We will come together to heal as a family.”</p>
<p>Other tech leaders expressed sympathy for the employees of YouTube on social media on Tuesday without referencing gun control. Those included Apple Inc CEO Tim Cook, Amazon.com Inc CEO Jeff Bezos, Salesforce.com Inc CEO Marc Benioff and Facebook Inc Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg.</p>
<p>“From everyone at Apple, we send our sympathy and support to the team at YouTube and Google, especially the victims and their families,” Cook said in a tweet.</p>
<p>Reporting by Salvador Rodriguez, editing by Peter Henderson and Lisa Shumaker</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | Trump's Davos trip now in flux: White House budget director Trump attorney seeks to force porn star's lawsuit into arbitration Oklahoma teachers take demands to state capitol in second day of walkout States, cities sue U.S. to block 2020 census citizenship question Tech CEOs call for gun control following YouTube shooting | false | https://reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-shutdown-davos/trumps-davos-trip-now-in-flux-white-house-budget-director-idUSKBN1F912J | 2018-01-20 | 2least
| Trump's Davos trip now in flux: White House budget director Trump attorney seeks to force porn star's lawsuit into arbitration Oklahoma teachers take demands to state capitol in second day of walkout States, cities sue U.S. to block 2020 census citizenship question Tech CEOs call for gun control following YouTube shooting
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s trip to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, next week is now in flux because of the federal government shutdown, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said on Saturday.</p> U.S. President Donald Trump arrives to speak at the annual March for Life rally, taking place on the National Mall, from the White House Rose Garden in Washington, U.S., January 19, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
<p>Trump already canceled a weekend trip to his Florida resort after a funding impasse in Congress shut down the federal government on Saturday.</p>
<p>“The president will not be going to Florida now and we’re taking Davos, both from the president’s perspective and the Cabinet perspective, on a day by day basis,” Mulvaney said.</p>
<p>Reporting by David Brunnstrom and David Chance; Writing by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Bill Trott</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer asked a federal judge on Monday to force adult film star Stormy Daniels to use arbitration to settle a dispute over an agreement to keep quiet about a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump.</p>
<p>Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, last month sued Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal attorney, to be released from the non-disclosure agreement she signed in October 2016 in exchange for $130,000.</p>
<p>The White House has denied that Trump had sex with Daniels. Cohen has said he paid Daniels out of his own pocket.</p>
<p>In Monday’s court filing in Los Angeles, Brent Blakely, Cohen’s attorney, argued the agreement included a provision that any disputes over it be settled through arbitration, as opposed to open court.</p>
<p>Federal law “dictates that this motion be granted, and that Clifford be compelled to arbitration, as she knowingly and voluntarily agreed to do,” Blakely wrote.</p>
<p>Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, said the matter should be settled in open court.</p>
<p>“We will vigorously oppose the just-filed motion by Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen to have this case decided in a secret arbitration, in a private conference room, purposely hidden from the American public,” Avenatti said in a statement.</p>
<p>Last week, U.S. District Judge S. James Otero ruled that a request by Daniels to depose Trump and Cohen was premature because they had yet to formally request that she arbitrate her claims.</p>
<p>Avenatti has argued that the non-disclosure agreement is invalid because Trump never signed it. But in Monday’s filing Blakely responded that the language of the agreement did not specify that Trump, using the pseudonym David Dennison, needed to sign it for the agreement to be binding.</p>
<p>Blakely also argued that Daniels accepted the $130,000 and did not dispute the agreement for 16 months even though Trump had not signed it.</p> Stormy Daniels, an adult film star and director whose real name is Stephanie Clifford is interviewed by Anderson Cooper of CBS News' 60 Minutes program in early March 2018, in a still image from video provided March 25, 2018. CBSNews/60 MINUTES/Handout via REUTERS.
<p>Daniels has said she and Trump had sex once in 2006 but that they kept in touch for a period of time.</p>
<p>A former Playboy model, Karen McDougal, has described having a 10-month affair with Trump starting the same year, which the White House has said Trump denies. Trump was married to his wife Melania at the time.</p>
<p>Reporting by Eric Beech in Washington; Additional reporting by Karen Freifeld; Editing by Lisa Shumaker</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>TULSA, Okla./OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - Sign-carrying Oklahoma teachers walked off the job for a second day on Tuesday, staging boisterous rallies in front of lawmakers and closing hundreds of public schools across the state as they demanded higher pay and more money for education in the latest U.S. labor action by educators.</p>
<p>Hundreds of teachers crowded into the state capitol rotunda in Oklahoma City, chanting “fund our schools” and “we’re not leaving” as they lobbied lawmakers to pass a tax package that would raise another $200 million for schools.</p>
<p>Teachers, parents and students staged sympathy rallies around the state and some 70 public school districts were forced to suspend classes on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Teachers’ union officials estimated 30,000 educators were off the job in Oklahoma on Tuesday and that classes were canceled for some 500,000 of the state’s 700,000 public school students - similar to the numbers in Monday’s walkout.</p>
<p>The protests reflected rising discontent after years of sluggish or declining public school spending in Oklahoma, which ranked 47th among the 50 U.S. states in per-student expenditure, and 48th in average teacher salaries in 2016, according to the National Education Association.</p>
<p>The walkouts follow a two-week job action in West Virginia that prompted lawmakers to raise teachers’ pay. Educators in Kentucky also staged demonstrations against years of stagnant or reduced budgets by a Republican-controlled legislature. Most returned to their classrooms or scheduled spring break holidays on Tuesday. Teachers in Arizona have threatened similar job actions.</p>
<p>In Tulsa, Frederick Smitherman, 48, who teaches eighth grade at Will Rogers Early College Junior High School, joined teachers, parents and students in a satellite protest on Tuesday.</p>
<p>“We all pay taxes and expect our legislators to do what we voted them in to do,” Smitherman said. “What else are teachers supposed to do besides yell and scream? We can vote them out but voting one out just brings a bad one in instead.”</p>
<p>Oklahoma’s first major tax hike in a quarter century was approved by legislators last week and signed into law by Governor Mary Fallin - a $450 million revenue package intended to raise teachers’ salaries by about $6,100 a year and avert a strike.</p>
<p>Teachers said that package wasn’t good enough and demanded lawmakers reverse spending cuts that have forced some districts to impose four-day school weeks. The $200 million package they were lobbying for on Tuesday would increase hotel and capital gains taxes.</p> Teachers rally outside of the state Capitol on the second day of a teacher walkout to demand higher pay and more funding for education in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S., April 3, 2018. REUTERS/Nick Oxford
<p>“Lawmakers have left significant funding on the table – funding that has bipartisan support but is being held up for political reasons,” the Oklahoma Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, said in a statement.</p>
<p>Oklahoma secondary school teachers had an annual mean wage of $42,460 as of May 2016, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The minimum salary for a first-year teacher was $31,600, state data showed.</p>
<p>American high school teachers are paid about two-thirds of what other professionals with college degrees earn, ahead of only the Slovak Republic and Czech Republic among 28 developed nations, according to a 2017 report by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which groups 35 industrialized countries.</p>
<p>The Oklahoma strikes on Monday coincided with a second day of walkouts by several thousand teachers in Kentucky after legislators there passed a bill imposing new limits on the state’s underfunded public employee pension system.</p> Slideshow (13 Images)
<p>Poppy Kelley, 47, a French teacher at Thomas Edison Preparatory High School in Tulsa with 23 years of teaching experience, said boosts in spending were needed for school facilities, books and supplies as well as teacher salaries.</p>
<p>“Oklahoma kids for a decade are so used to not having enough or having to make do that they don’t know what ‘enough’ looks like,” Kelley said. “They want textbooks. They want chairs. They want tables that don’t have a bent leg. They want proper technology in the classrooms.”</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas, Jonathan Allen in New York and Ian Simpson in Washington, D.C.; Writing by Scott Malone and Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Bill Trott</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - A group of U.S. states and cities sued the Trump administration to stop it from asking people filling out 2020 census forms whether they are citizens.</p> FILE PHOTO: An attendee holds her new country's flag and her naturalization papers as she is sworn in during a U.S. citizenship ceremony in Los Angeles, U.S., July 18, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo
<p>The lawsuit by 17 states, Washington D.C. and six cities challenged what they called last week’s “unconstitutional and arbitrary” decision by the U.S. Department of Commerce, which oversees the Census Bureau, to add the citizenship question.</p>
<p>It was also a fresh challenge to what New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, at a press conference announcing the lawsuit, called the administration’s “anti-immigrant animus.”</p>
<p>All of the states bringing the case have Democratic attorneys general.</p>
<p>They were joined by New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Providence, Rhode Island, which all have Democratic mayors, and the U.S. Conference of Mayors.</p>
<p>Another state, California, filed a similar lawsuit last week.</p>
<p>Asked to comment, a U.S. Department of Justice spokeswoman in an email referred to Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ April 2 statement lamenting how California’s “meritless” lawsuit forced it to litigate whether the government deserves an “accurate count of who can legally vote in our federal elections.”</p>
<p>The U.S. Constitution mandates a decennial census, which is used to determine the drawing of political boundaries, the allocation of seats in Congress and at the state and local level, and the annual distribution of about $700 billion of federal funds.</p>
<p>Critics of the citizenship question say it might dissuade immigrants, and perhaps many citizens, from being counted, with a disproportionate impact on Democratic-leaning states.</p>
<p>Supporters, including Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, say the question will help the country enforce the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965.</p>
<p>A citizenship question has not appeared on the decennial census form since 1950.</p>
<p>The lawsuit accused the Trump Administration of violating the Constitution’s requirement for an “actual enumeration” of the “whole number of persons” every 10 years.</p>
<p>At the press conference, Schneiderman called the citizenship question a “blatant effort” by the administration to prevent the Census Bureau from doing its job.</p>
<p>“This is an affront to our national ideals,” Schneiderman said. “This is an affront to the Constitution.”</p>
<p>The lawsuit said adding the question could particularly exacerbate undercounting of the fast-growing Hispanic population, after an estimated 1.54 percent undercount in 2010.</p>
<p>It said the question would add fuel to a threat made in Congressional testimony last June by Thomas Homan, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.</p>
<p>The lawsuit quoted Homan as saying undocumented immigrants “should be uncomfortable. You should look over your shoulder. And you need to be worried.”</p>
<p>Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Additional reporting by Makini Brice in Washington, D.C.; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Richard Chang</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Several Silicon Valley leaders called for increased gun control on Tuesday afternoon after a woman at the headquarters of YouTube shot and wounded three people before taking her own life.</p> Police officers and crime scene markers are seen at Youtube headquarters following an active shooter situation in San Bruno, California, U.S., April 3, 2018. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage
<p>Tech companies have largely avoided the topic of gun control in the United States, but they have previously pushed for progressive stances on other hot-topic issues, ranging from climate change to same-sex marriage and comprehensive immigration reform. At least three major chief executives took up gun control after the shooting.</p>
<p>“We can’t keep being reactive to this, thinking and praying it won’t happen again at our schools, jobs, or our community spots,” tweeted Twitter Inc and Square Inc CEO Jack Dorsey. “It’s beyond time to evolve our policies.”</p>
<p>Joining Dorsey were Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] CEO Dara Khosrowshahi and Box Inc CEO Aaron Levie, who respectively sent tweets on Tuesday saying #EndGunViolence and #NeverAgain, two Twitter hashtags commonly used by proponents of gun control.</p>
<p>“On behalf of the team at @Uber, sending support to everyone @YouTube and @Google, and gratitude to the heroic first responders,” Khosrowshahi tweeted. “Another tragedy that should push us again to #EndGunViolence”</p>
<p>Emergency calls reporting gunfire in San Bruno, California, at the headquarters of Alphabet Inc’s YouTube began to pour in early Tuesday afternoon, according to the city of San Bruno. Authorities have not released the identities of the suspected shooter or the victims.</p>
<p>The tweets on Thursday could be an indication that Silicon Valley may soon weigh in on the epidemic of mass killings by firearms in the United States.</p>
<p>“Incredibly sad to see the YouTube shooting today,” Levie tweeted. “Our thoughts are with our Google friends and their families. #NeverAgain”</p>
<p>Sundar Pichai and Susan Wojcicki, the CEOs of Google and YouTube respectively, also issued statements on Tuesday while avoiding the topic of gun control.</p>
<p>“There are no words to describe how horrible it was to have an active shooter @YouTube today,” Wojcicki said. “Our deepest gratitude to law enforcement &amp; first responders for their rapid response. Our hearts go out to all those injured &amp; impacted today. We will come together to heal as a family.”</p>
<p>Other tech leaders expressed sympathy for the employees of YouTube on social media on Tuesday without referencing gun control. Those included Apple Inc CEO Tim Cook, Amazon.com Inc CEO Jeff Bezos, Salesforce.com Inc CEO Marc Benioff and Facebook Inc Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg.</p>
<p>“From everyone at Apple, we send our sympathy and support to the team at YouTube and Google, especially the victims and their families,” Cook said in a tweet.</p>
<p>Reporting by Salvador Rodriguez, editing by Peter Henderson and Lisa Shumaker</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | 3,871 |
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<p />
<p>Born in Frankfurt, Germany, Crevenna moved to Switzerland in 1934 with his family to get away from the Nazis, and then to the United States, first arriving in New York.</p>
<p>“A friend of the family sponsored him so he could be allowed into the U.S.,” said his son, Thomas Andrew Crevenna.</p>
<p>He graduated from the University of New Mexico in 1942 with a bachelor’s degree in sociology, and the same year he married Glenda L. Berry. Then he got a master of arts in Inter-American Affairs, also from UNM, in 1945, being, according to his son, either the first person or one of the first people to graduate with such a degree from that school.</p>
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<p>Within a year of getting his master’s degree, he moved to the Washington, D.C., area and began a three-decade career with the Organization of American States, holding leadership positions in the departments of Cultural Affairs, Economic and Social Affairs, and the Office of Fellowships and Training. His responsibilities included meeting with presidents and cabinet ministers of almost every Latin American country.</p>
<p>“He was extremely successful at what he did at the OAS,” his son said. “He worked his way up pretty close to the top by the time he was done.”</p>
<p>While working there, he was also part of the founding of the Rocky Mountain Council for Latin American Studies, one of the oldest Latin American academic organizations in the world, at UNM in 1953.</p>
<p>During his tenure with OAS, he and his wife, now deceased, adopted two children, Thomas Andrew Crevenna and his sister, Elizabeth Frances Ahola, both shortly after they were born.</p>
<p>After working at OAS, Crevenna returned to New Mexico – this time making his home in Santa Fe – in 1979 and became deputy director of the Latin American &amp; Iberian Institute at UNM, a position he held until 2004.</p>
<p>While at UNM, he was als¶o a board member of the ACLU of New Mexico for about 30 years, right until he died, making him the ACLU New Mexico chapter’s longest serving board member, according to Peter Simonson, executive director of the ACLU of New Mexico.</p>
<p>“He was one of the most vocal and respected members on the board, and I would say he didn’t shy from raising issues that were either awkward or difficult to address,” Simonson said.</p>
<p>“He was always the person who would try to even out differences of opinion among board members and arrive at some compromise solution.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>He was also committed to immigrant rights, supporting the creation of a regional center for border rights in Las Cruces, and creating a legislative committee of volunteers who traveled to Santa Fe to read and analyze bills, Simonson said.</p>
<p>After serving as deputy director of the LAII, Crevenna, who lived in Corrales at the time of his death, became UNM’s special adviser to the vice president for research and economic development, a position he held from 2006 to 2008.</p>
<p>Crevenna is survived by his two children and three grandchildren.</p>
<p>A memorial service will be held for him today at 10 a.m. in the UNM Alumni Memorial Chapel, followed by a reception at the Latin American &amp; Iberian Institute, at 801 Yale NE.</p>
<p />
<p>Theo R. Crevenna</p> | Former Organization of American States official dies | false | https://abqjournal.com/219316/former-organization-of-american-states-official-dies.html | 2013-07-10 | 2least
| Former Organization of American States official dies
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>Born in Frankfurt, Germany, Crevenna moved to Switzerland in 1934 with his family to get away from the Nazis, and then to the United States, first arriving in New York.</p>
<p>“A friend of the family sponsored him so he could be allowed into the U.S.,” said his son, Thomas Andrew Crevenna.</p>
<p>He graduated from the University of New Mexico in 1942 with a bachelor’s degree in sociology, and the same year he married Glenda L. Berry. Then he got a master of arts in Inter-American Affairs, also from UNM, in 1945, being, according to his son, either the first person or one of the first people to graduate with such a degree from that school.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Within a year of getting his master’s degree, he moved to the Washington, D.C., area and began a three-decade career with the Organization of American States, holding leadership positions in the departments of Cultural Affairs, Economic and Social Affairs, and the Office of Fellowships and Training. His responsibilities included meeting with presidents and cabinet ministers of almost every Latin American country.</p>
<p>“He was extremely successful at what he did at the OAS,” his son said. “He worked his way up pretty close to the top by the time he was done.”</p>
<p>While working there, he was also part of the founding of the Rocky Mountain Council for Latin American Studies, one of the oldest Latin American academic organizations in the world, at UNM in 1953.</p>
<p>During his tenure with OAS, he and his wife, now deceased, adopted two children, Thomas Andrew Crevenna and his sister, Elizabeth Frances Ahola, both shortly after they were born.</p>
<p>After working at OAS, Crevenna returned to New Mexico – this time making his home in Santa Fe – in 1979 and became deputy director of the Latin American &amp; Iberian Institute at UNM, a position he held until 2004.</p>
<p>While at UNM, he was als¶o a board member of the ACLU of New Mexico for about 30 years, right until he died, making him the ACLU New Mexico chapter’s longest serving board member, according to Peter Simonson, executive director of the ACLU of New Mexico.</p>
<p>“He was one of the most vocal and respected members on the board, and I would say he didn’t shy from raising issues that were either awkward or difficult to address,” Simonson said.</p>
<p>“He was always the person who would try to even out differences of opinion among board members and arrive at some compromise solution.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>He was also committed to immigrant rights, supporting the creation of a regional center for border rights in Las Cruces, and creating a legislative committee of volunteers who traveled to Santa Fe to read and analyze bills, Simonson said.</p>
<p>After serving as deputy director of the LAII, Crevenna, who lived in Corrales at the time of his death, became UNM’s special adviser to the vice president for research and economic development, a position he held from 2006 to 2008.</p>
<p>Crevenna is survived by his two children and three grandchildren.</p>
<p>A memorial service will be held for him today at 10 a.m. in the UNM Alumni Memorial Chapel, followed by a reception at the Latin American &amp; Iberian Institute, at 801 Yale NE.</p>
<p />
<p>Theo R. Crevenna</p> | 3,872 |
<p>1. Patty Griffin, <a href="" type="internal">1000 Kisses</a> (ATO advance);</p>
<p>2. Mike Ireland and Holler, Try Again (Ashmont advance);</p>
<p>3. The Rolling Stones, Exile on Main Street Demos (Tropical Disease bootleg);</p>
<p>4. Caitlin Cary, <a href="" type="internal">While You Weren’t Looking</a> (Yep Roc);</p>
<p>5. Robert Bradley’s Blackwater Surprise, <a href="" type="internal">New Ground</a> (Vanguard);</p>
<p>6. The Harmonizing Four, <a href="" type="internal">That Old Time Religion/Spirituals That Will Live Forever</a> (Vee Jay/Collectables);</p>
<p>7. BoyzIIMen, <a href="" type="internal">Legacy: The Greatest Hits Collection</a> (Universal);</p>
<p>8. The Mooney Suzuki, <a href="" type="internal">People Get Ready</a> (Estrus);</p>
<p>9. Eddie Boyd, <a href="" type="internal">7936 South Rhodes</a>, (BCD UK);</p>
<p>10. <a href="" type="internal">Lara Croft Tomb Raider, soundtrack</a> (Elektra)</p>
<p>Dave Marsh coedits <a href="http://www.rockrap.com/" type="external">Rock and Rap Confidential</a>. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>Dave Marsh’s Previous DeskScan Top 10 Lists:</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">March 18, 2002</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">March 11, 2002</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | What’s Playing at My House | true | https://counterpunch.org/2002/03/23/what-s-playing-at-my-house-2/ | 2002-03-23 | 4left
| What’s Playing at My House
<p>1. Patty Griffin, <a href="" type="internal">1000 Kisses</a> (ATO advance);</p>
<p>2. Mike Ireland and Holler, Try Again (Ashmont advance);</p>
<p>3. The Rolling Stones, Exile on Main Street Demos (Tropical Disease bootleg);</p>
<p>4. Caitlin Cary, <a href="" type="internal">While You Weren’t Looking</a> (Yep Roc);</p>
<p>5. Robert Bradley’s Blackwater Surprise, <a href="" type="internal">New Ground</a> (Vanguard);</p>
<p>6. The Harmonizing Four, <a href="" type="internal">That Old Time Religion/Spirituals That Will Live Forever</a> (Vee Jay/Collectables);</p>
<p>7. BoyzIIMen, <a href="" type="internal">Legacy: The Greatest Hits Collection</a> (Universal);</p>
<p>8. The Mooney Suzuki, <a href="" type="internal">People Get Ready</a> (Estrus);</p>
<p>9. Eddie Boyd, <a href="" type="internal">7936 South Rhodes</a>, (BCD UK);</p>
<p>10. <a href="" type="internal">Lara Croft Tomb Raider, soundtrack</a> (Elektra)</p>
<p>Dave Marsh coedits <a href="http://www.rockrap.com/" type="external">Rock and Rap Confidential</a>. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>Dave Marsh’s Previous DeskScan Top 10 Lists:</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">March 18, 2002</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">March 11, 2002</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | 3,873 |
<p />
<p>Propelled by new original series like "Arrested Development" and "House of Cards," Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) revealed a much stronger-than-expected second-quarter profit late Monday, though its shares slumped 6% after hours as subscriber growth fell shy of estimates.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The Los Gatos, Calif.-based movie streamer reported net income of $29.4 million, or 51 cents a share, compared with a year-earlier profit of $6.16 million, or 11 cents a share. Excluding one-time items, Netflix said it earned 49 cents, topping average analyst estimates by nine cents.</p>
<p>"Over the last six months, our move into original programming has begun to redefine Netflix in the eyes of consumers," Netflix said in a statement. "This licensed content accounts for the bulk of viewing and leads to a lot of member enjoyment."</p>
<p>However, domestic streaming additions of 630,000, while in the midpoint of Netflix’s previous outlook, fell short of Wall Street expectations despite the Emmy-nominated "House of Cards" series.</p>
<p>Revenue for the three months ended June 30 was $1.07 billion, up from $889 million a year ago, matching the Street’s view.</p>
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<p>Netflix was more optimistic on the current quarter, saying it sees earnings in the range of 30 cents to 56 cents a share, which brackets the consensus view of 45 cents. It also sees streaming subscribers growing by more than one million in the current quarter.</p>
<p>The stock, which has moved by a double-digit percentage after each of its last seven earnings reports, was down 6% after hours at $246.51.</p> | Netflix 2Q EPS Tops Views; Shares Fall on Soft Subscriber Growth | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2013/07/22/netflix-reports-earnings.html | 2016-01-25 | 0right
| Netflix 2Q EPS Tops Views; Shares Fall on Soft Subscriber Growth
<p />
<p>Propelled by new original series like "Arrested Development" and "House of Cards," Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) revealed a much stronger-than-expected second-quarter profit late Monday, though its shares slumped 6% after hours as subscriber growth fell shy of estimates.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The Los Gatos, Calif.-based movie streamer reported net income of $29.4 million, or 51 cents a share, compared with a year-earlier profit of $6.16 million, or 11 cents a share. Excluding one-time items, Netflix said it earned 49 cents, topping average analyst estimates by nine cents.</p>
<p>"Over the last six months, our move into original programming has begun to redefine Netflix in the eyes of consumers," Netflix said in a statement. "This licensed content accounts for the bulk of viewing and leads to a lot of member enjoyment."</p>
<p>However, domestic streaming additions of 630,000, while in the midpoint of Netflix’s previous outlook, fell short of Wall Street expectations despite the Emmy-nominated "House of Cards" series.</p>
<p>Revenue for the three months ended June 30 was $1.07 billion, up from $889 million a year ago, matching the Street’s view.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Netflix was more optimistic on the current quarter, saying it sees earnings in the range of 30 cents to 56 cents a share, which brackets the consensus view of 45 cents. It also sees streaming subscribers growing by more than one million in the current quarter.</p>
<p>The stock, which has moved by a double-digit percentage after each of its last seven earnings reports, was down 6% after hours at $246.51.</p> | 3,874 |
<p />
<p>CEO Marc Benioff has made no secret of the fact that Salesforce.com's future will include comprehensive artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to enhance the customer experience. Benioff's commitment to AI isn't new: He and Salesforce.com president Keith Block have been raving about its analytics cloud for nearly a year now. Deep learning, or AI, is a natural fit for Saleforce.com to assist its customers in utilizing the reams of sales and service data collected on its industry-leading CRM platform.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Salesforce.com fans may recall last summer when Benioff shared the news that its new analytics cloud was the fastest-growing product introduction ever. Benioff's conference calls are known for his over the top "rah-rah" feel, but when it comes to deep learning, Salesforce.com is doing a lot more than shouting from the rooftops.</p>
<p>Salesforce.com has confirmed its commitment to AI with yet another acquisition, in addition to aligning itself with some of the tech industry's biggest AI players, including Microsoft and IBM .</p>
<p>Image source: <a href="http://www.salesforce.com/analytics-cloud/overview/" type="external">Salesforce Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>The latest AI pushSalesforce.com recently acquired MetaMind, a relatively new AI research provider that, for the past year and a half, has been developing "state of the art deep learning technology to simplify, improve and automate decision making." As one of MetaMind's first investors, Benioff is intimately familiar with what it brings to the AI table.</p>
<p>MetaMind's deep learning technologies will extend Salesforce.com's existing AI capabilities. As it's done with prior acquisitions, Salesforce.com is shutting MetaMind down to existing and future customers. MetaMind's web users have until May 4 to utilize the technology, and recurring customers will lose access on June 4.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Salesforce.com intends to keep the folks at MetaMind working to further its "groundbreaking discoveries that advance our deep learning platform's accuracy and capabilities," but now advancements in its AI technology will be specific to the reams of data housed in Salesforce.com's marketing, sales, and service clouds. Financial terms were not disclosed.</p>
<p>The deal for MetaMind comes shortly after Salesforce.com wrote a check for another machine learning start-up, PredictionIO, in February. Benioff didn't share financial terms for the PredictionIO deal, either.</p>
<p>Running with the big boysSalesforce.com has a long-standing relationship with Microsoft that has expanded over the last several years to include the seamless integration of software including Office 365 and Skype, among others. Microsoft, not surprisingly, also recognizes the potential of AI as the world becomes increasingly digital, and it's ramping up its own deep learning capabilities to add to its already impressive cloud capabilities.</p>
<p>How long before Salesforce.com and Microsoft partner on AI-related features and products? Neither Benioff nor Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella have confirmed such an arrangement, but with a successful partnership that spans several years, the two would make a powerful AI combination.</p>
<p>No speculation is needed in terms of Salesforce.com working with AI industry leader IBM. IBM recently acquired cloud implementation specialist Bluewolf, Salesforce.com's first consulting partner. Salesforce.com and Bluewolf began their long-standing relationship in 2001. IBM has also been busy building out its AI capabilities, largely via its cognitive computing wonder Watson and a litany of acquisitions that have totaled over $5 billion in the last year alone.</p>
<p>When the IBM-Bluewolf deal was announced, Benioff said, "The powerful combination of our strategic partners, IBM and Bluewolf, will help clients transform and demonstrate the growing client demand for our Customer Success Platform." The alignment with IBM via its Bluewolf deal isn't specific to AI development, but it will "extend IBM's analytics" leadership.</p>
<p>Salesforce.com doesn't need to work with the Microsofts and IBMs of the world to further its AI capabilities, as its string of acquisitions and fast-growing analytics cloud make clear. But as business customers begin to recognize the value AI brings to the data analytics party, comprehensive deep learning functionality will become a necessity, rather than a nicety. And Salesforce.com is actively positioning itself to garner a fair share of what is conservatively expected to become a $5 billion market in just four years.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/04/08/salesforcecom-inc-throws-its-ai-hat-into-the-ring.aspx" type="external">Salesforce.com Inc Throws Its AI Hat Into the Ring With Acquisition Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/timbrugger/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Tim Brugger Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Microsoft and Salesforce.com. 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> | Salesforce.com Inc Throws Its AI Hat Into the Ring With Acquisition | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/04/08/salesforce-com-inc-throws-its-ai-hat-into-ring-with-acquisition.html | 2016-04-08 | 0right
| Salesforce.com Inc Throws Its AI Hat Into the Ring With Acquisition
<p />
<p>CEO Marc Benioff has made no secret of the fact that Salesforce.com's future will include comprehensive artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to enhance the customer experience. Benioff's commitment to AI isn't new: He and Salesforce.com president Keith Block have been raving about its analytics cloud for nearly a year now. Deep learning, or AI, is a natural fit for Saleforce.com to assist its customers in utilizing the reams of sales and service data collected on its industry-leading CRM platform.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Salesforce.com fans may recall last summer when Benioff shared the news that its new analytics cloud was the fastest-growing product introduction ever. Benioff's conference calls are known for his over the top "rah-rah" feel, but when it comes to deep learning, Salesforce.com is doing a lot more than shouting from the rooftops.</p>
<p>Salesforce.com has confirmed its commitment to AI with yet another acquisition, in addition to aligning itself with some of the tech industry's biggest AI players, including Microsoft and IBM .</p>
<p>Image source: <a href="http://www.salesforce.com/analytics-cloud/overview/" type="external">Salesforce Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>The latest AI pushSalesforce.com recently acquired MetaMind, a relatively new AI research provider that, for the past year and a half, has been developing "state of the art deep learning technology to simplify, improve and automate decision making." As one of MetaMind's first investors, Benioff is intimately familiar with what it brings to the AI table.</p>
<p>MetaMind's deep learning technologies will extend Salesforce.com's existing AI capabilities. As it's done with prior acquisitions, Salesforce.com is shutting MetaMind down to existing and future customers. MetaMind's web users have until May 4 to utilize the technology, and recurring customers will lose access on June 4.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Salesforce.com intends to keep the folks at MetaMind working to further its "groundbreaking discoveries that advance our deep learning platform's accuracy and capabilities," but now advancements in its AI technology will be specific to the reams of data housed in Salesforce.com's marketing, sales, and service clouds. Financial terms were not disclosed.</p>
<p>The deal for MetaMind comes shortly after Salesforce.com wrote a check for another machine learning start-up, PredictionIO, in February. Benioff didn't share financial terms for the PredictionIO deal, either.</p>
<p>Running with the big boysSalesforce.com has a long-standing relationship with Microsoft that has expanded over the last several years to include the seamless integration of software including Office 365 and Skype, among others. Microsoft, not surprisingly, also recognizes the potential of AI as the world becomes increasingly digital, and it's ramping up its own deep learning capabilities to add to its already impressive cloud capabilities.</p>
<p>How long before Salesforce.com and Microsoft partner on AI-related features and products? Neither Benioff nor Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella have confirmed such an arrangement, but with a successful partnership that spans several years, the two would make a powerful AI combination.</p>
<p>No speculation is needed in terms of Salesforce.com working with AI industry leader IBM. IBM recently acquired cloud implementation specialist Bluewolf, Salesforce.com's first consulting partner. Salesforce.com and Bluewolf began their long-standing relationship in 2001. IBM has also been busy building out its AI capabilities, largely via its cognitive computing wonder Watson and a litany of acquisitions that have totaled over $5 billion in the last year alone.</p>
<p>When the IBM-Bluewolf deal was announced, Benioff said, "The powerful combination of our strategic partners, IBM and Bluewolf, will help clients transform and demonstrate the growing client demand for our Customer Success Platform." The alignment with IBM via its Bluewolf deal isn't specific to AI development, but it will "extend IBM's analytics" leadership.</p>
<p>Salesforce.com doesn't need to work with the Microsofts and IBMs of the world to further its AI capabilities, as its string of acquisitions and fast-growing analytics cloud make clear. But as business customers begin to recognize the value AI brings to the data analytics party, comprehensive deep learning functionality will become a necessity, rather than a nicety. And Salesforce.com is actively positioning itself to garner a fair share of what is conservatively expected to become a $5 billion market in just four years.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/04/08/salesforcecom-inc-throws-its-ai-hat-into-the-ring.aspx" type="external">Salesforce.com Inc Throws Its AI Hat Into the Ring With Acquisition Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/timbrugger/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Tim Brugger Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Microsoft and Salesforce.com. 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> | 3,875 |
<p />
<p>Image source: Altria.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Few stocks have given investors as strong performance as Altria Group (NYSE: MO) over the decades. Even though the prevailing trend in the U.S. has been toward fewer people smoking rather than more people, Altria has nevertheless found ways not only to sustain its profits but to grow them over time. Below, we'll give you three different pictures that explain how Altria has been able to deliver just about exactly what shareholders have wanted to see, and many of those favorable trends seem poised to continue for the foreseeable future.</p>
<p>Altria's share price has risen steadily over the years, and investors have been drawn to its consistent earnings growth. As you can see in the chart below, when you look just at Altria's stock price alone, you can see how much shareholders have benefited from the growth in Altria's business.</p>
<p><a href="http://ycharts.com/companies/MO" type="external">MO</a> data by <a href="http://ycharts.com" type="external">YCharts Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Yet equally important as a contributor to Altria's long-term total return has been its dividend. The line above marked "total return price" incorporates the dividends that Altria has paid into its past performance. As you can see, the two lines end up in the same place, but the much lower path for the total return price line indicates that the overall gains when you include dividends are much higher than when you look at share price alone.</p>
<p>Drilling down on the dividend issue, Altria has an impressive track record of not only offering healthy dividends but also raising those payouts consistently over time. The company has raised its dividend 50 times over the past 47 years, including an 8% payout increase within the past month.</p>
<p><a href="http://ycharts.com/companies/MO/dividend" type="external">MO Dividend</a> data by <a href="http://ycharts.com" type="external">YCharts</a>.</p>
<p>The chart above is misleading because it indicates a big dividend cut in the late 2000s. However, that downward tick followed the spinoff of Philip Morris International, after which Altria contained only the U.S. operations of the former global tobacco conglomerate. With yields that have almost always been considerably higher than the average in the stock market and with its history of regular increases on an annual basis, Altria has treated income investors very well over time.</p>
<p>What's most impressive about Altria's performance is that it has come in the face of a huge secular decline in smoking within the U.S. market. As you can see from the chart below from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the percentage of Americans who smoke has fallen by more than half over the past 50 years, and the agency is optimistic that it can reach even lower levels of just 12% by the year 2020.</p>
<p>Image source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.</p>
<p>The decline in smoking has led Altria to follow multiple strategies to sustain its growth. On one hand, Altria has worked hard to try to build up its market share, fully leveraging the Marlboro brand to squeeze as much value out of it as possible through product innovations and other strategic moves. The resulting pricing power has helped Altria keep increasing profits even when sales volume has fallen.</p>
<p>At the same time, Altria is pursuing other avenues for future expansion. The potential demand for reduced-risk offerings like e-cigarettes, e-vapor products, and heat-not-burn tobacco products is huge, and the popularity of alternatives to traditional cigarettes has been stronger and longer-lasting than many investors following Altria had expected. Altria's diversification with its wine business and its sizable stake in beer-maker SABMiller also gives it exposure beyond the tobacco market, and that could become even more important if cigarette smoking continues to wane.</p>
<p>Altria has had a long and storied history, and it has overcome several obstacles in helping its investors earn impressive returns. By following its existing strategies as well as looking for new ways to thrive, Altria has the potential to keep growing well into the future.</p>
<p>A secret billion-dollar stock opportunity The world's biggest tech company forgot to show you something, but a few Wall Street analysts and the Fool didn't miss a beat: There's a small company that's powering their brand-new gadgets and the coming revolution in technology. And we think its stock price has nearly unlimited room to run for early in-the-know investors! To be one of them, <a href="http://www.fool.com/mms/mark/ecap-foolcom-apple-wearable?aid=6965&amp;source=irbeditxt0000017&amp;ftm_cam=rb-wearable-d&amp;ftm_pit=2667&amp;ftm_veh=article_pitch&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">just click here Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFGalagan/info.aspx" type="external">Dan Caplinger 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> | Altria Group Inc. in 3 Charts | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/09/16/altria-group-inc-in-3-charts.html | 2016-09-16 | 0right
| Altria Group Inc. in 3 Charts
<p />
<p>Image source: Altria.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Few stocks have given investors as strong performance as Altria Group (NYSE: MO) over the decades. Even though the prevailing trend in the U.S. has been toward fewer people smoking rather than more people, Altria has nevertheless found ways not only to sustain its profits but to grow them over time. Below, we'll give you three different pictures that explain how Altria has been able to deliver just about exactly what shareholders have wanted to see, and many of those favorable trends seem poised to continue for the foreseeable future.</p>
<p>Altria's share price has risen steadily over the years, and investors have been drawn to its consistent earnings growth. As you can see in the chart below, when you look just at Altria's stock price alone, you can see how much shareholders have benefited from the growth in Altria's business.</p>
<p><a href="http://ycharts.com/companies/MO" type="external">MO</a> data by <a href="http://ycharts.com" type="external">YCharts Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Yet equally important as a contributor to Altria's long-term total return has been its dividend. The line above marked "total return price" incorporates the dividends that Altria has paid into its past performance. As you can see, the two lines end up in the same place, but the much lower path for the total return price line indicates that the overall gains when you include dividends are much higher than when you look at share price alone.</p>
<p>Drilling down on the dividend issue, Altria has an impressive track record of not only offering healthy dividends but also raising those payouts consistently over time. The company has raised its dividend 50 times over the past 47 years, including an 8% payout increase within the past month.</p>
<p><a href="http://ycharts.com/companies/MO/dividend" type="external">MO Dividend</a> data by <a href="http://ycharts.com" type="external">YCharts</a>.</p>
<p>The chart above is misleading because it indicates a big dividend cut in the late 2000s. However, that downward tick followed the spinoff of Philip Morris International, after which Altria contained only the U.S. operations of the former global tobacco conglomerate. With yields that have almost always been considerably higher than the average in the stock market and with its history of regular increases on an annual basis, Altria has treated income investors very well over time.</p>
<p>What's most impressive about Altria's performance is that it has come in the face of a huge secular decline in smoking within the U.S. market. As you can see from the chart below from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the percentage of Americans who smoke has fallen by more than half over the past 50 years, and the agency is optimistic that it can reach even lower levels of just 12% by the year 2020.</p>
<p>Image source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.</p>
<p>The decline in smoking has led Altria to follow multiple strategies to sustain its growth. On one hand, Altria has worked hard to try to build up its market share, fully leveraging the Marlboro brand to squeeze as much value out of it as possible through product innovations and other strategic moves. The resulting pricing power has helped Altria keep increasing profits even when sales volume has fallen.</p>
<p>At the same time, Altria is pursuing other avenues for future expansion. The potential demand for reduced-risk offerings like e-cigarettes, e-vapor products, and heat-not-burn tobacco products is huge, and the popularity of alternatives to traditional cigarettes has been stronger and longer-lasting than many investors following Altria had expected. Altria's diversification with its wine business and its sizable stake in beer-maker SABMiller also gives it exposure beyond the tobacco market, and that could become even more important if cigarette smoking continues to wane.</p>
<p>Altria has had a long and storied history, and it has overcome several obstacles in helping its investors earn impressive returns. By following its existing strategies as well as looking for new ways to thrive, Altria has the potential to keep growing well into the future.</p>
<p>A secret billion-dollar stock opportunity The world's biggest tech company forgot to show you something, but a few Wall Street analysts and the Fool didn't miss a beat: There's a small company that's powering their brand-new gadgets and the coming revolution in technology. And we think its stock price has nearly unlimited room to run for early in-the-know investors! To be one of them, <a href="http://www.fool.com/mms/mark/ecap-foolcom-apple-wearable?aid=6965&amp;source=irbeditxt0000017&amp;ftm_cam=rb-wearable-d&amp;ftm_pit=2667&amp;ftm_veh=article_pitch&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">just click here Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFGalagan/info.aspx" type="external">Dan Caplinger 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> | 3,876 |
<p>Researchers at Southern Methodist University have linked a string of 2009 and 2010 earthquakes in Texas to the injection of fracking wastewater into the ground, according to a new study.</p>
<p>The researchers examined the group of <a href="http://keranews.org/post/what-s-causing-texas-earthquakes-smu-study-explores-injection-wells-drilling" type="external">more than 50</a> earthquakes that hit the area of Cleburne, Texas in 2009 and 2010, and found that they could have happened because of wastewater injection wells associated with fracking operations. Before 2008, the Fort Worth Basin of Texas had <a href="http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2013/12/03/report-looks-at-drilling-wastewater-north-texas-earthquakes/" type="external">never experienced an earthquake</a>.</p>
<p>“Because there were no known previous earthquakes, and the located events were close to the two injection wells and near the injection depth, the possibility exists that earthquakes may be related to fluid injection,” the <a href="http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2013/12/fracking_disposal_wells_could.php" type="external">authors write in their report</a>.</p>
<p>In Cleburn, injections of fracking wastewater began in 2005, but earthquakes didn’t start until 2009. This doesn’t rule out the potential for wastewater injection to have caused the quakes, however — scientists believe the fracking process makes it more likely in general that an earthquake will happen, even if there is a delay.</p>
<p>“The model I use is called the air hockey table model,” Cliff Frohlich, a research scientist at the Institute for Geophysics at the University of Texas at Austin, <a href="http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/tag/earthquake/" type="external">told StateImpact Texas</a>. “You have an air hockey table, suppose you tilt it, if there’s no air on, the puck will just sit there. Gravity wants it to move but it doesn’t because there friction [with the table surface].”</p>
<p>Once the air is turned on, the puck slips — the same way, he says, if you pump wastewater into a fault, the fault can slip and cause an earthquake. The presence of the fluid could make it much easier for an earthquake to happen, even years later when an external force becomes strong enough to move the earth. Brian Stump, chairman of Geological Sciences at SMU, <a href="http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2013/12/03/report-looks-at-drilling-wastewater-north-texas-earthquakes/" type="external">said</a> he thinks an earthquake can only be triggered if the fluid reaches an underground fault.</p>
<p>In general, linking wastewater injection to earthquakes isn’t uncommon (wastewater injection has been <a href="http://www.usgs.gov/faq/?q=categories/9833/3426" type="external">confirmed</a> as a possible trigger of earthquakes by the U.S. Geological Survey). In 2010, researchers from SMU and UT-Austin determined that a wastewater injection well was a “ <a href="http://www.smu.edu/News/2010/dfw-earthquake-study-10march2010" type="external">plausible cause</a>” for the series of earthquakes in North Texas in 2008 and 2009. Earlier this year in Ohio, fracking wastewater disposal was <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/science/fracking-practices-blame-ohio-earthquakes-8C11073601" type="external">also linked</a> to the 109 earthquakes that shook Youngstown in 2011 — an area that hadn’t ever experienced an earthquake before an injection well came online in December 2010. After a 3.9-magnitude earthquake struck the Ohio city on Dec. 31, 2011, the injection well was shut down.</p>
<p>This also probably isn’t the last time we’ll hear about the link between wastewater injection and earthquakes in Texas in particular. Last month, North Texas was hit by <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/news/metro/20131129-north-texas-quakes-prompt-calls-for-inquiry-into-gas-drilling-as-possible-cause.ece" type="external">more than 20 earthquakes</a>, prompting calls for an investigation into a possible wastewater disposal link.</p>
<p>“If it is determined that quakes are caused by the disposal wells, then the disposal wells need to stop. It’s that simple,” the city of Azle’s Mayor Alan Brundrett <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/news/metro/20131129-north-texas-quakes-prompt-calls-for-inquiry-into-gas-drilling-as-possible-cause.ece" type="external">said</a>.</p> | Researchers Link Earthquakes In Texas To Fracking Process | true | http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/12/06/3029951/texas-fracking-earthquakes/ | 2013-12-06 | 4left
| Researchers Link Earthquakes In Texas To Fracking Process
<p>Researchers at Southern Methodist University have linked a string of 2009 and 2010 earthquakes in Texas to the injection of fracking wastewater into the ground, according to a new study.</p>
<p>The researchers examined the group of <a href="http://keranews.org/post/what-s-causing-texas-earthquakes-smu-study-explores-injection-wells-drilling" type="external">more than 50</a> earthquakes that hit the area of Cleburne, Texas in 2009 and 2010, and found that they could have happened because of wastewater injection wells associated with fracking operations. Before 2008, the Fort Worth Basin of Texas had <a href="http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2013/12/03/report-looks-at-drilling-wastewater-north-texas-earthquakes/" type="external">never experienced an earthquake</a>.</p>
<p>“Because there were no known previous earthquakes, and the located events were close to the two injection wells and near the injection depth, the possibility exists that earthquakes may be related to fluid injection,” the <a href="http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2013/12/fracking_disposal_wells_could.php" type="external">authors write in their report</a>.</p>
<p>In Cleburn, injections of fracking wastewater began in 2005, but earthquakes didn’t start until 2009. This doesn’t rule out the potential for wastewater injection to have caused the quakes, however — scientists believe the fracking process makes it more likely in general that an earthquake will happen, even if there is a delay.</p>
<p>“The model I use is called the air hockey table model,” Cliff Frohlich, a research scientist at the Institute for Geophysics at the University of Texas at Austin, <a href="http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/tag/earthquake/" type="external">told StateImpact Texas</a>. “You have an air hockey table, suppose you tilt it, if there’s no air on, the puck will just sit there. Gravity wants it to move but it doesn’t because there friction [with the table surface].”</p>
<p>Once the air is turned on, the puck slips — the same way, he says, if you pump wastewater into a fault, the fault can slip and cause an earthquake. The presence of the fluid could make it much easier for an earthquake to happen, even years later when an external force becomes strong enough to move the earth. Brian Stump, chairman of Geological Sciences at SMU, <a href="http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2013/12/03/report-looks-at-drilling-wastewater-north-texas-earthquakes/" type="external">said</a> he thinks an earthquake can only be triggered if the fluid reaches an underground fault.</p>
<p>In general, linking wastewater injection to earthquakes isn’t uncommon (wastewater injection has been <a href="http://www.usgs.gov/faq/?q=categories/9833/3426" type="external">confirmed</a> as a possible trigger of earthquakes by the U.S. Geological Survey). In 2010, researchers from SMU and UT-Austin determined that a wastewater injection well was a “ <a href="http://www.smu.edu/News/2010/dfw-earthquake-study-10march2010" type="external">plausible cause</a>” for the series of earthquakes in North Texas in 2008 and 2009. Earlier this year in Ohio, fracking wastewater disposal was <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/science/fracking-practices-blame-ohio-earthquakes-8C11073601" type="external">also linked</a> to the 109 earthquakes that shook Youngstown in 2011 — an area that hadn’t ever experienced an earthquake before an injection well came online in December 2010. After a 3.9-magnitude earthquake struck the Ohio city on Dec. 31, 2011, the injection well was shut down.</p>
<p>This also probably isn’t the last time we’ll hear about the link between wastewater injection and earthquakes in Texas in particular. Last month, North Texas was hit by <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/news/metro/20131129-north-texas-quakes-prompt-calls-for-inquiry-into-gas-drilling-as-possible-cause.ece" type="external">more than 20 earthquakes</a>, prompting calls for an investigation into a possible wastewater disposal link.</p>
<p>“If it is determined that quakes are caused by the disposal wells, then the disposal wells need to stop. It’s that simple,” the city of Azle’s Mayor Alan Brundrett <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/news/metro/20131129-north-texas-quakes-prompt-calls-for-inquiry-into-gas-drilling-as-possible-cause.ece" type="external">said</a>.</p> | 3,877 |
<p>The U.S. Justice Department plans to announce corruption charges against senior officials at FIFA, the world’s soccer governing body, law enforcement officials say.</p>
<p>Up to 14 people are expected to be charged Wednesday based on an indictment in federal court in New York.</p>
<p>Arrests were being made overnight in Zurich, where members of the scandal-plagued organization were gathering for an election Friday that could give its leader Sepp Blatter a fifth term.</p>
<p /> | Breaking: DOJ, FBI to charge top FIFA officials with corruption | false | http://natmonitor.com/2015/05/27/doj-fbi-to-charge-top-fifa-officials-with-corruption/ | 2015-05-27 | 3left-center
| Breaking: DOJ, FBI to charge top FIFA officials with corruption
<p>The U.S. Justice Department plans to announce corruption charges against senior officials at FIFA, the world’s soccer governing body, law enforcement officials say.</p>
<p>Up to 14 people are expected to be charged Wednesday based on an indictment in federal court in New York.</p>
<p>Arrests were being made overnight in Zurich, where members of the scandal-plagued organization were gathering for an election Friday that could give its leader Sepp Blatter a fifth term.</p>
<p /> | 3,878 |
<p>For some people, fishing is a long, boring day of sitting and staring endlessly at a rod and reel that may never get a bite. But what if you could get down with those mocking water-breathers and have high-noon shoot-out with them the way nature intended?</p>
<p>Well, that's just what some Florida boys thought when they decided to take their modified Glock 9mm pistol into the Gulf of Mexico to help deal with the infestation of Lionfish.</p>
<p><a href="http://thesickest.co/fishing-glock-underwater/" type="external">TheSickest</a> provides some more details on the Lionfish overpopulation problem and the boys' creative way to address it:</p>
<p>"Lionfish are an invasive species with no natural predators who’s females lay a staggering two million eggs a year. The intersection between ammunition-happy Americans and the determent of an overpopulated species is where the the use of this new sporting phenomenon was birthed.</p>
<p>Lionsfish were never intended to be in the Gulf of Mexico, and while its speculated that their transplant may be linked to a hurricanes back in the 90’s, because of their rapid reproductive nature the waters have become flooded by their presence.</p>
<p>A single Lionsfish consumes 80% reef’s edible baitfish within five weeks of arriving on that reef – incredibly damaging to plant that is the cornerstone of the underwater ecosystem. The issue has gotten to a point where entering the Florida coast at any time can mean running across thousands of Lionsfish, just posted up chilling.</p>
<p>The good news is that the introduction of the gun has the potential of bringing hunters and otherwise uninterested fishers to the gulf for a fun filled time of shooting underwater, an activity that actually looks like a blast."</p>
<p>The video below shows just how fun it can be:</p>
<p>"Shooting invasive Lionfish over 100ft underwater with customized Glock 9mm handgun in the Gulf of Mexico," the video description states. "The project started to see if we could shoot a gun underwater and it evolved into much more with the right people involved. Lionfish are an invasive species that need to be eradicated. All weapons modifications done under supervision of Airborne Arms Inc license holder "07-Manufacturer of Firearms other than Destructive Devices" with support of Lone Wolf Glock Parts. www.lonewolfdist.com"</p>
<p>Exit video of another group of fisherman who've combined skiing with barbarian weaponry to help deal with Peoria, Illinois' Asian carp problem:</p> | Video: Underwater Handgun Takes Fishing to the Next Level of Fun | true | https://dailywire.com/news/11031/video-underwater-handgun-takes-fishing-next-level-chase-stephens | 2016-11-23 | 0right
| Video: Underwater Handgun Takes Fishing to the Next Level of Fun
<p>For some people, fishing is a long, boring day of sitting and staring endlessly at a rod and reel that may never get a bite. But what if you could get down with those mocking water-breathers and have high-noon shoot-out with them the way nature intended?</p>
<p>Well, that's just what some Florida boys thought when they decided to take their modified Glock 9mm pistol into the Gulf of Mexico to help deal with the infestation of Lionfish.</p>
<p><a href="http://thesickest.co/fishing-glock-underwater/" type="external">TheSickest</a> provides some more details on the Lionfish overpopulation problem and the boys' creative way to address it:</p>
<p>"Lionfish are an invasive species with no natural predators who’s females lay a staggering two million eggs a year. The intersection between ammunition-happy Americans and the determent of an overpopulated species is where the the use of this new sporting phenomenon was birthed.</p>
<p>Lionsfish were never intended to be in the Gulf of Mexico, and while its speculated that their transplant may be linked to a hurricanes back in the 90’s, because of their rapid reproductive nature the waters have become flooded by their presence.</p>
<p>A single Lionsfish consumes 80% reef’s edible baitfish within five weeks of arriving on that reef – incredibly damaging to plant that is the cornerstone of the underwater ecosystem. The issue has gotten to a point where entering the Florida coast at any time can mean running across thousands of Lionsfish, just posted up chilling.</p>
<p>The good news is that the introduction of the gun has the potential of bringing hunters and otherwise uninterested fishers to the gulf for a fun filled time of shooting underwater, an activity that actually looks like a blast."</p>
<p>The video below shows just how fun it can be:</p>
<p>"Shooting invasive Lionfish over 100ft underwater with customized Glock 9mm handgun in the Gulf of Mexico," the video description states. "The project started to see if we could shoot a gun underwater and it evolved into much more with the right people involved. Lionfish are an invasive species that need to be eradicated. All weapons modifications done under supervision of Airborne Arms Inc license holder "07-Manufacturer of Firearms other than Destructive Devices" with support of Lone Wolf Glock Parts. www.lonewolfdist.com"</p>
<p>Exit video of another group of fisherman who've combined skiing with barbarian weaponry to help deal with Peoria, Illinois' Asian carp problem:</p> | 3,879 |
<p>Legislative gridlock surfaced so often in Congress in 2013 that historians will have ample room to chronicle a “do-nothing” Congress.</p>
<p>Lawmakers managed to shutdown parts of the U.S. government for 16 days. They averted a near default by the government and held so many philosophical disagreements about policy and priorities that many people outside Washington, D.C. openly groaned when they heard the impasse of the day.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, cupboards across the country went bare as the <a href="" type="internal">food stamp program shrunk by $5 billion</a>&#160;just weeks before Thanksgiving. Millions of families lived in limbo as Congress failed to pass long-promised comprehensive immigration reform. And 57,000 children were kicked out of Head Start because of sequestration, the budget-bludgeoning that occurred because members of Congress were too busy fighting to agree on where to trim.</p>
<p>In sum, 2013 has not been the most constructive of times in Washington, D.C. Star Paschal, a mom who’s active in her Alabama community, says she’s seen just one significant thing coming out of the halls of Congress­ this year – hot air.</p>
<p>“In my opinion,” the public housing worker said, “they haven’t done anything but cause chaos.”</p>
<p>At one point during the gridlock, the Senate chaplain prayed to a higher power for help: “Rise up, O God, and save us from ourselves.”</p>
<p>All this while the stock market climbed to new heights ­- and <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/12/05/u-s-income-inequality-on-rise-for-decades-is-now-highest-since-1928/" type="external">income inequality remained at record levels</a>. As the <a href="https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/" type="external">Census Bureau reported</a>, 46.5 million people were living below the poverty line in this country. That number <a href="" type="internal">climbs to nearly 50 million people</a> when different poverty measures that give a fuller picture are included.</p>
<p>Leaders in the capital may not have played nice together, but outside of Washington, D.C., families and grassroots advocates around the country were joining together to make things happen.</p>
<p>For some, it was a new school discipline policy. Or &#160;being able to draw a glass of clean water from the tap. For others, it was the promise of a little more in the paycheck. Or actually getting paid for something many people take for granted – overtime.</p>
<p>Sweeping policy changes? Not in all cases. But they do tell a story about patience, about persistence and about the power of people who show up, year after year, to put in the work to change policy that affects their families. Government may come late to the party; sometimes, it fails to show up at all. But in communities around the country, work is getting done.</p>
<p>“To me, that has been one of the biggest signs of hope in 2013,” said Melissa Boteach, director of <a href="http://halfinten.org/" type="external">Half in Ten</a>, a campaign to halve poverty in a decade. “In spite of a gridlocked Congress, you’ve really begun to see advocates, activists, everyday people, taking the narrative back and building momentum for long-term change.”</p>
<p>A “do-nothing” Congress? Whatever. That made 2013 a year for people in neighborhoods to shine.</p>
<p>Changing School Discipline</p>
<p>In New Orleans and Los Angeles, in Greenville, Miss., and beyond, parents have been fighting the same issue for years: harsh school discipline policies.</p>
<p>Instead of a visit to the principal’s office, students were being suspended for infractions as minor as tardiness. Many were kicked out of school entirely. All too often, they would wind up in the juvenile justice system. It’s been dubbed the “school-to-prison pipeline.”</p>
<p>About five years ago, grassroots advocates in Louisiana began trying to implement a model discipline plan, along with a codified program of positive support for students. It was hard to argue with the basic premise: It’s better to change kids’ behavior than to kick them out of school.</p>
<p>In 2011, a bill to reform school discipline policies was passed by the Louisiana state Legislature, but it was vetoed by Gov. Bobby Jindal. When that path was blocked, advocates found another, going district by district and lobbying school administrators to implement model discipline policies.</p>
<p>Parents in New Orleans were among those seeking change. In some schools there, one in every four students was suspended out of school, according to the <a href="http://www.dignityinschools.org/" type="external">Dignity in Schools Campaign</a>. Eventually, the district began to see things the way the community groups did. “They’re understanding that you can’t just put kids out of school for minor infractions,” explained Ernest Johnson of <a href="http://www.fflic.org" type="external">Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children</a>.</p>
<p>Last year, the district implemented the model policy.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, similar movements were going on around the country, led by parents and community groups. In 2013, advocates in 22 states held marches, community forums or teach-ins to change harsh school discipline policies, according to the <a href="http://www.nesri.org" type="external">National Economic and Social Rights Initiative</a>.</p>
<p>“The entire country is kind of jumping on it,” Johnson said.</p>
<p>Even if it means going one district at a time.</p>
<p>Finally, Running Water</p>
<p>Being able to get a potable glass of water from the tap is taken as a basic necessity. But there are pockets of the country where that isn’t a given.</p>
<p>“Definitely, it’s something that people deserve,” said Amy Meeks, who works with <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Adults-and-Youth-United-Development-Association-AYUDA/139000326122963" type="external">Adults and Youth United Development Association</a> (AYUDA), an El Paso organization that’s been working on the issue for years.</p>
<p>In some communities in Texas, the fight has been going on for decades. The communities are known as colonias – unimproved land located outside city limits, where many immigrants live without public utilities.</p>
<p>“People bought the land with the idea it was going to be something better for their families,” Meeks said. “They started building, and then they realized they were struggling more.”</p>
<p>Over the years, community members have organized, cajoled and lobbied until, colonia by colonia, they have picked up policy wins, significantly reducing the number of people living without public water.</p>
<p>This year’s winners included about 700 people in four colonias near El Paso. There, residents could drive a stretch down the road and see new neighborhoods that had all the normal utilities. Yet, when they asked for water lines, they were told they’d have to wait.</p>
<p>Several years ago, AYUDA was able to get 2,500-gallon water tanks for residents so that they could have water delivered to their homes a few times a month. The deliveries cost about four times the average water bill. And the water wasn’t even potable. Residents had to buy their drinking water separately.</p>
<p>Convincing officials that things had to change was not easy.</p>
<p>“There was a point where they were saying there’s not really a lot of people living out there, so we gathered signatures,” Meeks recalled. “They said, ‘No,’ and ‘No,’ and ‘No,’ but we continued to go back.”</p>
<p>As Meeks put it, “You know what? Eventually, they’re going to have to say, ‘Yes.’”</p>
<p>And finally, after about 15 years, they did.</p>
<p>Domestic Worker Advocacy Pays Off</p>
<p>Talk about persistence: Domestic workers have spent decades advocating ordinary wage and hour protections. In 2013, they had several victories.</p>
<p>“We won a change that’s going to put hundreds of millions of dollars into the pockets of low-wage working women,” said Andrea Cristina Mercado, campaign director for the <a href="http://www.domesticworkers.org/" type="external">National Domestic Workers Alliance</a>.</p>
<p>The movement began in the 1970s, when domestic workers began organizing to be included in minimum wage laws. They didn’t succeed. In 1974, home health care aides were specifically excluded from changes to the <a href="http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/hrg.htm" type="external">Fair Labor Standards Act</a>&#160;and placed in the same category as casual babysitters.</p>
<p>Compared to the 1970s, the landscape for domestic workers now is different. Home health care aides, for example, are relied upon for increasingly complex care, as growing numbers of aging people remain in their own homes rather than move into institutions.</p>
<p>Still, wages have remained low. For home health care workers the current average hovers a little over the federal minimum wage. The National Domestic Workers Alliance said 20 percent of respondents in their surveys reported there were times in the previous month when there was no food in the homes. Advocates say more than half of home health care aides live at or below the poverty level and receive public benefits.</p>
<p>Around 2000, a new domestic workers rights movement began to take shape and has picked up steam in the last five years or so. States and even the federal government have begun to notice and respond.</p>
<p>In 2013, <a href="" type="internal">California</a> and Hawaii passed domestic workers bills of rights. A federal rule change ensured that <a href="" type="internal">home health care workers nationwide</a> will earn minimum wage and overtime pay beginning in 2015.</p>
<p>“We started talking to one another, from California to New York to Washington to Maryland,” Mercado explained. “That’s when the work took off.”</p>
<p>Hope for a Living Wage</p>
<p>As December comes to a close, the agricultural industry and the one in seven people who use food stamps are waiting for Congress to pass a comprehensive farm bill. Immigration reform is on hold. The president advocated raising the federal minimum wage in early 2013, but nothing has happened on that front – nothing, that is, in Congress.</p>
<p>Communities from coast to coast, however, have taken matters into their own hands. Voters in San Jose, Calif., approved an increase that took effect last year. Ditto for SeaTac, Wash., which approved a $15 minimum for some hospitality and airport workers in November. State minimum wages were increased in New York, Connecticut and California.</p>
<p><a href="http://fightfor15.org/en/" type="external">In Illinois</a>, the people are pushing for a living wage as well, through lobbying, signature-gathering and acts of civil disobedience. In November, “Black Friday” rallies in front of Wal-Mart, often cited as an example of a major retailer paying low wages, led to a number of arrests.</p>
<p>Charles Jenkins is among them. As an activist, he puts himself in the middle of just about every social justice campaign that hits Chicago.</p>
<p>“I may be out in the street in the morning at a rally, and then that afternoon I may be door-knocking or flyering or phone banking,” he said. “Whatever moves the barometer a bit closer to a just society.“You name it, we’ve done it,” Jenkins said.</p>
<p>He feels they’ve been successful, even though the minimum wage hasn’t budged. Legislation was introduced in the Illinois General Assembly earlier in 2013, calling for a series of increases. Meanwhile, in Chicago, advocates announced in December that they had gathered enough signatures to put a <a href="" type="internal">non-binding referendum</a> on the city ballot.</p>
<p>Jenkins is optimistic.</p>
<p>“I know it’s going to happen,” he said. “It’s a tough grind, but I also know that when you [want to] make something happen, you don’t worry about how much work you had to put in yesterday, or today. You continue to stay positive and do positive things, and it’s impossible to fail.”</p>
<p>___________</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Maureen O’Hagan</a>&#160;is the reporter for Equal Voice News.&#160;The top photograph shows California Gov. Jerry Brown signing a domestic workers bill of rights into law in September. The law gives domestic workers, who are also shown, overtime pay protection. The image is from the National Domestic Workers Alliance. This story was revised on Dec. 19 to reflect the status of minimum wage legislation in Illinois.</p>
<p>2013 © Equal Voice for America’s Families Newspaper</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Contact author</a></p>
<p>&#160;&#160; <a href="" type="internal">clean water news</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Families</a>, <a href="" type="internal">immigration news</a>, <a href="" type="internal">minimum wage news</a>, <a href="" type="internal">school discipline news</a>, <a href="" type="internal">year in review news</a></p> | 2013 in Review: Congress Bickers, People Take Action | true | http://equalvoiceforfamilies.org/2013-in-review-congress-bickers-people-take-action/ | 4left
| 2013 in Review: Congress Bickers, People Take Action
<p>Legislative gridlock surfaced so often in Congress in 2013 that historians will have ample room to chronicle a “do-nothing” Congress.</p>
<p>Lawmakers managed to shutdown parts of the U.S. government for 16 days. They averted a near default by the government and held so many philosophical disagreements about policy and priorities that many people outside Washington, D.C. openly groaned when they heard the impasse of the day.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, cupboards across the country went bare as the <a href="" type="internal">food stamp program shrunk by $5 billion</a>&#160;just weeks before Thanksgiving. Millions of families lived in limbo as Congress failed to pass long-promised comprehensive immigration reform. And 57,000 children were kicked out of Head Start because of sequestration, the budget-bludgeoning that occurred because members of Congress were too busy fighting to agree on where to trim.</p>
<p>In sum, 2013 has not been the most constructive of times in Washington, D.C. Star Paschal, a mom who’s active in her Alabama community, says she’s seen just one significant thing coming out of the halls of Congress­ this year – hot air.</p>
<p>“In my opinion,” the public housing worker said, “they haven’t done anything but cause chaos.”</p>
<p>At one point during the gridlock, the Senate chaplain prayed to a higher power for help: “Rise up, O God, and save us from ourselves.”</p>
<p>All this while the stock market climbed to new heights ­- and <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/12/05/u-s-income-inequality-on-rise-for-decades-is-now-highest-since-1928/" type="external">income inequality remained at record levels</a>. As the <a href="https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/" type="external">Census Bureau reported</a>, 46.5 million people were living below the poverty line in this country. That number <a href="" type="internal">climbs to nearly 50 million people</a> when different poverty measures that give a fuller picture are included.</p>
<p>Leaders in the capital may not have played nice together, but outside of Washington, D.C., families and grassroots advocates around the country were joining together to make things happen.</p>
<p>For some, it was a new school discipline policy. Or &#160;being able to draw a glass of clean water from the tap. For others, it was the promise of a little more in the paycheck. Or actually getting paid for something many people take for granted – overtime.</p>
<p>Sweeping policy changes? Not in all cases. But they do tell a story about patience, about persistence and about the power of people who show up, year after year, to put in the work to change policy that affects their families. Government may come late to the party; sometimes, it fails to show up at all. But in communities around the country, work is getting done.</p>
<p>“To me, that has been one of the biggest signs of hope in 2013,” said Melissa Boteach, director of <a href="http://halfinten.org/" type="external">Half in Ten</a>, a campaign to halve poverty in a decade. “In spite of a gridlocked Congress, you’ve really begun to see advocates, activists, everyday people, taking the narrative back and building momentum for long-term change.”</p>
<p>A “do-nothing” Congress? Whatever. That made 2013 a year for people in neighborhoods to shine.</p>
<p>Changing School Discipline</p>
<p>In New Orleans and Los Angeles, in Greenville, Miss., and beyond, parents have been fighting the same issue for years: harsh school discipline policies.</p>
<p>Instead of a visit to the principal’s office, students were being suspended for infractions as minor as tardiness. Many were kicked out of school entirely. All too often, they would wind up in the juvenile justice system. It’s been dubbed the “school-to-prison pipeline.”</p>
<p>About five years ago, grassroots advocates in Louisiana began trying to implement a model discipline plan, along with a codified program of positive support for students. It was hard to argue with the basic premise: It’s better to change kids’ behavior than to kick them out of school.</p>
<p>In 2011, a bill to reform school discipline policies was passed by the Louisiana state Legislature, but it was vetoed by Gov. Bobby Jindal. When that path was blocked, advocates found another, going district by district and lobbying school administrators to implement model discipline policies.</p>
<p>Parents in New Orleans were among those seeking change. In some schools there, one in every four students was suspended out of school, according to the <a href="http://www.dignityinschools.org/" type="external">Dignity in Schools Campaign</a>. Eventually, the district began to see things the way the community groups did. “They’re understanding that you can’t just put kids out of school for minor infractions,” explained Ernest Johnson of <a href="http://www.fflic.org" type="external">Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children</a>.</p>
<p>Last year, the district implemented the model policy.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, similar movements were going on around the country, led by parents and community groups. In 2013, advocates in 22 states held marches, community forums or teach-ins to change harsh school discipline policies, according to the <a href="http://www.nesri.org" type="external">National Economic and Social Rights Initiative</a>.</p>
<p>“The entire country is kind of jumping on it,” Johnson said.</p>
<p>Even if it means going one district at a time.</p>
<p>Finally, Running Water</p>
<p>Being able to get a potable glass of water from the tap is taken as a basic necessity. But there are pockets of the country where that isn’t a given.</p>
<p>“Definitely, it’s something that people deserve,” said Amy Meeks, who works with <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Adults-and-Youth-United-Development-Association-AYUDA/139000326122963" type="external">Adults and Youth United Development Association</a> (AYUDA), an El Paso organization that’s been working on the issue for years.</p>
<p>In some communities in Texas, the fight has been going on for decades. The communities are known as colonias – unimproved land located outside city limits, where many immigrants live without public utilities.</p>
<p>“People bought the land with the idea it was going to be something better for their families,” Meeks said. “They started building, and then they realized they were struggling more.”</p>
<p>Over the years, community members have organized, cajoled and lobbied until, colonia by colonia, they have picked up policy wins, significantly reducing the number of people living without public water.</p>
<p>This year’s winners included about 700 people in four colonias near El Paso. There, residents could drive a stretch down the road and see new neighborhoods that had all the normal utilities. Yet, when they asked for water lines, they were told they’d have to wait.</p>
<p>Several years ago, AYUDA was able to get 2,500-gallon water tanks for residents so that they could have water delivered to their homes a few times a month. The deliveries cost about four times the average water bill. And the water wasn’t even potable. Residents had to buy their drinking water separately.</p>
<p>Convincing officials that things had to change was not easy.</p>
<p>“There was a point where they were saying there’s not really a lot of people living out there, so we gathered signatures,” Meeks recalled. “They said, ‘No,’ and ‘No,’ and ‘No,’ but we continued to go back.”</p>
<p>As Meeks put it, “You know what? Eventually, they’re going to have to say, ‘Yes.’”</p>
<p>And finally, after about 15 years, they did.</p>
<p>Domestic Worker Advocacy Pays Off</p>
<p>Talk about persistence: Domestic workers have spent decades advocating ordinary wage and hour protections. In 2013, they had several victories.</p>
<p>“We won a change that’s going to put hundreds of millions of dollars into the pockets of low-wage working women,” said Andrea Cristina Mercado, campaign director for the <a href="http://www.domesticworkers.org/" type="external">National Domestic Workers Alliance</a>.</p>
<p>The movement began in the 1970s, when domestic workers began organizing to be included in minimum wage laws. They didn’t succeed. In 1974, home health care aides were specifically excluded from changes to the <a href="http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/hrg.htm" type="external">Fair Labor Standards Act</a>&#160;and placed in the same category as casual babysitters.</p>
<p>Compared to the 1970s, the landscape for domestic workers now is different. Home health care aides, for example, are relied upon for increasingly complex care, as growing numbers of aging people remain in their own homes rather than move into institutions.</p>
<p>Still, wages have remained low. For home health care workers the current average hovers a little over the federal minimum wage. The National Domestic Workers Alliance said 20 percent of respondents in their surveys reported there were times in the previous month when there was no food in the homes. Advocates say more than half of home health care aides live at or below the poverty level and receive public benefits.</p>
<p>Around 2000, a new domestic workers rights movement began to take shape and has picked up steam in the last five years or so. States and even the federal government have begun to notice and respond.</p>
<p>In 2013, <a href="" type="internal">California</a> and Hawaii passed domestic workers bills of rights. A federal rule change ensured that <a href="" type="internal">home health care workers nationwide</a> will earn minimum wage and overtime pay beginning in 2015.</p>
<p>“We started talking to one another, from California to New York to Washington to Maryland,” Mercado explained. “That’s when the work took off.”</p>
<p>Hope for a Living Wage</p>
<p>As December comes to a close, the agricultural industry and the one in seven people who use food stamps are waiting for Congress to pass a comprehensive farm bill. Immigration reform is on hold. The president advocated raising the federal minimum wage in early 2013, but nothing has happened on that front – nothing, that is, in Congress.</p>
<p>Communities from coast to coast, however, have taken matters into their own hands. Voters in San Jose, Calif., approved an increase that took effect last year. Ditto for SeaTac, Wash., which approved a $15 minimum for some hospitality and airport workers in November. State minimum wages were increased in New York, Connecticut and California.</p>
<p><a href="http://fightfor15.org/en/" type="external">In Illinois</a>, the people are pushing for a living wage as well, through lobbying, signature-gathering and acts of civil disobedience. In November, “Black Friday” rallies in front of Wal-Mart, often cited as an example of a major retailer paying low wages, led to a number of arrests.</p>
<p>Charles Jenkins is among them. As an activist, he puts himself in the middle of just about every social justice campaign that hits Chicago.</p>
<p>“I may be out in the street in the morning at a rally, and then that afternoon I may be door-knocking or flyering or phone banking,” he said. “Whatever moves the barometer a bit closer to a just society.“You name it, we’ve done it,” Jenkins said.</p>
<p>He feels they’ve been successful, even though the minimum wage hasn’t budged. Legislation was introduced in the Illinois General Assembly earlier in 2013, calling for a series of increases. Meanwhile, in Chicago, advocates announced in December that they had gathered enough signatures to put a <a href="" type="internal">non-binding referendum</a> on the city ballot.</p>
<p>Jenkins is optimistic.</p>
<p>“I know it’s going to happen,” he said. “It’s a tough grind, but I also know that when you [want to] make something happen, you don’t worry about how much work you had to put in yesterday, or today. You continue to stay positive and do positive things, and it’s impossible to fail.”</p>
<p>___________</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Maureen O’Hagan</a>&#160;is the reporter for Equal Voice News.&#160;The top photograph shows California Gov. Jerry Brown signing a domestic workers bill of rights into law in September. The law gives domestic workers, who are also shown, overtime pay protection. The image is from the National Domestic Workers Alliance. This story was revised on Dec. 19 to reflect the status of minimum wage legislation in Illinois.</p>
<p>2013 © Equal Voice for America’s Families Newspaper</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Contact author</a></p>
<p>&#160;&#160; <a href="" type="internal">clean water news</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Families</a>, <a href="" type="internal">immigration news</a>, <a href="" type="internal">minimum wage news</a>, <a href="" type="internal">school discipline news</a>, <a href="" type="internal">year in review news</a></p> | 3,880 |
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<p />
<p>Most school lunch programs in the U.S. already do taste tests, but their efforts pale in comparison to the scope of the research project at the Sensory and Consumer Research Center at Kansas State University Olathe, which is developing a scientific methodology to measure children's face-emoji responses to food. So far, kids in Kansas and Ghana have been the guinea pigs.</p>
<p>The goal is to create an "emoji ballot" that's "applicable internationally across cultures, across countries," said Marianne Swaney-Stueve, who manages the center. "And there really is no language barrier." The researchers also hope it will help schools pick foods that children will eat and help manufacturers make products that schools will want to buy.</p>
<p>Food waste has been more of an issue in the United States since new federal nutrition regulations were implemented in 2012 that mandated healthier products in school lunches. For example, more than 26 percent of the food budget at Boston's middle schools was discarded by students, according to a study cited by the nonprofit School Nutrition Association. If translated nationwide, that would be more than $1.23 billion of school food wasted each year.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Already, about three-quarters of U.S. school districts are doing taste tests with students and nearly all have implemented initiatives such as nutrition education or locally grown foods in an effort to make meals more appetizing, according to an association survey of 1,100 schools conducted last year.</p>
<p>"School nutrition professionals are always looking for new ideas to promote healthier choices to students - to find ways to get more student feedback so they can develop kid-approved menus that are healthy and also appealing to students," association spokeswoman Diane Pratt-Heavner said.</p>
<p>Despite those efforts, government data shows more than 1 million fewer students are choosing school lunches.</p>
<p>The emoji methodology research, which began in 2014, first started with focus groups of children ages 7 to 11 in Olathe.</p>
<p>Children in the focus group tasted and rated three foods: plain oatmeal, pepperoni pizza Lunchables and Japanese Ramune soda. The premise was to have food that was boring, familiar and an "out-of-the-box" item that participants had not likely encountered - the sweet, strawberry-flavored soda is packaged in a bottle with a marble that releases carbon dioxide - to provide a baseline comparison for testing responses to other foods.</p>
<p>The Lunchables were well-liked, but the soda was "polarizing" because some thought it tasted like medicine, doctoral student Katy Gallo said. The children also rated the oatmeal disappointing because it lacked flavor, though some were hungry and ate all of it anyway.</p>
<p>Researchers used those results to determine which emojis and words the children used and which ones were confusing, then questioned them about their favorite foods and how those made them feel. They narrowed down students' choices to 28 face emojis and 28 words.</p>
<p>In a later taste test, researchers had the children emoji-rate other foods. They had particularly positive emoji responses, pointing to the grinning face, smiling face with smiling eyes or a smile with the tongue out, to the chocolate graham snacks, orange juice, white bread and white grapes. The least-liked food tested, earning a worried face, confused face or confounded face: fresh spinach.</p>
<p />
<p /> | Grin and rate it: Research uses emojis for school food | false | https://abqjournal.com/735915/grin-and-rate-it-research-uses-emojis-for-school-food.html | 2least
| Grin and rate it: Research uses emojis for school food
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>Most school lunch programs in the U.S. already do taste tests, but their efforts pale in comparison to the scope of the research project at the Sensory and Consumer Research Center at Kansas State University Olathe, which is developing a scientific methodology to measure children's face-emoji responses to food. So far, kids in Kansas and Ghana have been the guinea pigs.</p>
<p>The goal is to create an "emoji ballot" that's "applicable internationally across cultures, across countries," said Marianne Swaney-Stueve, who manages the center. "And there really is no language barrier." The researchers also hope it will help schools pick foods that children will eat and help manufacturers make products that schools will want to buy.</p>
<p>Food waste has been more of an issue in the United States since new federal nutrition regulations were implemented in 2012 that mandated healthier products in school lunches. For example, more than 26 percent of the food budget at Boston's middle schools was discarded by students, according to a study cited by the nonprofit School Nutrition Association. If translated nationwide, that would be more than $1.23 billion of school food wasted each year.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Already, about three-quarters of U.S. school districts are doing taste tests with students and nearly all have implemented initiatives such as nutrition education or locally grown foods in an effort to make meals more appetizing, according to an association survey of 1,100 schools conducted last year.</p>
<p>"School nutrition professionals are always looking for new ideas to promote healthier choices to students - to find ways to get more student feedback so they can develop kid-approved menus that are healthy and also appealing to students," association spokeswoman Diane Pratt-Heavner said.</p>
<p>Despite those efforts, government data shows more than 1 million fewer students are choosing school lunches.</p>
<p>The emoji methodology research, which began in 2014, first started with focus groups of children ages 7 to 11 in Olathe.</p>
<p>Children in the focus group tasted and rated three foods: plain oatmeal, pepperoni pizza Lunchables and Japanese Ramune soda. The premise was to have food that was boring, familiar and an "out-of-the-box" item that participants had not likely encountered - the sweet, strawberry-flavored soda is packaged in a bottle with a marble that releases carbon dioxide - to provide a baseline comparison for testing responses to other foods.</p>
<p>The Lunchables were well-liked, but the soda was "polarizing" because some thought it tasted like medicine, doctoral student Katy Gallo said. The children also rated the oatmeal disappointing because it lacked flavor, though some were hungry and ate all of it anyway.</p>
<p>Researchers used those results to determine which emojis and words the children used and which ones were confusing, then questioned them about their favorite foods and how those made them feel. They narrowed down students' choices to 28 face emojis and 28 words.</p>
<p>In a later taste test, researchers had the children emoji-rate other foods. They had particularly positive emoji responses, pointing to the grinning face, smiling face with smiling eyes or a smile with the tongue out, to the chocolate graham snacks, orange juice, white bread and white grapes. The least-liked food tested, earning a worried face, confused face or confounded face: fresh spinach.</p>
<p />
<p /> | 3,881 |
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<p />
<p>By Todd WallackSan Francisco ChroniclePublished on 1/24/2004</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>Excerpt:</p>
<p>But some outside observers questioned whether it was smart to exempt Calandra from its standard ethics policy. "It would be difficult for the public to make a distinction between a commentator and a news reporter,'' said Aly Colón, who teaches ethics courses for the Poynter Institute, a journalism training center in St. Petersburg, Fla.</p>
<p>Furthermore, Colón said Calandra's stock holdings made it impossible for readers to know whether he was touting stocks because he truly thought they were good investments, or because he was hoping the recommendations would boost the value of his own investments.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/01/24/BUG6G4GTVQ1.DTL" type="external">More of this article...</a> <a href="" type="external">Search Google News for more quotes by Aly Colón...</a></p> | Media Ethics Eyed | false | https://poynter.org/news/media-ethics-eyed | 2004-01-28 | 2least
| Media Ethics Eyed
<p />
<p>By Todd WallackSan Francisco ChroniclePublished on 1/24/2004</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>Excerpt:</p>
<p>But some outside observers questioned whether it was smart to exempt Calandra from its standard ethics policy. "It would be difficult for the public to make a distinction between a commentator and a news reporter,'' said Aly Colón, who teaches ethics courses for the Poynter Institute, a journalism training center in St. Petersburg, Fla.</p>
<p>Furthermore, Colón said Calandra's stock holdings made it impossible for readers to know whether he was touting stocks because he truly thought they were good investments, or because he was hoping the recommendations would boost the value of his own investments.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/01/24/BUG6G4GTVQ1.DTL" type="external">More of this article...</a> <a href="" type="external">Search Google News for more quotes by Aly Colón...</a></p> | 3,882 |
<p />
<p>Gasoline prices continue to tick lower this week with refineries returning to normal following Hurricane Harvey.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Drivers across the country saw pump prices spike in late August and early September, as Harvey forced refineries and a major pipeline along the East Coast to shut down. With production picking up steam, prices have begun to cool off yet remain sharply higher compared to last year.</p>
<p>The national average for regular gas sits at $2.52 per gallon as of late Wednesday, according to GasBuddy’s fuel tracker. That’s a decline of 4 cents compared to a week ago and 11 cents versus last month. Prices are up 30 cents compared to the same day in 2016.</p>
<p>In a weekly report, AAA noted that motorists expect to spend less money on fuel during the fall. Prices typically fall when the busy summer driving season concludes and refineries prepare to shift to a less-expensive gasoline blend for the winter. However, Harvey wreaked havoc on the nation’s energy infrastructure, causing prices to go haywire.</p>
<p>“Back-to-back hurricanes packed a punch to Gulf Coast refineries’ gasoline production and inventory levels. As they play catch-up, gas prices are going to be higher than we’d like to see,” said AAA spokesperson Jeanette Casselano.</p>
<p>Gulf Coast refineries are running at around 85% of capacity, the Energy Information Administration said.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>The price spike from Harvey will continue to dissipate as refineries bring fuel production to normal levels. AAA predicts that gas prices will slowly but steadily drop by up to 10 cents in the coming month.</p>
<p>Drivers in Missouri ($2.234), Oklahoma ($2.256) and Arkansas ($2.289) are benefiting from the cheapest gas prices in the nation, based on GasBuddy’s data. The most expensive fuel this week can be found in Hawaii ($3.427), California ($3.124) and Alaska ($3.061).</p> | Gas prices to continue post-Harvey fall | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/10/05/gas-prices-to-continue-post-harvey-fall.html | 2017-10-05 | 0right
| Gas prices to continue post-Harvey fall
<p />
<p>Gasoline prices continue to tick lower this week with refineries returning to normal following Hurricane Harvey.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Drivers across the country saw pump prices spike in late August and early September, as Harvey forced refineries and a major pipeline along the East Coast to shut down. With production picking up steam, prices have begun to cool off yet remain sharply higher compared to last year.</p>
<p>The national average for regular gas sits at $2.52 per gallon as of late Wednesday, according to GasBuddy’s fuel tracker. That’s a decline of 4 cents compared to a week ago and 11 cents versus last month. Prices are up 30 cents compared to the same day in 2016.</p>
<p>In a weekly report, AAA noted that motorists expect to spend less money on fuel during the fall. Prices typically fall when the busy summer driving season concludes and refineries prepare to shift to a less-expensive gasoline blend for the winter. However, Harvey wreaked havoc on the nation’s energy infrastructure, causing prices to go haywire.</p>
<p>“Back-to-back hurricanes packed a punch to Gulf Coast refineries’ gasoline production and inventory levels. As they play catch-up, gas prices are going to be higher than we’d like to see,” said AAA spokesperson Jeanette Casselano.</p>
<p>Gulf Coast refineries are running at around 85% of capacity, the Energy Information Administration said.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>The price spike from Harvey will continue to dissipate as refineries bring fuel production to normal levels. AAA predicts that gas prices will slowly but steadily drop by up to 10 cents in the coming month.</p>
<p>Drivers in Missouri ($2.234), Oklahoma ($2.256) and Arkansas ($2.289) are benefiting from the cheapest gas prices in the nation, based on GasBuddy’s data. The most expensive fuel this week can be found in Hawaii ($3.427), California ($3.124) and Alaska ($3.061).</p> | 3,883 |
<p>By Nina Martin, ProPublica</p>
<p />
<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewmalone/" type="external">andrewmalone</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/" type="external">(CC BY 2.0)</a></p>
<p>This piece originally ran on <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/stillborn-child-charge-of-murder-and-disputed-case-law-on-fetal-harm" type="external">ProPublica</a>.</p>
<p />
<p>Rennie Gibbs’s daughter, Samiya, was a month premature when she simultaneously entered the world and left it, never taking a breath. To experts who later examined the medical record, the stillborn infant’s most likely cause of death was also the most obvious: the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck.</p>
<p>But within days of Samiya’s delivery in November 2006, Steven Hayne, Mississippi’s de facto medical examiner at the time, came to a different conclusion. Autopsy tests had turned up traces of a cocaine byproduct in Samiya’s blood, and Hayne declared her death a homicide, caused by “cocaine toxicity.”</p>
<p>In early 2007, a Lowndes County grand jury indicted Gibbs, a 16-year-old black teen, for “depraved heart murder” — <a href="http://law.justia.com/codes/mississippi/2013/title-97/chapter-3/section-97-3-19/" type="external">defined under Mississippi law</a> as an act “eminently dangerous to others…regardless of human life.” By smoking crack during her pregnancy, the indictment said, Gibbs had “unlawfully, willfully, and feloniously” caused the death of her baby. The maximum sentence: life in prison.</p>
<p>Seven years and much legal wrangling later, Gibbs could finally go on trial this spring —&#160;part of a wave of “fetal harm” cases across the country in recent years that pit the rights of the mother against what lawmakers, health care workers, prosecutors, judges, jurors, and others view as the rights of the unborn child.</p>
<p>A judge is said to be likely to decide this week if the case should move forward or be dismissed. Assuming it continues, whether Gibbs becomes the first woman ever convicted by a Mississippi jury for the loss of her pregnancy could turn on a fundamental question that has received surprisingly little scrutiny so far by the courts: Is there scientific proof that cocaine can cause lasting damage to a child exposed in the womb, or are the conclusions reached by Hayne and prosecutors based on faulty analysis and junk science?</p>
<p>The case intersects a number of divisive and difficult issues — the criminal justice system’s often disproportionate treatment of poor people of color, especially in drug prosecutions; the backlash to Roe v. Wade and the conservative push to establish “personhood” for fetuses as part of a broad-based strategy to weaken abortion laws. A wild card&#160;in the case — Mississippi’s <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2269446" type="external">history of using sometimes dubious forensic evidence</a> to win criminal convictions over many years — could end up playing a central role.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.tumblr.com/follow/onsexandgender" type="external">Tumblr Follow</a></p>
<p>Prosecutors argue that the state has a responsibility to protect children from the dangerous actions of their parents. Saying Gibbs should not be tried for murder is like saying that “every drug addict who robs or steals to obtain money for drugs should not be held accountable for their actions because of their addiction,” <a href="http://judicial.mc.edu/briefs/2010-IA-00819-SCTE.PDF" type="external">the state attorney general’s office wrote</a> in a brief to the Mississippi Supreme Court.</p>
<p>But some civil libertarians and women’s rights advocates worry that if Gibbs is convicted, the precedent could inspire more prosecutions of Mississippi women and girls for everything from miscarriage to abortion — and that African Americans, who suffer <a href="http://msdh.ms.gov/msdhsite/_static/resources/5629.pdf" type="external">twice as many stillbirths</a> as whites, would be affected the most.</p>
<p>Mississippi has one of has <a href="http://hrc.nwlc.org/states/mississippi" type="external">one of the worst records</a> for maternal and infant health in the U.S., as well as some of the highest rates of <a href="http://www.hhs.gov/ash/oah/adolescent-health-topics/reproductive-health/states/ms.html" type="external">teen pregnancy</a> and <a href="http://www.avert.org/stds-america.htm" type="external">sexually transmitted disease</a> and among the most restrictive policies on abortion. Many of the factors that have been linked to prenatal and infant mortality — poverty, poor nutrition, lack of access to healthcare, pollution, smoking, stress — are rampant there.&#160;</p>
<p>“It’s tremendously, tremendously frightening, this case,” said Oleta Fitzgerald, southern regional director for the Children’s Defense Fund, an advocacy and research organization, in Jackson. “There’s real fear for young women whose babies are dying early who [lack the resources to] defend themselves and their actions.”</p>
<p>Those who share such worries point to a <a href="http://advocatesforpregnantwomen.org/main/publications/articles_and_reports/executive_summary_paltrow_flavin_jhppl_article.php" type="external">report</a> last year by the New York­–based <a href="http://www.advocatesforpregnantwomen.org/" type="external">National Advocates for Pregnant Women</a> (NAPW) that documented hundreds of cases around the country in which women have been detained, arrested and sometimes convicted — on charges as serious as murder — for doing things while pregnant that authorities viewed as dangerous or harmful to their unborn child.</p>
<p>The definition of fetal harm in such cases has been broad: An Indiana woman who <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/166664/protect-pregnant-women-free-bei-bei-shuai" type="external">attempted suicide while pregnant</a> spent a year in jail before murder charges were dropped last year; an Iowa woman was arrested and jailed after <a href="http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2010/02/25/help-christine-taylor-victim-iowas-feticide/" type="external">falling down the stairs and suffering a miscarriage</a>; a New Jersey woman who <a href="http://advocatesforpregnantwomen.org/FGamicusBrief_filed.pdf" type="external">refused to sign a preauthorization for a cesarean section</a> didn’t end up needing the operation, yet was charged with child endangerment and <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1366791/Baby-girl-kept-away-mother-5-years-refusing-sign-C-section-form.html" type="external">lost custody of her baby</a>. But the vast majority of cases have involved women suspected of using illegal drugs. Those women have been disproportionately young, low-income and African American.</p>
<p>&#160;Lynn Paltrow, the executive director of NAPW, said that decisions to arrest and charge women often have political and moral overtones and are mostly based on unproved or discredited notions about the effects of prenatal drug exposure.</p>
<p>The U.S. Supreme Court has established stringent rules limiting the use of unproved science in legal proceedings, but these often fall by the wayside in fetal harm cases, Paltrow said. She said that women are typically convicted based on evidence that would be demolished by lawyers with the time and resources to effectively refute it in court – lawyers, say, for pharmaceutical companies whose drugs are challenged in court as being unsafe.</p>
<p>“If a pregnant, drug-using woman were a corporation, her case wouldn’t even get to trial because the rules of evidence require that there be science to prove causation,” Paltrow said.</p>
<p>The quality of the science is very much an issue in the Gibbs case.In a motion to throw out Hayne’s autopsy report, defense lawyers have claimed that that the medical examiner misinterpreted toxicology results and failed to explore alternative causes of death.</p>
<p>Those claims are not the first time Hayne’s work has come under attack. Indeed, Hayne — who effectively served as Mississippi’s statewide medical examiner from the late 1980s to 2008, eventually performing 80 to 90 percent of the autopsies in the state annually — has been <a href="http://reason.com/tags/steven-hayne" type="external">a hugely influential and controversial figure</a> in the criminal justice system there for years.</p>
<p>In litigation (much of it by the <a href="http://mississippiinnocence.org/" type="external">Mississippi Innocence Project</a>) and news reports (many of them by <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/pb/radley-balko" type="external">Radley Balko</a>, now of the Washington Post), defense lawyers and other medical examiners have accused Hayne of being sloppy, exaggerating his credentials, and leaping to conclusions that sometimes had no basis in science. At least four murder convictions based on Hayne’s evidence — <a href="http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=3047" type="external">one involving an innocent man sentenced to death</a> for the killing of a three-year-old girl — have been overturned since 2007.</p>
<p>Despite having failed to complete his certification test by the American Board of Pathology, Hayne not only practiced for two decades in Mississippi and nearby states, but by his own estimate he performed as many as 1,800 autopsies a year (the National Association of Medical Examiners recommends that a single doctor conduct no <a href="http://mississippilawjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/2_Carrington_FINAL.pdf" type="external">more than 250</a>).&#160; Mississippi stopped hiring Hayne in 2008, but he continues to testify in cases that he handled before then.</p>
<p>In their court filing, Gibbs’s lawyers cited <a href="http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=3200" type="external">a capital murder conviction</a> of a 14-year-old boy that the Mississippi Supreme Court <a href="http://www.reid.com/pdfs/Voluntariness-EDMONDS.pdf" type="external">overturned</a> because of what it called “scientifically unfounded” testimony by Hayne. That case involved both the prosecutor and the judge handling the Gibbs prosecution. (To read more about Hayne, go <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/08/us/questions-for-mississippi-doctor-after-thousands-of-autopsies.html" type="external">here</a>, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/02/28/the-fifth-circuit-turns-its-back-on-a-huge-forensics-scandal-in-mississippi/" type="external">here</a>, and <a href="http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20130616/NEWS01/306160046/Defense-lawyers-want-review-cases-involving-pathologist-Dr-Steven-Hayne" type="external">here</a>.)</p>
<p>Prosecutors have yet to respond to the filing by Gibbs’s lawyers, and they did not return a telephone call from ProPublica seeking comment. But they have vigorously defended Hayne in other cases where his methods and conclusions have been called into question.</p>
<p>Hayne also didn’t respond to a request for an interview.</p>
<p>Michael V. Cory Jr., a Jackson attorney, represented Hayne in a defamation suit against the Innocence Project, which had criticized his work and record. The national organization paid Hayne $100,000 as part of a settlement in that case. Cory said many of the claims against Hayne are unfounded.</p>
<p>“Given the number of autopsies he’s performed, there’s certainly going to be some errors,” Cory said in an interview last week. “But a lot of the criticisms don’t turn out to be fair. Just because he’s been criticized in some cases doesn’t mean there’s any inherent unreliability in his findings. Certainly Dr. Hayne would want the truth to come out.”</p>
<p>Gibbs’s lawyers would not provide many specifics about her background or the events leading up to her baby’s death. The records make this much clear: Gibbs, pregnant at 15, tested positive three times for marijuana and or cocaine during her pregnancy. She then missed several doctor’s appointments.</p>
<p>In November 2006, 36 weeks into her pregnancy, Gibbs ended up in the emergency room at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Columbus, where “fetal demise” was diagnosed and labor was induced. A urine test on Gibbs again detected the presence of cocaine and marijuana. By the day after Samiya’s delivery, Hayne had noted that the probable cause of death was homicide.</p>
<p>Gibbs’s lawyers spent the first several years trying to persuade the Mississippi Supreme Court to throw out the murder charge. (Gibbs, now 23, has been out on bail for much of the time.) They filed their motion to exclude Hayne’s testimony last year.&#160;</p>
<p>Expert witnesses hired by the defense claim that the toxicology results didn’t actually support Hayne’s findings. Although Samiya’s blood showed traces of <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/370332" type="external">benzoylecgonine</a>, a cocaine byproduct, cocaine itself was “not detected,” according to the lab that did the tests. Kimberly Collins, a forensic pathologist in Atlanta associated with Emory University, said in an affidavit: “It is impossible to conclude from the very small amount of benzoylecgonine that the stillbirth was caused by cocaine toxicity.” Two other defense experts concurred.</p>
<p>The experts maintain that there were other problems with the findings as well. Hayne, they say, did not order tests to rule out infection or fetal abnormality, two common causes of stillbirth. Hayne said that Gibbs’s placenta was normal, but closer examination, the defense experts assert, showed the presence of blood clots — a sign that the baby’s oxygen supply had been cut off. (In <a href="http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1104720" type="external">a 2011 study</a> by a consortium of researchers around the U.S., 24 percent of stillbirths were caused by blood clots or other placenta abnormalities.)</p>
<p>The experts said cocaine has been linked to one kind of devastating outcome — placenta abruption (when the placenta pulls away from the uterus), which can lead to stillbirth. That was not present in Samiya’s death.</p>
<p>In Gibbs’s case, the evidence pointed to “umbilical cord compression” as the likeliest explanation for Samiya’s death, the defense experts said.</p>
<p>At the same time, Gibbs’s attorneys are challenging the very notion that cocaine exposure in utero causes widespread fetal mortality or serious, long-lasting harm in children. The idea dates back to the 1980s and ‘90s, when the crack epidemic led to fears about a generation of developmentally impaired “crack babies.” And it has gained a kind of credence over the years as OB/GYNs, parenting sites, and many others have urged women to avoid all kinds of substances during pregnancy — everything from tobacco and wine to raw-milk cheese, sushi and hair dye.</p>
<p>But the concerns about cocaine have proven to be “wildly overstated,” said Deborah A. Frank, a pediatrician and researcher at Boston University School of Medicine who has participated in <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11268270" type="external">numerous studies</a> on the topic over the past two decades. &#160;</p>
<p>“There is no consistent association between cocaine use during pregnancy and serious fetal harms, birth defects, or serious long-term physical or developmental impairments,” Frank wrote in an affidavit. “There is no convincing evidence that prenatal cocaine exposure is more strongly associated with fetal harm or developmental deficits than exposure to legal substances, like tobacco and alcohol, or many other factors.”</p>
<p>Frank and other researchers said they have been trying to set the record straight for years, but their arguments have rarely had a hearing in court, Paltrow said. Defense lawyers — often public defenders — don’t have the resources to hire experts to challenge prosecutors, and they may not even realize what the science actually says. It’s not unusual for women to plead guilty in such cases to avoid the risk of losing at trial — and getting a longer sentence. (Indeed, at least two mississippi women are believed to have pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the early 2000s, Gibbs’ lawyers said.)</p>
<p>“For a whole host of reasons, women should not be prosecuted for this sort of thing,” said Robert McDuff, one of Gibbs’ lawyers. “But if they are going to be, it needs to be based on scientific research and analysis that is more reliable than what we have now.”</p>
<p>Cory, Hayne’s lawyer who also does criminal defense work, acknowledged that, “In the criminal justice system, where the stakes are higher, the resources are not there to challenge the science. The judge, who is the gatekeeper, has to use the information they have. You get some crazy results in criminal cases. Science where there is no consensus gets admitted as if there was consensus.”</p>
<p>Gibbs’ attorneys are hopeful that the judge in their case may yet throw out the depraved-heart murder charge. Meanwhile, one thing the evidence does suggest: “Incarceration or the threat of incarceration have proved to be ineffective in reducing the incidence of alcohol or drug abuse,” the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology’s Committee on Health Care for Underserved Women <a href="http://www.acog.org/Resources_And_Publications/Committee_Opinions/Committee_on_Health_Care_for_Underserved_Women/Substance_Abuse_Reporting_and_Pregnancy_The_Role_of_the_Obstetrician_Gynecologist" type="external">wrote</a> in 2011.</p>
<p>Moreover, the committee determined, pregnant women who fear the legal system avoid or emotionally disengage from prenatal care — the very thing that might help assure that they give birth to healthy babies.</p>
<p>“Drug enforcement policies that deter women from seeking prenatal care are contrary to the welfare of the mother and fetus,” it said.</p>
<p /> | Should Women Be Charged With Murder for Giving Birth to Stillborns Due to 'Fetal Harm'? | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/should-women-be-charged-with-murder-for-giving-birth-to-stillborns-due-to-fetal-harm/ | 2014-03-19 | 4left
| Should Women Be Charged With Murder for Giving Birth to Stillborns Due to 'Fetal Harm'?
<p>By Nina Martin, ProPublica</p>
<p />
<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewmalone/" type="external">andrewmalone</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/" type="external">(CC BY 2.0)</a></p>
<p>This piece originally ran on <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/stillborn-child-charge-of-murder-and-disputed-case-law-on-fetal-harm" type="external">ProPublica</a>.</p>
<p />
<p>Rennie Gibbs’s daughter, Samiya, was a month premature when she simultaneously entered the world and left it, never taking a breath. To experts who later examined the medical record, the stillborn infant’s most likely cause of death was also the most obvious: the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck.</p>
<p>But within days of Samiya’s delivery in November 2006, Steven Hayne, Mississippi’s de facto medical examiner at the time, came to a different conclusion. Autopsy tests had turned up traces of a cocaine byproduct in Samiya’s blood, and Hayne declared her death a homicide, caused by “cocaine toxicity.”</p>
<p>In early 2007, a Lowndes County grand jury indicted Gibbs, a 16-year-old black teen, for “depraved heart murder” — <a href="http://law.justia.com/codes/mississippi/2013/title-97/chapter-3/section-97-3-19/" type="external">defined under Mississippi law</a> as an act “eminently dangerous to others…regardless of human life.” By smoking crack during her pregnancy, the indictment said, Gibbs had “unlawfully, willfully, and feloniously” caused the death of her baby. The maximum sentence: life in prison.</p>
<p>Seven years and much legal wrangling later, Gibbs could finally go on trial this spring —&#160;part of a wave of “fetal harm” cases across the country in recent years that pit the rights of the mother against what lawmakers, health care workers, prosecutors, judges, jurors, and others view as the rights of the unborn child.</p>
<p>A judge is said to be likely to decide this week if the case should move forward or be dismissed. Assuming it continues, whether Gibbs becomes the first woman ever convicted by a Mississippi jury for the loss of her pregnancy could turn on a fundamental question that has received surprisingly little scrutiny so far by the courts: Is there scientific proof that cocaine can cause lasting damage to a child exposed in the womb, or are the conclusions reached by Hayne and prosecutors based on faulty analysis and junk science?</p>
<p>The case intersects a number of divisive and difficult issues — the criminal justice system’s often disproportionate treatment of poor people of color, especially in drug prosecutions; the backlash to Roe v. Wade and the conservative push to establish “personhood” for fetuses as part of a broad-based strategy to weaken abortion laws. A wild card&#160;in the case — Mississippi’s <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2269446" type="external">history of using sometimes dubious forensic evidence</a> to win criminal convictions over many years — could end up playing a central role.</p>
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<p>Prosecutors argue that the state has a responsibility to protect children from the dangerous actions of their parents. Saying Gibbs should not be tried for murder is like saying that “every drug addict who robs or steals to obtain money for drugs should not be held accountable for their actions because of their addiction,” <a href="http://judicial.mc.edu/briefs/2010-IA-00819-SCTE.PDF" type="external">the state attorney general’s office wrote</a> in a brief to the Mississippi Supreme Court.</p>
<p>But some civil libertarians and women’s rights advocates worry that if Gibbs is convicted, the precedent could inspire more prosecutions of Mississippi women and girls for everything from miscarriage to abortion — and that African Americans, who suffer <a href="http://msdh.ms.gov/msdhsite/_static/resources/5629.pdf" type="external">twice as many stillbirths</a> as whites, would be affected the most.</p>
<p>Mississippi has one of has <a href="http://hrc.nwlc.org/states/mississippi" type="external">one of the worst records</a> for maternal and infant health in the U.S., as well as some of the highest rates of <a href="http://www.hhs.gov/ash/oah/adolescent-health-topics/reproductive-health/states/ms.html" type="external">teen pregnancy</a> and <a href="http://www.avert.org/stds-america.htm" type="external">sexually transmitted disease</a> and among the most restrictive policies on abortion. Many of the factors that have been linked to prenatal and infant mortality — poverty, poor nutrition, lack of access to healthcare, pollution, smoking, stress — are rampant there.&#160;</p>
<p>“It’s tremendously, tremendously frightening, this case,” said Oleta Fitzgerald, southern regional director for the Children’s Defense Fund, an advocacy and research organization, in Jackson. “There’s real fear for young women whose babies are dying early who [lack the resources to] defend themselves and their actions.”</p>
<p>Those who share such worries point to a <a href="http://advocatesforpregnantwomen.org/main/publications/articles_and_reports/executive_summary_paltrow_flavin_jhppl_article.php" type="external">report</a> last year by the New York­–based <a href="http://www.advocatesforpregnantwomen.org/" type="external">National Advocates for Pregnant Women</a> (NAPW) that documented hundreds of cases around the country in which women have been detained, arrested and sometimes convicted — on charges as serious as murder — for doing things while pregnant that authorities viewed as dangerous or harmful to their unborn child.</p>
<p>The definition of fetal harm in such cases has been broad: An Indiana woman who <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/166664/protect-pregnant-women-free-bei-bei-shuai" type="external">attempted suicide while pregnant</a> spent a year in jail before murder charges were dropped last year; an Iowa woman was arrested and jailed after <a href="http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2010/02/25/help-christine-taylor-victim-iowas-feticide/" type="external">falling down the stairs and suffering a miscarriage</a>; a New Jersey woman who <a href="http://advocatesforpregnantwomen.org/FGamicusBrief_filed.pdf" type="external">refused to sign a preauthorization for a cesarean section</a> didn’t end up needing the operation, yet was charged with child endangerment and <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1366791/Baby-girl-kept-away-mother-5-years-refusing-sign-C-section-form.html" type="external">lost custody of her baby</a>. But the vast majority of cases have involved women suspected of using illegal drugs. Those women have been disproportionately young, low-income and African American.</p>
<p>&#160;Lynn Paltrow, the executive director of NAPW, said that decisions to arrest and charge women often have political and moral overtones and are mostly based on unproved or discredited notions about the effects of prenatal drug exposure.</p>
<p>The U.S. Supreme Court has established stringent rules limiting the use of unproved science in legal proceedings, but these often fall by the wayside in fetal harm cases, Paltrow said. She said that women are typically convicted based on evidence that would be demolished by lawyers with the time and resources to effectively refute it in court – lawyers, say, for pharmaceutical companies whose drugs are challenged in court as being unsafe.</p>
<p>“If a pregnant, drug-using woman were a corporation, her case wouldn’t even get to trial because the rules of evidence require that there be science to prove causation,” Paltrow said.</p>
<p>The quality of the science is very much an issue in the Gibbs case.In a motion to throw out Hayne’s autopsy report, defense lawyers have claimed that that the medical examiner misinterpreted toxicology results and failed to explore alternative causes of death.</p>
<p>Those claims are not the first time Hayne’s work has come under attack. Indeed, Hayne — who effectively served as Mississippi’s statewide medical examiner from the late 1980s to 2008, eventually performing 80 to 90 percent of the autopsies in the state annually — has been <a href="http://reason.com/tags/steven-hayne" type="external">a hugely influential and controversial figure</a> in the criminal justice system there for years.</p>
<p>In litigation (much of it by the <a href="http://mississippiinnocence.org/" type="external">Mississippi Innocence Project</a>) and news reports (many of them by <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/pb/radley-balko" type="external">Radley Balko</a>, now of the Washington Post), defense lawyers and other medical examiners have accused Hayne of being sloppy, exaggerating his credentials, and leaping to conclusions that sometimes had no basis in science. At least four murder convictions based on Hayne’s evidence — <a href="http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=3047" type="external">one involving an innocent man sentenced to death</a> for the killing of a three-year-old girl — have been overturned since 2007.</p>
<p>Despite having failed to complete his certification test by the American Board of Pathology, Hayne not only practiced for two decades in Mississippi and nearby states, but by his own estimate he performed as many as 1,800 autopsies a year (the National Association of Medical Examiners recommends that a single doctor conduct no <a href="http://mississippilawjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/2_Carrington_FINAL.pdf" type="external">more than 250</a>).&#160; Mississippi stopped hiring Hayne in 2008, but he continues to testify in cases that he handled before then.</p>
<p>In their court filing, Gibbs’s lawyers cited <a href="http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=3200" type="external">a capital murder conviction</a> of a 14-year-old boy that the Mississippi Supreme Court <a href="http://www.reid.com/pdfs/Voluntariness-EDMONDS.pdf" type="external">overturned</a> because of what it called “scientifically unfounded” testimony by Hayne. That case involved both the prosecutor and the judge handling the Gibbs prosecution. (To read more about Hayne, go <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/08/us/questions-for-mississippi-doctor-after-thousands-of-autopsies.html" type="external">here</a>, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/02/28/the-fifth-circuit-turns-its-back-on-a-huge-forensics-scandal-in-mississippi/" type="external">here</a>, and <a href="http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20130616/NEWS01/306160046/Defense-lawyers-want-review-cases-involving-pathologist-Dr-Steven-Hayne" type="external">here</a>.)</p>
<p>Prosecutors have yet to respond to the filing by Gibbs’s lawyers, and they did not return a telephone call from ProPublica seeking comment. But they have vigorously defended Hayne in other cases where his methods and conclusions have been called into question.</p>
<p>Hayne also didn’t respond to a request for an interview.</p>
<p>Michael V. Cory Jr., a Jackson attorney, represented Hayne in a defamation suit against the Innocence Project, which had criticized his work and record. The national organization paid Hayne $100,000 as part of a settlement in that case. Cory said many of the claims against Hayne are unfounded.</p>
<p>“Given the number of autopsies he’s performed, there’s certainly going to be some errors,” Cory said in an interview last week. “But a lot of the criticisms don’t turn out to be fair. Just because he’s been criticized in some cases doesn’t mean there’s any inherent unreliability in his findings. Certainly Dr. Hayne would want the truth to come out.”</p>
<p>Gibbs’s lawyers would not provide many specifics about her background or the events leading up to her baby’s death. The records make this much clear: Gibbs, pregnant at 15, tested positive three times for marijuana and or cocaine during her pregnancy. She then missed several doctor’s appointments.</p>
<p>In November 2006, 36 weeks into her pregnancy, Gibbs ended up in the emergency room at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Columbus, where “fetal demise” was diagnosed and labor was induced. A urine test on Gibbs again detected the presence of cocaine and marijuana. By the day after Samiya’s delivery, Hayne had noted that the probable cause of death was homicide.</p>
<p>Gibbs’s lawyers spent the first several years trying to persuade the Mississippi Supreme Court to throw out the murder charge. (Gibbs, now 23, has been out on bail for much of the time.) They filed their motion to exclude Hayne’s testimony last year.&#160;</p>
<p>Expert witnesses hired by the defense claim that the toxicology results didn’t actually support Hayne’s findings. Although Samiya’s blood showed traces of <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/370332" type="external">benzoylecgonine</a>, a cocaine byproduct, cocaine itself was “not detected,” according to the lab that did the tests. Kimberly Collins, a forensic pathologist in Atlanta associated with Emory University, said in an affidavit: “It is impossible to conclude from the very small amount of benzoylecgonine that the stillbirth was caused by cocaine toxicity.” Two other defense experts concurred.</p>
<p>The experts maintain that there were other problems with the findings as well. Hayne, they say, did not order tests to rule out infection or fetal abnormality, two common causes of stillbirth. Hayne said that Gibbs’s placenta was normal, but closer examination, the defense experts assert, showed the presence of blood clots — a sign that the baby’s oxygen supply had been cut off. (In <a href="http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1104720" type="external">a 2011 study</a> by a consortium of researchers around the U.S., 24 percent of stillbirths were caused by blood clots or other placenta abnormalities.)</p>
<p>The experts said cocaine has been linked to one kind of devastating outcome — placenta abruption (when the placenta pulls away from the uterus), which can lead to stillbirth. That was not present in Samiya’s death.</p>
<p>In Gibbs’s case, the evidence pointed to “umbilical cord compression” as the likeliest explanation for Samiya’s death, the defense experts said.</p>
<p>At the same time, Gibbs’s attorneys are challenging the very notion that cocaine exposure in utero causes widespread fetal mortality or serious, long-lasting harm in children. The idea dates back to the 1980s and ‘90s, when the crack epidemic led to fears about a generation of developmentally impaired “crack babies.” And it has gained a kind of credence over the years as OB/GYNs, parenting sites, and many others have urged women to avoid all kinds of substances during pregnancy — everything from tobacco and wine to raw-milk cheese, sushi and hair dye.</p>
<p>But the concerns about cocaine have proven to be “wildly overstated,” said Deborah A. Frank, a pediatrician and researcher at Boston University School of Medicine who has participated in <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11268270" type="external">numerous studies</a> on the topic over the past two decades. &#160;</p>
<p>“There is no consistent association between cocaine use during pregnancy and serious fetal harms, birth defects, or serious long-term physical or developmental impairments,” Frank wrote in an affidavit. “There is no convincing evidence that prenatal cocaine exposure is more strongly associated with fetal harm or developmental deficits than exposure to legal substances, like tobacco and alcohol, or many other factors.”</p>
<p>Frank and other researchers said they have been trying to set the record straight for years, but their arguments have rarely had a hearing in court, Paltrow said. Defense lawyers — often public defenders — don’t have the resources to hire experts to challenge prosecutors, and they may not even realize what the science actually says. It’s not unusual for women to plead guilty in such cases to avoid the risk of losing at trial — and getting a longer sentence. (Indeed, at least two mississippi women are believed to have pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the early 2000s, Gibbs’ lawyers said.)</p>
<p>“For a whole host of reasons, women should not be prosecuted for this sort of thing,” said Robert McDuff, one of Gibbs’ lawyers. “But if they are going to be, it needs to be based on scientific research and analysis that is more reliable than what we have now.”</p>
<p>Cory, Hayne’s lawyer who also does criminal defense work, acknowledged that, “In the criminal justice system, where the stakes are higher, the resources are not there to challenge the science. The judge, who is the gatekeeper, has to use the information they have. You get some crazy results in criminal cases. Science where there is no consensus gets admitted as if there was consensus.”</p>
<p>Gibbs’ attorneys are hopeful that the judge in their case may yet throw out the depraved-heart murder charge. Meanwhile, one thing the evidence does suggest: “Incarceration or the threat of incarceration have proved to be ineffective in reducing the incidence of alcohol or drug abuse,” the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology’s Committee on Health Care for Underserved Women <a href="http://www.acog.org/Resources_And_Publications/Committee_Opinions/Committee_on_Health_Care_for_Underserved_Women/Substance_Abuse_Reporting_and_Pregnancy_The_Role_of_the_Obstetrician_Gynecologist" type="external">wrote</a> in 2011.</p>
<p>Moreover, the committee determined, pregnant women who fear the legal system avoid or emotionally disengage from prenatal care — the very thing that might help assure that they give birth to healthy babies.</p>
<p>“Drug enforcement policies that deter women from seeking prenatal care are contrary to the welfare of the mother and fetus,” it said.</p>
<p /> | 3,884 |
<p>Mortgage risk is rising among Canadian financial institutions that aren't regulated by the federal government, warned the chief executive of the country's state-owned mortgage insurer, in a speech on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Canadian consumers are loading up mortgage debt relative to their incomes and borrowing for longer terms as house prices surge, said Evan Siddall, CEO of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Loan-to-income ratios climbed to 296% in 2016 from 271% in 2014, while the number of mortgages that amortize in more than 25 years rose to 63% from 52%, according to CMHC data.</p>
<p>That riskier activity is exposing lenders to a housing market that many say is experiencing bubble-like conditions, particularly in Vancouver and Toronto. Mr. Siddall noted the "growing risks" in Canada's housing market, and said federal regulators have tried to curb risk by demanding banks boost their mortgage lending standards but those rules apply only to federally regulated firms. Those include Canada's six largest banks, while credit unions, which are regulated by Canada's provinces, aren't subject to the new, tougher standards.</p>
<p>Mr. Siddall said recent moves that the federal government and provincial authorities have taken to curb housing prices has lowered the volume of mortgages the CMHC has insured.</p>
<p>The CMHC offers mortgage insurance to borrowers who can't put up 20% or more of the down payment of their homes. The federal government fully backs the insurer.</p>
<p>Although Mr. Siddall suggested the government's moves have worked for the federally regulated sector, private-sector analysts argued in two separate reports issued Tuesday that risks remain high.</p>
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<p>Fitch Ratings noted, for example, that housing remains the main risk for Canada's banks in 2018. The firm's analysts cited the banks' sound capital and solid liquidity positions, as well as a concentrated banking sector, in forecasting a stable outlook for the banks next year.</p>
<p>"However, record household debt and high housing prices, particularly in Toronto and Vancouver, create risks for banks," Fitch's report said. Rising interest rates, the potential for an economic slowdown and new mortgage underwriting rules, may cool the housing market, Fitch said.</p>
<p>In another report, Benjamin Tal, an analyst for Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, said recent moves to slow the housing markets may not be enough to offset longer-term trends of increasing demand and shrinking supply that will continue to push up housing prices.</p>
<p>"The supply issues facing centres such as Toronto and Vancouver will worsen and demand is routinely understated," the report said. "Short of significant change in housing policies and preferences, there is nothing in the pipeline to alleviate the pressure."</p>
<p>Write to Vipal Monga at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>November 14, 2017 16:56 ET (21:56 GMT)</p> | Canada Housing Insurer Warns of Housing Risk Among Unregulated Lenders -- Update | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/11/14/canada-housing-insurer-warns-housing-risk-among-unregulated-lenders-update.html | 2017-11-14 | 0right
| Canada Housing Insurer Warns of Housing Risk Among Unregulated Lenders -- Update
<p>Mortgage risk is rising among Canadian financial institutions that aren't regulated by the federal government, warned the chief executive of the country's state-owned mortgage insurer, in a speech on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Canadian consumers are loading up mortgage debt relative to their incomes and borrowing for longer terms as house prices surge, said Evan Siddall, CEO of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Loan-to-income ratios climbed to 296% in 2016 from 271% in 2014, while the number of mortgages that amortize in more than 25 years rose to 63% from 52%, according to CMHC data.</p>
<p>That riskier activity is exposing lenders to a housing market that many say is experiencing bubble-like conditions, particularly in Vancouver and Toronto. Mr. Siddall noted the "growing risks" in Canada's housing market, and said federal regulators have tried to curb risk by demanding banks boost their mortgage lending standards but those rules apply only to federally regulated firms. Those include Canada's six largest banks, while credit unions, which are regulated by Canada's provinces, aren't subject to the new, tougher standards.</p>
<p>Mr. Siddall said recent moves that the federal government and provincial authorities have taken to curb housing prices has lowered the volume of mortgages the CMHC has insured.</p>
<p>The CMHC offers mortgage insurance to borrowers who can't put up 20% or more of the down payment of their homes. The federal government fully backs the insurer.</p>
<p>Although Mr. Siddall suggested the government's moves have worked for the federally regulated sector, private-sector analysts argued in two separate reports issued Tuesday that risks remain high.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Fitch Ratings noted, for example, that housing remains the main risk for Canada's banks in 2018. The firm's analysts cited the banks' sound capital and solid liquidity positions, as well as a concentrated banking sector, in forecasting a stable outlook for the banks next year.</p>
<p>"However, record household debt and high housing prices, particularly in Toronto and Vancouver, create risks for banks," Fitch's report said. Rising interest rates, the potential for an economic slowdown and new mortgage underwriting rules, may cool the housing market, Fitch said.</p>
<p>In another report, Benjamin Tal, an analyst for Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, said recent moves to slow the housing markets may not be enough to offset longer-term trends of increasing demand and shrinking supply that will continue to push up housing prices.</p>
<p>"The supply issues facing centres such as Toronto and Vancouver will worsen and demand is routinely understated," the report said. "Short of significant change in housing policies and preferences, there is nothing in the pipeline to alleviate the pressure."</p>
<p>Write to Vipal Monga at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>November 14, 2017 16:56 ET (21:56 GMT)</p> | 3,885 |
<p />
<p>Retire early and active, or delay to protect your later years? It's not an easy decision.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Social Security will supply a significant fraction of retirement income for the majority of Americans. The program is actually pretty flexible, allowing people to start getting retirement benefits as early as age 62, though at a reduced level. For millions of Americans, the cut in pay is well worth it, if it allows you to retire younger, when you're more physically fit and able to get more enjoyment from your retirement years.</p>
<p>So just how much will your benefit get cut if you retire early? Here's a closer look at how much you can expect, as well as how much more you'll get if you put off retirement a few years.</p>
<p>Before you can figure out how much your benefit would be cut, you need to know when you reach full retirement age: the age at which you qualify for what the program designates as 100% of your Social Security benefit. Because the government has set that age to rise over time, yourfull retirement age depends on what year you were born:</p>
<p>Source: Social Security Administration.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>As you can see,full retirement age for people born from 1943 through 1954 is 66. So if you're turning 66 before 2021, that's when you'd be eligible for 100% of your Social Security retirement benefit.</p>
<p>The earliest you can claim your Social Security retirement benefit is age 62. And since 66 -- or very close to it -- is the full retirement age for the majority of people retiring over the next decade, we'll use a full retirement age of 66 as the baseline for comparisons for the rest of this article.</p>
<p>Here's a quick look at what you'd get if you claim early:</p>
<p>Source: Social Security Administration.</p>
<p>As you can see, the spousal benefit is also reduced by claiming early, with the maximum amount a spouse can claim on your work record being capped at 50% of your benefit at full retirement age.</p>
<p>Just as filing early cuts your benefit, every year you wait beyond full retirement age will boost your check. Here's how much it goes up each year beyond full retirement age:</p>
<p>Source: Social Security Administration.</p>
<p>The boost is actually calculated based on the number of months past full retirement age you delay, with each month you wait worth a 0.67% increase in your monthly benefit. And while it will increase your direct monthly benefit, it won't increase your spousal benefit, which is capped at 50% of your benefit at your FRA.</p>
<p>There are several things you should consider before deciding when to take Social Security, including the state of your finances, health, and lifestyle.</p>
<p>Consider this: The system is structured to pay, on average, about the same total amount to you whether you start taking benefits at 62, 66, or 70 -- assuming you live about as long as the average American. But if you live beyond that, having a larger monthly benefit can really pay off. This is because the older your get, the more likely you are to need assisted-living care, which is both expensive and often not paid for by Medicare or health insurance. Unfortunately, by the time they reach that age, many retirees have also significantly depleted their assets.</p>
<p>By delaying the day you start taking your benefit, you'll get a bigger monthly payment, and by working longer, you postpone the time when you will use up your other assets. Both of those factors could be a big deal when you're in your 80s and no longer able to care for yourself, nor to generate as much income to pay for care.</p>
<p>Bottom line: Everyone will face this decision, and have to strike the right balance between making sure they have as much income later in life as possible, and having the resources for an active retirement while they are still young enough to do enjoy it. If you've got the assets to retire early while still being ready for old age, take your benefit as early as you can. But if you haven't built up a nest egg large enough to supplement your income today and for years to come, you may have no choice but to delay.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/05/28/how-much-does-claiming-early-cut-my-social-securit.aspx" type="external">How Much Does Claiming Early Cut My Social Security Check? Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p>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> | How Much Does Claiming Early Cut My Social Security Check? | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/05/28/how-much-does-claiming-early-cut-my-social-security-check.html | 2016-05-28 | 0right
| How Much Does Claiming Early Cut My Social Security Check?
<p />
<p>Retire early and active, or delay to protect your later years? It's not an easy decision.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Social Security will supply a significant fraction of retirement income for the majority of Americans. The program is actually pretty flexible, allowing people to start getting retirement benefits as early as age 62, though at a reduced level. For millions of Americans, the cut in pay is well worth it, if it allows you to retire younger, when you're more physically fit and able to get more enjoyment from your retirement years.</p>
<p>So just how much will your benefit get cut if you retire early? Here's a closer look at how much you can expect, as well as how much more you'll get if you put off retirement a few years.</p>
<p>Before you can figure out how much your benefit would be cut, you need to know when you reach full retirement age: the age at which you qualify for what the program designates as 100% of your Social Security benefit. Because the government has set that age to rise over time, yourfull retirement age depends on what year you were born:</p>
<p>Source: Social Security Administration.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>As you can see,full retirement age for people born from 1943 through 1954 is 66. So if you're turning 66 before 2021, that's when you'd be eligible for 100% of your Social Security retirement benefit.</p>
<p>The earliest you can claim your Social Security retirement benefit is age 62. And since 66 -- or very close to it -- is the full retirement age for the majority of people retiring over the next decade, we'll use a full retirement age of 66 as the baseline for comparisons for the rest of this article.</p>
<p>Here's a quick look at what you'd get if you claim early:</p>
<p>Source: Social Security Administration.</p>
<p>As you can see, the spousal benefit is also reduced by claiming early, with the maximum amount a spouse can claim on your work record being capped at 50% of your benefit at full retirement age.</p>
<p>Just as filing early cuts your benefit, every year you wait beyond full retirement age will boost your check. Here's how much it goes up each year beyond full retirement age:</p>
<p>Source: Social Security Administration.</p>
<p>The boost is actually calculated based on the number of months past full retirement age you delay, with each month you wait worth a 0.67% increase in your monthly benefit. And while it will increase your direct monthly benefit, it won't increase your spousal benefit, which is capped at 50% of your benefit at your FRA.</p>
<p>There are several things you should consider before deciding when to take Social Security, including the state of your finances, health, and lifestyle.</p>
<p>Consider this: The system is structured to pay, on average, about the same total amount to you whether you start taking benefits at 62, 66, or 70 -- assuming you live about as long as the average American. But if you live beyond that, having a larger monthly benefit can really pay off. This is because the older your get, the more likely you are to need assisted-living care, which is both expensive and often not paid for by Medicare or health insurance. Unfortunately, by the time they reach that age, many retirees have also significantly depleted their assets.</p>
<p>By delaying the day you start taking your benefit, you'll get a bigger monthly payment, and by working longer, you postpone the time when you will use up your other assets. Both of those factors could be a big deal when you're in your 80s and no longer able to care for yourself, nor to generate as much income to pay for care.</p>
<p>Bottom line: Everyone will face this decision, and have to strike the right balance between making sure they have as much income later in life as possible, and having the resources for an active retirement while they are still young enough to do enjoy it. If you've got the assets to retire early while still being ready for old age, take your benefit as early as you can. But if you haven't built up a nest egg large enough to supplement your income today and for years to come, you may have no choice but to delay.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/05/28/how-much-does-claiming-early-cut-my-social-securit.aspx" type="external">How Much Does Claiming Early Cut My Social Security Check? Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p>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> | 3,886 |
<p>HAMILTON, New Zealand (AP) — Colin de Grandhomme returned from time out following the death of his father to spur New Zealand to a five-wicket win over Pakistan in the fourth one-day cricket international on Tuesday and to a 4-0 lead in the five-match series.</p>
<p>De Grandhomme was playing for New Zealand for the first time since mid-December, when he returned to his native Zimbabwe after the sudden and unexpected death of his father, aged 61.</p>
<p>New Zealand's unbeaten record at home this season was under threat until De Grandhomme went to the crease at No. 7 and hit 74 not out, including a half century from 25 balls with five sixes, to guide the hosts to their target of 263 with 4.1 overs remaining.</p>
<p>Pakistan produced its best batting performance of the series so far to reach 262-8 batting first, led by Mohammad Hafeez with 81 and half centuries to Haris Sohail and Sarfraz Ahmed.</p>
<p>New Zealand started strongly with an 88-run opening partnership between Colin Munro, who made 56 from 42 balls, and Martin Guptill (31). But teenage leg-spinner Shadab Khan turned the match with three quick wickets as New Zealand slumped from 88-1 to 90-3 in the space of 24 deliveries.</p>
<p>New Zealand crumbled further to 99-4 before captain Kane Williamson steadied the innings in a 55-run fifth-wicket partnership with Henry Nicholls.</p>
<p>Williamson's innings of 32 from 54 balls contained only one boundary and he scored almost entirely in singles as he attempted to turn around the innings. New Zealand appeared to be regaining the upper hand when Williamson, attempting to step up the run rate, was lured into a loose shot by Haris and was brilliantly caught on the long-on boundary by Rumman Raees.</p>
<p>The match was again in the balance with New Zealand at 154-5 after 35 overs. But de Grandhomme blasted Pakistan out of the match. Shadab saw his figures scrambled: he had 3-8 when he dismissed Guptill, Tom Latham (8) and Ross Taylor, who was out for 1 in his 200th one-day international, and finished with 3-42 from his 10 overs.</p>
<p>De Grandhomme's half century included 42 runs from boundaries — three fours and five sixes — and his 74 came from only 40 balls and included seven fours and five sixes.</p>
<p>He was well supported by Nicholls who reached his half century from 69 balls and hit the winning run next ball to finish 51 not out.</p>
<p>"I just took what I'd been doing in the nets and brought it out here," de Grandhomme said.</p>
<p>New Zealand remains unbeaten in 12 matches at home this summer after winning two tests, three ODIs and three T20 internationals against the West Indies and first four one-dayers against Pakistan.</p>
<p>Pakistan was trounced by 183 runs in the third ODI but rebounded with a more spirited performance in game four.</p>
<p>Fakhar made 54 at the top of the order; Haris made 50 in his first one-day international in almost two years; Hafeez produced his 34th half century in ODIs and went on to top score with 81, hitting 22 runs including three sixes in the final over before being run out on the last ball of the innings.</p>
<p>Captain Sarfaz (51) combined with Hafeez in a 98-run partnership for the sixth wicket which substantially boosted Pakistan's total after a poor start and after it struggled to boost its scoring rate through the middle of the innings.</p>
<p>"It was disappointing but there were some positives," Sarfraz said. "Fakhar batted well, Hafeez and Haris batted well. But the problem is we're not finishing well.</p>
<p>"I think when we scored 262 we had lots of confidence but the difference was de Grandhomme who batted really well."</p>
<p>HAMILTON, New Zealand (AP) — Colin de Grandhomme returned from time out following the death of his father to spur New Zealand to a five-wicket win over Pakistan in the fourth one-day cricket international on Tuesday and to a 4-0 lead in the five-match series.</p>
<p>De Grandhomme was playing for New Zealand for the first time since mid-December, when he returned to his native Zimbabwe after the sudden and unexpected death of his father, aged 61.</p>
<p>New Zealand's unbeaten record at home this season was under threat until De Grandhomme went to the crease at No. 7 and hit 74 not out, including a half century from 25 balls with five sixes, to guide the hosts to their target of 263 with 4.1 overs remaining.</p>
<p>Pakistan produced its best batting performance of the series so far to reach 262-8 batting first, led by Mohammad Hafeez with 81 and half centuries to Haris Sohail and Sarfraz Ahmed.</p>
<p>New Zealand started strongly with an 88-run opening partnership between Colin Munro, who made 56 from 42 balls, and Martin Guptill (31). But teenage leg-spinner Shadab Khan turned the match with three quick wickets as New Zealand slumped from 88-1 to 90-3 in the space of 24 deliveries.</p>
<p>New Zealand crumbled further to 99-4 before captain Kane Williamson steadied the innings in a 55-run fifth-wicket partnership with Henry Nicholls.</p>
<p>Williamson's innings of 32 from 54 balls contained only one boundary and he scored almost entirely in singles as he attempted to turn around the innings. New Zealand appeared to be regaining the upper hand when Williamson, attempting to step up the run rate, was lured into a loose shot by Haris and was brilliantly caught on the long-on boundary by Rumman Raees.</p>
<p>The match was again in the balance with New Zealand at 154-5 after 35 overs. But de Grandhomme blasted Pakistan out of the match. Shadab saw his figures scrambled: he had 3-8 when he dismissed Guptill, Tom Latham (8) and Ross Taylor, who was out for 1 in his 200th one-day international, and finished with 3-42 from his 10 overs.</p>
<p>De Grandhomme's half century included 42 runs from boundaries — three fours and five sixes — and his 74 came from only 40 balls and included seven fours and five sixes.</p>
<p>He was well supported by Nicholls who reached his half century from 69 balls and hit the winning run next ball to finish 51 not out.</p>
<p>"I just took what I'd been doing in the nets and brought it out here," de Grandhomme said.</p>
<p>New Zealand remains unbeaten in 12 matches at home this summer after winning two tests, three ODIs and three T20 internationals against the West Indies and first four one-dayers against Pakistan.</p>
<p>Pakistan was trounced by 183 runs in the third ODI but rebounded with a more spirited performance in game four.</p>
<p>Fakhar made 54 at the top of the order; Haris made 50 in his first one-day international in almost two years; Hafeez produced his 34th half century in ODIs and went on to top score with 81, hitting 22 runs including three sixes in the final over before being run out on the last ball of the innings.</p>
<p>Captain Sarfaz (51) combined with Hafeez in a 98-run partnership for the sixth wicket which substantially boosted Pakistan's total after a poor start and after it struggled to boost its scoring rate through the middle of the innings.</p>
<p>"It was disappointing but there were some positives," Sarfraz said. "Fakhar batted well, Hafeez and Haris batted well. But the problem is we're not finishing well.</p>
<p>"I think when we scored 262 we had lots of confidence but the difference was de Grandhomme who batted really well."</p> | New Zealand beats Pakistan by 5 wickets in 4th ODI | false | https://apnews.com/amp/71feda9d25f0479686190f461b9d8af5 | 2018-01-16 | 2least
| New Zealand beats Pakistan by 5 wickets in 4th ODI
<p>HAMILTON, New Zealand (AP) — Colin de Grandhomme returned from time out following the death of his father to spur New Zealand to a five-wicket win over Pakistan in the fourth one-day cricket international on Tuesday and to a 4-0 lead in the five-match series.</p>
<p>De Grandhomme was playing for New Zealand for the first time since mid-December, when he returned to his native Zimbabwe after the sudden and unexpected death of his father, aged 61.</p>
<p>New Zealand's unbeaten record at home this season was under threat until De Grandhomme went to the crease at No. 7 and hit 74 not out, including a half century from 25 balls with five sixes, to guide the hosts to their target of 263 with 4.1 overs remaining.</p>
<p>Pakistan produced its best batting performance of the series so far to reach 262-8 batting first, led by Mohammad Hafeez with 81 and half centuries to Haris Sohail and Sarfraz Ahmed.</p>
<p>New Zealand started strongly with an 88-run opening partnership between Colin Munro, who made 56 from 42 balls, and Martin Guptill (31). But teenage leg-spinner Shadab Khan turned the match with three quick wickets as New Zealand slumped from 88-1 to 90-3 in the space of 24 deliveries.</p>
<p>New Zealand crumbled further to 99-4 before captain Kane Williamson steadied the innings in a 55-run fifth-wicket partnership with Henry Nicholls.</p>
<p>Williamson's innings of 32 from 54 balls contained only one boundary and he scored almost entirely in singles as he attempted to turn around the innings. New Zealand appeared to be regaining the upper hand when Williamson, attempting to step up the run rate, was lured into a loose shot by Haris and was brilliantly caught on the long-on boundary by Rumman Raees.</p>
<p>The match was again in the balance with New Zealand at 154-5 after 35 overs. But de Grandhomme blasted Pakistan out of the match. Shadab saw his figures scrambled: he had 3-8 when he dismissed Guptill, Tom Latham (8) and Ross Taylor, who was out for 1 in his 200th one-day international, and finished with 3-42 from his 10 overs.</p>
<p>De Grandhomme's half century included 42 runs from boundaries — three fours and five sixes — and his 74 came from only 40 balls and included seven fours and five sixes.</p>
<p>He was well supported by Nicholls who reached his half century from 69 balls and hit the winning run next ball to finish 51 not out.</p>
<p>"I just took what I'd been doing in the nets and brought it out here," de Grandhomme said.</p>
<p>New Zealand remains unbeaten in 12 matches at home this summer after winning two tests, three ODIs and three T20 internationals against the West Indies and first four one-dayers against Pakistan.</p>
<p>Pakistan was trounced by 183 runs in the third ODI but rebounded with a more spirited performance in game four.</p>
<p>Fakhar made 54 at the top of the order; Haris made 50 in his first one-day international in almost two years; Hafeez produced his 34th half century in ODIs and went on to top score with 81, hitting 22 runs including three sixes in the final over before being run out on the last ball of the innings.</p>
<p>Captain Sarfaz (51) combined with Hafeez in a 98-run partnership for the sixth wicket which substantially boosted Pakistan's total after a poor start and after it struggled to boost its scoring rate through the middle of the innings.</p>
<p>"It was disappointing but there were some positives," Sarfraz said. "Fakhar batted well, Hafeez and Haris batted well. But the problem is we're not finishing well.</p>
<p>"I think when we scored 262 we had lots of confidence but the difference was de Grandhomme who batted really well."</p>
<p>HAMILTON, New Zealand (AP) — Colin de Grandhomme returned from time out following the death of his father to spur New Zealand to a five-wicket win over Pakistan in the fourth one-day cricket international on Tuesday and to a 4-0 lead in the five-match series.</p>
<p>De Grandhomme was playing for New Zealand for the first time since mid-December, when he returned to his native Zimbabwe after the sudden and unexpected death of his father, aged 61.</p>
<p>New Zealand's unbeaten record at home this season was under threat until De Grandhomme went to the crease at No. 7 and hit 74 not out, including a half century from 25 balls with five sixes, to guide the hosts to their target of 263 with 4.1 overs remaining.</p>
<p>Pakistan produced its best batting performance of the series so far to reach 262-8 batting first, led by Mohammad Hafeez with 81 and half centuries to Haris Sohail and Sarfraz Ahmed.</p>
<p>New Zealand started strongly with an 88-run opening partnership between Colin Munro, who made 56 from 42 balls, and Martin Guptill (31). But teenage leg-spinner Shadab Khan turned the match with three quick wickets as New Zealand slumped from 88-1 to 90-3 in the space of 24 deliveries.</p>
<p>New Zealand crumbled further to 99-4 before captain Kane Williamson steadied the innings in a 55-run fifth-wicket partnership with Henry Nicholls.</p>
<p>Williamson's innings of 32 from 54 balls contained only one boundary and he scored almost entirely in singles as he attempted to turn around the innings. New Zealand appeared to be regaining the upper hand when Williamson, attempting to step up the run rate, was lured into a loose shot by Haris and was brilliantly caught on the long-on boundary by Rumman Raees.</p>
<p>The match was again in the balance with New Zealand at 154-5 after 35 overs. But de Grandhomme blasted Pakistan out of the match. Shadab saw his figures scrambled: he had 3-8 when he dismissed Guptill, Tom Latham (8) and Ross Taylor, who was out for 1 in his 200th one-day international, and finished with 3-42 from his 10 overs.</p>
<p>De Grandhomme's half century included 42 runs from boundaries — three fours and five sixes — and his 74 came from only 40 balls and included seven fours and five sixes.</p>
<p>He was well supported by Nicholls who reached his half century from 69 balls and hit the winning run next ball to finish 51 not out.</p>
<p>"I just took what I'd been doing in the nets and brought it out here," de Grandhomme said.</p>
<p>New Zealand remains unbeaten in 12 matches at home this summer after winning two tests, three ODIs and three T20 internationals against the West Indies and first four one-dayers against Pakistan.</p>
<p>Pakistan was trounced by 183 runs in the third ODI but rebounded with a more spirited performance in game four.</p>
<p>Fakhar made 54 at the top of the order; Haris made 50 in his first one-day international in almost two years; Hafeez produced his 34th half century in ODIs and went on to top score with 81, hitting 22 runs including three sixes in the final over before being run out on the last ball of the innings.</p>
<p>Captain Sarfaz (51) combined with Hafeez in a 98-run partnership for the sixth wicket which substantially boosted Pakistan's total after a poor start and after it struggled to boost its scoring rate through the middle of the innings.</p>
<p>"It was disappointing but there were some positives," Sarfraz said. "Fakhar batted well, Hafeez and Haris batted well. But the problem is we're not finishing well.</p>
<p>"I think when we scored 262 we had lots of confidence but the difference was de Grandhomme who batted really well."</p> | 3,887 |
<p />
<p>If Facebook holds its after-hours gain, the stock will open tomorrow at an all-time of about $119, representing a gain of about 9% compared with where it was trading on Wednesday. The stock's significant gain follows yet <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/01/28/6-wild-facts-from-facebooks-crushing-quarter.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">another Opens a New Window.</a> crushing quarter in which the social network beat analysts' estimates and outperformed expectations pretty much on every front. Here's the huge quarter summed up in 10 metrics.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Image source: Facebook.</p>
<p>52%: Analysts undoubtedly had big expectations for Facebook going into its first quarter. The consensus analyst estimate for its year-over-year revenue growth was 48% -- a figure that would represent only a modest and natural deceleration from its 52% year-over-year revenue growth in Q4. But Facebook instead managed to maintain its Q4 revenue growth of 52% for another quarter.</p>
<p>57%: Facebook's better-than-expected revenue growth was driven by a 57% year-over-year increase in ad revenue, which accounts for about 97% of Facebook's total revenue. Ad revenue growth benefited from marketers' growing budgets for video ads on the platform.</p>
<p>189%: This is the percentage Facebook's EPS increased by, year over year, in Q1. And this isn't a reference to a non-GAAP measure excluding items like share-based compensation or amortization of intangible assets. This is Facebook's GAAP measure of its EPS.</p>
<p>$1.5 billion: Facebook's Q1 GAAP profit of $1.51 billion was up hugely from its $512 million in the year-ago quarter.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>$2.2 billion: For what it's worth, Facebook's non-GAAP profit was $2.2 billion, up from $1.2 billion in the year-ago quarter.</p>
<p>1.65 billion: Facebook's monthly active users in Q1 hit 1.65 billion, up 15% from the year-ago quarter, and 4% sequentially. Notably, this actually marks an acceleration in the company's sequential growth rate in monthly active users; Facebook's Q4 monthly active users were up 3% sequentially.</p>
<p>1.09 billion: Facebook's daily active users during Q1 reached 1.09 billion, up 16% compared to the year-ago quarter. Similar to its monthly active user growth trends, sequential growth accelerated; daily active users were up 5% sequentially in Q1, compared to 3% growth in Q4.</p>
<p>66%: Facebook's engagement rate, which is defined by daily active users as a percentage of monthly active users, surprisingly improved. For four quarters in a row, the rate stalled at 65%. But it increased to 66% in Q1.</p>
<p>50 minutes: This is how much time people around the globe spend every day using Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger, management said during Facebook's first-quarter earnings call. And this doesn't include the social network's messaging app WhatsApp, which boasts 1 billion monthly active users.</p>
<p>200,000: This is the number of businesses advertising on Facebook's Instagram every month. Now boasting 400 million monthly active users, there's no question about whether or not Instagram will turn into a meaningful business for Facebook. It already is.</p>
<p>Facebook's growth, engagement, and dominance of user attention highlighted in these 10 metrics shows how well the company is performing. Notably, some of these metrics -- such as Facebook's 52% and 189% year-over-year growth in revenue and EPS -- can't be sustained. But it's impossible to ignore how the social network continues to absolutely crush expectations.</p>
<p>As it turns out, Facebook's fast-growing user base, along with CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his team's ability to execute, is a more valuable asset than investors thought when the company went public at $38 a share in 2012.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/04/27/facebook-incs-monster-quarter-in-10-metrics.aspx" type="external">Facebook, Inc.'s Monster Quarter in 10 Metrics Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFDanielSparks/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Daniel Sparks Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Facebook. 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> | Facebook, Inc.'s Monster Quarter in 10 Metrics | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/04/27/facebook-inc-monster-quarter-in-10-metrics.html | 2016-04-27 | 0right
| Facebook, Inc.'s Monster Quarter in 10 Metrics
<p />
<p>If Facebook holds its after-hours gain, the stock will open tomorrow at an all-time of about $119, representing a gain of about 9% compared with where it was trading on Wednesday. The stock's significant gain follows yet <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/01/28/6-wild-facts-from-facebooks-crushing-quarter.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">another Opens a New Window.</a> crushing quarter in which the social network beat analysts' estimates and outperformed expectations pretty much on every front. Here's the huge quarter summed up in 10 metrics.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Image source: Facebook.</p>
<p>52%: Analysts undoubtedly had big expectations for Facebook going into its first quarter. The consensus analyst estimate for its year-over-year revenue growth was 48% -- a figure that would represent only a modest and natural deceleration from its 52% year-over-year revenue growth in Q4. But Facebook instead managed to maintain its Q4 revenue growth of 52% for another quarter.</p>
<p>57%: Facebook's better-than-expected revenue growth was driven by a 57% year-over-year increase in ad revenue, which accounts for about 97% of Facebook's total revenue. Ad revenue growth benefited from marketers' growing budgets for video ads on the platform.</p>
<p>189%: This is the percentage Facebook's EPS increased by, year over year, in Q1. And this isn't a reference to a non-GAAP measure excluding items like share-based compensation or amortization of intangible assets. This is Facebook's GAAP measure of its EPS.</p>
<p>$1.5 billion: Facebook's Q1 GAAP profit of $1.51 billion was up hugely from its $512 million in the year-ago quarter.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>$2.2 billion: For what it's worth, Facebook's non-GAAP profit was $2.2 billion, up from $1.2 billion in the year-ago quarter.</p>
<p>1.65 billion: Facebook's monthly active users in Q1 hit 1.65 billion, up 15% from the year-ago quarter, and 4% sequentially. Notably, this actually marks an acceleration in the company's sequential growth rate in monthly active users; Facebook's Q4 monthly active users were up 3% sequentially.</p>
<p>1.09 billion: Facebook's daily active users during Q1 reached 1.09 billion, up 16% compared to the year-ago quarter. Similar to its monthly active user growth trends, sequential growth accelerated; daily active users were up 5% sequentially in Q1, compared to 3% growth in Q4.</p>
<p>66%: Facebook's engagement rate, which is defined by daily active users as a percentage of monthly active users, surprisingly improved. For four quarters in a row, the rate stalled at 65%. But it increased to 66% in Q1.</p>
<p>50 minutes: This is how much time people around the globe spend every day using Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger, management said during Facebook's first-quarter earnings call. And this doesn't include the social network's messaging app WhatsApp, which boasts 1 billion monthly active users.</p>
<p>200,000: This is the number of businesses advertising on Facebook's Instagram every month. Now boasting 400 million monthly active users, there's no question about whether or not Instagram will turn into a meaningful business for Facebook. It already is.</p>
<p>Facebook's growth, engagement, and dominance of user attention highlighted in these 10 metrics shows how well the company is performing. Notably, some of these metrics -- such as Facebook's 52% and 189% year-over-year growth in revenue and EPS -- can't be sustained. But it's impossible to ignore how the social network continues to absolutely crush expectations.</p>
<p>As it turns out, Facebook's fast-growing user base, along with CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his team's ability to execute, is a more valuable asset than investors thought when the company went public at $38 a share in 2012.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/04/27/facebook-incs-monster-quarter-in-10-metrics.aspx" type="external">Facebook, Inc.'s Monster Quarter in 10 Metrics Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFDanielSparks/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Daniel Sparks Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Facebook. 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> | 3,888 |
<p>This election cycle in the United States, televised debates only seem worse than in recent decades. What changed is the urgency of the economic meltdown and the unwillingness of Americans to confront how globalization imposed structural changes on a society ill-prepared for sacrifice and adaptation. No one wants to be wrong. No one wants to be a loser. But explaining why representative democracy has failed to protect the national economy simply exceeds the capacity of a political culture that is oriented to sound bites on television the way the planets rotate around the sun.</p>
<p>Since the airwaves are knit together with private property rights and no political will to challenge that fact, it is too much to expect any changes in the miserable televised debate format, in which candidates for office representing different political parties hurl talking points packaged as paragraphs, focus-grouped and tested, under the benign gaze of talented “journalists” on “expert panels” who have formulated the questions that are answered perhaps 10 percent of the time.</p>
<p>To a mass audience, sitting in front of glowing boxes, it may come at as a surprise that the question, response and rebuttal formats are not debates at all. They are just more evidence of fiddling while Rome burns.</p>
<p>Candidates rarely answer the questions without reframing them to push out rehearsed points aimed to specific demographics. There is nothing wrong with a check list, but given the enormous jeopardy to the economy and the environment—yes, for clean air and clean water! No, to polluters funding the Tea Party!—anyhow, these tawdry affairs are gold-plated with solemnity verging on the ridiculous, as we watch partisans feast on thin gruel.</p>
<p>More than one hundred fifty years ago, two candidates for state senate conducted a series of seven debates, vying for control of the Illinois state legislature. The main issue was slavery. The first candidate had 60 minutes to speak. The second, then had 90 minutes to both deliver his own speech and rebuttal. Then 30 minutes were offered to the first speaker. One was Abraham Lincoln. The other, Stephen Douglas. Which of our national politicians, or talk show hosts, is up to that exercise? Sixty minutes on the mortgage crisis, Wall Street, and the economy.</p>
<p>Today, rigorous debates mostly take place in a side-current of high school and college extra-curricular activities. It is not exactly a lost art. A fair percentage of the million plus attorneys in the U.S. learned the skill of debate at some point in their training. Think about the intellectual qualifications to organize a thirty minute rebuttal; thoughtfulness, mastery of complex subjects, the ability to communicate and to build a line of logic that is understandable. Imagine giving Sarah Palin that challenge.</p>
<p>In recent debates in Florida for governor and US Senate, one had the feeling of candidates on treadmills, walking in the center of the moving walkway, not looking left or right, up or down. Television wants passive consumers susceptible to paid advertisement and politics fits perfectly to that cut, thin panel display or not.</p>
<p>Now that I am warmed up, I note that in these debates– wrong to call them that– the environment has not been mentioned a single time. That is in contrast to past election cycles, when at least one gratuitous nod to clean air and water and wildlife is ritually thrown in to the mix. One assumes the omission of this question means we can no longer afford it: too many serious issues to be avoided.</p>
<p>However, in retrospect, candidates in televised debates have done such poor jobs amplifying their plans to revive the economy and to create jobs and cut taxes and protect seniors — falling back on horrendous canards or blaming President Obama– that one concludes: why not question the environment? After all, it is not a mere inconvenience if one’s well is poisoned, or genes confused by exposure to toxics, or the largest extinction of species since comets plowed into the earth 60 million years ago. Make the candidates speak for ten minutes on the environment. It would be a wonder to behold.</p>
<p>Network television should agree that all televised debates should be in a debate format that prevents falling back to sound bites. One topic per two and a half hours. Here is a good place to start: NIMBY: Not In My Backyard, or, the Next Idiot Might Be You?</p>
<p>ALAN FARAGO is a board member of Friends of the Everglades, and he can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p> | The Next Idiot Might Be You | true | https://counterpunch.org/2010/10/21/the-next-idiot-might-be-you/ | 2010-10-21 | 4left
| The Next Idiot Might Be You
<p>This election cycle in the United States, televised debates only seem worse than in recent decades. What changed is the urgency of the economic meltdown and the unwillingness of Americans to confront how globalization imposed structural changes on a society ill-prepared for sacrifice and adaptation. No one wants to be wrong. No one wants to be a loser. But explaining why representative democracy has failed to protect the national economy simply exceeds the capacity of a political culture that is oriented to sound bites on television the way the planets rotate around the sun.</p>
<p>Since the airwaves are knit together with private property rights and no political will to challenge that fact, it is too much to expect any changes in the miserable televised debate format, in which candidates for office representing different political parties hurl talking points packaged as paragraphs, focus-grouped and tested, under the benign gaze of talented “journalists” on “expert panels” who have formulated the questions that are answered perhaps 10 percent of the time.</p>
<p>To a mass audience, sitting in front of glowing boxes, it may come at as a surprise that the question, response and rebuttal formats are not debates at all. They are just more evidence of fiddling while Rome burns.</p>
<p>Candidates rarely answer the questions without reframing them to push out rehearsed points aimed to specific demographics. There is nothing wrong with a check list, but given the enormous jeopardy to the economy and the environment—yes, for clean air and clean water! No, to polluters funding the Tea Party!—anyhow, these tawdry affairs are gold-plated with solemnity verging on the ridiculous, as we watch partisans feast on thin gruel.</p>
<p>More than one hundred fifty years ago, two candidates for state senate conducted a series of seven debates, vying for control of the Illinois state legislature. The main issue was slavery. The first candidate had 60 minutes to speak. The second, then had 90 minutes to both deliver his own speech and rebuttal. Then 30 minutes were offered to the first speaker. One was Abraham Lincoln. The other, Stephen Douglas. Which of our national politicians, or talk show hosts, is up to that exercise? Sixty minutes on the mortgage crisis, Wall Street, and the economy.</p>
<p>Today, rigorous debates mostly take place in a side-current of high school and college extra-curricular activities. It is not exactly a lost art. A fair percentage of the million plus attorneys in the U.S. learned the skill of debate at some point in their training. Think about the intellectual qualifications to organize a thirty minute rebuttal; thoughtfulness, mastery of complex subjects, the ability to communicate and to build a line of logic that is understandable. Imagine giving Sarah Palin that challenge.</p>
<p>In recent debates in Florida for governor and US Senate, one had the feeling of candidates on treadmills, walking in the center of the moving walkway, not looking left or right, up or down. Television wants passive consumers susceptible to paid advertisement and politics fits perfectly to that cut, thin panel display or not.</p>
<p>Now that I am warmed up, I note that in these debates– wrong to call them that– the environment has not been mentioned a single time. That is in contrast to past election cycles, when at least one gratuitous nod to clean air and water and wildlife is ritually thrown in to the mix. One assumes the omission of this question means we can no longer afford it: too many serious issues to be avoided.</p>
<p>However, in retrospect, candidates in televised debates have done such poor jobs amplifying their plans to revive the economy and to create jobs and cut taxes and protect seniors — falling back on horrendous canards or blaming President Obama– that one concludes: why not question the environment? After all, it is not a mere inconvenience if one’s well is poisoned, or genes confused by exposure to toxics, or the largest extinction of species since comets plowed into the earth 60 million years ago. Make the candidates speak for ten minutes on the environment. It would be a wonder to behold.</p>
<p>Network television should agree that all televised debates should be in a debate format that prevents falling back to sound bites. One topic per two and a half hours. Here is a good place to start: NIMBY: Not In My Backyard, or, the Next Idiot Might Be You?</p>
<p>ALAN FARAGO is a board member of Friends of the Everglades, and he can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p> | 3,889 |
<p>Nine states will share $500 million in grant money designed to improve and expand pre-Kindergarten education, the White House announced today. The winners of the latest competition for "Race to the Top" funding are California, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island and Washington, <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-16/nine-states-get-grants-in-500-million-u-s-preschool-program.html" type="external">Bloomberg Businessweek reported</a>.</p>
<p>Thirty-five states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico competed for about $50 million to $100 million each to help build statewide systems that improve child care, Head Start centers and preschools, <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/12/16/states-win-early-learning-grant-competition/" type="external">The Associated Press reported</a>.</p>
<p>According to the AP:</p>
<p>To win, states were asked to demonstrate a commitment to making such programs more accessible, coordinated and more effective. Providing professional development for teachers and creating ways to assess the education level of kids entering kindergarten were among the areas states were asked to focus on in their application.</p>
<p>Education Secretary Arne Duncan told Bloomberg Businessweek that the "best early learning programs boost student achievement and increase both high school and college graduation rates."</p>
<p>Last year, Race to the Top awarded $4 billion in similar grants to states for initiatives in K-12 education, the AP reported.</p>
<p>Winning states cheered the announcement. "Today's announcement demonstrates our place as a national leader in education reform and achievement," Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said, according to the <a href="http://bostonglobe.com/metro/2011/12/16/mass-receive-from-race-top-grant/uFG1NXCmjYB2RLV96yxW5H/story.html" type="external">Boston Globe</a>. "These resources will help us reach kids at an early age, before achievement gaps form, to ensure they are prepared for lifelong success in school and beyond."</p>
<p>Losing states did not necessarily receive the news gracefully. Florida Gov. Rick Scott alleged that his state was rejected because it would not commit to continuing programs after the federal grant money ran out, the <a href="http://www.postonpolitics.com/2011/12/scott-rips-feds-for-not-giving-fla-race-to-the-top-dollars/" type="external">Palm Beach Post reported</a>.</p>
<p>"When Florida's application was submitted for the grant in October, we made it clear that we would not accept grant money with strings attached, additional state spending obligations or requirements that created new burdensome regulations on private providers," Scott said. "We stuck to our principles, and unfortunately our insistence against irresponsibly using one-time dollars for recurring government programs did not win the favor of the administration in Washington." &#160;</p> | 9 states win Race to the Top money for pre-K | false | https://pri.org/stories/2011-12-16/9-states-win-race-top-money-pre-k | 2011-12-16 | 3left-center
| 9 states win Race to the Top money for pre-K
<p>Nine states will share $500 million in grant money designed to improve and expand pre-Kindergarten education, the White House announced today. The winners of the latest competition for "Race to the Top" funding are California, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island and Washington, <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-16/nine-states-get-grants-in-500-million-u-s-preschool-program.html" type="external">Bloomberg Businessweek reported</a>.</p>
<p>Thirty-five states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico competed for about $50 million to $100 million each to help build statewide systems that improve child care, Head Start centers and preschools, <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/12/16/states-win-early-learning-grant-competition/" type="external">The Associated Press reported</a>.</p>
<p>According to the AP:</p>
<p>To win, states were asked to demonstrate a commitment to making such programs more accessible, coordinated and more effective. Providing professional development for teachers and creating ways to assess the education level of kids entering kindergarten were among the areas states were asked to focus on in their application.</p>
<p>Education Secretary Arne Duncan told Bloomberg Businessweek that the "best early learning programs boost student achievement and increase both high school and college graduation rates."</p>
<p>Last year, Race to the Top awarded $4 billion in similar grants to states for initiatives in K-12 education, the AP reported.</p>
<p>Winning states cheered the announcement. "Today's announcement demonstrates our place as a national leader in education reform and achievement," Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said, according to the <a href="http://bostonglobe.com/metro/2011/12/16/mass-receive-from-race-top-grant/uFG1NXCmjYB2RLV96yxW5H/story.html" type="external">Boston Globe</a>. "These resources will help us reach kids at an early age, before achievement gaps form, to ensure they are prepared for lifelong success in school and beyond."</p>
<p>Losing states did not necessarily receive the news gracefully. Florida Gov. Rick Scott alleged that his state was rejected because it would not commit to continuing programs after the federal grant money ran out, the <a href="http://www.postonpolitics.com/2011/12/scott-rips-feds-for-not-giving-fla-race-to-the-top-dollars/" type="external">Palm Beach Post reported</a>.</p>
<p>"When Florida's application was submitted for the grant in October, we made it clear that we would not accept grant money with strings attached, additional state spending obligations or requirements that created new burdensome regulations on private providers," Scott said. "We stuck to our principles, and unfortunately our insistence against irresponsibly using one-time dollars for recurring government programs did not win the favor of the administration in Washington." &#160;</p> | 3,890 |
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<p>COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — Hunters across the country are boycotting Colorado because of recent legislation meant to curtail gun violence.</p>
<p>Michael Bane, a producer for The Outdoor Channel, announced he will no longer film his four shows in Colorado, and hunters are joining the protests.</p>
<p>Hunting outfitters say people began cancelling trips after the legislation passed, the Colorado Springs Gazette reported. The numbers are few, but growing.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Colorado’s governor signed bills this month that ban ammunition magazines that hold more than 15 rounds, and require background checks for private and online gun sales.</p>
<p>Those new gun laws and others were drawn up in response to mass killings at a suburban Denver movie theater and a Connecticut elementary school.</p>
<p>Northwest Colorado hunting guide Chris Jurney expects more state defections in a major tourism industry. Out-of-state hunters accounted for 15 percent of hunting licenses last year, 86,000, compared with 489,000 for residents.</p>
<p>“There’s a united front of sportsmen that are tired of having their freedoms and liberties and fundamental rights taken away from them,” said Jurney, vice president of the Colorado Outfitters Association. “That kind of unity among sportsmen is going to be big, and unfortunately for those of us who live here, we’re going to suffer the consequences of this misguided legislation.”</p>
<p>Legislative leaders declined to comment.</p>
<p>Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokesman Randy Hampton said his agency has asked the state attorney general’s office for advice on impacts to hunters. While legal possession of high-capacity magazines is grandfathered in, officials want to make sure they are still legal to use.</p>
<p>Jurney said he expects the actual impact of gun regulations on Colorado hunters will be small. Varmint hunters tend to use high-capacity magazines, so they might be limited. He also is concerned about a provision that limits the loaning of a gun to 72 hours. Many youth hunts, in which most guns are loaned, last longer, he said.</p>
<p>Jeff Lepp, owner of Specialty Sports, a gun and hunting shop in Colorado Springs, predicts hunters are going to choose to visit other Rocky Mountain states.</p>
<p>“Small mountain towns and rural towns in this state are going to lose a lot of money because you’re not going to see the number of out-of-state hunters coming here. Other states are going to see a growth,” he said.</p> | Hunters begin boycott over Colo. gun laws | false | https://abqjournal.com/182713/hunters-begin-boycott-over-colo-gun-laws.html | 2013-03-27 | 2least
| Hunters begin boycott over Colo. gun laws
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<p>COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — Hunters across the country are boycotting Colorado because of recent legislation meant to curtail gun violence.</p>
<p>Michael Bane, a producer for The Outdoor Channel, announced he will no longer film his four shows in Colorado, and hunters are joining the protests.</p>
<p>Hunting outfitters say people began cancelling trips after the legislation passed, the Colorado Springs Gazette reported. The numbers are few, but growing.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Colorado’s governor signed bills this month that ban ammunition magazines that hold more than 15 rounds, and require background checks for private and online gun sales.</p>
<p>Those new gun laws and others were drawn up in response to mass killings at a suburban Denver movie theater and a Connecticut elementary school.</p>
<p>Northwest Colorado hunting guide Chris Jurney expects more state defections in a major tourism industry. Out-of-state hunters accounted for 15 percent of hunting licenses last year, 86,000, compared with 489,000 for residents.</p>
<p>“There’s a united front of sportsmen that are tired of having their freedoms and liberties and fundamental rights taken away from them,” said Jurney, vice president of the Colorado Outfitters Association. “That kind of unity among sportsmen is going to be big, and unfortunately for those of us who live here, we’re going to suffer the consequences of this misguided legislation.”</p>
<p>Legislative leaders declined to comment.</p>
<p>Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokesman Randy Hampton said his agency has asked the state attorney general’s office for advice on impacts to hunters. While legal possession of high-capacity magazines is grandfathered in, officials want to make sure they are still legal to use.</p>
<p>Jurney said he expects the actual impact of gun regulations on Colorado hunters will be small. Varmint hunters tend to use high-capacity magazines, so they might be limited. He also is concerned about a provision that limits the loaning of a gun to 72 hours. Many youth hunts, in which most guns are loaned, last longer, he said.</p>
<p>Jeff Lepp, owner of Specialty Sports, a gun and hunting shop in Colorado Springs, predicts hunters are going to choose to visit other Rocky Mountain states.</p>
<p>“Small mountain towns and rural towns in this state are going to lose a lot of money because you’re not going to see the number of out-of-state hunters coming here. Other states are going to see a growth,” he said.</p> | 3,891 |
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<p />
<p>Barela, a Republican, is a former state Department of Transportation worker who served as mayor of Estancia from 2008 through 2013.</p>
<p>“I have great confidence that Ted will work hard to represent the residents of District 39 well and believe he’s committed to working with legislators from both parties to diversify our economy and improve our schools,” Martinez said in a Friday statement.</p>
<p>Barela will serve out the remainder of the term of Phil Griego, a San Jose Democrat who resigned from the Senate on March 14 rather than face possible disciplinary action over his involvement in the sale of a historic state-owned building in Santa Fe. The four-year term Griego was elected to in 2012 wraps up at the end of next year.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Barela said Friday that he intends to seek election to the Senate seat next year, adding that he has been in touch with Griego since the longtime senator’s resignation. He said he never ran against Griego out of respect for his help in addressing Estancia’s needs. However, he said Griego’s ethics scandal had changed circumstances, saying, “those types of things are eye-openers for all of us, and they should be.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Barela described his approach to politics as conservative, but pragmatic. “One thing I learned as mayor is the needs of the people didn’t have a ‘D’ or an ‘R’ tied to them at all,” he told the Journal in a telephone interview.</p>
<p>With Barela’s appointment, Democrats now hold a 24-18 advantage in the Senate, which thwarted some of Martinez’s top legislative initiatives during this year’s 60-day session.</p>
<p>The governor selected Barela from a list of four candidates who had been submitted by the six counties that are part of Senate District 39.</p>
<p>The other names were: Liz Stefanics, a Democrat who was recommended by the Bernalillo, Santa Fe and Valencia County commissions; Jose Varela Lopez, a Republican who was Lincoln County’s choice; and Huie Ley, a Democrat who was nominated by San Miguel County.</p>
<p>Barela was nominated by Torrance County commissioners. He could face a tough road to election in 2016, since Torrance County made up just 15 percent of the sprawling district’s population according to 2010 census figures.</p>
<p>The Senate vacancy prompted political sparring and court challenges, since Martinez initially asked counties to hold emergency meetings to submit names for consideration so that a replacement could be named before the session’s March 21 adjournment.</p>
<p>However, the Governor’s Office backed off that stance after concerns were raised about possible conflict with a 2013 law that requires, in most cases, agendas for public meetings to be posted at least 72 hours in advance.</p>
<p />
<p /> | Governor picks Republican Barela for Griego’s senate seat | false | https://abqjournal.com/564651/gov-picks-republican-barela-for-griegos-senate-seat.html | 2least
| Governor picks Republican Barela for Griego’s senate seat
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<p />
<p>Barela, a Republican, is a former state Department of Transportation worker who served as mayor of Estancia from 2008 through 2013.</p>
<p>“I have great confidence that Ted will work hard to represent the residents of District 39 well and believe he’s committed to working with legislators from both parties to diversify our economy and improve our schools,” Martinez said in a Friday statement.</p>
<p>Barela will serve out the remainder of the term of Phil Griego, a San Jose Democrat who resigned from the Senate on March 14 rather than face possible disciplinary action over his involvement in the sale of a historic state-owned building in Santa Fe. The four-year term Griego was elected to in 2012 wraps up at the end of next year.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Barela said Friday that he intends to seek election to the Senate seat next year, adding that he has been in touch with Griego since the longtime senator’s resignation. He said he never ran against Griego out of respect for his help in addressing Estancia’s needs. However, he said Griego’s ethics scandal had changed circumstances, saying, “those types of things are eye-openers for all of us, and they should be.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Barela described his approach to politics as conservative, but pragmatic. “One thing I learned as mayor is the needs of the people didn’t have a ‘D’ or an ‘R’ tied to them at all,” he told the Journal in a telephone interview.</p>
<p>With Barela’s appointment, Democrats now hold a 24-18 advantage in the Senate, which thwarted some of Martinez’s top legislative initiatives during this year’s 60-day session.</p>
<p>The governor selected Barela from a list of four candidates who had been submitted by the six counties that are part of Senate District 39.</p>
<p>The other names were: Liz Stefanics, a Democrat who was recommended by the Bernalillo, Santa Fe and Valencia County commissions; Jose Varela Lopez, a Republican who was Lincoln County’s choice; and Huie Ley, a Democrat who was nominated by San Miguel County.</p>
<p>Barela was nominated by Torrance County commissioners. He could face a tough road to election in 2016, since Torrance County made up just 15 percent of the sprawling district’s population according to 2010 census figures.</p>
<p>The Senate vacancy prompted political sparring and court challenges, since Martinez initially asked counties to hold emergency meetings to submit names for consideration so that a replacement could be named before the session’s March 21 adjournment.</p>
<p>However, the Governor’s Office backed off that stance after concerns were raised about possible conflict with a 2013 law that requires, in most cases, agendas for public meetings to be posted at least 72 hours in advance.</p>
<p />
<p /> | 3,892 |
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<p>Elijah Brown</p>
<p>Craig Neal started his head coaching career riding his Harley-Davidson motorcycle down the Pit ramp for the Lobo Howl in 2013.</p>
<p>That group of Lobos rode the wave of fan excitement with four returning starters and a pair of preseason all-conference selections, including the Mountain West preseason player of the year, to a 27 win season and an NCAA Tournament appearance.</p>
<p>Three years later, there are some October similarities to that 2013-14 team, including four returning starters, a pair of preseason all-conference players returning (then Kendall Williams and Alex Kirk, now Elijah Brown and Tim Williams) and the league’s preseason Player of the Year (then Williams, now Brown).</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Neal isn’t tipping his hand as to what surprises are in store for tonight’s fan fest event in the Pit, but he is excited to introduce fans to a team he acknowledges definitely “has a chance” to get the program back to where it was when he started.</p>
<p>But that doesn’t mean he feels pressure about the year ahead.</p>
<p>“I don’t feel that, to be honest,” Neal said. “I had more pressure my first year because we were supposed to do it. I mean, I feel it in a sense because I put it on myself because I know where we should be, but it isn’t really a pressure thing.”</p>
<p>The media that covers the league agrees that the Lobos should be back in title contention this season. The Lobos were picked third in the league’s preseason poll and received three first place votes.</p>
<p>Lobo players agree that “pressure” isn’t the right word to describe this season, but know what is expected.</p>
<p>“I think we have a good chance,” Williams said. “We’ve got a lot of guys coming back and we’re used to playing together this year and our expectations are pretty high.”</p>
<p>THE NEW GUYS: There was continuity in the Lobo coaching staff this offseason, but there are five new players fans will get to see for the first time tonight – four on scholarship (junior college transfer power forward Connor MacDougall, freshmen wings Aher Uguak and Damien Jefferson and freshman point guard Jalen Harris), as well as one in-state walk-on (Holt Shelley from Cliff High School).</p>
<p>Kianna Keller</p>
<p>LOBO WOMEN: First-year coach Mike Bradbury said his team will not scrimmage during its Howl appearance, but the Lobos expect to put on an entertaining show.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“We’ve been practicing for it,” senior Kianna Keller said, ‘and we have a big surprise planned this year. It’s super secret.”</p>
<p>UNM’s women have concluded their portion of the Howl with dance routines in recent years, but Keller said she more looks forward to player introductions.</p>
<p>“One of the toughest things is coming down the ramp for the first time at the Howl and seeing all the fans,” Keller said. “I’m looking forward to seeing our freshmen’s faces.”</p>
<p>The Howl will also be Bradbury’s first introduction to many Lobo fans, but he doesn’t expect to follow in the tracks of Neal’s famous motorcycle entrance.</p>
<p>“I can’t see that happening,” Bradbury said.</p>
<p>BOOK IT: UNM students at the Howl can enter for a chance to shoot a half-court shot for a book scholarship paid for by Neal, something he also did last season. Eligible students must be enrolled in at least six credit hours on campus and have a valid UNM ID.</p>
<p>AUTOGRAPHS: Both teams will sign autographs for fans from 6-6:45 p.m. inside the Pit.</p>
<p>SEASON TICKETS: Season tickets may be purchased for men’s and women’s basketball at the Howl at a location set up in the northeast corner of the concourse inside the Pit.</p>
<p>KIRTLAND PRACTICE: Saturday, the men’s basketball team will hold a practice on Kirtland Air Force Base open to on-base military personnel.</p>
<p />
<p /> | Howl tips off promising seasons for Lobo basketball teams | false | https://abqjournal.com/867159/howl.html | 2least
| Howl tips off promising seasons for Lobo basketball teams
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>Elijah Brown</p>
<p>Craig Neal started his head coaching career riding his Harley-Davidson motorcycle down the Pit ramp for the Lobo Howl in 2013.</p>
<p>That group of Lobos rode the wave of fan excitement with four returning starters and a pair of preseason all-conference selections, including the Mountain West preseason player of the year, to a 27 win season and an NCAA Tournament appearance.</p>
<p>Three years later, there are some October similarities to that 2013-14 team, including four returning starters, a pair of preseason all-conference players returning (then Kendall Williams and Alex Kirk, now Elijah Brown and Tim Williams) and the league’s preseason Player of the Year (then Williams, now Brown).</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Neal isn’t tipping his hand as to what surprises are in store for tonight’s fan fest event in the Pit, but he is excited to introduce fans to a team he acknowledges definitely “has a chance” to get the program back to where it was when he started.</p>
<p>But that doesn’t mean he feels pressure about the year ahead.</p>
<p>“I don’t feel that, to be honest,” Neal said. “I had more pressure my first year because we were supposed to do it. I mean, I feel it in a sense because I put it on myself because I know where we should be, but it isn’t really a pressure thing.”</p>
<p>The media that covers the league agrees that the Lobos should be back in title contention this season. The Lobos were picked third in the league’s preseason poll and received three first place votes.</p>
<p>Lobo players agree that “pressure” isn’t the right word to describe this season, but know what is expected.</p>
<p>“I think we have a good chance,” Williams said. “We’ve got a lot of guys coming back and we’re used to playing together this year and our expectations are pretty high.”</p>
<p>THE NEW GUYS: There was continuity in the Lobo coaching staff this offseason, but there are five new players fans will get to see for the first time tonight – four on scholarship (junior college transfer power forward Connor MacDougall, freshmen wings Aher Uguak and Damien Jefferson and freshman point guard Jalen Harris), as well as one in-state walk-on (Holt Shelley from Cliff High School).</p>
<p>Kianna Keller</p>
<p>LOBO WOMEN: First-year coach Mike Bradbury said his team will not scrimmage during its Howl appearance, but the Lobos expect to put on an entertaining show.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“We’ve been practicing for it,” senior Kianna Keller said, ‘and we have a big surprise planned this year. It’s super secret.”</p>
<p>UNM’s women have concluded their portion of the Howl with dance routines in recent years, but Keller said she more looks forward to player introductions.</p>
<p>“One of the toughest things is coming down the ramp for the first time at the Howl and seeing all the fans,” Keller said. “I’m looking forward to seeing our freshmen’s faces.”</p>
<p>The Howl will also be Bradbury’s first introduction to many Lobo fans, but he doesn’t expect to follow in the tracks of Neal’s famous motorcycle entrance.</p>
<p>“I can’t see that happening,” Bradbury said.</p>
<p>BOOK IT: UNM students at the Howl can enter for a chance to shoot a half-court shot for a book scholarship paid for by Neal, something he also did last season. Eligible students must be enrolled in at least six credit hours on campus and have a valid UNM ID.</p>
<p>AUTOGRAPHS: Both teams will sign autographs for fans from 6-6:45 p.m. inside the Pit.</p>
<p>SEASON TICKETS: Season tickets may be purchased for men’s and women’s basketball at the Howl at a location set up in the northeast corner of the concourse inside the Pit.</p>
<p>KIRTLAND PRACTICE: Saturday, the men’s basketball team will hold a practice on Kirtland Air Force Base open to on-base military personnel.</p>
<p />
<p /> | 3,893 |
|
<p>According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the non-farm average wage for American workers is $25.12 per hour, August 2016 data shows, but the U.S. presidential forums between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton are stacked with television network-employed moderators who are also rich.</p>
<p>Those asking questions on the public’s behalf of the major party candidates running for president –- the event moderators — are paid from 29 times more, to 480 times more than the average American worker.</p>
<p>Matt Lauer, 58, who hosted the first presidential forum earlier this month, signed a $25 million per year contract back in 2012 to host The Today Show, Huffington Post reported at the time.</p>
<p>Lester Holt, 57, of NBC, who moderates the Sept. 26 debate at Hofstra University, makes nearly $5 million a year.</p>
<p>CNN’s Anderson Cooper, 47, makes $10 million annually with a net worth exceeding $100 million. Cooper, and Martha Raddatz, 63, of ABC, with a net worth of about $10 million, will share moderator duties at the October 9 presidential forum between Clinton and Trump in St. Louis.</p>
<p>Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, 68, a registered democrat, earns about $1.5 million per year. He will moderate the Las Vegas presidential forum scheduled on October 19.</p> | Beyond Debate: Interview Styles of the Rich and Famous | true | https://counterpunch.org/2016/09/27/beyond-debate-interview-styles-of-the-rich-and-famous/ | 2016-09-27 | 4left
| Beyond Debate: Interview Styles of the Rich and Famous
<p>According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the non-farm average wage for American workers is $25.12 per hour, August 2016 data shows, but the U.S. presidential forums between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton are stacked with television network-employed moderators who are also rich.</p>
<p>Those asking questions on the public’s behalf of the major party candidates running for president –- the event moderators — are paid from 29 times more, to 480 times more than the average American worker.</p>
<p>Matt Lauer, 58, who hosted the first presidential forum earlier this month, signed a $25 million per year contract back in 2012 to host The Today Show, Huffington Post reported at the time.</p>
<p>Lester Holt, 57, of NBC, who moderates the Sept. 26 debate at Hofstra University, makes nearly $5 million a year.</p>
<p>CNN’s Anderson Cooper, 47, makes $10 million annually with a net worth exceeding $100 million. Cooper, and Martha Raddatz, 63, of ABC, with a net worth of about $10 million, will share moderator duties at the October 9 presidential forum between Clinton and Trump in St. Louis.</p>
<p>Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, 68, a registered democrat, earns about $1.5 million per year. He will moderate the Las Vegas presidential forum scheduled on October 19.</p> | 3,894 |
<p>&#160; &#160; Drought has reduced the water level at this lake in Sonoma, Calif. ( <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/familyclan/" type="external">David McSpadden</a> / <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/" type="external">CC BY-ND 2.0</a>)</p>
<p>A New York Times/CBS News poll shows that two-thirds of Americans say the United States should join an international treaty to limit the impact of global warming. Most of those who say otherwise identify as conservative.</p>
<p>Additionally, 63 percent of Americans — including a slim majority of Republicans — said they would support domestic policy aimed at limiting carbon emissions from power plants. Seventy-five percent of those polled said global warming was already having serious effects or that it would in the future. Nine in 10 Democrats agreed, compared with 58 percent of Republicans. One-third of Republicans said they believed the phenomenon’s effect on the environment would be inconsequential.</p>
<p>The New York Times reports:</p>
<p />
<p>Public support for international and domestic measures to address climate change may provide a lift for American negotiators attending the major United Nations climate change conference that began in Paris on Monday. But the stark partisan divide on climate policy will still make it difficult for President Obama and his successors to put in place the energy and climate policies that will be needed to support a robust international agreement, the goal of the Paris talks.</p>
<p>Republicans in Congress and many Republican governors oppose Mr. Obama’s proposal to limit emissions from power plants, for example, complicating his ability to meet targets he has set to comply with United Nations climate goals. And the Obama administration has made it clear that any agreement it would sign in Paris would not take the form of an internationally enforced treaty that would require Senate ratification.</p>
<p>Still, the shift in public opinion has many advocates of strong climate change measures hopeful that the Paris talks could provide a turning point.</p>
<p>“If you just look over the past five or six years since Copenhagen, there’s been a shift,” said David Waskow, director of the International Climate Initiative at the World Resources Institute, referring to the largely inconclusive global summit meeting that took place in Denmark in 2009. “There’s much more awareness of issues like sea level rise, water scarcity and climate instability.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/01/world/americas/us-climate-change-republicans-democrats.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&amp;smid=nytcore-iphone-share&amp;_r=0" type="external">Read more</a>.</p>
<p>— Posted by <a href="" type="internal">Alexander Reed Kelly</a>.</p> | Two-Thirds of Americans Want the U.S. to Join a Global Climate Pact | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/two-thirds-of-americans-want-the-u-s-to-join-a-global-climate-pact/ | 2015-11-30 | 4left
| Two-Thirds of Americans Want the U.S. to Join a Global Climate Pact
<p>&#160; &#160; Drought has reduced the water level at this lake in Sonoma, Calif. ( <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/familyclan/" type="external">David McSpadden</a> / <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/" type="external">CC BY-ND 2.0</a>)</p>
<p>A New York Times/CBS News poll shows that two-thirds of Americans say the United States should join an international treaty to limit the impact of global warming. Most of those who say otherwise identify as conservative.</p>
<p>Additionally, 63 percent of Americans — including a slim majority of Republicans — said they would support domestic policy aimed at limiting carbon emissions from power plants. Seventy-five percent of those polled said global warming was already having serious effects or that it would in the future. Nine in 10 Democrats agreed, compared with 58 percent of Republicans. One-third of Republicans said they believed the phenomenon’s effect on the environment would be inconsequential.</p>
<p>The New York Times reports:</p>
<p />
<p>Public support for international and domestic measures to address climate change may provide a lift for American negotiators attending the major United Nations climate change conference that began in Paris on Monday. But the stark partisan divide on climate policy will still make it difficult for President Obama and his successors to put in place the energy and climate policies that will be needed to support a robust international agreement, the goal of the Paris talks.</p>
<p>Republicans in Congress and many Republican governors oppose Mr. Obama’s proposal to limit emissions from power plants, for example, complicating his ability to meet targets he has set to comply with United Nations climate goals. And the Obama administration has made it clear that any agreement it would sign in Paris would not take the form of an internationally enforced treaty that would require Senate ratification.</p>
<p>Still, the shift in public opinion has many advocates of strong climate change measures hopeful that the Paris talks could provide a turning point.</p>
<p>“If you just look over the past five or six years since Copenhagen, there’s been a shift,” said David Waskow, director of the International Climate Initiative at the World Resources Institute, referring to the largely inconclusive global summit meeting that took place in Denmark in 2009. “There’s much more awareness of issues like sea level rise, water scarcity and climate instability.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/01/world/americas/us-climate-change-republicans-democrats.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&amp;smid=nytcore-iphone-share&amp;_r=0" type="external">Read more</a>.</p>
<p>— Posted by <a href="" type="internal">Alexander Reed Kelly</a>.</p> | 3,895 |
<p>The modern Republican argument about taxes seems to boil down to two principles, both misguided: Taxes can be reduced, but they can never be allowed to go up. And whatever level taxes are at, they are too high.</p>
<p>Think back to the beginning of the Bush administration tax cuts. It seems almost impossible to believe, but the argument then was that the budget surplus was too large. There was, or so President George W. Bush assured us, ample cash to cut taxes for everyone and protect the Social Security surplus and set aside $1 trillion over the next decade for “additional spending needs” and pay down the national debt.</p>
<p>“The people of America have been overcharged, and, on their behalf, I’m here asking for a refund,” Bush told Congress in February 2001.</p>
<p>You know what happened next. The refund came. The supposed surplus evaporated. The Social Security surplus was spent. Instead of being paid down, the $3.3 trillion national debt ballooned to $9 trillion.</p>
<p />
<p>The only thing that remained the same was the clamor for tax cuts. Same argument, different rationale. The Bush tax cuts are set to expire at the end of this year, and the argument now is that they must be extended — for everyone. This time not because the fiscal bottom line is too healthy but because the economy is too shaky.</p>
<p>I expressed frustration a few weeks back with the denialism among some liberal Democrats about the need to curb entitlement spending and the conviction that simply socking it to the rich would solve the fiscal problem. But the Republican position seems even more intransigently divorced from reality. Perhaps there is some magical point at which Republicans might accept the reality that the government needs more revenue than it is currently set to take in — but I haven’t heard it yet.</p>
<p>Quite the opposite. At a breakfast with reporters the other day, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, one of the GOP’s rising stars and a more-likely-than-not 2012 presidential candidate, was asked what his reaction would be if the president’s debt commission were to recommend a mix of spending cuts and tax increases.</p>
<p>“Not good,” Pawlenty said. “I don’t think the argument can be credibly made that the United States of America is undertaxed compared to our competitors.” Actually, the United States is on the low end in terms of the overall tax burden — 28 percent of the gross domestic product in 2007, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, compared to an average of 36 percent in the 30 OECD countries. Only South Korea, Mexico and Turkey were lower.</p>
<p>Of course, Pawlenty is hardly alone in his tax delusions. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell proclaimed the other day that the Bush tax cuts actually raised money. “There’s no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually diminished revenue,” the Kentucky Republican told Brian Beutler of the website TPMDC. “They increased revenue, because of the vibrancy of these tax cuts in the economy.”</p>
<p>Here’s some evidence. Tax revenue fell from 21 percent of GDP in fiscal 2000 to 17.5 percent in 2008. (I’m leaving out the recession-induced plunge, to under 15 percent this year and last.)</p>
<p>Which takes us back to the matter of whether it would be risky to let any of the Bush tax cuts expire. As a practical matter, Democrats and Republicans agree that the cuts should remain in place, at least temporarily, for families making under $250,000 a year. That’s a debatable point. Former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, whose blessing was responsible for propelling the tax cuts forward in the first place, said recently that Congress should let them lapse.</p>
<p>The real disagreement is over extending the high-end tax cuts, and on this even some supposedly fiscally responsible Democrats — I’m talking to you, Kent Conrad — have gone wobbly. The no-new-taxes-now crowd cautions against raising taxes in a recession — a fair point, except that there are more efficient ways to spur the economy than giving more money to those least likely to spend it. Alternatively, they cite — and inflate — the supposed impact on small business of raising the upper-end rates.</p>
<p>This would be more convincing if the Republican line were something other than “no new taxes, ever.” The economic and fiscal circumstances may change, but the prescription remains the same. And the patient is too ill to tolerate another dose of this quack medicine.</p>
<p>Ruth Marcus’ e-mail address is marcusr(at symbol)washpost.com.</p>
<p>© 2010, Washington Post Writers Group</p> | Quack Medicine on Taxes | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/quack-medicine-on-taxes/ | 2010-07-28 | 4left
| Quack Medicine on Taxes
<p>The modern Republican argument about taxes seems to boil down to two principles, both misguided: Taxes can be reduced, but they can never be allowed to go up. And whatever level taxes are at, they are too high.</p>
<p>Think back to the beginning of the Bush administration tax cuts. It seems almost impossible to believe, but the argument then was that the budget surplus was too large. There was, or so President George W. Bush assured us, ample cash to cut taxes for everyone and protect the Social Security surplus and set aside $1 trillion over the next decade for “additional spending needs” and pay down the national debt.</p>
<p>“The people of America have been overcharged, and, on their behalf, I’m here asking for a refund,” Bush told Congress in February 2001.</p>
<p>You know what happened next. The refund came. The supposed surplus evaporated. The Social Security surplus was spent. Instead of being paid down, the $3.3 trillion national debt ballooned to $9 trillion.</p>
<p />
<p>The only thing that remained the same was the clamor for tax cuts. Same argument, different rationale. The Bush tax cuts are set to expire at the end of this year, and the argument now is that they must be extended — for everyone. This time not because the fiscal bottom line is too healthy but because the economy is too shaky.</p>
<p>I expressed frustration a few weeks back with the denialism among some liberal Democrats about the need to curb entitlement spending and the conviction that simply socking it to the rich would solve the fiscal problem. But the Republican position seems even more intransigently divorced from reality. Perhaps there is some magical point at which Republicans might accept the reality that the government needs more revenue than it is currently set to take in — but I haven’t heard it yet.</p>
<p>Quite the opposite. At a breakfast with reporters the other day, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, one of the GOP’s rising stars and a more-likely-than-not 2012 presidential candidate, was asked what his reaction would be if the president’s debt commission were to recommend a mix of spending cuts and tax increases.</p>
<p>“Not good,” Pawlenty said. “I don’t think the argument can be credibly made that the United States of America is undertaxed compared to our competitors.” Actually, the United States is on the low end in terms of the overall tax burden — 28 percent of the gross domestic product in 2007, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, compared to an average of 36 percent in the 30 OECD countries. Only South Korea, Mexico and Turkey were lower.</p>
<p>Of course, Pawlenty is hardly alone in his tax delusions. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell proclaimed the other day that the Bush tax cuts actually raised money. “There’s no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually diminished revenue,” the Kentucky Republican told Brian Beutler of the website TPMDC. “They increased revenue, because of the vibrancy of these tax cuts in the economy.”</p>
<p>Here’s some evidence. Tax revenue fell from 21 percent of GDP in fiscal 2000 to 17.5 percent in 2008. (I’m leaving out the recession-induced plunge, to under 15 percent this year and last.)</p>
<p>Which takes us back to the matter of whether it would be risky to let any of the Bush tax cuts expire. As a practical matter, Democrats and Republicans agree that the cuts should remain in place, at least temporarily, for families making under $250,000 a year. That’s a debatable point. Former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, whose blessing was responsible for propelling the tax cuts forward in the first place, said recently that Congress should let them lapse.</p>
<p>The real disagreement is over extending the high-end tax cuts, and on this even some supposedly fiscally responsible Democrats — I’m talking to you, Kent Conrad — have gone wobbly. The no-new-taxes-now crowd cautions against raising taxes in a recession — a fair point, except that there are more efficient ways to spur the economy than giving more money to those least likely to spend it. Alternatively, they cite — and inflate — the supposed impact on small business of raising the upper-end rates.</p>
<p>This would be more convincing if the Republican line were something other than “no new taxes, ever.” The economic and fiscal circumstances may change, but the prescription remains the same. And the patient is too ill to tolerate another dose of this quack medicine.</p>
<p>Ruth Marcus’ e-mail address is marcusr(at symbol)washpost.com.</p>
<p>© 2010, Washington Post Writers Group</p> | 3,896 |
<p>Back when I was in college, rock and roll historian Barry Drake came and gave a lecture titled “60’s Rock”, When the Music Mattered”.&#160; It was a fabulous presentation about a fantastically eventful decade.&#160; He dissertated that it wasn’t fair to say that the music of the 60’s was necessarily better than that of any other decade in rock history.&#160; It was just that the music mattered more to people during that period.&#160;&#160; And who could argue with such a thesis?&#160; At least here in the United States, these were years of great unrest on a societal and political level.&#160;&#160; Whether it was the civil rights movement, the assassination of our greatest leaders, or the Vietnam War and its protests, these events were accompanied by and often directly interwoven with the music of the time.&#160;&#160; And heck, the decade gave us&#160; <a href="x-apple-data-detectors://1/" type="external">‪the Beatles</a>&#160;and Motown, and birthed the sounds we currently consider “classic rock”, as well as other innovations. &#160;Enough said, right?&#160; Well, I’ve often considered whether another period of societal/political turmoil could spawn a new sort of renaissance in popular music.&#160; Could now be the time?&#160; Let’s come back to that question.</p>
<p>The past year has been a wild ride, with regard to American politics.&#160;&#160; One of the most important things that happened with Donald Trump’s historic election was the magnification of how our information is disseminated.&#160; I’ve observed similarities in the way people process music and politics.&#160; Both are delivered via a variety of media, and this is reflected in the wide array of political views we have in this country, as well as musical tastes.&#160; One could make parallels between the corporate mainstream media of politics (major newspapers like the New York Times, Washington Post, and major networks like CNN, MSNBC, and Fox) and corporate mainstream radio and video (IHeartMedia-owned Top 40 stations, MTV and other television). &#160;Similar parallels can be noted between independent news media and independent music media.&#160; Of course, the paradigm is ever-shifting and becoming more complex, and as the number of internet radio stations and streaming services increase, the news-delivering websites and blogs which offer alternative viewpoints to the mainstream also increase in number and influence.</p>
<p>So what is my point? &#160; Enthusiasm and activism might not be enough. &#160; The problem with corporate media is it tends to perpetuate groupthink and partisan-based hero worship, and to the exclusion of alternative viewpoints. &#160;For example, who can forget the Washington Post’s infamous and later-retracted “fake news” story, where they unfairly smeared several reputable independent and alternative news outlets, and lumped them in with less reputable ones? &#160;And yet many continue to read the Post without a cynical eye, and regard the mainstream press as sacrosanct. &#160;I see this as a hindrance to true activism. &#160;And this is not to say that corporate mainstream media is consistently wrong, but perhaps it is fair to say that over-reliance on it&#160;does not foster original thought. &#160;So the parallel in music would be, while it may be fairly innocuous to accept mainstream sources as one’s primary listening point, it is less likely to foster originality and creativity. &#160;I submit that it is the alternative sources of music that seep the best ideas into the creative psyche of artists. &#160;To use a historical example, at&#160;a time when skiffle was the mainstream sound in England,&#160; <a href="x-apple-data-detectors://2/" type="external">‪the Beatles</a>&#160;and their peers in their port hometown Liverpool were buying less-heard American records arriving straight off the boat.&#160;&#160; <a href="x-apple-data-detectors://3/" type="external">‪The Beatles</a>, in a sense, were catalysts of an alternative American invasion of Britain, before they in turn “invaded” us in the early 60’s.&#160;&#160; <a href="x-apple-data-detectors://4/" type="external">‪John Lennon</a>&#160;and&#160; <a href="x-apple-data-detectors://5/" type="external">‪Paul McCartney</a>&#160;would prove to have incredible ears for learning songs, and sensational voices with which to sing them, so it is no coincidence their band would quickly become one of the world’s best at recreating the American rock and roll sound.&#160; Which, even here, at least in the few years preceding Beatlemania, was not really the “mainstream” yet. &#160;And they took that non-mainstream sound and made it even more alternative and original.</p>
<p>And so, with the question as to whether music and politics will flourish together again, the answer depends. &#160;Politics do seem to matter again, given the current climate of activism, protests, etc. &#160;But will people fall into the pattern of needing corporate mainstream media to tell them what to be outraged about? &#160;Or will there be more original thought placed into where we focus our energy? &#160;Who will have the best “ears” for news, and best “voices” for change, so to speak? &#160;The protests I’m most encouraged about are those that are addressing systemic problems, like interventionist war and pipeline spills…problems that existed long before Donald Trump and that are generally ignored by corporate mainstream media. &#160;Here in Lancaster, PA, we have our own miniature version of the Standing Rock protest, with an indefinite encampment set up to block the Atlantic Sunrise proposed pipeline. &#160; I know of local musicians who have offered to perform there. &#160; I can’t make any predictions on where their music will go, but whatever influences they bring, I hope they somehow make an impact, as much as the protesters hope to make an impact on preservation of clean water and sacred land in this region. &#160; Will the original thoughts of protesters nationwide, and the imagination of the musicians that support these causes make an impact nationally? &#160; I look forward to finding out.</p> | Music and Politics: How Much Will It Matter Again? | true | https://counterpunch.org/2017/03/10/music-and-politics-how-much-will-it-matter-again/ | 2017-03-10 | 4left
| Music and Politics: How Much Will It Matter Again?
<p>Back when I was in college, rock and roll historian Barry Drake came and gave a lecture titled “60’s Rock”, When the Music Mattered”.&#160; It was a fabulous presentation about a fantastically eventful decade.&#160; He dissertated that it wasn’t fair to say that the music of the 60’s was necessarily better than that of any other decade in rock history.&#160; It was just that the music mattered more to people during that period.&#160;&#160; And who could argue with such a thesis?&#160; At least here in the United States, these were years of great unrest on a societal and political level.&#160;&#160; Whether it was the civil rights movement, the assassination of our greatest leaders, or the Vietnam War and its protests, these events were accompanied by and often directly interwoven with the music of the time.&#160;&#160; And heck, the decade gave us&#160; <a href="x-apple-data-detectors://1/" type="external">‪the Beatles</a>&#160;and Motown, and birthed the sounds we currently consider “classic rock”, as well as other innovations. &#160;Enough said, right?&#160; Well, I’ve often considered whether another period of societal/political turmoil could spawn a new sort of renaissance in popular music.&#160; Could now be the time?&#160; Let’s come back to that question.</p>
<p>The past year has been a wild ride, with regard to American politics.&#160;&#160; One of the most important things that happened with Donald Trump’s historic election was the magnification of how our information is disseminated.&#160; I’ve observed similarities in the way people process music and politics.&#160; Both are delivered via a variety of media, and this is reflected in the wide array of political views we have in this country, as well as musical tastes.&#160; One could make parallels between the corporate mainstream media of politics (major newspapers like the New York Times, Washington Post, and major networks like CNN, MSNBC, and Fox) and corporate mainstream radio and video (IHeartMedia-owned Top 40 stations, MTV and other television). &#160;Similar parallels can be noted between independent news media and independent music media.&#160; Of course, the paradigm is ever-shifting and becoming more complex, and as the number of internet radio stations and streaming services increase, the news-delivering websites and blogs which offer alternative viewpoints to the mainstream also increase in number and influence.</p>
<p>So what is my point? &#160; Enthusiasm and activism might not be enough. &#160; The problem with corporate media is it tends to perpetuate groupthink and partisan-based hero worship, and to the exclusion of alternative viewpoints. &#160;For example, who can forget the Washington Post’s infamous and later-retracted “fake news” story, where they unfairly smeared several reputable independent and alternative news outlets, and lumped them in with less reputable ones? &#160;And yet many continue to read the Post without a cynical eye, and regard the mainstream press as sacrosanct. &#160;I see this as a hindrance to true activism. &#160;And this is not to say that corporate mainstream media is consistently wrong, but perhaps it is fair to say that over-reliance on it&#160;does not foster original thought. &#160;So the parallel in music would be, while it may be fairly innocuous to accept mainstream sources as one’s primary listening point, it is less likely to foster originality and creativity. &#160;I submit that it is the alternative sources of music that seep the best ideas into the creative psyche of artists. &#160;To use a historical example, at&#160;a time when skiffle was the mainstream sound in England,&#160; <a href="x-apple-data-detectors://2/" type="external">‪the Beatles</a>&#160;and their peers in their port hometown Liverpool were buying less-heard American records arriving straight off the boat.&#160;&#160; <a href="x-apple-data-detectors://3/" type="external">‪The Beatles</a>, in a sense, were catalysts of an alternative American invasion of Britain, before they in turn “invaded” us in the early 60’s.&#160;&#160; <a href="x-apple-data-detectors://4/" type="external">‪John Lennon</a>&#160;and&#160; <a href="x-apple-data-detectors://5/" type="external">‪Paul McCartney</a>&#160;would prove to have incredible ears for learning songs, and sensational voices with which to sing them, so it is no coincidence their band would quickly become one of the world’s best at recreating the American rock and roll sound.&#160; Which, even here, at least in the few years preceding Beatlemania, was not really the “mainstream” yet. &#160;And they took that non-mainstream sound and made it even more alternative and original.</p>
<p>And so, with the question as to whether music and politics will flourish together again, the answer depends. &#160;Politics do seem to matter again, given the current climate of activism, protests, etc. &#160;But will people fall into the pattern of needing corporate mainstream media to tell them what to be outraged about? &#160;Or will there be more original thought placed into where we focus our energy? &#160;Who will have the best “ears” for news, and best “voices” for change, so to speak? &#160;The protests I’m most encouraged about are those that are addressing systemic problems, like interventionist war and pipeline spills…problems that existed long before Donald Trump and that are generally ignored by corporate mainstream media. &#160;Here in Lancaster, PA, we have our own miniature version of the Standing Rock protest, with an indefinite encampment set up to block the Atlantic Sunrise proposed pipeline. &#160; I know of local musicians who have offered to perform there. &#160; I can’t make any predictions on where their music will go, but whatever influences they bring, I hope they somehow make an impact, as much as the protesters hope to make an impact on preservation of clean water and sacred land in this region. &#160; Will the original thoughts of protesters nationwide, and the imagination of the musicians that support these causes make an impact nationally? &#160; I look forward to finding out.</p> | 3,897 |
<p />
<p>A <a href="http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9NjQ4NDM3fENoaWxkSUQ9MzU0ODcwfFR5cGU9MQ==&amp;t=1" type="external">recent investor presentation Opens a New Window.</a>from Duluth Holdings (NASDAQ: DLTH) contained some great news for shareholders. The fast-growing retailer of rugged clothing and solution-based workwear is about to crank up its expansion efforts in a big way. Building from its current base of 16 retail stores, the company says it has now identified 100 desirable locations across the country and will be ramping up its pace of new store openings.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>While Duluth stock has fallen precipitously in December, ever since the company cut its fourth quarter and full-year 2016 guidance, it's clear that this evolving company still has a long runway of growth ahead.</p>
<p>Image source: Duluth Holdings.</p>
<p>Duluth got its start by selling its clothing and gear in catalogs and through its website. In the third quarter of 2016, these direct channels still accounted for 78% of the company's total sales, with retail stores contributing the other 22%. But as Duluth expands, its retail component is becoming increasingly important -- especially to growth. The company notes that 80% to 85% of all apparel in the U.S. is purchased at brick-and-mortar stores, and that looks to be where Duluth is investing for the future. So far, that move seems smart. Retail sales grew 68% year-over-year in the third quarter, while direct sales grew a mere 12%.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Because Duluth has been selling its products directly to consumers for years, it already has a pretty good idea where its best customers are located across the U.S. In fact, its top three markets by sales -- California, Texas, and New York -- are locations where it doesn't have a retail presence yet. The company uses current customer data from its direct segment to help identify regions that will give new stores the best chance for success.</p>
<p>For a company still growing its direct sales, there is a concern that retail expansion will cannibalize online and catalog sales in corresponding markets. These fears appear unfounded, however, as Duluth's numbers show that in markets where its stores have been open at least one year, the direct side of the business continues to grow at normal rates.Even in a market where Duluth is a well-known brand, incremental retail sales can provide a huge boost to the top line. In fact, Duluth points out that it tripled its total sales volumes in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market since opening two suburban locations there.</p>
<p>As mentioned, Duluth has a mere 16 stores at the moment, with another 100 U.S. locations identified that offer the right combination of population density and desirable customer demographics. The company's flexible store strategy can accommodate a mix of new builds, renovations of existing spaces, and what it calls "iconic restorations". Thankfully for investors, regardless of store type, Duluth's model for new stores going forward will be economically attractive:</p>
<p>Image source: Duluth Holdings investor presentation.</p>
<p>The company's expansion efforts in 2017 will focus on the eastern half of the U.S., with openings already planned for Massachusetts, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Rhode Island. Duluth says it will open eight to 10 stores in 2016 and anticipates "accelerating the rate of new store openings over the coming years".</p>
<p>While the company is not revealing details on the number of stores beyond next year, its stated strategy is to phase future openings in "geographic clusters". Its 2018 plans call for store openings in Texas, Colorado, Washington, and Oregon. And in 2019, consumers should start seeing the first Duluth stores in California and Florida. If the company can execute successfully, in just three years, Duluth will be well on its way to being a national brand with a coast-to-coast retail presence.</p>
<p>That's the million-dollar question for investors. But it's important to note that Duluth has identified 100 potential locations for expansion and has not explicitly stated how soon -- or even whether it intends to reach that number.</p>
<p>If Duluth opens nine stores (the midpoint of its estimate) next year, it will end 2017 with 25 stores. Assuming future annual store growth of 20% to 25%, Duluth would open its 100th location between 2024 and 2025. More aggressive annual store growth of 30% to 40% would allow Duluth to reach the 100-store milestone about two years sooner. Realistic? Impossible? Only time will tell.</p>
<p>The company has set a long-term target for its retail operations to contribute 30% to 35% of total net sales. Duluth also has an annual net sales growth target of 20% for the foreseeable future. If it can achieve these numbers, by the end of 2020, the company's total net sales should be in the neighborhood of $750 million with its retail stores accounting for between roughly $225 million to $265 million of that. Given that Duluth's total net sales for fiscal 2015 were $304 million, as long as the company can deliver on its projections over the next few years, investors should have a lot to look forward to.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Duluth Holdings When investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*</p>
<p>David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the <a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-dyn%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=e8433d8e-4e4b-462d-8a63-c1b5db137d90&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now and Duluth Holdings wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.</p>
<p><a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-dyn%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=e8433d8e-4e4b-462d-8a63-c1b5db137d90&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Click here Opens a New Window.</a> to learn about these picks!</p>
<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of Nov. 7, 2016</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/CMFGouldberg/info.aspx" type="external">Andy Gould Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Duluth Holdings. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/CMFGouldberg/info.aspx" type="external">Andy Gould</a> has the following options: short January 2017 $25 puts on Duluth Holdings and short February 2017 $30 puts on Duluth Holdings. The Motley Fool recommends Duluth Holdings. 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> | Duluth Holdings Inc Ready for Its Expansion to Over 100 Stores | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/12/21/duluth-holdings-inc-ready-for-its-expansion-to-over-100-stores.html | 2016-12-21 | 0right
| Duluth Holdings Inc Ready for Its Expansion to Over 100 Stores
<p />
<p>A <a href="http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9NjQ4NDM3fENoaWxkSUQ9MzU0ODcwfFR5cGU9MQ==&amp;t=1" type="external">recent investor presentation Opens a New Window.</a>from Duluth Holdings (NASDAQ: DLTH) contained some great news for shareholders. The fast-growing retailer of rugged clothing and solution-based workwear is about to crank up its expansion efforts in a big way. Building from its current base of 16 retail stores, the company says it has now identified 100 desirable locations across the country and will be ramping up its pace of new store openings.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>While Duluth stock has fallen precipitously in December, ever since the company cut its fourth quarter and full-year 2016 guidance, it's clear that this evolving company still has a long runway of growth ahead.</p>
<p>Image source: Duluth Holdings.</p>
<p>Duluth got its start by selling its clothing and gear in catalogs and through its website. In the third quarter of 2016, these direct channels still accounted for 78% of the company's total sales, with retail stores contributing the other 22%. But as Duluth expands, its retail component is becoming increasingly important -- especially to growth. The company notes that 80% to 85% of all apparel in the U.S. is purchased at brick-and-mortar stores, and that looks to be where Duluth is investing for the future. So far, that move seems smart. Retail sales grew 68% year-over-year in the third quarter, while direct sales grew a mere 12%.</p>
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<p>Because Duluth has been selling its products directly to consumers for years, it already has a pretty good idea where its best customers are located across the U.S. In fact, its top three markets by sales -- California, Texas, and New York -- are locations where it doesn't have a retail presence yet. The company uses current customer data from its direct segment to help identify regions that will give new stores the best chance for success.</p>
<p>For a company still growing its direct sales, there is a concern that retail expansion will cannibalize online and catalog sales in corresponding markets. These fears appear unfounded, however, as Duluth's numbers show that in markets where its stores have been open at least one year, the direct side of the business continues to grow at normal rates.Even in a market where Duluth is a well-known brand, incremental retail sales can provide a huge boost to the top line. In fact, Duluth points out that it tripled its total sales volumes in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market since opening two suburban locations there.</p>
<p>As mentioned, Duluth has a mere 16 stores at the moment, with another 100 U.S. locations identified that offer the right combination of population density and desirable customer demographics. The company's flexible store strategy can accommodate a mix of new builds, renovations of existing spaces, and what it calls "iconic restorations". Thankfully for investors, regardless of store type, Duluth's model for new stores going forward will be economically attractive:</p>
<p>Image source: Duluth Holdings investor presentation.</p>
<p>The company's expansion efforts in 2017 will focus on the eastern half of the U.S., with openings already planned for Massachusetts, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Rhode Island. Duluth says it will open eight to 10 stores in 2016 and anticipates "accelerating the rate of new store openings over the coming years".</p>
<p>While the company is not revealing details on the number of stores beyond next year, its stated strategy is to phase future openings in "geographic clusters". Its 2018 plans call for store openings in Texas, Colorado, Washington, and Oregon. And in 2019, consumers should start seeing the first Duluth stores in California and Florida. If the company can execute successfully, in just three years, Duluth will be well on its way to being a national brand with a coast-to-coast retail presence.</p>
<p>That's the million-dollar question for investors. But it's important to note that Duluth has identified 100 potential locations for expansion and has not explicitly stated how soon -- or even whether it intends to reach that number.</p>
<p>If Duluth opens nine stores (the midpoint of its estimate) next year, it will end 2017 with 25 stores. Assuming future annual store growth of 20% to 25%, Duluth would open its 100th location between 2024 and 2025. More aggressive annual store growth of 30% to 40% would allow Duluth to reach the 100-store milestone about two years sooner. Realistic? Impossible? Only time will tell.</p>
<p>The company has set a long-term target for its retail operations to contribute 30% to 35% of total net sales. Duluth also has an annual net sales growth target of 20% for the foreseeable future. If it can achieve these numbers, by the end of 2020, the company's total net sales should be in the neighborhood of $750 million with its retail stores accounting for between roughly $225 million to $265 million of that. Given that Duluth's total net sales for fiscal 2015 were $304 million, as long as the company can deliver on its projections over the next few years, investors should have a lot to look forward to.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Duluth Holdings When investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*</p>
<p>David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the <a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-dyn%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=e8433d8e-4e4b-462d-8a63-c1b5db137d90&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now and Duluth Holdings wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.</p>
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<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of Nov. 7, 2016</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/CMFGouldberg/info.aspx" type="external">Andy Gould Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Duluth Holdings. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/CMFGouldberg/info.aspx" type="external">Andy Gould</a> has the following options: short January 2017 $25 puts on Duluth Holdings and short February 2017 $30 puts on Duluth Holdings. The Motley Fool recommends Duluth Holdings. 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> | 3,898 |
<p>Rachel Maddow just broke the news that American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer has been fired as their spokesman, though he will be allowed to keep his radio show, for now. Their comment to Maddow was that he should be considered "just a radio host."</p>
<p>Here's the backstory as Rachel understands it. In December, the AFA <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/rnc-teams-anti-gay-extremist-and-hate-group" type="external">organized a trip</a> to Israel for 168 members of the Republican National Committee. That trip begins this Saturday.</p>
<p>Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/priebus-gop-not-embracing-tolerance-just-becoming-more-loving" type="external">insists</a> that the GOP's opposition to marriage equality must be "draped in the concepts of grace, love and respect" - and what better way to show it than partnering with two radical anti-gay groups <a href="http://time.com/3616292/republican-israel-trip-american-renewal/" type="external">to send 168 RNC members to Israel</a>.</p>
<p>Priebus is working with <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/republican-presidential-hopefuls-favorite-christian-nation-extremist" type="external">David Lane</a>, founder of the American Renewal Project, and the American Family Association <a href="http://time.com/3616292/republican-israel-trip-american-renewal/" type="external">to organize a week-long trip to Israel for committee members</a>, paid for by Lane's group and the AFA. <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/rand-pauls-travels-birthers" type="external">Sen. Rand Paul</a> and <a href="http://time.com/3616292/republican-israel-trip-american-renewal/" type="external">Gov. Rick Perry</a> have previously traveled to Israel on tours sponsored by Lane, who also <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/mike-huckabee-tour-heeds-warning-america-turning-nazi-germany" type="external">joined Mike Huckabee's recent European tour</a>.</p>
<p>Proudly working - <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/under-radar-christian-nationalist-david-lane-quietly-waging-spiritual-warfare-save-america" type="external">under the radar</a>,? Lane is a conservative activist who assembles summits in key primary states where pastors and likely presidential candidates meet, including <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/rand-paul-america-day-reckoning-civil-war" type="external">Paul</a>, <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ted-cruz-and-mike-huckabee-follow-david-lane-s-christian-nation-road-show-michigan" type="external">Huckabee</a>, <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ted-cruz-pray-stop-assault-marriage" type="external">Ted Cruz</a>, <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/gop-2016-candidates-have-busy-religious-right-schedule-post-values-voter-summit" type="external">Mike Pence</a> and <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/bobby-jindal-and-mike-huckabee-answer-call-christian-nation-extremist-david-lane" type="external">Bobby Jindal</a>, who is sponsoring <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/bobby-jindal-invites-you-turn-back-god-and-attend-his-prayer-rally-response" type="external">a prayer rally with Lane</a>early next year. Lane's group <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/nov/23/evangelical-david-lane-begins-effort-recruit-pasto/" type="external">announced a plan</a> to recruit 1,000 pastors to run for elected office and <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ted-cruz-and-gop-leaders-record-ads-far-right-groups-god-s-people-must-restore-american-valu" type="external">produced election-themed ads</a>featuring Cruz, Perry, Jindal and Huckabee.</p>
<p>How Brian Fischer specifically fits into this is still a little murky, but as the mouthpiece for the American Family Association, he hasn't been shy about making outrageous statements, like the one about gays and Hitler, among others. Just today, he claimed <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/bryan-fischer-clarifies-gay-activists-are-satans-prisoners-war" type="external">gays are "prisoners of Satan's war."</a></p>
<p>The SPLC has reportedly been <a href="http://www.edgeboston.com/news/news/170892/splc_calls_on_gop_to_cancel_hate_group-sponsored_trip_to_israel" type="external">pressuring the RNC</a> not to take the trip and associate themselves with this known hate group.</p>
<p>However, the part Rachel really didn't hit on, and which is incredibly important, is David Lane and the American Family Association's role in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_Theology" type="external">pushing Dominionist theology</a> into our politics. Viewed through the lens of dominionism, it makes perfect sense that the RNC would partner with the AFA to visit Israel, since Dominionists believe in the restoration of Israel as part of the prophecy for Christ's return.</p>
<p>I'll post more as we know it.</p>
<p>Updated to correct the spelling of Bryan Fischer's name</p> | American Family Association Fires Spokesman Bryan Fischer | true | http://crooksandliars.com/2015/01/american-family-association-fires | 2015-01-28 | 4left
| American Family Association Fires Spokesman Bryan Fischer
<p>Rachel Maddow just broke the news that American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer has been fired as their spokesman, though he will be allowed to keep his radio show, for now. Their comment to Maddow was that he should be considered "just a radio host."</p>
<p>Here's the backstory as Rachel understands it. In December, the AFA <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/rnc-teams-anti-gay-extremist-and-hate-group" type="external">organized a trip</a> to Israel for 168 members of the Republican National Committee. That trip begins this Saturday.</p>
<p>Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/priebus-gop-not-embracing-tolerance-just-becoming-more-loving" type="external">insists</a> that the GOP's opposition to marriage equality must be "draped in the concepts of grace, love and respect" - and what better way to show it than partnering with two radical anti-gay groups <a href="http://time.com/3616292/republican-israel-trip-american-renewal/" type="external">to send 168 RNC members to Israel</a>.</p>
<p>Priebus is working with <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/republican-presidential-hopefuls-favorite-christian-nation-extremist" type="external">David Lane</a>, founder of the American Renewal Project, and the American Family Association <a href="http://time.com/3616292/republican-israel-trip-american-renewal/" type="external">to organize a week-long trip to Israel for committee members</a>, paid for by Lane's group and the AFA. <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/rand-pauls-travels-birthers" type="external">Sen. Rand Paul</a> and <a href="http://time.com/3616292/republican-israel-trip-american-renewal/" type="external">Gov. Rick Perry</a> have previously traveled to Israel on tours sponsored by Lane, who also <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/mike-huckabee-tour-heeds-warning-america-turning-nazi-germany" type="external">joined Mike Huckabee's recent European tour</a>.</p>
<p>Proudly working - <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/under-radar-christian-nationalist-david-lane-quietly-waging-spiritual-warfare-save-america" type="external">under the radar</a>,? Lane is a conservative activist who assembles summits in key primary states where pastors and likely presidential candidates meet, including <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/rand-paul-america-day-reckoning-civil-war" type="external">Paul</a>, <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ted-cruz-and-mike-huckabee-follow-david-lane-s-christian-nation-road-show-michigan" type="external">Huckabee</a>, <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ted-cruz-pray-stop-assault-marriage" type="external">Ted Cruz</a>, <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/gop-2016-candidates-have-busy-religious-right-schedule-post-values-voter-summit" type="external">Mike Pence</a> and <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/bobby-jindal-and-mike-huckabee-answer-call-christian-nation-extremist-david-lane" type="external">Bobby Jindal</a>, who is sponsoring <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/bobby-jindal-invites-you-turn-back-god-and-attend-his-prayer-rally-response" type="external">a prayer rally with Lane</a>early next year. Lane's group <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/nov/23/evangelical-david-lane-begins-effort-recruit-pasto/" type="external">announced a plan</a> to recruit 1,000 pastors to run for elected office and <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ted-cruz-and-gop-leaders-record-ads-far-right-groups-god-s-people-must-restore-american-valu" type="external">produced election-themed ads</a>featuring Cruz, Perry, Jindal and Huckabee.</p>
<p>How Brian Fischer specifically fits into this is still a little murky, but as the mouthpiece for the American Family Association, he hasn't been shy about making outrageous statements, like the one about gays and Hitler, among others. Just today, he claimed <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/bryan-fischer-clarifies-gay-activists-are-satans-prisoners-war" type="external">gays are "prisoners of Satan's war."</a></p>
<p>The SPLC has reportedly been <a href="http://www.edgeboston.com/news/news/170892/splc_calls_on_gop_to_cancel_hate_group-sponsored_trip_to_israel" type="external">pressuring the RNC</a> not to take the trip and associate themselves with this known hate group.</p>
<p>However, the part Rachel really didn't hit on, and which is incredibly important, is David Lane and the American Family Association's role in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_Theology" type="external">pushing Dominionist theology</a> into our politics. Viewed through the lens of dominionism, it makes perfect sense that the RNC would partner with the AFA to visit Israel, since Dominionists believe in the restoration of Israel as part of the prophecy for Christ's return.</p>
<p>I'll post more as we know it.</p>
<p>Updated to correct the spelling of Bryan Fischer's name</p> | 3,899 |
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